subject:"RE\: Findings on Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article"





[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

  
  
  
  
  In a message dated 8/20/2005 12:48:40 A.M. Eastern Standard
Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
  Yes, the notion that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny has
long been discredited. 
  
  And the reason it is a test subject on the MCAT would be . . . .
. ?
  

I have no idea. Do you have the actual wording of the question? Most of
the time, creationists mistake any mention of embryology and evolution
as meaning recapitulation. Wells makes that mistake many times in his
book.

Ed Brayton


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Re: Findings on Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article





[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

  
  
  
  
  
  In a message dated 8/20/2005 12:56:26 AM Eastern Standard Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
  ." But if you give a perfectly plausible account for how a
complex biochemical system might have evolved, complete with tracing
the possible mutations, locating gene duplications, and so forth, the
answer is always, "But you can't prove that it actually happened that
way". Well, that's true. 
  
What does "prove" mean in the above? If you posit a complex
biochemical system, posit its evolution, and if that particular account
of the system's evolutionis far more plausible than alternative
accounts, why doesn't that provide the only proof of the system's
evolution that could possibly be available? A video tape or even an eye
witness seems to me less weighty evidence for the same reasons that
these might be discounted in court. 
  
  I'm not sure my remarks are anything more than a
quibble, but I wonder if Ed's conception of "proof" is anything more
than the pragmatist conception I sketched above.
  

I think you misunderstood me, Bobby. I agree with you entirely. And my
point was that given that it is essentially an argument from personal
incredulity, "proof" is whatever the person demanding it wants it to
mean at any given time. And they can move the goalposts back as far as
they want, in this case to something that is impossible to get. Let me
give you a great example of this. There is a now-classic example of the
evolution of a new trait found in a bacteria that has developed a new
trait - the ability to ingest nylon. This bacterium originally fed on
carbohydrates, but a frame shift mutation resulted in the production of
a brand new enzyme that metabolizes nylon, which did not exist before
1935. Because we are now able to sequence the DNA of both the non-nylon
ingesting version and the new one, we can identify the specific
mutations and know that the frame shift was caused by a single mutation
at a single gene loci, the addition of one thymine nucleotide. The new
enzyme is only about 2% efficent, as would be expected with a new trait
that has not been "polished" by further adaptation, but it works and it
makes the difference between a fatal mutation and a useful one in the
specific environment in which this bacteria is found (a waste pond at a
Japanese factory). At any time prior to 1935, this mutation would
likely have been fatal because the new enzyme does not metabolize any
potential old food source. 

This means several things. First, it means that the commonly heard
argument from IDers that mutation cannot result in "new information" in
the genome is patently false - we have seen this happen, quite
literally, before our eyes. The single nucleotide mutation results in a
frame shift, which results in an entirely new enzyme with an entirely
different function being produced. If this isn't "new information",
then nothing is. Second, it means that all of those calculations
whereby ID advocates claim that the ability of a single enzyme, based
upon a simple probability calculation involving the number of amino
acids in the sequence and the odds of it arranging itself in precisely
that order (by multiplying the number of amino acids by the number of
amino acids) is completely meaningless, as we have been saying for
years. Third, and most interestingly, it debunks the entire notion of
irreducible complexity. Let me explain why. 

One of the published responses to the nylon-eating bacteria from an ID
advocate, Lee Spetner, actually points out that the shift involved two
enzymes and that both must be present in order for this new function to
work. And he further points out that the second enzyme was produced not
by a single frame shift mutation but by a series of point mutations
that replaced about 12% of the amino acids in that particular enzymes.
Spetner writes:

"Let me point out two important facts that the URL
[www.nmsr.org/nylon.htm] ignores. First, there are two altered enzymes,
not just one. Both these enzymes are needed to metabolize the
6-aminohexanoic-acid-cyclic-dimer (6-AHA CD) found in the waste water
of the nylon factory. Neither of these enzymes alone is effective. Both
are needed. The first enzyme, which I shall call enzyme 1, is
6-aminohexanoic-acid-cyclic-dimer hydrolase (6-AHA CDH) and catalyzes
the conversion of 6-AHA CD to 6-aminohexanoic-acid-oligomer (6-AHA LO).
The second enzyme, which I shall call enzyme 2, is
(6-aminohexanoic-acid-oligomer hydrolase (6-AHA LOH) and catalyzes the
conversion of 6-AHA LO to 6-amino-hexanoic acid [Kinoshita et al.
1981]. Only enzyme 2 is the product of a frame shift. Enzyme 1, whose
DNA sequence I have not seen, is probably the product of only point
mutations. [Okada et al. 1983, Ohno 1984]

Second, enzyme 2 is not just the product of a frame shift, it is also
the product of 140 point mutations. Many of these mutations are silent,
but many are not. 47 amino acids out of 392 of the enzyme have been
changed."

Now, by

Re: Findings on Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article

2005-08-20 Thread Ed Darrell

No, I'm not saying high schools are more sophisticated -- the opposite, actually. In college classes discussions may be had in state-sponsored schools on topics and proposalsthat would be impermissible in high schools for establishment clause violations. I don't think there's a lot of litigation in the area, but generally college professors, especially with tenure, have a lot more leeway. There is rarely a firmly established set of guidelines or teaching objectives. In college we look a lot more to the results, rather than the processes.

For example, college courses have been teaching the Bible as literature and history for a long time -- that's where we get the better books in Bible studies. Has anyone ever complained about these?

In my biology courses professors would frequently use Darwin's methods, setting a question, such as "evolution of the eye seems, at first glance, absurd" -- and then they'd proceed to lay out the evidence and make it clear that what seems absurd at first glance is solidly evidenced at second and subsequent looks. If creationist kids are bothered by those courses, they can find another major.

The MCATS do not test on high school biology, except perhaps as Advanced Placement Biology courses get closer to the college stuff. The AP Biology exam is 30% based on understanding evolution. I'd expect a college biology major not narrowly dedicated to molecular or botany to have a solid understanding of phylogeny and ontogeny, and be able to answer a question like, "Relate what you know about the common understanding that 'phylogeny recapitulates ontogeny -- or is it the other way around?" So I think it's not reasonable to suggest that one line reveals any high school curriculu, when that one line is found in an outline to prepare college students who are assumed to be close to a bachelor's degree and who are aiming fora career in medicine.

Especially evolution is important to medicine, and it's probably best if medical doctors understand the errors of evolution history as well as the basic theory. Health and public health are rife with stories of goofs that led to evolution of newer and hardier breeds of germs and the insects and vermin who carry them. Keeping to the old Hippocratic Oath standard of, "First, do no harm," becomes more difficult the more we know and the tougher diseases become.

Ed Darrell
Dallas[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

In a message dated 8/20/2005 8:31:03 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
And, in any case, it's a college level exam. There is no way this outline could be presented as evidence of what high school texts and curricula say.

You seem to be suggesting that the level of biological sciences education is more sophisticated and update in the high schools than in the colleges. Perhaps. I don't know. I do know that evolutionary sources are quick to dispel concerns that they still proceed on a recapitulationist model such as suggested by Haeckel. But if that recapitulationism is rejected, why not say something different than the discredited old saw. Otherwise it gets, despite its decrepitude, an undeserved intellectual nod.

Jim Henderson
Senior Counsel
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RE: Findings on Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article

2005-08-20 Thread Sanford Levinson

tomorrow's NYTimes will have a very interesting story on the
Discovery Institute.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/21/national/21evolve.html?ei=5094en=88f0b94e7eb26357hp=ex=1124596800partner=homepagepagewanted=print

Among other interesting quotes is the following:

"All ideas go through three stages - first they're ignored, then
they're attacked, then they're accepted," said Jay W. Richards, a philosopher
and the institute's vice president. "We're kind of beyond the ignored stage.
We're somewhere in the attack."

This is, of course, demonstrably false. Most ideas, like most
small businesses, end up being rejected because they're unsound. It is
true that, of those ideas that are in fact accepted, there is often a history of
initial rejection, but this is an entirely different proposition from suggesting
that most ideas that are attacked are worthy of acceptance. Ordinarily,
this would be a nit-picking point, but in this case I wonder. Perhaps the
apparently philosophically trained Mr. Richards simply misspoke or, as is
altogether possible, was misquoted. But surely he should realize that
there is no empirical or logical connection between an idea's being attacked and
its being true (or later accepted).

sandy

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RE: Findings on Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article

2005-08-20 Thread Gene Summerlin




The idea that "pharyngeal arches" mutated into gills in fish and lungs in 
other animals is really far fetched from a practical genetic standpoint. 
Mutations occur very rarely in a given population and are generally 
deleterious. It is also true that mutations are generally recessive traits 
so they are not easily passed on to offspring. Even when both parents are 
carriers, there is only a 25% chance that an offspring will be homozygous for 
the mutated trait and thus possess it. In addition, you are positing that 
many, many mutations simultaneously occur to allow a given species to mutate 
into another species. It was my understand, though perhaps I'm wrong, that 
most geneticists have rejected Darwin's idea that mutations are responsible for 
the creation of new species.

In any case, 
now that I have participated in this discussion and made myself as guilty as 
everyone else who has, I don't see what any of this has to do with religion 
law.

Gene SummerlinOgborn, Summerlin  Ogborn, P.C.210 
Windsor Place330 South Tenth StreetLincoln, NE 68508(402) 
434-8040(402) 434-8044 (facsimile)(402) 730-5344 
(mobile)[EMAIL PROTECTED]www.osolaw.com 



From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ed 
BraytonSent: Saturday, August 20, 2005 12:06 AMTo: Law 
 Religion issues for Law AcademicsSubject: Re: Findings on 
Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

  
  You call"critics" those that complain that it is "inaccurate" to 
  "call them gill slits." Language matters. How can science be 
  served by making words meaningless. Because gills are related in some 
  way (functionality) to lungs, why not call them lungs. In fact, why not 
  pretend, all of us, that our lungs are gills? We can jump into the 
  ocean, and conduct an empirical observation of whether calling something gills 
  makes them gills.But they aren't called 
"gills", they are called "gill arches" or "pharyngeal arches" or "bronchial 
arches", all meaning the same thing and used virtually interchangably. All 
vertebrates have them and they are identical in the early stages of development. 
Regardless of what you call them, they are powerful evidence for evolution 
because they demonstrate how features get adapted as evolution progresses. The 
first arch always forms the jaw, the second always forms the hyoid. In fish, the 
third and subsequent arches form the gills, but in humans form the thyroid, 
cricoid and arytenoid cartilages. The argument from a common designer doesn't 
really answer why such disparate traits should start from similar beginnings, 
though that is predicted by evolution. As my friend Nick Matzke wrote, "Given 
that the initial pharyngeal arches are radically rearranged over the course of 
development, there is no obvious reason why all vertebrate embryos begin with 
virtually identical structures that are equally remote from their final 
morphology, other than that they reflect a shared morphological foundation and a 
common ancestry." That's the difference between a given piece of evidence being 
predicted by a given theory and being consistent with one, especially since the 
creationist explanation is consistent with absolutely anything - if the evidence 
showed the opposite, it could just be said that God decided to start from 
scratch rather than using a common design. When an explanation can explain any 
set of data, it is epistemologically sterile and useless.Ed 
Brayton
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RE: Findings on Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article

2005-08-20 Thread West, Ellis









Gene, I will make an attempt to relate
this thread to religion law. According to many scholars, the religion
clauses require that the government, including the public schools, be neutral
with respect to religion. Is that possible, especially in the area of public
education? More specifically, unless it is taught within the context of some
sort of philosophy of science introduction or framework, isnt
evolution and perhaps all science inherently anti-religion? In other
words, in order not to be anti-religion, doesnt the teaching of
evolution at least have to be accompanied by some sort caveat or disclaimer about
the metaphysical and theological implications of the subject?



A second way that this thread relates to
religion law is that it raises the question about the meaning or definition of
religion. Its interesting to me that most of the critics of ID on
this list have assumed or argued that there is a sharp distinction between
science and religion. Although I am not an expert in the philosophy of
science, I wonder how many philosophers of science today would accept that
there is a hard and fast distinction between the two. It is said that the
claims of science, but not those of religion, are testable, but are scientific
concepts like causation, force, gravity, etc. testable? Of course, whether
an object will fall is testable, but does anyone know why it will fall?
How can government be neutral with respect to religion unless there is a fairly
clear distinction between religion and science and other ways of comprehending
reality?





Ellis M. West

Political Science Department

University of Richmond, VA 23173

804-289-8536

[EMAIL PROTECTED]












From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Behalf Of Gene Summerlin
Sent: Saturday, August 20, 2005
4:44 PM
To: Law  Religion issues for
Law Academics
Subject: RE: Findings on Hostility
at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article





The idea that pharyngeal arches mutated
into gills in fish and lungs in other animals is really far fetched from a
practical genetic standpoint. Mutations occur very rarely in a given
population and are generally deleterious. It is also true that mutations
are generally recessive traits so they are not easily passed on to
offspring. Even when both parents are carriers, there is only a 25%
chance that an offspring will be homozygous for the mutated trait and thus
possess it. In addition, you are positing that many, many mutations
simultaneously occur to allow a given species to mutate into another
species. It was my understand, though perhaps I'm wrong, that most
geneticists have rejected Darwin's
idea that mutations are responsible for the creation of new species.



In any case, now that I have participated in this
discussion and made myself as guilty as everyone else who has, I don't see what
any of this has to do with religion law.







Gene
Summerlin
Ogborn, Summerlin  Ogborn, P.C.
210 Windsor Place
330 South Tenth Street
Lincoln, NE
 68508
(402) 434-8040
(402) 434-8044 (facsimile)
(402) 730-5344 (mobile)
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
www.osolaw.com


 















From:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ed Brayton
Sent: Saturday, August 20, 2005
12:06 AM
To: Law  Religion issues for
Law Academics
Subject: Re: Findings on Hostility
at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article



[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:









You callcritics
those that complain that it is inaccurate to call them gill
slits. Language matters. How can science be served by making
words meaningless. Because gills are related in some way (functionality)
to lungs, why not call them lungs. In fact, why not pretend, all of us,
that our lungs are gills? We can jump into the ocean, and conduct an
empirical observation of whether calling something gills makes them gills.






But they aren't called gills, they are called gill
arches or pharyngeal arches or bronchial arches,
all meaning the same thing and used virtually interchangably. All vertebrates
have them and they are identical in the early stages of development. Regardless
of what you call them, they are powerful evidence for evolution because they
demonstrate how features get adapted as evolution progresses. The first arch
always forms the jaw, the second always forms the hyoid. In fish, the third and
subsequent arches form the gills, but in humans form the thyroid, cricoid and
arytenoid cartilages. The argument from a common designer doesn't really answer
why such disparate traits should start from similar beginnings, though that is
predicted by evolution. As my friend Nick Matzke wrote, Given that the
initial pharyngeal arches are radically rearranged over the course of
development, there is no obvious reason why all vertebrate embryos begin with
virtually identical structures that are equally remote from their final
morphology, other than that they reflect a shared morphological foundation and
a common ancestry. That's the difference between a given piece of
evidence being

RE: Findings on Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article

2005-08-20 Thread Gene Summerlin




Ellis,

You are right. I should have been more 
specific. I am also enjoying the EC aspects of this debate with respect to 
teaching in public schools. My point, which I made quite poorly, was that 
discussing whether specific tenets of ID or evolution are correct or false, 
seems to be leading us off into arguments which don't really advance the 
on-point EC claims.

Gene SummerlinOgborn, Summerlin  Ogborn, P.C.210 
Windsor Place330 South Tenth StreetLincoln, NE 68508(402) 
434-8040(402) 434-8044 (facsimile)(402) 730-5344 
(mobile)[EMAIL PROTECTED]www.osolaw.com 



From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of West, 
EllisSent: Saturday, August 20, 2005 4:27 PMTo: Law  
Religion issues for Law AcademicsSubject: RE: Findings on Hostility 
at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article


Gene, I will make an 
attempt to relate this thread to religion law. According to many scholars, 
the religion clauses require that the government, including the public schools, 
be neutral with respect to religion. Is that possible, especially in the 
area of public education? More specifically, unless it is taught within 
the context of some sort of philosophy of science introduction or framework, 
isnt evolution and perhaps all science inherently anti-religion? In other 
words, in order not to be anti-religion, doesnt the teaching of evolution at 
least have to be accompanied by some sort caveat or disclaimer about the 
metaphysical and theological implications of the 
subject?

A second way that this 
thread relates to religion law is that it raises the question about the meaning 
or definition of religion. Its interesting to me that most of the critics 
of ID on this list have assumed or argued that there is a sharp distinction 
between science and religion. Although I am not an expert in the 
philosophy of science, I wonder how many philosophers of science today would 
accept that there is a hard and fast distinction between the two. It is 
said that the claims of science, but not those of religion, are testable, but 
are scientific concepts like causation, force, gravity, etc. testable? Of 
course, whether an object will fall is testable, but does anyone know why it 
will fall? How can government be neutral with respect to religion unless 
there is a fairly clear distinction between religion and science and other ways 
of comprehending reality?


Ellis 
M. West Political 
Science Department University of 
Richmond, VA 
23173 804-289-8536 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 





From: 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
On Behalf Of Gene 
SummerlinSent: Saturday, 
August 20, 2005 4:44 PMTo: Law 
 Religion issues for Law AcademicsSubject: RE: Findings on Hostility at 
Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article

The idea that "pharyngeal arches" 
mutated into gills in fish and lungs in other animals is really far fetched from 
a practical genetic standpoint. Mutations occur very rarely in a given 
population and are generally deleterious. It is also true that mutations 
are generally recessive traits so they are not easily passed on to 
offspring. Even when both parents are carriers, there is only a 25% chance 
that an offspring will be homozygous for the mutated trait and thus possess 
it. In addition, you are positing that many, many mutations simultaneously 
occur to allow a given species to mutate into another species. It was my 
understand, though perhaps I'm wrong, that most geneticists have rejected 
Darwin's idea 
that mutations are responsible for the creation of new 
species.

In any case, now that I have participated in this 
discussion and made myself as guilty as everyone else who has, I don't see what 
any of this has to do with religion law.


Gene SummerlinOgborn, Summerlin  Ogborn, 
P.C.210 Windsor 
Place330 South Tenth StreetLincoln, NE 68508(402) 434-8040(402) 434-8044 
(facsimile)(402) 730-5344 
(mobile)[EMAIL PROTECTED]www.osolaw.com 







From: 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
On Behalf Of Ed 
BraytonSent: Saturday, August 
20, 2005 12:06 AMTo: Law  
Religion issues for Law AcademicsSubject: Re: Findings on Hostility at 
Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
wrote:


You call"critics" those that 
complain that it is "inaccurate" to "call them gill slits." Language 
matters. How can science be served by making words meaningless. 
Because gills are related in some way (functionality) to lungs, why not call 
them lungs. In fact, why not pretend, all of us, that our lungs are 
gills? We can jump into the ocean, and conduct an empirical observation of 
whether calling something gills makes them 
gills.
But they aren't called "gills", they are called 
"gill arches" or "pharyngeal arches" or "bronchial arches", all meaning the same 
thing and used virtually interchangably. All vertebrates have them and they are 
identical in the early stages of development. Regardless of what you call them, 
they are powerful evidence for evolution because they demonstrate how features 
get adapted

Re: Findings on Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article





Gene Summerlin wrote:

  
  
  The idea that "pharyngeal arches" mutated into
gills in fish and lungs in other animals is really far fetched from a
practical genetic standpoint. Mutations occur very rarely in a given
population and are generally deleterious. It is also true that
mutations are generally recessive traits so they are not easily passed
on to offspring. Even when both parents are carriers, there is only a
25% chance that an offspring will be homozygous for the mutated trait
and thus possess it. In addition, you are positing that many, many
mutations simultaneously occur to allow a given species to mutate into
another species. It was my understand, though perhaps I'm wrong, that
most geneticists have rejected Darwin's idea that mutations are
responsible for the creation of new species.


You are indeed wrong. In fact, I doubt you would find a single
geneticist (I know of no geneticists at all who advocate ID or
creationism) who would dispute that mutation is the primary engine that
drives variation and that variation plus natural selection and the
other known mechanisms of population genetics are what results in
speciation. You are essentially making a caricature of evolution here,
as though evolutionary theory says something as simplistic as
"pharyngeal arches used to make gills, but after this particular
mutation, now they make lungs." It isn't anywhere near that simple, of
course. But in fact, most mutations are not deleterious, they are
neutral. Most of the ones that do have a notable effect on the
survivability of a given phenotype will be deleterious, but some will
be beneficial. The fact that a given species typically has a population
in the millions, at least, and that each member of that species has a
genome that contains hundreds of specific mutations, means that there
is an enormous range of variation available and that in any given
generation there will be innumerable beneficial mutations that could be
selected for depending on the environmental conditions. So in fact
there is nothing far fetched about it. And as always, I am baffled by
the notion that someone without any training or even any noticable
informal education in a subject can justify rejecting the position
taken by an overwhelming, if not unanimous, portion of those with
actual training in the field. If every single geneticist in the world,
after all of their years of training, are convinced that X is true, but
someone with no training at all in the field thinks that is
"farfetched", I'd say it's much more likely that this person just
doesn't understand the subject they are talking about. 

Ed Brayton


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Re: Findings on Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article

As a further note on the connection between this and EC jurisprudence, 
there is a major lawsuit going on right now in Pennsylvania over this 
and the central question will be whether ID is a scientific theory or 
merely old-fashioned creationism dressed up in vaguely 
scientific-sounding language. If it is the latter, then the Edwards 
precedent applies. And so far, the evidence is strongly on the side of 
the first conclusion, not the second. The criticisms of evolution 
offered by the ID crowd - and that is all ID actually is at this point, 
a set of criticisms of evolutionary theory, there is no ID theory or 
model - are the same criticisms that were found in creation science that 
was ruled out of public school science classrooms in 1987. In fact, I 
have just today been reading the deposition of the publisher of the 
textbook, Of Pandas and People, that the Dover school board put into 
science classrooms there. His name is Jon Buell. In that deposition he 
makes the very damaging admission that they used the exact same 
definition in the book of creation science as they used for 
intelligent design. In fact, the original draft of the book used the 
terms creation, creationism and creation science and they were 
later simply replaced with the phrase intelligent design with no 
change in the definition or the positions attributed to them as distinct 
ideas at all. And this is from the first (and only) intelligent design 
textbook ever produced, the very book that coined the phrase. This is 
likely to be very compelling in court.


Ed Brayton




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RE: Findings on Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article

2005-08-20 Thread Gene Summerlin




Ed,
There 
is a huge difference between mutation creating variation which combined with 
natural selection results in a given population and saying that genetic 
mutations can take an organism from being a fish to being a giraffe. Even 
with respect to variation, genetic variation for many phenotypical traits do not 
involve mutations as much as it involves a statistical result from a number of 
given possible outcomes. Again, we could fight about this all day. I 
think that from a genetics standpoint your argument that mutations can result in 
different species is impossible to defend. You disagree with me. 
Fine, but this is not the forum in which to have that 
fight.

Gene SummerlinOgborn, Summerlin  Ogborn, P.C.210 
Windsor Place330 South Tenth StreetLincoln, NE 68508(402) 
434-8040(402) 434-8044 (facsimile)(402) 730-5344 
(mobile)[EMAIL PROTECTED]www.osolaw.com 



From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ed 
BraytonSent: Saturday, August 20, 2005 6:49 PMTo: Law 
 Religion issues for Law AcademicsSubject: Re: Findings on 
Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article
Gene Summerlin wrote: 

  
  The idea that "pharyngeal arches" mutated into gills in fish and lungs 
  in other animals is really far fetched from a practical genetic 
  standpoint. Mutations occur very rarely in a given population and are 
  generally deleterious. It is also true that mutations are generally 
  recessive traits so they are not easily passed on to offspring. Even 
  when both parents are carriers, there is only a 25% chance that an offspring 
  will be homozygous for the mutated trait and thus possess it. In 
  addition, you are positing that many, many mutations simultaneously occur to 
  allow a given species to mutate into another species. It was my 
  understand, though perhaps I'm wrong, that most geneticists have rejected 
  Darwin's idea that mutations are responsible for the creation of new 
  species.You are indeed wrong. In fact, I 
doubt you would find a single geneticist (I know of no geneticists at all who 
advocate ID or creationism) who would dispute that mutation is the primary 
engine that drives variation and that variation plus natural selection and the 
other known mechanisms of population genetics are what results in speciation. 
You are essentially making a caricature of evolution here, as though 
evolutionary theory says something as simplistic as "pharyngeal arches used to 
make gills, but after this particular mutation, now they make lungs." It isn't 
anywhere near that simple, of course. But in fact, most mutations are not 
deleterious, they are neutral. Most of the ones that do have a notable effect on 
the survivability of a given phenotype will be deleterious, but some will be 
beneficial. The fact that a given species typically has a population in the 
millions, at least, and that each member of that species has a genome that 
contains hundreds of specific mutations, means that there is an enormous range 
of variation available and that in any given generation there will be 
innumerable beneficial mutations that could be selected for depending on the 
environmental conditions. So in fact there is nothing far fetched about it. And 
as always, I am baffled by the notion that someone without any training or even 
any noticable informal education in a subject can justify rejecting the position 
taken by an overwhelming, if not unanimous, portion of those with actual 
training in the field. If every single geneticist in the world, after all of 
their years of training, are convinced that X is true, but someone with no 
training at all in the field thinks that is "farfetched", I'd say it's much more 
likely that this person just doesn't understand the subject they are talking 
about. Ed Brayton
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Re: Findings on Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article







Gene Summerlin wrote:

  
  
  Ed,
  There is a huge difference between mutation
creating variation which combined with natural selection results in a
given population and saying that genetic mutations can take an organism
from being a fish to being a giraffe. Even with respect to variation,
genetic variation for many phenotypical traits do not involve mutations
as much as it involves a statistical result from a number of given
possible outcomes. Again, we could fight about this all day. I think
that from a genetics standpoint your argument that mutations can result
in different species is impossible to defend. You disagree with me.
Fine, but this is not the forum in which to have that fight.


Again, you are attacking a caricature of evolution. No one - I repeat, no
one - thinks that "genetic mutations can take an organism from
being a fish to being a giraffe". Mutation is only the primary source
of variation (not the only source because, as you point out, there is
also natural variation that occurs through recombination, which is the
hallmark of diploid species and likely the reason that sexual
reproduction is the dominant form of reproduction in the natural
world). Natural selection is the primary means of preserving useful
variations, but not the only means (there are also genetic drift,
species selection and others). But no one in the world, ever, under any
circumstances, has taken the position that you object to. So when you
say that my position is "impossible to defend", you aren't talking
about my position, you are talking about a simplistic parody that not
only do I not take, but no one anywhere takes. This is the very
definition of beating up a straw man. Evolution says that speciation is
the result of not only mutations, but natural selection combined with
other non-adaptive mechanisms and reproductive isolation over time.
You're not attacking evolution, you're attacking a crude and simplistic
cartoon version of evolution that has nothing to do with the real world.

Ed Brayton


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Re: Findings on Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article





Rick Duncan wrote:

  Edwards did not hold that "creation science" could not
be taught in the govt schools. Nor did it hold that "creation science"
was religion andnot science.It held only that the particular law (the
"Balanced Treatment Act") was invalid because it did not have a secular
purpose. Even here, the Ct accomplished this only by misinterpreting
the stated secular purpose--academic freedom for students--and
saying that since the law did not advance academic freedom for
  teachers it was a sham.Scalia's dissent demolished the
majority's reasoning on this point.


I don't think this description squares with the decision
itself. Here is the actual holding:

-
1. The Act is facially invalid as violative of the Establishment Clause
of the First Amendment, because it lacks a clear secular purpose. Pp.
585-594.

(a) The Act does not further its stated secular purpose of "protecting
academic freedom." It does not enhance the freedom of teachers to teach
what they choose and fails to further the goal of "teaching all of the
evidence." Forbidding the teaching of evolution when creation science
is not also taught undermines the provision of a comprehensive
scientific education. Moreover, requiring the teaching of creation
science with evolution does not give schoolteachers a flexibility that
they did not already possess to supplant the present science curriculum
with the presentation of theories, besides evolution, about the origin
of life. Furthermore, the contention that the Act furthers a "basic
concept of fairness" by requiring the teaching of all of the evidence
on the subject is without merit. Indeed, the Act evinces a
discriminatory preference for the teaching of creation science and
against the teaching of evolution by requiring that curriculum guides
be developed and resource services supplied for teaching creationism
but not for teaching evolution, by limiting membership on the resource
services panel to "creation scientists," and by forbidding school
boards to discriminate against anyone who "chooses to be a
creation-scientist" or to teach creation science, while failing to
protect those who choose to teach other theories or who refuse to teach
creation science. A law intended to maximize the comprehensiveness and
effectiveness of science instruction would encourage the teaching of
all scientific theories about human origins. Instead, this Act has the
distinctly different purpose of discrediting evolution by
counterbalancing its teaching at every turn with the teaching of
creationism. Pp. 586-589.

(b) The Act impermissibly endorses religion by advancing the religious
belief that a supernatural being created humankind. The legislative
history demonstrates that the term "creation science," as contemplated
by the state legislature, embraces this religious teaching. The Act's
primary purpose was to change the public school science curriculum to
provide persuasive advantage to a particular religious doctrine that
rejects the factual basis of evolution in its entirety. Thus, the
Act is designed either to promote the theory of creation science that
embodies a particular religious tenet or to prohibit the teaching of a
scientific theory disfavored by certain religious sects. In either
case, the Act violates the First Amendment. Pp. 589-594. 2. The
District Court did not err in granting summary judgment upon a finding
that appellants had failed to raise a genuine issue of material fact.
Appellants relied on the "uncontroverted" affidavits of scientists,
theologians, and an education administrator defining creation science
as "origin through abrupt appearance in complex form" and alleging that
such a viewpoint constitutes a true scientific theory. The District
Court, in its discretion, properly concluded that the postenactment
testimony of these experts concerning the possible technical meanings
of the Act's terms would not illuminate the contemporaneous purpose of
the state legislature when it passed the Act. None of the persons
making the affidavits produced by appellants participated in or
contributed to the enactment of the law. Pp. 594-596.
-

The ruling did in fact hold that teaching creation science was a
violation of the first amendment, as the portion in italics shows. 

Ed Brayton


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Re: Findings on Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article

2005-08-20 Thread Ed Darrell

When read in conjunction with the decision in McLean v. Arkansas, which was used by the Louisiana district court, what Edwards says is that science, backed by data and corroborated by experiment, must be taught in science classes.

The easiest way to get something into the science books would be to do some experiments that support one's hypothesis and publish them. By the time of the trial in 1981, there was no body of research supporting creationism as current, valid science. Proponents could produce no evidence of any such research.

Surveys done within the past six years have repeatedly found no new research in the area, either. Nor is there any significant body of research supporting the intelligent design branch of creationism.

And that is why I keep saying this is an issue that will turn on the evidence. If science can be shown, that science can be taught.

Because there is no body of science supporting any form of creationism including intelligent design, legislative bodies including school boards are left with no valid, secular purpose to order instruction against evolution.

Commentaries that claim it would be legal to teach intelligent design beg the question. All such commentaries assume that science has been demonstrated, but that assumption has not been borne out in any court, and I don't think it can be.

Ed Darrell
Dallas

Rick Duncan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

Edwards did not hold that "creation science" could not be taught in the govt schools. Nor did it hold that "creation science" was religion andnot science.It held only that the particular law (the "Balanced Treatment Act") was invalid because it did not have a secular purpose. Even here, the Ct accomplished this only by misinterpreting the stated secular purpose--academic freedom for students--and saying that since the law did not advance academic freedom for teachers it was a sham.Scalia's dissent demolished the majority's reasoning on this point.

Rick DuncanEd Brayton [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
As a further note on the connection between this and EC jurisprudence, there is a major lawsuit going on right now in Pennsylvania over this and the central question will be whether ID is a scientific theory or merely old-fashioned creationism dressed up in vaguely scientific-sounding language. If it is the latter, then the Edwards precedent applies. And so far, the evidence is strongly on the side of the first conclusion, not the second. The criticisms of evolution offered by the ID crowd - and that is all ID actually is at this point, a set of criticisms of evolutionary theory, there is no ID theory or model - are the same criticisms that were found in creation science that was ruled out of public school science classrooms in 1987. In fact, I have just today been reading the deposition of the publisher of the textbook, Of Pand!
! as and
People, that the Dover school board put into science classrooms there. His name is Jon Buell. In that deposition he makes the very damaging admission that they used the exact same definition in the book of "creation science" as they used for "intelligent design". In fact, the original draft of the book used the terms "creation", "creationism" and "creation science" and they were later simply replaced with the phrase "intelligent design" with no change in the definition or the positions attributed to them as distinct ideas at all. And this is from the first (and only) "intelligent design" textbook ever produced, the very book that coined the phrase. This is likely to be very compelling in court.Ed Brayton-- No virus found in this outgoing message.Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.Version: 7.0.338 / Virus Database: 267.10.13/78 - Release Date: 8/19/05___!
! To
post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.eduTo subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlawPlease note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.Rick Duncan Welpton Professor of Law University of Nebraska College of Law Lincoln, NE 68583-0902"When the Round Table is broken every man must follow either Galahad or Mordred: middle things are gone." C.S.Lewis, Grand Miracle"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered." --The Prisoner
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Re: Findings on Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article





Rick Duncan wrote:

  Well, Ed, I think you are just misreading the decision. The case
was decided based solely on the legislature's non-secular purpose. The
Court did not hold that any particular book or curriculum was religion
and not science. Indeed, no book or creation science curriculum was
even part of the record in the case, which was a facial attack on a
statute not a particular creation science program.

If I'm misreading it, then please explain what the portion I
highlighted might mean. It said:

Thus, the Act is designed either to promote the theory of creation
science that embodies a particular religious tenet or to prohibit the
teaching of a scientific theory disfavored by certain religious sects.
In either case, the Act violates the First Amendment.

I read this to mean that because "creation science" embodies a
particular religious tenet, it is unconstitutional to teach it in
public schools, which is what the Act required if evolution was to be
taught. I don't see what else it could possibly mean. There may not
have been a specific book or curriculum mandated, but it did require
that teaching guides for creation science be developed so teachers
could teach it, as the holding that I cited notes. Indeed, I would say
that your argument only strengthens my position because they didn't say
that a specific book or curriculum was unconstitutional, but that the
mere act of requiring creation science to be taught was
unconstitutional because it "embodies a particular religious tenet".
They didn't go into much detail on that, but it's still stated quite
clearly. And since that time, the courts have consistently applied the
Edwards decision in striking down laws requiring or even allowing the
teaching of creation science, without the court taking a case to
correct them. 



  This is why it seems clear that a school board that required
Behe's book to be taught in science class as part of the discussion of
evolution would not violate the EC--provided they were careful to
clearly articulate a secular purpose. Teaching the controversy (i.e.
exposing students to the ID theory) is a secular purpose and Behe's
book is not religion (and Behe is a scientist, not a
theologian).Whether ID is good or bad science educationis not an
issue the Court can (or should) decide. It is an issue for school
boards and/or state legislatures to decide.

I don't think that supports your argument about Edwards at all. But if
it can be shown in court that books that advocate "intelligent design"
are really just advocating old-fashioned creationism under a new name,
then the application of precedent would seem pretty clear. And as I
stated earlier, the evidence for equating "intelligent design" and
creation science is quite strong. I've seen the depositions of the
experts in the Pennsylvania case, including Behe, and the evidence that
the plaintiffs are going to use and the case is very powerful and well
supported. The claim that "exposing students to the ID theory" is also
a question that can be answered in court and will certainly be a large
part of the Pennsylvania trial. Behe, among others, will certainly be
asked on the stand to state what the "ID theory" says. The trouble is,
as I keep saying, they don't have a theory (and Paul Nelson, one of the
leading IDers, admits that). They only have a set of criticisms of
evolution, criticisms that are taken directly from the wellspring of
creation science and dressed up in scientific language. And "I don't
believe theory X" does not constitute "theory Y". They will also be
asked to point to any actual scientific research has been done that
supports ID, to some evidence that ID actually is a scientific theory
that can be tested or even has a coherent model from which one might
derive ways to test it. And they will fail to provide any because there
isn't any. 

Ed Brayton


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Re: Findings on Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article

2005-08-19 Thread Rick Duncan

Steve: I am not afraid of anyone teaching secular subjects. I do it myself, all the time.

My problem is with the government school monopoly, which creates a captive audience of impressionable children for (to quote JS Mill) "moulding" children in a mold designed (or evolved) by those who control the public school curriculum. With Mill, I believe that a free society promotes educational choice, not the moulding of children in the shape that government chooses.

Cheers, Rick Duncan
Steven Jamar [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

Doesn't seem to me to be anything nefarious about science journals refusing to publish things that are not good science. Will they miss some things and get it wrong? Oh yeah.

But we know that ID is not good science.

It may be good philosophy or even good religion or politics. But ID folk seem to have no trouble publishing books (or at least no more so than others), articles, news stories, editorials, and so on.

BTW, Rick, can we turn this around and ask what you and others are so afraid of when schools are teaching secular subjects without your version of god and religion infusing them? Might not others be asking "what are they so afraid of" when evolution and science are attacked and teachers who teach it are prohibited from doing so and textbooks are changed to hide the controversy and remove the underpinning of modern biology from their pages?

What are they/you so afraid of?

Steve

On Aug 19, 2005, at 11:34 AM, Rick Duncan wrote:

I am not (nor do I have any desire to be) a scientist. But I do teach and write about free speech, and when I hear that the powers that be are trying to suppress a newidea, my 1A instincts are triggered and go intohigh gear.

Such is the case with ID--when I read about people trying to discredit ID scholars andtrying to prevent ID scholarship from being published or taught, I ask myself "what are they so afraid of?" Why not havesymposium issues ofscience journals devoted to debates between the bestID scholars and their critics? Why not welcome ID scholars on university faculties in the name of intellectual diversity and open-mindedness? Why the mockery and suppression rather than a fair and free debate?

Methinks I need to spend more time in the classroom discussing the EC and the teaching oif ID. In Edwards, the Court struck down the Balanced Treatment Act only by first misinterpreting the law's stated secular purpose (academic freedom for students) and then declaring the law unconstitutional for wantof a secular purpose.The Balanced Treatment Act was clumsy and poorly drafted.I think a properly drafted law (one that sets out a clear secular purpose of teaching the controversy for the benefit of students)concerning the teaching of IDis clearly permissible under the EC. Federal courts should not be acting as science curriculum committees for public schools. That is the job of state and local government.

I think we will read and discussProf. Beckwith's article on Public Education, Religious Establishment, and the Challenge of Intelligent Design in my Con Law Seminar this Spring. Or does it violate the EC to teach about ID and the EC?

Rick Duncan

Frank: Do you have 15 reprints to spare?

Francis Beckwith [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Ed:I appreciate your comments. I admit I am a tad bit sensitive about this. I do think thought that the way Forrest and Branch frame my appointment that it appears that we were part of some internal Baylor scheme to win the place over for ID. As I noted in my letter, I applied to Baylor without knowing anyone there (except Dembski, and that was of no help, as you would probably guess given the Polanyi controversy). For the record, the Dawsons did not technically object to my views on church and state, but rather, my work on ID and the law as well as my fellow status with Discovery. My views on church and state were never inquired about. In fact, my views are fairly mainstream, and will be published in a couple of weeks in the next issue of Chapman Law Review, in an essay, Gimme That Ole Time Separation: A Review Essay of Phi!
! llip
Hamburgers Separation of Church and State. My views on ID are spelled out in my letter. (BTW, I was recently interviewed by the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram about Justice Sunday II. It will surprise many of you to know that even though I am a supporter of Judge Roberts, I came out against the event on theological grounds, that such events held in the pulpits of churches many corrupt the integrity of churches, which is not to say that individual church-goers or groups of them may not publicly support the President. My problem is with the use of the church and its pastoral authority to do this. My comments were published last week in the Star-Telegram.)I never even knew about the Wedge strategy until I received a personal letter by a member of the Dawson family in which she mentioned it (August 2003). Having said that, in principle I see nothing wrong with helping to fund scholars who offer

Re: Findings on Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article

2005-08-19 Thread RJLipkin





In a message dated 8/19/2005 12:46:13 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
On the 
  other hand, if they can be universally applied, and there are in fact 
  universal, unchanging bits of knowledge we call the moral law, then we have 
  the problem of accounting for that knowledge as 
well.

But this problemis no 
greater than questions that arise from positing the existence of a morally 
perfect designer. From wheredid the designer get the perfect moral 
knowledge which was then implanted into the minds of people. The problems 
thatatheist (moral) universalists have with regard to their first 
principles are no greater than the problems theist (moral) universalists have 
with regard to theirs.

Bobby

Robert Justin 
LipkinProfessor of LawWidener University School of 
LawDelaware
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Re: Findings on Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article

2005-08-19 Thread Mark Graber

With due respect to Frank Beckwith, a great many people disagree with
his theory of ethics, indeed a great many prominent philosophers
disagree with his theory of ethics, which is not to say that the claim
that morality is universal and unchanging is not legitimate, only it is
contestable and it is contestable whether only natural law provides
standards of judgment.  And for better or worse, the reference to the
Protocols of the Elders of Zion quite clearly demolishes the claim that
every diverse opinion should be taught.  The argument for teaching
intelligent design depends entirely on whether it is sufficiently in the
scientific mainstream to be taught.  When that argument is made, the
Protocols have no bearing, but when, as a recent post did, someone says,
who is afriad of diversity, the argument follows.

Mark A. Graber

 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 08/19/05 12:44 PM 
The distinction between malevolent and non-malevolent design depends on
a prior notion of what is good and bad. However, if the latter are
merely relative to culture and/or the individual, such judgments cannot
in principle be universally applied with integrity unless they are not
relative. On the other hand, if they can be universally applied, and
there are in fact universal, unchanging bits of knowledge we call the
moral law, then we have the problem of accounting for that knowledge as
well.  So, your suggestion, ironically, depends on the very design that
I believe you are denying.  

The smart-alec quip about the anti-Semitic book is particularly
distateful and uncalled for. 

Frank

 
On Friday, August 19, 2005, at 10:44AM, Mark Graber
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

I presume malevolent design should also get equal time, based on the
claim that whatever intelligence is responsible for this really has
it
in for humans.  And, of course, there is the Protocols of the Elders of
Zion, a world-wide best seller, etc.

Mark A. Graber

 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 08/19/05 11:34 AM 
I am not (nor do I have any desire to be) a scientist. But I do teach
and write about free speech, and when I hear that the powers that be
are
trying to suppress a new idea, my 1A instincts are triggered and go
into
high gear.
 
Such is the case with ID--when I read about people trying to discredit
ID scholars and trying to prevent ID scholarship from being published
or
taught, I ask myself what are they so afraid of? Why not have
symposium issues of science journals devoted to debates between the
best
ID scholars and their critics? Why not welcome ID scholars on
university
faculties in the name of intellectual diversity and open-mindedness?
Why
the mockery and suppression rather than a fair and free debate? 
 
Methinks I need to spend more time in the classroom discussing the EC
and the teaching oif ID. In Edwards, the Court struck down the Balanced
Treatment Act only by first misinterpreting the law's stated secular
purpose (academic freedom for students) and then declaring the law
unconstitutional for want of a secular purpose.The Balanced Treatment
Act was clumsy and poorly drafted. I think a properly drafted law (one
that sets out a clear secular purpose of teaching the controversy for
the benefit of students) concerning the teaching of ID is clearly
permissible under the EC. Federal courts should not be acting as
science
curriculum committees for public schools. That is the job of state and
local government. 
 
I think we will read and discuss Prof. Beckwith's article on Public
Education, Religious Establishment, and the Challenge of Intelligent
Design in my Con Law Seminar this Spring. Or does it violate the EC to
teach about ID and the EC?
 
Rick Duncan
 
Frank: Do you have 15 reprints to spare?
 


Francis Beckwith [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Ed:

I appreciate your comments. I admit I am a tad bit sensitive about
this.
 I do think thought that the way Forrest and Branch frame my
appointment
that it appears that we were part of some internal Baylor scheme to win
the place over for ID.  As I noted in my letter, I applied to Baylor
without knowing anyone there (except Dembski, and that was of no help,
as you would probably guess given the Polanyi controversy).  For the
record, the Dawsons did not technically object to my views on church
and
state, but rather, my work on ID and the law as well as my fellow
status
with Discovery.  My views on church and state were never inquired
about.
In fact, my views are fairly mainstream, and will be published in a
couple of weeks in the next issue of Chapman Law Review, in an essay,
Gimme That Ole Time Separation: A Review Essay of Phillip
Hamburger's Separation of Church and State.   My views on ID are
spelled out in my letter.  (BTW, I was recently interviewed by the Ft.
Worth
 Star-Telegram about Justice Sunday II. It will surprise many of you
to know that even though I am a supporter of Judge Roberts, I came out
against the event on theological grounds, that such events held in the
pulpits of churches many corrupt the integrity of churches,

RE: Findings on Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article

2005-08-19 Thread Scarberry, Mark










If the argument from
design was demolished in the 18th Century, as Sandy argues, then it must
have been on philosophical or religious grounds, rather than scientific ones. Darwin's On the Origin of
Species was not published until 1859. See, e.g., http://pages.britishlibrary.net/charles.darwin/texts/origin1859/origin_fm.html.
If intelligent design was ruled out on nonscientific grounds, then one might
ask whether that "ruling out" itself violates the Establishment
Clause. Note that the second part of Bobby's explanation of why
intelligent design was rejected is an explicitly theological argument about the
nature of any posited deity. (Aside: I believe many philosophers have accepted
that Alvin Plantinga has shown that there is no necessary contradiction between
the existence of evil in the world and the existence of a benevolent deity.)



On the general question of intelligent
design, here is a comment (written, I think, by Amitai Etzioni) from the
Communitarian Network's e-mail newsletter (Communitarian Letter #2, 8/19/2005) with respect to
intelligent design:



Intelligent Design: A
common ground?





Progressives are up in
arms about the movement to teach Intelligent Design in public schools.
They depict advocates of ID as Machiavellians trying to sneak creationism into
the curriculum. They roundly condemn these people.



At the same time,
progressives are recognizing that many Americans are concerned about values in
general, often religious, spiritual and transcendental matters. How was the
world FIRST created? Where are we destined to go? Why are we born
to die?



Attempts to answer such
questions in solely scientific terms are not going to do the trick.
Whatever science tells us, those of us who are looking for normative answers
will not be satisfied. To tell a grieving parent that their child died
because his heart failed does not address the question they are asking.
Similarly, to tell people concerned about where we came from and where we are
headed, that we came from apes and going to become worm feed, does not cut it. 



Many scientists, when
not in a confrontational mood, admit that there are normative questions science
cannot and is not meant to address. Call these questions "otherwordly."
As long as ID advocates raise these questions and wonder if they do not point
us to a master creator, there is no reason I can see to oppose them.
However, if they proceed to claim that they have "The Answer," and
of course if they try to force creationism into the curricula, then the time is
right to say "wait a moment, not in our public schools."





What are your thoughts and comments on this
topic? Please let us know by emailing your ideas to [EMAIL PROTECTED].















Mark S. Scarberry

Pepperdine University School of Law





-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] 
Sent: Friday, August 19, 2005
10:03 AM
To: religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu
Subject: Re: Findings on Hostility
at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article







In a
message dated 8/19/2005 11:41:05 AM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
writes:





But, of
course, ID is not a new idea. It is the classic argument from
design that was put forth (and, for most of us, demolished) in the 18th
century.







The
standard demolition is twofold: (1)anything having any integrity at all
will exhibit patterns and structures. If so, the fact of design--patterns
and structures--doesn't provide any evidence of a designer. (Statistical
analysis of the probabilities of this particular pattern being random is always
enormously controversial.) (2) If there is a designer, the problem ofevil
and suffering is surely triggered. For example, why would a morally decent (let
alone perfect) designer allow tsunamis . . . . ? Haven't we been down this road
before?











Bobby











Robert Justin Lipkin
Professor of Law
Widener University School of Law
Delaware








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Re: Findings on Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article





In a message dated 8/19/2005 2:14:15 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
And do 
  Mark and Sandy really equate Behe's scholarship with the Protocols of the 
  Elders of Zion and Holocaust Denials?

I wonder whether anyone on this list has read Darwin's Black Box?

On equivalencies, I wonder whether anyone is willing to equate the author 
of the Protocols with the authors of Dred Scot and of Plessy?

Jim "What's Hiding Under those Robes" Henderson
Senior Counsel
ACLJ
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Re: Findings on Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article

2005-08-19 Thread Francis Beckwith

Title: Re: Findings on Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article



I not only read it, but I reviewed it for Journal of Law and Religion in Fall 2001. 

Frank

On 8/19/05 1:25 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

In a message dated 8/19/2005 2:14:15 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
And do Mark and Sandy really equate Behe's scholarship with the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Holocaust Denials?
I wonder whether anyone on this list has read Darwin's Black Box?

On equivalencies, I wonder whether anyone is willing to equate the author of the Protocols with the authors of Dred Scot and of Plessy?

Jim What's Hiding Under those Robes Henderson
Senior Counsel
ACLJ

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Re: Findings on Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article

2005-08-19 Thread RJLipkin





In a message dated 8/19/2005 1:56:24 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
Note 
  that the second part of Bobby's explanation of why intelligent design was 
  rejected is an explicitly theological argument about the nature of any posited 
  deity. (Aside: I believe many philosophers have accepted that Alvin Plantinga 
  has shown that there is no necessary contradiction between the existence of 
  evil in the world and the existence of a benevolent 
deity.)

I disagree. The 
rejection of the argument from design is ultimately an issue in the philosophy 
of explanation. How it was presented originally is irrelevant to the question of 
its current status as an argument. A proponent of the argument from design need 
not embrace any theological concepts or arguments or employ any such concepts or 
arguments in formulating the criticism. 

Pace Plantinga, 
the rejection of the argument from design does not involve contending that the 
argument results in a contradiction, necessary or not. Rather, the 
rejection contends that the problem of evil and especially the problem of 
non-human caused suffering shows that positing an intelligent designer is, 
without significant modification, a poor explanation of the origins of our 
world. Criticizing an argument for being a poor explanation has nothing to do 
with "necessary contradiction."

Bobby

Robert Justin 
LipkinProfessor of LawWidener University School of 
LawDelaware
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RE: Findings on Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article




Let me put the question this way for Sandy and Mark: Do they really 
believe it would violate the EC for a public school to assign, say, Behe's 
Darwin's Black Box for a high school science class? Is this 
really the same thing as wanting to teach "malevolent design" or "the Protocols 
of the Elders of Zion" in public school?

I 
would have no objection at all to assigning the Behe book in a section on 
"pseudo science," perhaps together with a phrenology text or an astrological 
one. But I presume this is not the kind of response thatRick 
wants. (Similarly, I would certainly consider assigning the Protocols in a 
course on 20th century intellectual history in a unit on "vicious 
propaganda.") The debate 
really isn't about the abstract possibility of assigning just about anything 
under the sun. It's about the "purpose" of assignment.I see no 
reason at all to require biology teachers to "teach" a book that, presumably, 
most of them disdain. It would be the equivalent of forcing me to teach 
Lynn Cheney's view of American history without being able to portray it as the 
very exemplar of biased, tendentious, ideological history.

sandy
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RE: Findings on Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article




I believe the only proper response of a biologist or 
physicist is that the question of whether there is any "meaning" or "point" to 
life, either in general or in particular, is the subject of a different 
course. A physician qua physician simply has no professional competence to 
say, "I'm sure you're son is in heaven" OR "You're son's life has no meaning 
other than the meaning you choose to give it." 

Indeed, I think it is widely agreed that for a scientist 
nothing whatsoever follows from accepting divine creation, unless, of course, 
one teaches "miracles" and other suspensions of ordinary scientific 
propositions. But if science indeed consists of testable propositions, 
there is, I believe, nothing at all testable about ID. Query, assume that 
someone says that the Constitution of the US was in fact written by God. 
Would that have any consequences at all for how we interpret the document? 
For an answer that the answer is no, see the entire history of Talmudic 
interpretation.

sandy


From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Scarberry, 
MarkSent: Friday, August 19, 2005 12:55 PMTo: 'Law  
Religion issues for Law Academics'Subject: RE: Findings on Hostility 
at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article


If the argument from 
design was demolished in the 18th Century, as Sandy argues, then it must 
have been on philosophical or religious grounds, rather than scientific ones. 
Darwin's On the Origin of 
Species was not published until 1859. See, e.g., http://pages.britishlibrary.net/charles.darwin/texts/origin1859/origin_fm.html. 
If intelligent design was ruled out on nonscientific grounds, then one might ask 
whether that "ruling out" itself violates the Establishment Clause. Note that 
the second part of Bobby's explanation of why intelligent design was rejected is 
an explicitly theological argument about the nature of any posited deity. 
(Aside: I believe many philosophers have accepted that Alvin Plantinga has shown 
that there is no necessary contradiction between the existence of evil in the 
world and the existence of a benevolent deity.)

On the general question 
of intelligent design, here is a comment (written, I think, by Amitai Etzioni) 
from the Communitarian Network's e-mail newsletter (Communitarian Letter #2, 
8/19/2005) with respect to 
intelligent design:

Intelligent Design: A 
common ground?


Progressives are up 
in arms about the movement to teach Intelligent Design in public schools. 
They depict advocates of ID as Machiavellians trying to sneak creationism into 
the curriculum. They roundly condemn these people.

At the same time, 
progressives are recognizing that many Americans are concerned about values in 
general, often religious, spiritual and transcendental matters. How was 
the world FIRST created? Where are we destined to go? Why are we 
born to die?

Attempts to answer 
such questions in solely scientific terms are not going to do the trick. 
Whatever science tells us, those of us who are looking for normative answers 
will not be satisfied. To tell a grieving parent that their child died 
because his heart failed does not address the question they are asking. 
Similarly, to tell people concerned about where we came from and where we are 
headed, that we came from apes and going to become worm feed, does not cut it. 


Many scientists, when 
not in a confrontational mood, admit that there are normative questions science 
cannot and is not meant to address. Call these questions 
"otherwordly." As long as ID advocates raise these questions and wonder if 
they do not point us to a master creator, there is no reason I can see to oppose 
them. However, if they proceed to claim that they have "The Answer," and 
of course if they try to force creationism into the curricula, then the time is 
right to say "wait a moment, not in our public schools."


What are your 
thoughts and comments on this topic? Please let us know by emailing your 
ideas to [EMAIL PROTECTED].






Mark S. 
Scarberry
Pepperdine University 
School of Law

-Original 
Message-From: 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] 
Sent: Friday, August 19, 2005 
10:03 AMTo: 
religionlaw@lists.ucla.eduSubject: Re: Findings on Hostility at 
Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article



In a 
message dated 8/19/2005 11:41:05 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

  But, of 
  course, ID is not a new idea. It is the classic "argument from design" 
  that was put forth (and, for most of us, demolished) in the 18th 
  century.

The 
standard demolition is twofold: (1)anything having any integrity at all 
will exhibit patterns and structures. If so, the fact of design--patterns 
and structures--doesn't provide any evidence of a designer. (Statistical 
analysis of the probabilities of this particular pattern being random is always 
enormously controversial.) (2) If there is a designer, the problem ofevil 
and suffering is surely triggered. For example, why would a morally decent

RE: Findings on Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article

2005-08-19 Thread Rick Duncan

Sandy reads the EC as requiring a book, that could lawfully be taught in the public schools,to belabelled"pseudo science"before being assigned.This view of Sandy's about the ECstrikes me as "pseudo law." 

Cheers, Rick DuncanSanford Levinson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


Let me put the question this way for Sandy and Mark: Do they really believe it would violate the EC for a public school to assign, say, Behe's Darwin's Black Box for a high school science class? Is this really the same thing as wanting to teach "malevolent design" or "the Protocols of the Elders of Zion" in public school?

I would have no objection at all to assigning the Behe book in a section on "pseudo science," perhaps together with a phrenology text or an astrological one. But I presume this is not the kind of response thatRick wants. (Similarly, I would certainly consider assigning the Protocols in a course on 20th century intellectual history in a unit on "vicious propaganda.") The debate really isn't about the abstract possibility of assigning just about anything under the sun. It's about the "purpose" of assignment.I see no reason at all to require biology teachers to "teach" a book that, presumably, most of them disdain. It would be the equivalent of forcing me to teach Lynn Cheney's view of American history without being able to portray it as the very exemplar of biased, tendentious, ideological history.

sandy___To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.eduTo subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlawPlease note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.Rick Duncan Welpton Professor of Law University of Nebraska College of Law Lincoln, NE 68583-0902"When the Round Table is broken every man must follow either Galahad or Mordred: middle things are gone." C.S.Lewis, Grand Miracle"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered."  --The Prisoner
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RE: Findings on Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article




I don't think the Establishment Clause requires that 
labelling; I think that respect for science requires it. Indeed, I think 
it might violate the EC to force teachers who reject ID to present it as 
"serious science" instead of theology masking as science.

I have no objection at all to teaching the history of 
Christianity in the public schools. Indeed, I think that students need to 
be more aware than they are of the history oftheological possibilities, as 
part of their general education.But I would object very strongly to 
presenting abook that presupposes that Jesus is the Messiah, 
instead of someone who is thought by millions of people to be the 
Messiah.

I commend, incidentally, the New Republic article for 
whichMichael Masinter gave the link. It's a superb, and I believe 
devastating, review. 

sandy


From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Rick 
DuncanSent: Friday, August 19, 2005 3:21 PMTo: Law  
Religion issues for Law AcademicsSubject: RE: Findings on Hostility 
at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article

Sandy reads the EC as requiring a book, that could lawfully be taught in 
the public schools,to belabelled"pseudo science"before 
being assigned.This view of Sandy's about the ECstrikes me as 
"pseudo law." 

Cheers, Rick DuncanSanford Levinson 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

  
  Let me put the question this way for Sandy and Mark: Do they really 
  believe it would violate the EC for a public school to assign, say, Behe's 
  Darwin's Black Box for a high school science class? Is this 
  really the same thing as wanting to teach "malevolent design" or "the 
  Protocols of the Elders of Zion" in public school?
  
  I 
  would have no objection at all to assigning the Behe book in a section on 
  "pseudo science," perhaps together with a phrenology text or an astrological 
  one. But I presume this is not the kind of response thatRick 
  wants. (Similarly, I would certainly consider assigning the Protocols in 
  a course on 20th century intellectual history in a unit on "vicious 
  propaganda.") The debate 
  really isn't about the abstract possibility of assigning just about anything 
  under the sun. It's about the "purpose" of assignment.I see no 
  reason at all to require biology teachers to "teach" a book that, presumably, 
  most of them disdain. It would be the equivalent of forcing me to teach 
  Lynn Cheney's view of American history without being able to portray it as the 
  very exemplar of biased, tendentious, ideological history.
  
  sandy___To 
  post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.eduTo subscribe, unsubscribe, 
  change options, or get password, see 
  http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlawPlease note 
  that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can 
  subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the 
  Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages 
  to others.Rick Duncan Welpton Professor of Law 
University of Nebraska College of Law Lincoln, NE 
68583-0902"When the Round Table is broken every man must follow either 
Galahad or Mordred: middle things are gone." C.S.Lewis, Grand Miracle"I 
will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered." 
--The Prisoner


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Re: Findings on Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article





In a message dated 8/19/2005 4:15:55 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
A physician qua 
  physician simply has no professional competence to say, "I'm sure you're son 
  is in heaven" OR "You're son's life has no meaning other than the meaning you 
  choose to give it." 

No professional competence to provide comfort? Sometimes when I read 
this list, I think I've fallen into a Dean Koontz novel. The rise of the 
healing arts was surely more rapid because the Hippocratic Oath assured patients 
that the physician had a good heart, not an evil one, or, in the case of Sandy's 
physican, no heart at all.

JimHenderson
Senior Counsel
ACLJ
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RE: Findings on Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article




There are all sorts of 
ways to provide comfort. But a nonbelieving physician would simply be 
lying if he/she said "I'm sure you're son is in heaven." S/he could say, 
"I have some sense of how you feel because my own child/parent/sibling died 
recently," or "I can only dimly imagine the grief you must feel, because Tom was 
such a fine child, and I have been spared such a tragedy as occurred to your 
family." I would like to think that I have a heart that I have displayed 
over the years, but I have never lied about the afterlife, about which I believe 
we know absolutely nothing. 

sandy



From: 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED]Sent: Friday, August 19, 2005 3:33 
PMTo: religionlaw@lists.ucla.eduSubject: Re: Findings on 
Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article


In a message dated 8/19/2005 4:15:55 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
A physician qua 
  physician simply has no professional competence to say, "I'm sure you're son 
  is in heaven" OR "You're son's life has no meaning other than the meaning you 
  choose to give it." 

No professional competence to provide comfort? Sometimes when I read 
this list, I think I've fallen into a Dean Koontz novel. The rise of the 
healing arts was surely more rapid because the Hippocratic Oath assured patients 
that the physician had a good heart, not an evil one, or, in the case of Sandy's 
physican, no heart at all.

JimHenderson
Senior Counsel
ACLJ
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Re: Findings on Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article





In a message dated 8/19/2005 4:59:45 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
Jim, it 
  seems to me that your are ignoring the "physician qua physician" part of 
  Sandy's post -- a physician has no special expertise or knowledge or training 
  from her professional training to damn my child to heaven or hell than you 
  do.

Steve,

Actually, I read Sandy's post and understood his meaning. I simply 
stand in amazement at the concept he put forward.

With respect to your observations, it would be odd for a physician to think 
that providing comfort at the time of loss would be accomplished by making an 
observation about the eternal damnation due to any particular person. 


My point is that what Sandy says just doesn't work in the real world of 
patients and physicians. Patients expect more from clinicians; medical 
schools actually teach more.

Jim Henderson
Senior Counsel
ACLJ
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Re: Findings on Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article

2005-08-19 Thread Steven Jamar

I'm sure Sandy understands that and was making quite a different point, as he himself made clear in his follow up.On Aug 19, 2005, at 5:09 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: My point is that what Sandy says just doesn't work in the real world of patients and physicians. Patients expect more from clinicians; medical schools actually teach more. Jim Henderson Senior Counsel ACLJ___To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.eduTo subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlawPlease note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. -- Prof. Steven D. Jamar vox: 202-806-8017 Howard University School of Law fax: 202-806-8428 2900 Van Ness Street NW mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Washington, DC 20008 http://www.law.howard.edu/faculty/pages/jamar "Years ago my mother used to say to me... 'In this world Elwood' ... She always used to call me Elwood... 'In this world Elwood, you must be Oh So Smart, or Oh So Pleasant.' Well for years I was smart -- I recommend pleasant. You may quote me." --Elwood P. Dowd - Mary Chase, "Harvey", 1950 ___
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RE: Findings on Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article

2005-08-19 Thread Rick Duncan

Any scientific theory that needs bad constitutional law to protect its dominace in public schoolsis a theory that may be in trouble. 

Under the EC, it seems clear that a school board could require Behe's book to be taught in science class for the purpose of exposing students to a competing scientific theory. There would be a valid secular purpose (exposing students to the controversy)and it would in no way advance religion to allow a dissenting scientific book to be taught along with the dominant theory. Whether it is good science or bad science is forelected officialsin charge of the schools--not federal courts--to decide. As for teachers having a right to not teach ideas they disdain, how far does Sandy want to take this as a matter of constitutional law? I might go along with you on this one, Sandy!

Of course, parents objecting to Behe's book would have the same right other parents, who object to other parts of the curriculum,have to seek an opt-out for their children. And they would also have the same right as other dissenting parents to exit the public schoolsin favor ofprivate or home education without public funds. Vouchers, anyone?

Cheers, Rick DuncanSanford Levinson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


I don't think the Establishment Clause requires that labelling; I think that respect for science requires it. Indeed, I think it might violate the EC to force teachers who reject ID to present it as "serious science" instead of theology masking as science.

I have no objection at all to teaching the history of Christianity in the public schools. Indeed, I think that students need to be more aware than they are of the history oftheological possibilities, as part of their general education.But I would object very strongly to presenting abook that presupposes that Jesus is the Messiah, instead of someone who is thought by millions of people to be the Messiah.

I commend, incidentally, the New Republic article for whichMichael Masinter gave the link. It's a superb, and I believe devastating, review. 

sandy


From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Rick DuncanSent: Friday, August 19, 2005 3:21 PMTo: Law  Religion issues for Law AcademicsSubject: RE: Findings on Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article

Sandy reads the EC as requiring a book, that could lawfully be taught in the public schools,to belabelled"pseudo science"before being assigned.This view of Sandy's about the ECstrikes me as "pseudo law." 

Cheers, Rick DuncanSanford Levinson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


Let me put the question this way for Sandy and Mark: Do they really believe it would violate the EC for a public school to assign, say, Behe's Darwin's Black Box for a high school science class? Is this really the same thing as wanting to teach "malevolent design" or "the Protocols of the Elders of Zion" in public school?

I would have no objection at all to assigning the Behe book in a section on "pseudo science," perhaps together with a phrenology text or an astrological one. But I presume this is not the kind of response thatRick wants. (Similarly, I would certainly consider assigning the Protocols in a course on 20th century intellectual history in a unit on "vicious propaganda.") The debate really isn't about the abstract possibility of assigning just about anything under the sun. It's about the "purpose" of assignment.I see no reason at all to require biology teachers to "teach" a book that, presumably, most of them disdain. It would be the equivalent of forcing me to teach Lynn Cheney's view of American history without being able to portray it as the very exemplar of biased, tendentious, ideological history.

sandy___To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.eduTo subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlawPlease note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.Rick Duncan Welpton Professor of Law University of Nebraska College of Law Lincoln, NE 68583-0902"When the Round Table is broken every man must follow either Galahad or Mordred: middle things are gone." C.S.Lewis, Grand Miracle"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered." --The Prisoner 


Do you Yahoo!?Yahoo! Mail - Find what you need with new enhanced search. Learn more. ___To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.eduTo subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlawPlease note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or

RE: Findings on Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article

2005-08-19 Thread Ed Darrell

Well, if it could be established that Behe's book had science in it. That's an evidence issue, and so far no one has ever volunteered to defend the book on that ground. This is why the Dover case is so critical to intelligent design -- the defenders of ID have been challenged to present their science.

Any idea that can't make it into science textbooks on the strength of the science supporting it is not science, and shouldn't be sold as such. It is telling that ID is following in the footsteps of creationism, which asked for special privileges from legislatures more than 100 times after 1925 to get into science books on the basis of a law requiring it, when it could not qualify on the strength of any research or observation. ID is similarly research- and field-observation-poor.

Even were an idea very religious, if there were science data to support it, under the Lemon test it would be allowed in science books. Creationism and its younger cousin, ID, both suffer from the fact -- no, strike that -- they suffer from no facts that say "science is here." In that case, there is no valid secular purpose for a law requiring it be taught.

It's not evolution that runs afoul of the EC. There's plenty of research supporting it. There are companies traded on the NYSE whose sole raison d'etre is evolution. In the marketplace of ideas, in the marketplace of science ideas, and in the marketplace, evolution has the substance to qualify as science. If some claim that it frustrates their religion, them's the breaks. 

We have methods for determining good science from bad, or current science from disproven science. Those methods work fine with ID. 

Ed Darrell
DallasRick Duncan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

Any scientific theory that needs bad constitutional law to protect its dominace in public schoolsis a theory that may be in trouble. 

Under the EC, it seems clear that a school board could require Behe's book to be taught in science class for the purpose of exposing students to a competing scientific theory. There would be a valid secular purpose (exposing students to the controversy)and it would in no way advance religion to allow a dissenting scientific book to be taught along with the dominant theory. Whether it is good science or bad science is forelected officialsin charge of the schools--not federal courts--to decide. As for teachers having a right to not teach ideas they disdain, how far does Sandy want to take this as a matter of constitutional law? I might go along with you on this one, Sandy!

Of course, parents objecting to Behe's book would have the same right other parents, who object to other parts of the curriculum,have to seek an opt-out for their children. And they would also have the same right as other dissenting parents to exit the public schoolsin favor ofprivate or home education without public funds. Vouchers, anyone?

Cheers, Rick DuncanSanford Levinson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


I don't think the Establishment Clause requires that labelling; I think that respect for science requires it. Indeed, I think it might violate the EC to force teachers who reject ID to present it as "serious science" instead of theology masking as science.

I have no objection at all to teaching the history of Christianity in the public schools. Indeed, I think that students need to be more aware than they are of the history oftheological possibilities, as part of their general education.But I would object very strongly to presenting abook that presupposes that Jesus is the Messiah, instead of someone who is thought by millions of people to be the Messiah.

I commend, incidentally, the New Republic article for whichMichael Masinter gave the link. It's a superb, and I believe devastating, review. 

sandy


From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Rick DuncanSent: Friday, August 19, 2005 3:21 PMTo: Law  Religion issues for Law AcademicsSubject: RE: Findings on Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article

Sandy reads the EC as requiring a book, that could lawfully be taught in the public schools,to belabelled"pseudo science"before being assigned.This view of Sandy's about the ECstrikes me as "pseudo law." 

Cheers, Rick DuncanSanford Levinson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


Let me put the question this way for Sandy and Mark: Do they really believe it would violate the EC for a public school to assign, say, Behe's Darwin's Black Box for a high school science class? Is this really the same thing as wanting to teach "malevolent design" or "the Protocols of the Elders of Zion" in public school?

I would have no objection at all to assigning the Behe book in a section on "pseudo science," perhaps together with a phrenology text or an astrological one. But I presume this is not the kind of response thatRick wants. (Similarly, I would certainly consider assigning the Protocols in a course on 20th century intellectual history in a unit on "vicious propaganda.") The debate really isn't about the abstract possibility

Re: Findings on Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article





In a message dated 8/19/2005 5:50:57 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
There 
  are companies traded on the NYSE whose sole raison d'etre is 
  evolution.

This observation, is, frankly, strange to me. The meaning of the EC 
is derived from placing one's future public trading availability in the hands of 
an organization that pays its departing Chair exorbitant severance 
packages. Things have certainly evolved.

Jim Henderson
Senior Counsel
ACLJ
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Re: Findings on Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article





In a message dated 8/19/2005 5:50:57 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
We have 
  methods for determining good science from bad, or current science from 
  disproven science. 

Here we agree and disagree. Utter silence from that side of the aisle 
when I mentioned the long-discredited ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny 
nonsense. Good science doesn't look to the hopeful monster.

Jim Henderson
Senior Counsel
ACLJ
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RE: Findings on Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article

2005-08-19 Thread Michael MASINTER

Rick's question below proceeds from a false premise; public school
classrooms are not the public square.  None of the posts have suggested
that ID should be banned from the public square; the first amendment
pretty obviously would forbid that, and on that point I suspect we would
all agree.

I see no evidence that anyone is seeking to suppress ID.  What I have seen
is a concerted effort to debunk ID's claim to be science.  Were ID
presented simply as a matter of religious faith, it would engender no
controversy, but then no plausible argument could be made for including it
as part of a science curriculum.  The controversy over ID isn't about
religious faith; it's about the introduction of poorly disguised religious
doctrine into a science class.  The place to teach the controversy is in a
course that explores the role of the religion clauses in our system of
government, not in a science class.


Michael R. Masinter 3305 College Avenue
Professor of LawFort Lauderdale, FL 33314
Nova Southeastern University(954) 262-6151 (voice)
Shepard Broad Law Center(954) 262-3835 (fax)
[EMAIL PROTECTED]   Chair, ACLU of Florida Legal Panel

On Fri, 19 Aug 2005, Rick Duncan wrote:

 Mark and Sandy are just making my 1A point for me. They ridicule and
 disparage ID in an attempt to marginalize it and keep it out of the
 public square. Let me put the question this way for Sandy and Mark: Do
 they really believe it would violate the EC for a public school to
 assign, say, Behe's Darwin's Black Box for a high school science
 class? Is this really the same thing as wanting to teach malevolent
 design or the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in public school?  
 It just makes me all the more certain that the attempt to suppress ID
 is merely a product of cultural power. Phil Johnson calls scientific
 naturalism the new established religious philosophy of America and
 goes on to say that like the old [established] philosophy, the new
 one is tolerant only up to a point, specifically the point where its
 own right to rule the public square is threatened. He continues: The
 establishment of a particular religious philosophy does not imply that
 competing philosophies are outlawed, but rather that they are
 relegated to a marginal position in private life. The marginalization
 is most effective when formal; government actions are supplemented by
 a variety of intimadating acts by nongovernmental institutions such as
 the news media.
 
  I think Phil is right. His book, Reason in the Balance, is still my
 must read for college students thinking about law school.
  
 Cheers, Rick
 
 
 
 
 
 Rick Duncan 
 Welpton Professor of Law 
 University of Nebraska College of Law 
 Lincoln, NE 68583-0902
 
 When the Round Table is broken every man must follow either Galahad or 
 Mordred: middle things are gone. C.S.Lewis, Grand Miracle
 
 I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or 
 numbered.  --The Prisoner
   
 -
  Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page 




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RE: Findings on Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article





Rick 
writes:
Whether it is good science or bad science is forelected 
officialsin charge of the schools--not federal courts--to decide. 

This is actually quite a bizarre notion. It may be, as a 
matter of constitutional law, that public school officials have the legal right 
to make all sorts of rationally indefensible decisions. (Certainly 
presidents seem to have that right!) But it is a logical error to say that 
scientifically ignorant elected officials have the competence to determine what 
is "good science or bad science," unless one accepts a radically populist 
epistemology that simply foregoes any notion of expert knowledge. This is 
not only the view that everyone has a right to his/her own opinion, but, rather, 
that there is really no way to tell the difference between defensible and 
indefensible views beyond putting it up to the majority vote of a school board, 
state legislature, etc. It is like the (apocryphal?) Indiana legislature 
that legislated a new number for pi because it's so troublesome to view it as a 
number literally without end. 

As a "constitutional protestant," I do not in fact believe that one 
needs to go to law school (or be a lawyer) in order to say cogent things about 
the Constitution. But I am not a "medical protestant"; i.e., I do in fact 
expect people who call themselves "doctors" to have gone to medical school and 
to offer advice within the accepted conventions of medical practice. (At 
this point, we could segue into a discussion, once more, of Christian Science, 
which is not, in any rational sense "science," even if one believes that it is 
entitled to a certain degree of accommodation under the Free Exercise 
Clause.) 

When judges decide what is "good science or bad science," they are 
not, I believe, making "first-order" decisions. Rick is absolutely correct 
that the typical federal judge has no more competence in scientific matters than 
any other lay person. But what the judges do is to listen to people who 
are certified by the community as "real scientists" and to determine whether 
there is a genuine controvversy within the community of "real scientists" as to 
what is the case. Given my own post-modernist tendencies, I am happy to 
concede that "real science" is "socially constructed" and the like. But, 
as Stanley Fish and many others have pointed out, rejection of certain 
foundationalist philosophies has "no consequences" for the way one actually acts 
in the world, and I still prefer to go to certified MDs when I have an illness 
rather than the neighbor next door. 

I continue to wonder what Rick's views are about teaching astrology 
as an "interesting" (and legitimate?) alternative to ordinary explanations of 
explaining events. 

sandy
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Re: Findings on Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article

2005-08-19 Thread Ed Darrell

But of course, the issue here is whether that's exactly so. In Texas, a group of biologists argued with publishers to get rid of ancient drawings. What was substituted was actual photographs that some would argue show that. It's not that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny -- but it is that embryonic development very clearly demonstrates some of the evolutionary links. Critics of evolution don't want the links shown, accurately or inaccurately.

The relationship of the brachial arches in different mammals, for example, demonstrates evolutionary heritage. Critics complain it's inaccurate to call them gill slits. Well, yeah -- they only develop into gills in gilled animals. But the heritage relationship is shown whether they are labeled correctly or not.

So, you can holler all you want to about ontogeny and phylogeny. The facts are that the brachial arches demonstrate that giraffes and all other mammals share a heritage with sharks and fishes (especially with regard to the vagus nerve and the aorta). That heritage relationship is what the critics don't want shown, under any name, accurate or not.

No textbook in the past decade, and maybe in the past 40 years, that I have found, claims ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. It's a red herring (there are those fish again!) to claim that is an issue in evolution classes. It's not.

Good criticism would stop claiming a hopeful monster where we're instead talking about the vagus nerve, which is quite real in all mammals, and sharks, and fishes.

Ed Darrell
Dallas[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

In a message dated 8/19/2005 5:50:57 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
We have methods for determining good science from bad, or current science from disproven science.

Here we agree and disagree. Utter silence from that side of the aisle when I mentioned the long-discredited ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny nonsense. Good science doesn't look to the hopeful monster.

Re: Findings on Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article

2005-08-19 Thread Ed Darrell

Yes, the blood clotting example is testable in field observations. It turns out that some mammals lack some of the things Dr. Behe termed critical, or "irreducibly complex," and yet their blood coagulates just the same (some dolphins, for example). Deeper investigation reveals several different ways by which creatures can staunch bleeding, and these things were known by 1990.

So, I'd be happy to put up Dr. Behe's claim that the cascade is irreducibly complex, a claim which he has never put forward in any science forum -- and contrast it with what is known and what is published on blood coagulation by scientists who do publish their findings. One AP biology book has a page that debunks several such claims. ID advocates complained that the book should not be used in any biology class, as I recall.

Dr. Ken Miller demonstrated that mousetraps are not irreducibly complex on Bill Buckley's old Firing Line!, in a debate. I'd be happy to show that video in biology classes, too.

The evidence, if analyzed, supports evolution. It is my impression that critics of evolution do not really want a critical analysis of the evidence on either side, but instead want a statement to the effect that Darwin was wrong.

We have a multi-faith, ecumenical group here in Dallas that analyzed biology books for the last go 'round in Texas. Some of the reviewers follow Islam, and one of those people summarized the issue quite succinctly: They would not favor any textbook that says biology shows there is no God, or no role for God to play in evolution. The testimony of the Dallas Textbook Coalition was made with their blessing, after careful analysis of the books.

But that is not enough for some people. It's not enough that the door be left open for God; they demand that the door be shut on Darwin. The evidence in the books (and in the field, and in the lab) leaves lots of room for God, but doesn't say Darwin got it wrong. Those are the books that are complained about in Cobb County, Georgia, in Darby, Montana, in Ohio, in Kansas, and in Dover, Pennsylvania.

These are evidence issues, I think. In a fair fight, the evidence is solidly in back of Darwinian ideas.

Ed Darrell
Dallas[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

In a message dated 8/19/2005 6:02:46 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
What I have seenis a concerted effort to debunk ID's claim to be science.

I wonder.

In Darwin's Black Box, a description is offered of the cascade of proteins and hormones that are released when the integrity of the epidermis is disrupted (when the skin is cut). The proposition is offered that were conditions wrong, the clotting begun as a result of this cascade would continue until the blood system was entirely clotted, or no clotting would begin and eventually the blood would run entirely out.

Is this a testable hypothesis? Are there measurable phenomenon? It seems to me that a discussion prompted by that illustration belongs in a science class. Moreover, it seems to me that an inquiry prompted by it belongs in a lab.

I thought about the mouse trap example in Darwin's Black Box while walking through my local big box bargain grocery. The store had a "dollar days" display, everything in it, item by item, only a dollar. One of the items was a three pack of mouse traps, three mousetraps for a dollar. I have set a fair number of mouse traps, rat traps, and small animal traps in my life; first doing field ecology studies in college, then in ridding myself of the critters while living in the country. The mousetraps offered 3 for a dollar were obviously an evolutionary predecessor of those that I had used. The materials and workmanship were of a less functional, less efficient and less effective class. The oddity, of course, is that these evolutionary ancestors of the modern mousetrap were "living" not three aisles over from a colony of their descendents.

Re: Findings on Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article





In a message dated 8/19/2005 6:26:19 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:


No 
  textbook in the past decade, and maybe in the past 40 years, that I have 
  found, claims ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. It's a red herring 
  (there are those fish again!) to claim that is an issue in evolution 
  classes. It's not.

Of course, over time the specifics change. Eventually, my professor 
will have gone into the land of emeriti and future generation of students taking 
that class will not be entertained by his misconception. But in 1980 (not 
40 years ago, yet) at college in North Carolina, one dinosaur taught it just 
this way.

Oh, and by the way, as recently as the 2003 MCAT, that gatekeeper to 
medical education has tested, or had as a possible subject of testing, ontogeny 
recapitulates phylogeny. See http://www.aamc.org/students/mcat/studentmanual/biologicalsciences/biology.pdf.

Jim Henderson
Senior Counsel
ACLJ
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Re: Findings on Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article






  The relationship of the brachial arches in different mammals, for 
  example, demonstrates evolutionary heritage. Critics complain it's 
  inaccurate to call them gill slits. Well, yeah -- they only develop into 
  gills in gilled animals. But the heritage relationship is shown whether 
  they are labeled correctly or not. 
  
  So, you can holler all you want to about ontogeny and phylogeny. 
  The facts are that the brachial arches demonstrate that giraffes and all other 
  mammals share a heritage with sharks and fishes (especially with regard to the 
  vagus nerve and the aorta). That heritage relationship is what the 
  critics don't want shown, under any name, accurate or 
not.

You say that similarity of structures demonstrates evolutionary 
heritage. I say that art experts testify, even in court cases, that 
similarity of form is evidence of common design and origin;"this painting 
is a Van Gogh," they tell us, and with experience and study, they identify the 
period of the artist's life in which it was created. Commonality certainly 
suggests common origin, but what is the basis in science for disputing common 
designer?

You call"critics" those that complain that it is "inaccurate" to 
"call them gill slits." Language matters. How can science be served 
by making words meaningless. Because gills are related in some way 
(functionality) to lungs, why not call them lungs. In fact, why not 
pretend, all of us, that our lungs are gills? We can jump into the ocean, 
and conduct an empirical observation of whether calling something gills makes 
them gills.

Jim Henderson
Senior Counsel
ACLJ
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Re: Findings on Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article


Rick Duncan wrote:

I am not (nor do I have any desire to be) a scientist. But I do teach 
and write about free speech, and when I hear that the powers that be 
are trying to suppress a new idea, my 1A instincts are triggered and 
go into high gear.
 
Such is the case with ID--when I read about people trying to discredit 
ID scholars and trying to prevent ID scholarship from being published 
or taught, I ask myself what are they so afraid of? Why not 
have symposium issues of science journals devoted to debates between 
the best ID scholars and their critics? Why not welcome ID scholars on 
university faculties in the name of intellectual diversity and 
open-mindedness? Why the mockery and suppression rather than a fair 
and free debate?



This simply is not an accurate description of the reality here. I know 
it's what the ID crowd continually claims, that they are the victims of 
a Stalinist or Nazi Darwinian priesthood that is out to destroy 
them, but that claim simply does not stand up to scrutiny. The Meyer 
article that was at issue here should never have been published, for 
several reasons. First, it was wildly inaccurate in its representation 
of the state of evolutionary science (I've posted a link to a thorough 
critique of the claims in the article, to which there has been no reply 
from the DI other than we'll reply later). Second, it contained 
nothing at all in the way of actual research, or a model from which such 
research might be derived. Third, the central thesis of the article was, 
quite literally, nonsensical. Meyer attempted to claim that one could 
measure the complex specified information (CSI) present in fossils 
from the Cambrian, but that is a completely nonsensical idea. Even if 
Dembski's ideas about CSI are legitimate (and they've been pretty much 
thoroughly debunked by everyone outside the ID movement and have never 
been applied to any biological artifact successfully), at the very least 
it would require that one begin with a probability calculation and none 
is possible when the only evidence you have to go on is fossilized. The 
article was little more than a collection of catchphrases applied where 
they don't belong, there was no actual scientific content to it. At 
best, it was a series of criticisms, and highly inaccurate criticisms at 
that, of evolutionary theory. If this is what passes for ID 
scholarship, there's a very good reason why it doesn't get published in 
science journals - not because the Stalinist Darwinian Priests are 
intent on destroying mom and apple pie, but because there isn't anything 
there worth publishing.


Scientists love good debates and they love testing new ideas. If there 
was an actual ID model that could be tested, they'd be climbing all over 
themselves trying to find ways to test it. But there is none. The 
Discovery Institute spends its money not on actual research but on 
hiring PR firms to get their ideas heard (they just hired a large PR 
firm, the same one that represents ATT and, interestingly, the Swift 
Boat Vets for Truth). That simply isn't how science operates. ID is a 
very successful public relations campaign; as science, it has 
contributed nothing at all to our understanding of the natural world. 
And rather than getting to work on establishing an ID model or theory 
and devising ways to test it, they spend all their time complaining 
about imagined persecution.


Ed Brayton


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Re: Findings on Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article





[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

  
  
  
  
  In a message dated 8/19/2005 5:50:57 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
  We have methods for determining good science from bad, or
current science from disproven science. 
  
  Here we agree and disagree. Utter silence from that side of the
aisle when I mentioned the long-discredited ontogeny recapitulates
phylogeny nonsense. Good science doesn't look to the hopeful monster.
  

Where on earth did this come from? Yes, the notion that ontogeny
recapitulates phylogeny has long been discredited. It hasn't been in
the textbooks in a good half century. And the hopeful monster notion
was never taken seriously in the first place and is not a part of
evolutionary theory at all. So what exactly did you expect other than
"utter silence"? The two things you mentioned have nothing at all to do
with the validity of evolutionary theory or its status as a compelling
scientific explanation.

Ed Brayton


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Version: 7.0.338 / Virus Database: 267.10.12/77 - Release Date: 8/18/05
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Re: Findings on Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article





[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

  
  
  
  
  In Darwin's Black Box, a description is offered of the cascade
of proteins and hormones that are released when the integrity of the
epidermis is disrupted (when the skin is cut). The proposition is
offered that were conditions wrong, the clotting begun as a result of
this cascade would continue until the blood system was entirely
clotted, or no clotting would begin and eventually the blood would run
entirely out.
  
  Is this a testable hypothesis? Are there measurable
phenomenon? It seems to me that a discussion prompted by that
illustration belongs in a science class. Moreover, it seems to me that
an inquiry prompted by it belongs in a lab.
  

And it has already been falsified. Behe shows all of the various
proteins that are necessary for blood clotting to function and claims
that if any one of those proteins was not present, blood would not clot
and the system would not function. He was wrong. Dolphins, for example,
lack one of the proteins he says is necessary - Hagemman factor - and
their blood clots just fine. Hence, it cannot possibly be an
irreducibly complex system. Indeed, the type of research that can test
Behe's ideas is performed all the time through "knockout" experiments -
you knock out or disable a particular component of a complex system and
see what happens. More often than not, within a few generations the
function has re-evolved with a different protein being coopted to
perform the missing function. This strongly suggests that such
biochemical systems are not nearly as brittle as "irreducible
complexity" suggests. The other difficulty is that, at its core, IC is
what Dawkins accurately calls an "argument from personal incredulity".
It amounts to "I can't imagine how trait X might have evolved,
therefore God must have done it." But if you give a perfectly plausible
account for how a complex biochemical system might have evolved,
complete with tracing the possible mutations, locating gene
duplications, and so forth, the answer is always, "But you can't prove
that it actually happened that way". Well, that's true. If the only
thing that could possibly satisfy a skeptic of how, say, the blood
clotting cascade may have evolved is a videotape of the entire process
as it evolved in species that went extinct hundreds of millions of
years ago, there is nothing that could possibly satisfy them. 

Ed Brayton


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Re: Findings on Hostility at Smithsonian Noted in NRO Article