I had to weigh in on Expelled! and the whole ID nonsense

In case you haven't heard, Ben Stein has a new movie about Intelligent Design called Expelled! Dafydd ab Hugh on Big Lizards takes down Expelled! here and here. You should also read John Derbyshire's takedown.

In response to the second post on Big Lizards, I had to comment in response to the Intelligent Design nutjob commenters. I also have been unsatisfied with anyone's attempted refutations of the whole ID nonsense. They come close, but don't get to the essense of it. So I did. I can't figure out how to link directly to my comment, so I repeat it in its entirety below (without the formatting):


I didn’t see anyone respond to two points Baggi made in much earlier posts, to which I think responses are illuminating, so let me give it a whack.

From a Baggi comment on April 26:

“This is why only the critics of ID say that ID somehow is looking for God. As a matter of fact, the arguments are somewhat silly as the critic proclaims, "You can't prove God with science!" and the ID Proponent responds, "You're right, therefore we're not trying to do that." and then the critic responds, "Then who is the designer?" and the ID Proponent responds, "We don't know, nor are we looking." and the critic responds, "AHA!!"

Very strange, I know, but this conversation takes place over and over again.

Like I said before and i'll repeat here, ID is not looking to prove the existence of anything supernatural (IE: Not natural) as Dafydd's strawman insists. Instead, ID is out to demonstrate that in nature we can find evidence for Intelligent Design.”

The critical point here is that ID’ers openly claim not to be looking for the “designer” nor even the physical processes by which the “design” was accomplished. Why not?!?! If ID was a serious scientific inquiry, they should be enormously curious about precisely how their theoretical designer designed the different species. After all, all the species on earth are made out of the same sub-atomic particles, which obey the same laws of physics. How did the “designer” manipulate these building blocks into the different species? ID’ers respond: we don’t care. Why not?!?!

The real reason they don’t care is that they believe the “designer” is a supernatural God. Actually discovering a natural process and mechanism by which a “designer” could have created different species would be just as much of an affront to their religion as evolution itself. So they merely present other possibilities – like space aliens – to try to get their theory accepted as “science” and not “religion,” and thus able to be taught in public schools, but do absolutely nothing to pursue that otherwise enormously fascinating – and scientific – area of inquiry. It goes without saying that they have no evidence of the process or mechanics by which the “designer” went about his/her/its work.

And from another comment from Baggi later on:

“Darwin set out an example of how his theories could be scientifically falsified. His failure to falsify his own theories does not in anyway negate future scientists falsifying his theories.
* * *
Instead, I used Darwin's own words to demonstrate that if his theory is indeed falsifiable by the method he proposed, then Behe is using that method and ID is science.”

ID is not science. If ID attempted to assert a theory or hypothesis as to how the “designer” designed the different species then it would be science. However, ID’ers, as noted above, openly distain from investigating that question. To those of us with a brain, the reason why is patently obvious – they are religious Creationists seeking to get Creationism taught in public schools through the ruse of ID. Their goal is merely to sow distrust in evolution so they may more easily convince other people to believe Creationism instead. The argument is a simple one: See, look how evolution doesn’t work. Since it’s the only explanation that “science” has given us as to how we humans were created, the only explanation left is Creationism as described in the Bible. This argument works on people who do not have the inclination or ability to actually dig into and understand the science, or people who want to believe in Creationism anyway.

Merely criticizing evolutionary theory is not science. To be science, ID’ers must come up with an alternative explanation for the physical processes leading to observed phenomena (the existence of different species) that is testable and falsifiable, and describe how their theory would be falsified by later experiments and observations, just like Darwin did.

Nowhere that I know of has any ID’er ever presented a hypothesis for how a designer actually designed the different species (i.e., put forth a hypothesis of the specific physical, testable processes by which the “designing” occurred) and then set forth examples of experiments or observations the results of which might falsify the hypothesis. If any ID’er has, please show me where. Did Marvin the Martian modify his Illudium-36 Explosive Space Modulator so it could reorient the molecules of huge piles of pure organic elements to create all the different species on earth? How long would this take? Interesting that ID’ers are the first to argue that math models disprove evolution but are totally silent on how any “intelligent design” could take place on natural time tables. How long would it take scientists today to create a single strand of DNA out of the raw elements?

ID’ers think what they are doing is science. That is, they clearly have come up with an alternative explanation of how the observed phenomena of different species came into existence (via the efforts of some “intelligent designer”). Fine in so far as that goes. However, their alternate explanation – ID – is not a scientific one because it’s not really an explanation. ID does nothing to explain how there came to be different species because it does nothing to explain how the designer pulled it off. ID as an explanation is no more legitimate than if I said that my cat - a hyper-intelligent being from a parallel dimension – did it. How, you ask? ID’ers don’t care. They say “intelligent design” because it sounds good to their target audience – people who want to believe in Creationism.

Without providing a testable hypothesis, all ID’ers are doing is criticizing evolutionary theory. Whoop dee do. Scientists know that general relativity and quantum mechanics are incompatible. So I guess neither theory is correct in any sense at all. We should just throw them both out and acknowledge that God really moves everything in the universe according to his whims.

ID’ers are anti-science. They are anti-knowledge. They are anti-truth.

Wir mussen wissen. Wir werden wissen.

Why didn't I think of that? Oh wait, I did!

This past college football season showed again what a joke the BCS is. Nearly everyone thought that the best team - USC (and how it pains me to write that) - was not in the championship game and had no shot at a split championship because its Rose Bowl opponent was weak Illinios rather than a stronger Georgia (or Oklahoma, or West Virginia).

As a result, we got a 2-loss team as "National Champion" over 1-loss Kansas and a host of other 2-loss teams who could have just as easily beat Ohio State. What to do?

A PLAYOFF!!!!! YOU MORONS!!!!

Well, at least the NCAA is "studying" a playoff. "University of Georgia president Michael Adams presented his proposal for an eight-team playoff to the NCAA Division I board of directors Monday in Nashville and they decided to study the issue with others before making any moves," the AP reports today. What was Mr. Adams' thoughtful and brilliant proposal?

"Adams announced his proposal for an eight-team playoff for the Football Bowl Subdivision using the BCS games following years of opposition to a playoff. He unveiled his proposal on Jan. 8, hours after LSU won the BCS national championship game.

"His playoff proposal used the Sugar, Orange, Rose and Fiesta bowls as the opening round, leading to semifinals and a championship game."

Hmm... That plan sounds familiar. I wonder where I heard it before? That's right! From me!

Three years ago!

Time to recycle an old post

In the spirit of Christmas, celebrating the birth of a child, please allow me to re-post my position on abortion. I'd love to see comments. Here it is:

If you believe unborn babies have individual rights then abortion is simply a question of competing individual rights (the mother’s and the baby’s) to be decided by one's morality. Which gets us to question two - when does an unborn baby have individual rights?

Conception? That is sticky because many conceptions do not result in pregnancy (i.e., the zygote does not implant in the uterus but simply washes out in the next menstrual cycle). Also, what do we do with all those frozen zygotes out there?

I'll table this decision for now and argue from the premise that a baby is entitled to all individual human rights at least when the baby develops a brain stem. It may be earlier, but babies develop brain stems very early. An unborn baby with a brain stem is indistinguishable morally from a newborn baby. I’ve seen them both. There really is not much difference, other than size. You have to pull a Peter Singer and argue that infanticide should be legal if you believe that killing unborn babies with brain stems should be legal.

(Full disclosure: I just came from my wife's ultra-sound appointment for our second baby. He (I want a boy) is three months old now, just creeping out of his first trimester, nowhere near viability outside the womb. Yet he, like our first, was quite active in the ultra sound. I didn't see him suck his thumb, like I saw with our first at three months, but he's just as much of a baby now as he will be in six months when he's born. The thought that my wife could legally kill him (1) for any reason, (2) whenever she wants up to and including when he's half-way born (3) without even telling me, and (needless to say) (4) without my permission, boggles my mind. She would never do that though, which is one reason why I married her.)

What about the woman’s personal autonomy? Doesn’t she have the right to do what ever she wishes with her body? No, of course not and you are silly for even thinking such a thought. Not even the most radical libertarian (when I say radical, I mean a libertarian who would have no problem with doctors performing voluntary physical mutilation/amputation to satisfy perverse sexual desires) believes you have a right to kill another innocent human being.

But in any event, let’s give the personal autonomy argument some weight. Does the mother’s autonomy outweigh the baby’s right to life? As the father of now two children, one inside and one outside, and as any parent will tell you, believe us that babies are much MUCH less trouble on the inside than outside. If you think being pregnant is an inconvenience, try being a parent to a newborn. Being pregnant is a mild inconvenience. But I’m a man, you say. Yes, but I have a pregnant wife. I know from whence I speak.

If it is justifiable to kill your baby to avoid inconvenience to your personal autonomy, you ought to be able to kill your newborn, who is a LOT more of an inconvenience outside than inside. Since you can’t do that, you can’t kill your unborn baby for mere “personal autonomy” reasons.

Does it matter that once a baby is outside, anyone can sustain its life, but while it is inside, only the mother can? To answer that it does matter, you have to also hold the position that it would not be murder if parents let their newborn starve, because it was a mild inconvenience to care for him/her, in a situation when no one else was willing to take care of the baby. The fact that adoption exists does not relieve parents of their primary responsibility to care for their child. If a couple is, say, sailing on a boat across the Pacific Ocean with their newborn, and their shipmates decide not to help with the baby, can they just give up whenever they feel like they are being too inconvenienced? Think of any other situation where immediate help from others is not available. Can you simply allow your baby to die for convenience reasons? I hope you answer no.

Put another way, the situation with a live baby would have to be so dire, that the parents’ life must be in danger, to justify killing and/or neglecting it to death. There may be extreme circumstances usually only the subject of fiction where such a situation arises. The same rules apply to an unborn baby. Most pro-life advocates support a “life of the mother” exception in the dire situation where we must choose between saving only one of two innocent lives. This is a terribly thorny philosophical question with no clear consensus (I’m a philosophy major, I know).

Is the unborn baby just a parasite? Ok, then is a leach a parasite? A leach sucks on you from the outside. Ticks suck on you from the outside. Whether an organism sucks on you from the inside or outside makes no difference as to whether it is a parasite. Thus, newborn babies are parasites just as much as unborn babies. “Detaching” your newborn baby “parasite” without providing for alternate sustenance (i.e., adoption) is murder. Since killing born babies is murder, so is killing unborn babies. Formula? Give me a break. It is easier to breast feed than stir up formula everywhere you go. From a pure labor requirement point of view, breast feeding is much less of a drain on bodily resources.

I’m sure some of you who are pro-killing babies will complain about the dire circumstances many women find themselves in, where abortion is the only way out. I dispute that on the facts. At least in the U.S., it is hard to conceive of a possible situation so dire that the woman cannot give birth to the child then give it up for adoption.

What about social stigma? A 15 year-old girl from a devout Christian family in a devout Christian community gets pregnant. Assume we can be reasonably sure this will ruin her social status and she will be forever ostracized from her family and community. Is a secret abortion acceptable then? Rephrase the question thusly – does social ostracization justify murder? I would feel quite bad for the young pregnant woman. I would not allow her to kill an innocent life to avoid serious social troubles. Michael Douglas killed Glenn Close (eventually) in Fatal Attraction, but only after she became a knife-wielding maniac trying to kill him. What if, at the first sign that she might blow the whistle to his wife on their affair, he off’ed Glenn? He sure would avoid a lot of social stigma, just as bad as the 15 year-old pregnant devout Christian would suffer. I don’t see the moral distinction between the two cases.

In short, I see no moral distinction between an unborn baby with a brain stem and a newborn baby. Every argument I’ve heard attempting to justify why it is ok to kill your unborn baby in certain circumstances simply falls apart when you apply those identical circumstances to a newborn baby. I hope people will try in this thread. I hope their failure will convince fence-sitters to oppose infanticide.

Nobel Propaganda Prize

Well, that's what it really is now-a-days.

The day before Al Gore wins the Nobel Peace Price for his propagandist efforts to enslave the world in perpetual socialism, disguised as "environmentalism," with him and his ilk in charge, a British judge finds that Al Gore's movie, An Inconvenient Truth, contains nine, count 'em, nine glaring factual errors. Not just little ones. Big ones.

For example, Al Gore's movie claims that ocean levels will rise up to 20 feet "in the near future." Even in enviro-friendly Britain, this was too much, even for the "consensus of the scientific community." Only if Greenland melts - all of Greenland - will sea levels rise 20 feet, which if it ever happens, wil happen only over millennia (that's thousands of years for those of you with the intellectual capacity allowing you to believe Al Gore's movie).

For the truth, see The Great Global Warming Swindle. (Unfortunately, it is apparently not availble for free viewing on the internet anymore.)

Out-arguing Michael Moore (I know, it's not much of a challenge)

Michael Moore has made a new movie, Sicko, which I haven't seen and likely will not see, yet know for 100% certainty that it is a fawning tribute to communism using communism's age-old tactics: lies, damn lies and statistics. Michael Moore's main point is that he believes health care should be free, and the USA is evil for not giving free healthcare to everyone, like that wonderful bastion of "free"dom, Cuba.

I won't even debate the nonsense of "free" healthcare. Read Thomas Sowell or Walter Williams. TANSTAAFL. I'll happily define what Michael Moore thinks "free" means: everyone is forced to pay into a big pot for everyone's healthcare; some huge bureaucracy is created to "manage" all that money and decide what healthcare you get and when, which system will be as efficient as the DMV; and if you and any doctor attempt to circumvent this communist system, you will both have committed a crime.

It is this last part that is truly obnoxious, and has always been the lynch pin of any Hillary-care style, communist, "single payer" healthcare scam. The thing is, though, Michael Moore apparently really blew the argument, if we believe Rich Tucker from Townhall.com, who writes:

"[Moore] claims other countries provide citizens better health care. Of course, it’s all free, provided by a benevolent government, “just like we have our government provide police and fire and libraries and schools,” Moore says. But here’s the dirty little secret Moore won’t be put on the big screen: We get what we pay for."

I'll hit this one out of the park below, but point out for now that Mr. Tucker is a poor arguer. Moore's argument has superficial appeal. Most people like the police, the fire department, their local library and schools, even though they are run by the government. Will communist healthcare really be that bad, Moore strongly suggests?

Of course it will, and Moore's argument cries out for the obvious rebuttal: The government does not have a monopoly on the services the police, fire department, library and schools provide. It is my Second Amendment right to own a gun and stop criminals from victimizing me or my family, or hire a bodyguard. I can surely buy smoke detectors, install them myself, buy fire extinguishers, and put out fires myself, with my garden hose if need be. I can buy any book I want from numerous privately owned bookstores. I can send my children to private schools or homeshool them.

Of course, I could never exercise any of my rights and rely 100% on the government. Most people do both. I often check out books from the library. I've called the police occasionally. I've put out fires all by myself. I teach my kids.

The point is, these government programs - police, fire department, library, schools - are there only as a last resort. They do not purport to deny citizens of their right to privately contract with other citizens to obtain these services. If the government attempted to outlaw private citizens from privately contracting with other private citizens for any of the services these government programs provide it would be obvious tyranny warranting open rebellion. If the government purports to take away my Second Amendment right to own a gun, that is an act of tyranny warranting open rebellion. If the government purports to deprive me of my right to stop my own house from burning, anything that stupid would warrant open rebellion. If the government bans me from buying books I want from other private citizens, that is an act of tyranny warranting open rebellion. If the government mandates that my children attend its schools and gives me no say in the curriculum, teacher, or principal, or prevents me from teaching my own children what I want to teach them, that is an act of tyranny warranting open rebellion.

If the government purports to deprive me of my right to contract with a doctor to provide me or my family with healthcare at a price I am freely willing to pay and the doctor is freely willing to accept, that is an act of tyranny warranting open rebellion. I will not let my heath and life, or the health and life of my family, be subject to the control of people who think Michael Moore's idea of "free" healthcare is anything but evil.

What Bizzaro Universe has the Earth fallen into?

While our representatives in D.C. are busily plotting to legalize lawbreaking for millions of illegal immigrants, France of all countries is displaying common sense on the subject. France's new immigration minister said: "We have to put aside massive legalization. It doesn't work and it penalizes, even immigrants."

France displaying more common sense on immigration than the USA? France electing an openly pro-USA President? Pretty soon it will be disaffected conservatives who announce their intent to flee to France.

Buy more French wine

Three cheers for France for electing an openly-Pro American President, Nicholas Sarkozy. My boycott of French wine ended a long time ago, though, but this certainly is a good reason to reward the good sense of the French people and buy some of their products. Since the only thing worth a damn that they make is wine, I'll twist my arm and imbibe. I recommend Chateaux Talbot.