ID amusement and memeage
Oct. 12th, 2005 12:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lederhosenAn excellent article on 'intelligent design' by James Curtsinger here, in the Minnesota Daily, gives me warm fuzzies:
Perhaps Dr. Behe publishes research papers that support intelligent design without using those terms. Searching PubMed for “Behe MJ” and sorting the results by date, you will find 11 publications since 1992, when the good professor converted to his new Ideology. Several are just letters to the editor.
The most recent (Behe and Snoke, 2004 and 2005) suggest that certain events in molecular evolution have low probability of occurrence.
This falls far short of the claim that a designer must have intervened, but what the heck, let’s put all 11 in the ID column.
Under these rather generous assumptions, ID’s leading light has produced fewer than a dozen peer-reviewed papers for the cause, none of which explicitly mentions ID. That number is substantially less than PubMed finds for “voodoo” (78), and pales in comparison with “diaper rash” (475).
Perhaps when the number of supporting publications rises to the level of “horse feces” (929) the professional community will grant ID some respect.
Curtsinger also slams Behe on the question of flagellae, one of his favourite examples of supposed 'irreducible complexity': "The old meaning of irreducible complexity was, “It doesn’t have any function when a part is removed.” Evidently, the new meaning of irreducible complexity is “It doesn’t have the same function when a part is removed.”" (Those familiar with the notion of IC will appreciate that this is not so much a matter of 'moving the goalposts' as 'holding the goalposts while backing off the edge of a cliff'.)
But in the interests of balance,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sclerotic_rings points me at an experiment which, without hyperbole, provides as much evidence in favour of intelligent design as anything Behe's so far come up with.
Ganked from several others, 'tag more people' bit snipped:
1.Name someone with the same birthday as you?
James Dean.
2.Where was your first kiss?
In first or second grade. Apparently I charged around the playground making a nuisance of myself to the girls. I had a lot more self-confidence then than I did as a teenager, apparently. Then there was a looong gap until the Uni of Canberra Maths Day, 1992.
3.Have you ever seriously vandalised someone else's property?
No.
4.Have you ever hit someone of the opposite sex?
Yes, but not in anger. (That I can recall, anyway; might've happened in playground squabbles when I was very young.)
5.Have you ever sung in front of a large number of people?
School choir, yes.
6.What's the first thing you notice about the preferred sex?
Their usericon How they express themselves. I'm not a very visual person in most regards, so physical traits on their own don't tend to make a great impression on me.
7.What really turns you on?
Intelligence, creativity, most of all trustworthiness and good nature.
8.What do you order at coffee shops?
Hot chocolate.
9.What is your biggest mistake?
Not betting on the 100-1 outsider the first (and only) time I ever went to the racetrack. More seriously, probably not being more patient with somebody.
10.Have you ever hurt yourself on purpose?
Yes.
11.Say something totally random about yourself.
I am allergic or intolerant to onions, and get irritated at the way onion is added to just about everything.
12. Has anyone ever said you looked like a celebrity?
I've been told James Spader, and Drew Barrymore.
13.Do you still watch kiddy movies or tv shows?
Occasionally. If they're good.
14.Did you have braces?
Yup.
15.Are you comfortable with your height?
Yup.
16. What is the most romantic thing someone of the opposite sex has done for you?
So many choices. So many of them inappropriate for a general audience :-)
17.When do you know it's love?
In some ways, I think love is a decision rather than a revelation.
18.Do you speak any other languages?
Not really. Seven years of Latin, now shamefully rusty, and bits and pieces picked up along the way.
19.Have you ever been to a tanning salon?
Nobody who's seen me would ask this question.
20.What magazines do you read?
New Scientist, and the Onion.
21.Have you ever ridden in a limo?
No.
22.Has anyone you were really close to passed away?
Close, yes. Really close... not yet, but I'm using a pretty tight definition of that.
23.Do you watch mtv?
No.
24. What's something that really annoys you?
My bad sleep habits.
25.What's something you really like?
Having my hair brushed.
26.Do you like Michael Jackson?
If pity counts. I can't judge whether he's guilty of the things he's been accused of, but he's clearly a badly messed-up person, and I feel sorry for him on that account. Music-wise, Billy Jean was OK and that's about where my interest ends.
27.Can you dance?
I can, with some persuasion, get onto a dance floor and move about. I'm beginning to suspect I'm congenitally incapable of footwork, though.
28.What's the latest you have ever stayed up?
Not sure. More than 24 hours, less than 48.
29. Have you ever thought that you were honestly going to die?
No.
30.Have you ever been rushed by an ambulance into A&E?
No.
31.Do you actually read these when other people fill them out?
Usually.
Perhaps Dr. Behe publishes research papers that support intelligent design without using those terms. Searching PubMed for “Behe MJ” and sorting the results by date, you will find 11 publications since 1992, when the good professor converted to his new Ideology. Several are just letters to the editor.
The most recent (Behe and Snoke, 2004 and 2005) suggest that certain events in molecular evolution have low probability of occurrence.
This falls far short of the claim that a designer must have intervened, but what the heck, let’s put all 11 in the ID column.
Under these rather generous assumptions, ID’s leading light has produced fewer than a dozen peer-reviewed papers for the cause, none of which explicitly mentions ID. That number is substantially less than PubMed finds for “voodoo” (78), and pales in comparison with “diaper rash” (475).
Perhaps when the number of supporting publications rises to the level of “horse feces” (929) the professional community will grant ID some respect.
Curtsinger also slams Behe on the question of flagellae, one of his favourite examples of supposed 'irreducible complexity': "The old meaning of irreducible complexity was, “It doesn’t have any function when a part is removed.” Evidently, the new meaning of irreducible complexity is “It doesn’t have the same function when a part is removed.”" (Those familiar with the notion of IC will appreciate that this is not so much a matter of 'moving the goalposts' as 'holding the goalposts while backing off the edge of a cliff'.)
But in the interests of balance,
sclerotic_rings points me at an experiment which, without hyperbole, provides as much evidence in favour of intelligent design as anything Behe's so far come up with.Ganked from several others, 'tag more people' bit snipped:
1.Name someone with the same birthday as you?
James Dean.
2.Where was your first kiss?
In first or second grade. Apparently I charged around the playground making a nuisance of myself to the girls. I had a lot more self-confidence then than I did as a teenager, apparently. Then there was a looong gap until the Uni of Canberra Maths Day, 1992.
3.Have you ever seriously vandalised someone else's property?
No.
4.Have you ever hit someone of the opposite sex?
Yes, but not in anger. (That I can recall, anyway; might've happened in playground squabbles when I was very young.)
5.Have you ever sung in front of a large number of people?
School choir, yes.
6.What's the first thing you notice about the preferred sex?
7.What really turns you on?
Intelligence, creativity, most of all trustworthiness and good nature.
8.What do you order at coffee shops?
Hot chocolate.
9.What is your biggest mistake?
Not betting on the 100-1 outsider the first (and only) time I ever went to the racetrack. More seriously, probably not being more patient with somebody.
10.Have you ever hurt yourself on purpose?
Yes.
11.Say something totally random about yourself.
I am allergic or intolerant to onions, and get irritated at the way onion is added to just about everything.
12. Has anyone ever said you looked like a celebrity?
I've been told James Spader, and Drew Barrymore.
13.Do you still watch kiddy movies or tv shows?
Occasionally. If they're good.
14.Did you have braces?
Yup.
15.Are you comfortable with your height?
Yup.
16. What is the most romantic thing someone of the opposite sex has done for you?
So many choices. So many of them inappropriate for a general audience :-)
17.When do you know it's love?
In some ways, I think love is a decision rather than a revelation.
18.Do you speak any other languages?
Not really. Seven years of Latin, now shamefully rusty, and bits and pieces picked up along the way.
19.Have you ever been to a tanning salon?
Nobody who's seen me would ask this question.
20.What magazines do you read?
New Scientist, and the Onion.
21.Have you ever ridden in a limo?
No.
22.Has anyone you were really close to passed away?
Close, yes. Really close... not yet, but I'm using a pretty tight definition of that.
23.Do you watch mtv?
No.
24. What's something that really annoys you?
My bad sleep habits.
25.What's something you really like?
Having my hair brushed.
26.Do you like Michael Jackson?
If pity counts. I can't judge whether he's guilty of the things he's been accused of, but he's clearly a badly messed-up person, and I feel sorry for him on that account. Music-wise, Billy Jean was OK and that's about where my interest ends.
27.Can you dance?
I can, with some persuasion, get onto a dance floor and move about. I'm beginning to suspect I'm congenitally incapable of footwork, though.
28.What's the latest you have ever stayed up?
Not sure. More than 24 hours, less than 48.
29. Have you ever thought that you were honestly going to die?
No.
30.Have you ever been rushed by an ambulance into A&E?
No.
31.Do you actually read these when other people fill them out?
Usually.
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no subject
Date: 2005-10-12 02:36 pm (UTC)