Search the Taxacom archive · Browse by month · Mirror of the former lists.ku.edu archive (1992–2025)

[Taxacom] "intelligent" design

John Grehan calabar.john at gmail.com
Mon Jan 4 21:06:23 CST 2021 

Fred - you hit the nail on the head about a "refutation like that isn't
going to influence anyone". People believe what they want to believe and
that's just how it is. For example, I believe that panbiogeography is a
superior approach to evolution in space and time than its competitors. But
most others believe the contrary, and probably view me certifiably
insane (or a creationist as Waters and his colleagues claim). So I say what
of it? If people are happy with creationism -or intelligent design, then
say OK, if that is what makes you happy go for it. Might be interesting to
ask how they chose between competing theories of intelligent design and
creationism (e.g Old Age or New Age creationists, which God was involved
etc.). Me, I'll stick with evolution simply because it is not just a boring
monologue on one point of view (even though some would like it that way :)

Perhaps not the best example, but following quote from a politician
responsible for election oversight in the US providing an interesting
response to ingrained beliefs (my referencing this makes no implication
about political views, just how beliefs may be addressed in a particular
context):

"One of the things specifically I’ve had to argue with people whom I’ve
known for 20 years, they say, ‘Well, we feel like our election was stolen.
We feel like our votes don’t count.’ I say, ‘OK, I’m not acknowledging the
election was stolen because it wasn’t. I’m not acknowledging there was
massive voter fraud because there wasn’t, but if you believe in your heart
of hearts that there was, the best thing for you to do is to turn out and
vote and make it harder for them to steal. If that’s what you genuinely
believe, turn out and vote.’”

Cheers, John Grehan

On Mon, Jan 4, 2021 at 9:22 PM Frederick W. Schueler via Taxacom <
taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> wrote:

> On 04-Jan.-21 1:09 p.m., Peter Uetz via Taxacom wrote:
>
> >  Apart from that, we don’t have to explain here why ID is nonsense:
> there is no evidence for it.
>
> * well, that's the problem. A refutation like that isn't going to
> influence someone who is naive about population genetics, and has read
> these Cambrian denialists burbling that there just wasn't enough time
> for phyla to emerge without some divine nudge.
>
> My friend who writes "Behe is a firm supporter of intelligent design and
> his book provides strong evidence from the recent  experimental results
> that our conventional Darwinian assumptions do not work" is a
> chemical/environmental scientist.
>
> I googled on some of the words in his e-mail and came up with
> this from 2010 - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3721655/
> - which takes out the blood-clotting 'irreducible complexity' of Behe's
> first book while chastising the slapdashedness of many of the defenders
> of conventional evolutionary theory.
>
> I think the problem is that Behe's apparent lack of any concept of
> either patterns of biological diversity or of geological time makes his
> ideas absurd to biologists, who then have a hard time explaining the
> absurdity to nonbiologists.
>
> I will continue to look around for thoughtful reviews of Behe's recent
> book, and will eventually need to read it before engaging with the local
> group...
>
> fred.
> =======================>
> > One refutation of ID comes from Behe's own department at Lehigh
> University,
> > where ALL of his colleagues signed a statement that they reject his
> “theories”:
> > https://www.lehigh.edu/~inbios/News/evolution.html <
> https://www.lehigh.edu/~inbios/News/evolution.html>
> >
> > Apart from that, we don’t have to explain here why ID is nonsense: there
> is no evidence for it.
> > Creationists, of course, claim that there is no evidence for evolution.
> > I usually point out to them that there are at least 5 million studies
> supporting evolution:
> >
> https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=evolution&btnG=&oq=evo
> <
> https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&q=evolution&btnG=&oq=evo
> >
> > and they should read those first before they make that claim again :)
> >
> >
> >
> >> ------------------------------
> >>
> >> Message: 3
> >> Date: Mon, 4 Jan 2021 11:44:45 -0500
> >> From: "Frederick W. Schueler" <bckcdb at istar.ca <mailto:bckcdb at istar.ca
> >>
> >> To: "taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu <mailto:taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>" <
> taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu <mailto:taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>>
> >> Subject: [Taxacom] "intelligent" design
> >> Message-ID: <58d7e6a4-56ea-a6e0-cd7f-619cb9563697 at istar.ca <mailto:
> 58d7e6a4-56ea-a6e0-cd7f-619cb9563697 at istar.ca>>
> >> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
> >>
> >> Taxacomers,
> >>
> >> I've received this e-mail from a friend -
> >>
> >> "Just finished a new Christmas present book by Michael Behe. It is a
> >> review of recent results about the molecular level in how evolution
> >> proceeds. Behe is a firm supporter of intelligent design and his book
> >> provides strong evidence from the recent  experimental results that our
> >> conventional Darwinian assumptions do not work. I recommend the book.
> >> Having done some thinking about the Cambrian 'explosion' in biological
> >> forms there seems to be evidence for the 'angels...'”
> >>
> >> I wonder if I could be pointed at a serious, non-mocking, refutation of
> >> the supposed population genetics arguments of intelligent designers?
> >>
> >> fred.
> >> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >>           Frederick W. Schueler & Aleta Karstad
> >>           Fragile Inheritance Natural History
> >> Mudpuppy Night in Oxford Mills -
> https://www.facebook.com/MudpuppyNight/ <
> https://www.facebook.com/MudpuppyNight/>
> >> NatureMatch concentration game - https://naturematch.ca/ <
> https://naturematch.ca/>
> >> 'Daily' Paintings - http://karstaddailypaintings.blogspot.com/ <
> http://karstaddailypaintings.blogspot.com/>
> >> 4&6 St-Lawrence Street Bishops Mills, RR#2 Oxford Station, Ontario K0G
> 1T0
> >>    on the Smiths Falls Limestone Plain  44.87156° N 75.70095° W
> >> (613)258-3107 <bckcdb at istar.ca <http://istar.ca/>>
> http://pinicola.ca/ <http://pinicola.ca/>
> >> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >> current newsletter -
> >>
> https://clt1233162.bmeurl.co/B73C8AA?fbclid=IwAR1q_xhMhpvCPee_j3_n-WNP83hlAOA4fkBDLFDBySzpZyWYBr9FLkHfeMA
> <
> https://clt1233162.bmeurl.co/B73C8AA?fbclid=IwAR1q_xhMhpvCPee_j3_n-WNP83hlAOA4fkBDLFDBySzpZyWYBr9FLkHfeMA
> >
> >>
> >>
> >
> > ————————————————————————————————————
> > Peter Uetz
> > Center for Biological Data Science (CeBiDaS)
> > (formerly Center for the Study of Biological Complexity)
> > Virginia Commonwealth University
> > Richmond, VA 23284
> > USA
> >
> > Reptile Database (http://www.reptile-database.org <
> http://www.reptile-database.org/>)
> > http://people.vcu.edu/~uetz/ <http://people.vcu.edu/~uetz/>
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Taxacom Mailing List
> >
> > Send Taxacom mailing list submissions to: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> > For list information; to subscribe or unsubscribe, visit:
> http://mailman.nhm.ku.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/taxacom
> > You can reach the person managing the list at:
> taxacom-owner at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> > The Taxacom email archive back to 1992 can be searched at:
> http://taxacom.markmail.org
> >
> > Nurturing nuance while assaulting ambiguity for about 33 years,
> 1987-2020.
> >
>
> --
> ------------------------------------------------------------
>           Frederick W. Schueler & Aleta Karstad
>           Fragile Inheritance Natural History
> Mudpuppy Night in Oxford Mills - https://www.facebook.com/MudpuppyNight/
> NatureMatch concentration game - https://naturematch.ca/
> 'Daily' Paintings - http://karstaddailypaintings.blogspot.com/
> 4&6 St-Lawrence Street Bishops Mills, RR#2 Oxford Station, Ontario K0G 1T0
>    on the Smiths Falls Limestone Plain  44.87156° N 75.70095° W
> (613)258-3107 <bckcdb at istar.ca> http://pinicola.ca/
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> current newsletter -
>
> https://clt1233162.bmeurl.co/B73C8AA?fbclid=IwAR1q_xhMhpvCPee_j3_n-WNP83hlAOA4fkBDLFDBySzpZyWYBr9FLkHfeMA
> _______________________________________________
> Taxacom Mailing List
>
> Send Taxacom mailing list submissions to: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> For list information; to subscribe or unsubscribe, visit:
> http://mailman.nhm.ku.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/taxacom
> You can reach the person managing the list at:
> taxacom-owner at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> The Taxacom email archive back to 1992 can be searched at:
> http://taxacom.markmail.org
>
> Nurturing nuance while assaulting ambiguity for about 33 years, 1987-2020.
>

More information about the Taxacom mailing list