Ed Brayton is clueless about ID
It was bad enough when Ed "It's My Way or the Highway" Brayton was just posting his drivel on his own blog "Dispatches from the Culture Wars," but now he is posting his drivel as a guest writer on another website, Talk to Action. His article on that website shows that he doesn't have a clue about what intelligent design is:
Wrong, Ed. ID and the "arguments against evolution" are not one and the same. ID is specifically the idea that living things must have been designed because they are too complex to have evolved. There are arguments against evolution that have little or nothing to do with "design," intelligent or otherwise -- e.g., arguments concerning co-evolution and the propagation of beneficial mutations in sexual reproduction.
Surprise, surprise -- efforts to redefine ID to encompass all arguments against evolution intensified after Judge Jones declared ID to be unconstitutional (in public-school science classrooms, at least).
I will agree with Ed on one point -- if a scientific theory or hypothesis is defined as a complete scientific explanation of some natural phenomenon, then ID is not a scientific theory or hypothesis. But there is no good reason why a criticism of a scientific theory must provide a complete alternative scientific explanation in order to be considered to be scientific itself.
Darwinism itself is in some ways not testable or falsifiable. If Darwinism were introduced for the first time today, I wonder if it would be accepted as a scientific theory or hypothesis.
The reality is that there is no "intelligent design theory" in the first place. ID is not a testable model or theory, it is little more than a collection of arguments against evolution, most of them taken directly from old creationist material but dressed up in new scientific-sounding language. Every one of those arguments was either a criticism of evolution (e.g. all of Wells' "icons of evolution") or required the failure of evolution as one of its logical steps in establishing itself as valid (e.g. Behe's "irreducible complexity" and Dembski's "explanatory filter"). Thus, when they said "we don't want ID taught, we just want the arguments against evolution taught" they were engaging in a tautology. Since "ID" and "the arguments against evolution" were one and the same, they were executing a classic bait and switch.(emphasis added)
Wrong, Ed. ID and the "arguments against evolution" are not one and the same. ID is specifically the idea that living things must have been designed because they are too complex to have evolved. There are arguments against evolution that have little or nothing to do with "design," intelligent or otherwise -- e.g., arguments concerning co-evolution and the propagation of beneficial mutations in sexual reproduction.
Surprise, surprise -- efforts to redefine ID to encompass all arguments against evolution intensified after Judge Jones declared ID to be unconstitutional (in public-school science classrooms, at least).
I will agree with Ed on one point -- if a scientific theory or hypothesis is defined as a complete scientific explanation of some natural phenomenon, then ID is not a scientific theory or hypothesis. But there is no good reason why a criticism of a scientific theory must provide a complete alternative scientific explanation in order to be considered to be scientific itself.
Darwinism itself is in some ways not testable or falsifiable. If Darwinism were introduced for the first time today, I wonder if it would be accepted as a scientific theory or hypothesis.
Labels: Ed Brayton (1 of 2)
posted by Larry Fafarman | 9/25/2006 05:35:00 PM
13 Comments:
Since you know nothing about evolution, you seem to be in a glass house.
>>>>> Since you know nothing about evolution, you seem to be in a glass house. <<<<<<
Well, VIW, seeing as how you are going to throw stones at me anyway, I have nothing to lose by demolishing Ed Brayton's glass house, do I?
> I have nothing to lose by demolishing Ed Brayton's glass house, do I? <
But the rocks are bouncing off his house and hitting you in the nose.
As Sherry D said, you are putting the dunce cap on your own head.
>>>>> I have nothing to lose by demolishing Ed Brayton's glass house, do I? <
But the rocks are bouncing off his house and hitting you in the nose. <<<<<<
Rocks don't bounce off of glass -- not even safety glass.
You stupid fatheaded idiot, you have completely misinterpreted the saying, "people who live in glass houses should not throw stones." It means that to reduce the chances of you being criticized yourself, you should not criticize other people for having the same faults that you do.
It doen't appear that ViW misunderstands. It is you, you feeble minded twit.
Every time I think that something has appeared that is so simple that even you could not fail to understand it, you prove otherwise.
Voice In The Wilderness said...
>>>>> Ed Brayton's house, unlike yours, is not glass. <<<<<
Brayton's house is grass, just like his ass, and I'm the mower. And the same goes for you, Anonymous, VIU, and assorted other trolls here.
< Wrong, Ed. >
Larry(?), I suggest you drop the sentences beginning with "Wrong" (sometimes the entire sentence). Your frequent usage of it would be absurd even from someone who actually was authoritative.
Perhaps we could agree on some of the more indisputable things to simplify the discussion.
1. ID is not science.
2. It may not be necessarily tied to religion yet religions are tied to ID.
3. The point is not to keep school children ignorant. It is to keep superstition from being promoted as science.
4. The holocaust did occur. The matter of exact numbers is of little consequence.
Any others?
Now let's go the other way and point out where we disagree.
1. You claim that the best way to get a legal education is to get laughed out of court repeatedly.
2. You believe that the Los Angeles Times is printed and distributed by supernatural forces that also write the World Almanac.
3. You believed at one time that meteors came from within the atmosphere.
4. You believed at one time that the moon landings were done in a Hollywood studio.
Now perhaps we can get down to some meaningful discussion.
> And you have obviously not been able to find fault with my statements here <
I guess you don't even read your own blog, you stupid, fatheaded ignoramus.
> Almost none of you trolls sign your real names because you do not want to be associated with your asinine comments. <
You mean that wasn't the real Neil Armstrong, Thomas Jefferson, etc?
> You jerks are just jealous because you don't have the brains to put together an intelligent sentence, let alone write articles for a blog. <
While most of us, your real brother leading the pack, are quite able to write intelligent sentences, you have yet to display this skill. As far as writing articles for a blog, mostly you just quote things your word search has found and then give us your misinterpretation of them.
Besides, how do we know that you are the real Larry(?) Fafarman and not just some other idiot?
Chris Hyland said...
>>>>> It's true that not all arguments against evolution are ID <<<<<
Thanks, Chris, you are much more knowledgeable and/or honest than a lot of Darwinists.
>>>>> . . . . .but all ID arguments are arguments against evolution. <<<<<<
That depends. ID is mainly an argument against the notion that natural genetic variation such as we know it was the only source of change in the development of species. ID is generally compatible with the evolutionary ideas of an old earth, changes through time, common descent, and even natural selection. ID proponents Michael Behe and William Dembski accept common descent.
>>>>> It's true that not all arguments against evolution are ID <<<<<
Fake Larry(?) replies...
Thanks, Chris, you are much more knowledgeable and/or honest than a lot of Darwinists.
Nobody has claimed that all arguments against evolution are ID. I recently said the opposite myself.
>>>>> . . . . .but all ID arguments are arguments against evolution. <<<<<<
> That depends. <
No, it doesn't.
> ID is mainly an argument against the notion that natural genetic variation such as we know it was the only source of change in the development of species. <
So now you prove that you don't even know what ID is. ID stands for Intelligent Design. You seem not to know that. I would suggest that you stand up when you attempt to think. Sitting down seems to put too much pressure on your brain.
The above post somehow came out as anonymous. That was in error. I posted it.
Incidentally, why is Larry(?) dodging accepting the posted points of agreement? I suppose he will claim that is because of the great demands on his time. The drivel you have posted recently wouldn't warrant that claim.
What have things come to? Now someone is impersonating me!
Incidentally there is no change in any living thing on Earth (I don't know about Larry(?)'s planet.) without a genetic change. We can argue about what causes the genetic change but genetic change is required.
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