Hi there Seagoon. I know ya said you needed a break from the forums, but OTOH I think it was the more man-all-battlestations confrontational "discussions" that caused it, so I'll allow myself to respond.
We could turn this into a my-linklist is bigger than yours competition, but I'd rather address some other points first
I am someone who was once a strident believer in Darwinian evolution, many of the scientists currently on the fringes of the ID movement were as well. For most of them, it is not ignoring the facts that caused them to change their minds. Rather it is the fact that the old Darwinian paradigm can no longer explain the available data, and therefore they are searching for a paradigm that can.
Darwin's theory of evolution, as first presented, had major issues it did not explain or had a suggestion for. Punctuated Equlibrium, for instance, is a much later addition (Gould). The observance of speciation has also come late, compared to Darwin.
Morphological evidence, while scarce, has become more readily available and can be subjected to more rigious tests, applying past knowledge.
Genetic sequence evidence is also a new addition, dealing with phylogenetic similarities between species. An extremely interesting and well documented/supported area of interest.
So while I can fathom that people with an understanding of Darwin that is based on popular books or Darwin's own work think that there are holes, once the last century's worth of knowledge has been added, it does baffle me that intelligent people still equate it to a Wild Assed Guess.
I don't find Gould confrontational - he is on record stating unequivocally that science and religion can go hand in hand and may actually aid each other. Dawkins, on the other hand, is much more hostile towards religion, seeing it as an enemy of science. Your mileage may vary but Goulds popularistic books certainly aren't "fundamentalism" in the same way as
http://www.godhatesstudmuffins.com is.
You're a man of good intellect Seagoon, I know that from reading your posts. It makes me curious as to how you have reached this conclusion. You have studied evolution, so you know about stratification and the circumstances necessary for fossil creation. You'd also be aware that the fossil record is continually being expanded - we're getting more knowledge, not less. You know about gene sequencing and probably have heard about the latest examples of speciation. Yet you come to the opposite conclusion that I do.
I'm no dumb guy so it's not a difference in intellectual capacity that'd lead to this difference. It must either be sources (an honest man must follow the truth) or personal values affecting the judgement. I'll readily admit my background is from a science family with little faith which has made me require evidence for everything, leaving me almost incapable of taking anything as faith. You have that capacity.
Of course, it could be the sources we base our knowledge on that is the key ingredient in which case we'd need to examine these before any sense can be made out of anything.
StSanta, the Neo-Darwinian community wants to frame the argument as being heroic scientists standing up to mindless believers, but what is actually going on at the moment is that the Neo-Darwinians have become the lock-step believers and will do anything to prevent the theory from being questioned. At this point, scientists could discover "MADE BY ALIENS FROM BETELGEUSE, GREETINGS EARTHLINGS" in tiny letters at the heart of the DNA Helix and they'd get to work trying to figure out how evolution created such an odd combination - no other course would be available to them unless they wanted to be permanently out of work and doing interviews on the Art Bell show for the rest of their lives.
I think you are doing as great a disservice to scientists with this comment as atheists do to theists when they call them "mindless sheep, weak of mind and spirit who need a happy-go-pretend friend to go through life". Really, your comment is equivalent to that for me. It's a bit uncalled for and I understand it comes from frustration.
It's a pretty funny comment though
If you say "err maybe these cells were manufactured?" I would say maybe. It's entirely possible and I hope you're right, because that'd mean a manufacturer is around and just the mere knowledge that such an entity is around would give me a bagful of hope.
If you say "these cells were manufactured and that's what I'm going to make sure your kids are taught!" my reply would be different. I would need the evidence supporting it, logical deductions and so forth. I would, in essence, require that your theory be falsifiable.
If the end argument (as in the case of the ID argument presented by Behe) is "this stuff is pretty complicated. We don't get it. My belief is we never will. Clearly a being much superior to us must have created it.", it will not be enough. Such an argument simply isn't science - it's not falsifiable and it's a logical fallacy - we do not know A, therefore B.
And, as such, it must not claim to be science. It is an alternative to evolution on a spiritual plane, on a philosophical plane but on a strict fact based, falsifiable plane, it is not. Such an idea, because it is so undefined, cannot be treated scientifically.
You may be right Seagoon - that guess might be right and evolution totally off the mark, so off the mark God himself gets a chuckle out of it. But it ain't good science. Evolution adheres to scientific principles and therefore it is proper that it is taught in science classes whether evolution is right or wrong. The methodology of science is the key here and science does to claim to have the one true answer to anything. It is, rather ironically, evolving.
:D
