If one were asked who the very worst advocate for Intelligent Design creationism was, it would be a difficult decision—there are so many choices! Should we go back to first principles and pick PJ Johnson, the cunning lawyer who has the goal of undermining all of science? Smarmy and obtuse Sal Cordova? Pompous and vacuous William Dembski? I’m afraid my personal most loathed ID creationist has got to be Jonathan Wells.
The reason? The man claims to be a developmental biologist, my favorite field of science, and actually has some credentials in the discipline…but every time he speaks out on the subject, he stuns me with his ignorance. Here he is, trying to explain the Cambrian explosion.
How did it happen? We don’t have the foggiest idea how it happened. Assuming a jellyfish was the common ancestor* — I don’t believe that — but how do you turn a jellyfish into a trilobite? How do you turn a jellyfish into a fish with a backbone? How do you do it? I don’t just mean taking a scalpel and rearranging the parts like you’re doing a collage in third-grade art class. We’re talking about a living animal here, that reproduces itself and makes more things like itself. How do you do it? We don’t have the foggiest idea.
To try to explain this away by saying Darwin’s theory accounts for it is a science-stopper. It’s the biggest science-stopper of modern history. It stops your inquiry right there. You have no more questions. Oh, all these animals just appeared. That’s not science.
It’s as if the fool hasn’t even glanced at the evo-devo literature in the last 20 years. Identifying the molecular mechanisms that drove the divergence of the major metazoan phyla is one of the grand goals of the whole field—all the comparative molecular genetics being done on flies and nematodes and anemones and fish has been identifying the common molecular substrates of the body plan, and the differences; I don’t know why he even mentions this ‘scalpel’ nonsense, since it’s all about the subtle transformations of ancient rules for development, understanding the changes in the process in living animals that lead to evolutionary novelties.
We don’t know all the details, there are messy and confusing aspects to the story, but to claim “we don’t have the foggiest idea” is absolutely wrong…unless by “we” he means specifically he and his fellow creationist clowns at the Discovery Institute.
His second paragraph is one huge lie. The whole-hearted incorporation of evolutionary principles into the field of developmental biology has fueled an immensely productive new sub-discipline, evo-devo, that is bursting with great questions and new strategies for pursuing them. Stopping science? It jump-started classical developmental biology with exciting new avenues of research.
The irony of his dismissal of evolutionary biology as “Oh, all these animals just appeared” is deep. That’s not what evo-devo is about; part of it is specifically about the molecular details and mechanisms behind the transformation of the urbilaterian into modern forms by piecing together the changes in networks of genes. It’s the position of Intelligent Design creationism that “all these animals just appeared” by the unknowable actions of an unidentified and unidentifiable “designer” whose intent and mechanisms are off the table. The “just appeared” explanation is a science stopper, but it’s what Wells practices.
I should add that an even greater “science stopper” is ignorance. Wells is a master of that, too.
There’s more Wells to come, I’m afraid. He’s got another article that’s even more stupid than his quote above; I’ll get to that later.
*No one claims a jellyfish was the common ancestor of all animals. This is another clueless invention by someone who is utterly oblivious to the scientific literature, and apparently hasn’t even read any of the popular treatments of the subject.
Can’t this guy read The Ancestors Tale by Dawkins first? The book is informative, witty, scientifically acurate, and — and this is important for someone like Wells — written in such a way that even a layman can understand it!
Wait, is he talking about Creationism 2.0 here? I think so, because I can easily come up with many questions concerning the Cambrian explosion and the evo-devo of the organisms, and I am studying physiology for Zeus’ sake!
Yeah, PZ. I feel the same way. Maybe it’s because Wells’ schtick is to directly undermine science instruction, to imply that the texts (and by extension, the instructor) are all part of a conspiracy to undermine the godly. Which is a lie. Which makes him a liar about biology, as well as so many other things. So, yeah, Wells is #1 on my ID Hit Parade (IDevotees I’d like to hit)…SH
For lay people, the most important characteristic of Wells (and Behe) to repeat relentlessly is that despite having credentials (Wells’s are very weak), their embrace of ID correlates seamlessly with the reduction of their scientific productivity to zero.
A bit off the topic, but entertaining nevertheless.
Cruise the new christ. Jeebus, say it ain’t so.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1908820,001100020015.htm
I agree that he is the most annoying of the lot of them. I regularly listen to their podcast as a form of comedy (type “creationism” into the itunes podcast search directory and it comes up – I kid you not). Unfortunately when Wells comes on he just infuriates me. Most of the others are not scientists so you can understand that they are simply talking about things that are way over their head. With Wells its different. Like you said he is educated, and listening to him you realise he can actually debate things in a logical manner. Unfortunately he doesn’t aften choose to do so. When Casey Luskin says there is no evidence for evolution you just know he wouldnt recognise pubmed if the URL was tattooed to his forehead but Wells says the same things when he MUST know the mountain of evidence exists but for some reason he refuses to see it. He freely admits that Darwinian evolutionary theory is the best natural explanation for the evidence we find in the world but wont accept natural explanations as it clashes with his spiritual beliefs.
–It’s as if the fool hasn’t even glanced at the evo-devo literature in the last 20 years.–
More importantly, he knows his audience hasn’t either. It’s so disengenuous, the way he bandies about “sciency” terms like “trilobite” and “Cambrian explosion” but really at bottom it’s, “How can a MONKEY turn into a MAN?!”
It’s sad how out of tune with science Wells is. I mean it doesn’t really change his point to bother to look at the literature and see that the current thinking is that the urbilaterian was some colonial choanoflagellate-like sponge-y thing. Except, I guess, that it shows that people really are researching these questions and actually do have hypotheses about how one can transition from individual cells to multicellular organisms to multiple germ layers.
Mr. Wells, shows himself to be an ignoramus and a fake surely, but I’d argue it’s not his shameful mistreatment of real science. For me, his attitudes and articles raise this question for me: If he has been so unconvinced for so long that evolution is false, that the underlying theories, methods and proofs were so flawed at their substrate, why the hell was he so dumb to keep forging ahead with his education in the subject, and not go on to something else?
This alone, if asked of him pubicly, would possibly show his career to be the religion-driven vehicle that it is.
And John, that is a great way of explaining it rhetorically. Put it out in the real scientific community that the propensity to believe ID is directly proportional to the reception of funds from religious institutions that contributes to a plummetous decline in actual work being done. I love it!
I don’t think for a minute that Wells is ignorant. I think he’s followed developments over the last 20 years and understands at least the basics of evo-devo.
And that’s what makes Wells all the more an unsettling, disturbing fraud. Wells wears the labcoat like a prop, but his every utterance is a slander to science and scientists.
Recall that his goal is to destroy “Darwinism” and he can’t do that by being ignorant about the subject, rather he picks at his target with some precision relying on his audience to be ignorant. We’re not his audience, though because Wells is on a cultural quest, not a scientific one. Correcting Wells’ “mistakes” should be aimed at educating his audience. Wells doesn’t care a whit what we say about him.
Wells is all the more reason to support good science education at all levels. The more people who see through Wells’ fraud the better.
wintermute:
Seeing that quote again, something jumped out at me:
“…(along with about a dozen other seminary graduates)…”
This makes me wonder: what happened to those other 12 selectees? Can it be that Wells was the only non-washout of the bunch?
That’s pathetic. I’d love to find out just how hapless the other candidates were.
I was flogging a buddy’s AWD turbo Lancer on The Dragon the other day while listening to New Traditionalists… EVO-DEVO!
Blueinndependent asks “…why the hell was he [Wells] so dumb to keep forging ahead with his education in the subject[?]…”
He answered the question in a sermon he gave at a Unification Church (the moonies) meeting:
“”Father’s [Rev. Sun Myung Moon] words, studies and my prayers convinced me that I should devote my life to destroying Darwinism…When Father chose me…to enter a Ph.D. program in 1978, I welcomed the opportunity to prepare myself for battle.”
In 1978 he earned a religious education degree from the Unification Theological Seminary; in 1986 he landed a doctorate from Yale in religious studies. And then AFTER those two degrees, he entered Berkeley, taking a doctorate in molecular and cell biology in 1994. Shortly afterward in 1996 he joined the Discovery Institute. Since then he’s been a co-author of only two peer-reviewed papers, both on development in Xenopus frogs. Otherwise he’s been true to his word, trying mightly, albeit unsuccessfully, to “destroy Darwinism.”
I suppose that either they dropped out because the science (or the cognitive dissonance) was too hard, or they stopped being creationists because the science was too convincing.
I’d be interesting to know which. Or rather, in which proportions…
Whether ignorance or mendacity, it sort of just takes your breath away.
Personally, Wells’ arrogant stupidity makes me rather queasy.
Oh, and this is rich: “To try to explain this away by saying Darwin’s theory accounts for it is a science-stopper.”
As if “An intelligent designer designed it” were a science-starter.
Maybe someone should do a remake of the good ‘ol Randy Newman song entitled “Jonathan Wells got no reason to live.” I was pissed off enough about Wells’ idiotic assertions to write my own post about it here
My guess is that his “jellyfish” is a reference to the Ediacaran fauna. It would make his statement slightly more comprehensibly wrong, if no less comprehensively wrong.
Whenever a creationist accuses “evolutionists” of something bad, it’s fashinating how often it’s an attempt of turning the tables. Like accusing ToE for being a fairy tale, complaining about Gish galloping, claiming that evolution requires faith, that evolution isn’t falsible, that it’s supported by a dogmatic “priesthood”, etc. And, of course, calling it a “science stopper”.
When creationists are critisized, it’s like their most creative response is to copy the criticism, replace all occurances of “creationism” with “evolutionism”, and send it back the way it came from. The really sad part isn’t that the argument becomes garbage in the process, but that they actually think this is a good way to make an impression. Truly pathetic.
OK, I have seen that quote from Wells before about his adoption of the “onward-Christian-soldier” crap. Now it makes sense, but yes, he only earned the piece of paper to use it in one sense as a trophy with “street cred”, and in another sense as a blunt cudgel against good hard-working scientists. People who devote their life to causes based in vaccuity mixed with a sense of self-righteousness and a martyr-complex are perhaps the most dangerous threat to civilization man can devise.
I always forget which creationist did what, because unfortunately there are so many fools spreading misinformation under the pretense of “saving” peoples’ souls.
Father Moon sez that God creted jellie fish just like they are so that’s all childrun ever need know. Charls Darwin is like the devil. I love Jesus and so shuld you.
If irony had mass, being accused by a creationist of a “poof!” explanation for the animal world would collapse a black hole at the center of his keyboard that would consume the solar system.
My irony meter comes with a specific disclaimer that exposure to emanations from Jonathan Wells invalidates all warranties, and may be hazardous to the user’s blood pressure and brain cells.
Doesn’t yours?
“Oh, all these animals just appeared.”
Yes, because if you read all of the relevant peer-reviewed texts on this subject, all it says in those millions of pages is, “Oh, all these animals just appeared,” sometimes repeating that phrase by as much as five hundred million times and adding tangents such as, “I’m a godless communist who hates Jesus” just to fill space.
I love PZ posts. I can’t wait until he actually crosses the line a libels some people.
He is so arrogant, it will undoubtedly happen.
Luann, can you tell me how it’s “libel” to call a liar a liar, and point out what’s wrong with the liar’s lies, especially when the aforementioned liar knows almost nothing about the subject he happens to be lying about?
So arrogance is now an element of libel?
No, spencer, pointing out all of the facts a self-proclaimed know-it-all got wrong is apparently an element of libel, even if all of the facts are wrong.
Luann doesn’t realize that it can’t be libel if it’s TRUE.
Arrogant=not agreeing with me shoving my delusionaly worldview down your throughts.
Sorry Luann, you are a twit.
I read this web-site for cutting edge science discussions. Why are you here????
Dogpile on the creationist!!
Funny thing is, by acknowledging that PZ isn’t engaging in libel now, she’s tacitly admitting that what PZ said is pretty much accurate.
But rather than consider the implications (that her cretinist heroes are submoronic liars), she instead expresses the nonsensical hope that PZ “crosses the line” between, uh… telling the truth and telling lies.
Need to spell check…..down your throats
I doubt any of them are ignorant or stupid, except in the fact that they believe in an invisible sky daddy.
No, they deliberately obfuscate and lie in order to keep the faithful in line. They’re certainly not going to GAIN any followers this way (meaning an atheist reading this garbage won’t say “Wow, he’s right!”), but they’re desperately afraid that their little faith-based world will come ttumbling down in the face of logic and reason.
“As Mr. Hamilton has confessed the printing and publishing of these libels, I think the Jury must find a verdict for the king. For supposing they were true, the law says that are not the less libelous for that. Nay, indeed the law says their being true is an aggravation of the crime.”
— Richard Bradley, Attorney General, New York (1735)
Ah, but Zenger was acquitted, was he not?
You’re a sly one, Mr. Stacey. ;-)
I want to see his peer reviewed journal article on how bony fish appeared before Pikaia.
“Yes, because if you read all of the relevant peer-reviewed texts on this subject, all it says in those millions of pages is, “Oh, all these animals just appeared,” sometimes repeating that phrase by as much as five hundred million times and adding tangents such as, “I’m a godless communist who hates Jesus” just to fill space.”
They also cite Chomsky.
Such underappreciation of irony would seem to be part and parcel of the necessary mindset: to say evolution is about species just appearing is like the new congressional minority suddenly demanding congressional minority rights. It’s of a piece, two-face-wise.
I love PZ posts. I can’t wait until he actually crosses the line a libels some people.
LOL!!!! What is the obvious answer to the question, “Why don’t Dembski/Luskin/Cordova/Behe/Wells/Nelson et al. ever sue the people who continually point out what a miserable pack of lying shits they are?”
@ Great White Wonder-
Dover?
“Father [Rev Moon]’s words, my studies, and my prayers convinced me that I should devote my life to destroying Darwinism….”
One of the ironies here is that he needn’t have bothered! Evolution has changed so much in the past 150 years (well, you’d EXPECT that in a real science, wouldn’t you? How much has creationism changed in the past–oh, never mind) that it’s long out of date. None of us here is a Darwinist. Problem solved, Wells. Go home.
By Janus, I believe Sid Schwab has a point.
“Father [Rev Moon]’s words, my studies, and my prayers convinced me that I should devote my life to destroying Darwinism….”
One of the ironies here is that he needn’t have bothered! Evolution has changed so much in the past 150 years (well, you’d EXPECT that in a real science, wouldn’t you? How much has creationism changed in the past–oh, never mind) that it’s long out of date. None of us here is a Darwinist. Problem solved, Wells. Go home.
Did you see the Wells vs. Pigliucci?
http://vodwins.stanford.edu/Hoover/900/24.asx
I am serious about going back to college, getting a major Social Psychology and a minor in biology, and then going on to a phd in sociology and my thesis is going to attempt to answer the question of how people like Wells can function with such a disconnect between the reality they know and the reality they want. You can expect an answer in 12 years.
I remember reading that Father Moon teaches that deception is okay for evangelization because the people that they are evangelizing are all ready being deceived by Satan and the communists. This is Wells’ job, to lie as long as it leads lost souls to Unification with Moon. And his bank account.
I’ve always wanted to know how a Creationist explains the great diversity of the world’s animals — originating solely from the Ark’s tiny population some 4,000 years ago.
I mean, did Noah have to save all the bears (Black, Brown, Sloth, Spectacled, Sun, Polar and Panda) or did one pair “evolve” into all the known species? And how quickly did this occur; centuries, decades, overnight?
And what of the fresh water fish? Did they drown in a global ocean or instantly adapt to higher salt levels?
Seems to me, being a Creationist means believing in Evolution to ridiculous extremes.
Actually, I suspect he knows quite a lot about development. He just isn’t letting on, because that is not his agenda. He is literally Lying for Jesus. How much he admits that to himself, I’d like to know.
What a fascinating subject he would make, if only psychiatry were a reliable tool of science.
I mean, did Noah have to save all the bears, or did one pair “evolve” into all the known species?
Yeah! Good question! And what about the two or three hundred different species of peanut worms?
Ok, those are marine creatures, those don’t count. How about the 350,000 species of beetle? Did they all just fly around tirelessly for forty days and nights?
Even those with a life span of less than six weeks?
I just watched the video on http://vodwins.stanford.edu/Hoover/900/24.asx and am so sorry I did! I now will spend an hour or more calming down! Oh my blood presure!!
How can anyone (in this case Wells) that should know better be so IMmoral… to lie in the worst way. To lie and distort not to protect oneself or even to gain advantage (e.g. as for outright criminal gain) but rather to simply kill the truth!!! That to me so SINFUL… and I am an 100% atheist!!! To steal the truth from humankind!! Oh shame. DISGUSTING!!!
Even Kent Hovind admitted that the animals on Noahs ark evolved (from a limited set of ‘kinds’) into the current set of species on the planet (a hyper evolution of unimaginable proportions – that didnt include macroevolution of course).
That is not even the biggest problem for them to explain though. That one is how Noah and his shipmates managed to survive temperatures of 500 degrees centigrade and and air pressure equivalent to the bottom of the Atlantic – which you can predict if enough rain fell to cover every mountain on the planet.
Not to mention the paleontological literature. Exactly how many “missing links” between brachiopods, annelids, and mollusks do you want? Or between onychophores, tardigrades, and arthropods?
Not to mention the paleontological literature. Exactly how many “missing links” between brachiopods, annelids, and mollusks do you want? Or between onychophores, tardigrades, and arthropods?
And this isn’t even taken into account about how Creationists can explain why no human civilization ever bothered to notice a placoderm like Bothriolepis, especially since it had a worldwide distribution, with species on every continent.
…how Noah and his shipmates managed to survive temperatures of 500 degrees centigrade and and air pressure equivalent to the bottom of the Atlantic
Oh, that’s easy! God protected them!
C’mon you’ll have to do better than THAT.
What about all the water? A volume of rainfall equal to three times that of all the water in all the oceans of the earth would be required to cover the earth to the height of Everest. Where did all that water go?
Easy! God made it go away!
Hah! And you evolutionists think your loosely-connected pastiche of implausible “theories” can explain all this stuff? You’re SO deluded.
“To try to explain this away by saying Darwin’s theory accounts for it is a science-stopper. It’s the biggest science-stopper of modern history. It stops your inquiry right there. You have no more questions.”
He’s right in one way. If your ONLY question is “what mechanism accounts for this?” then the answer evolution by natural selection does stop your enquiry. Thankfully scientists are able to think of more than one question.
“What a fascinating subject he would make, if only psychiatry were a reliable tool of science.”
Psychiatry is not the right tool. It would be like using a pair of pliers when a proper spanner is called for. Social Psychology is the science that can study creationists. I have been searching for research on the creationist phenomena from a symbolic interactionist perspective, but haven’t had much luck. That’s why I think I need to go back to school, and do the research myself.
Wilkins says he is working on a foreword for a social pyschology book that has something to do with creationist/ID.
Luann,
In most American jurisdictions, it’s pretty hard to “libel” a person who has deliberately and continuously sought media attention for their opinions (thus a public figure), especially when the supposedly “libelous” comments are clearly phrased as opinion and provide a rational basis for that opinion.
Blake: Cool quote. The old English common law rationale for that is capsulized in the phrase: “The greater the truth, the greater the harm.” This was exemplified by a libel attached to the throne when the “true” libel was that the king was a bastard, which could initiate a rebellion or violent struggle for a “rightful” king.
Truth is now, and has long been, a complete defense to libel. But truth may not protect a speaker from an action for invasion of privacy or deliberate infliction of emotional distress.
Does anyone know offhand whose lab J. Wells worked in at Berkeley?
es anyone know offhand whose lab J. Wells worked in at Berkeley?
The Gerhardt lab as I recall. Cell biology/development types.
I made a few comments over at UD regarding Wells’ statement, including references to an article (by Sean Carroll and a co-author) that readers unafraid of technical language might be interested in: http://invertebrates.ifas.ufl.edu/KnollandCarroll.pdf
Those who’ve read “Endless Forms Most Beautiful” will likely recognize some of the information in this article.
“The Gerhardt lab as I recall. Cell biology/development types”
Interestingly, with Marc Kirscher, who is a very well-known cell and molecular biologist, John Gerhart has co-published this recently:
The Plausibility of Life: Resolving Darwin’s Dilemma (Paperback) by Marc W. Kirschner, John C. Gerhart, John Norton (Illustrator) “Physical scientists in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had astounding success in formulating very general yet predictive theories in thermodynamics, electricity and magnetism, and…”
As it apparently takes some shots at ID, I wonder if anyone has ribbed him about his former student’s current work.
Just testing .. wrote a comment a couple hours ago and it was not posted?!?!?
For what it is worth, gist was: worst (most immoral) purvey of dishonesty is one who knows better and purposely lies for the sake of killing the TRUTH just for the sake of KILLING the truth. Not to protect oneself.. not to cheat for some criminal gain .. no .. rather just to obfuscate and kill the TRUTH!! Very disgusting this Wells… he knows the truth .. and he lies about it… he is the worst sort of guy. Disgusting.
No, it’s not. It’s creationism.
“but how do you turn a jellyfish into a trilobite? How do you turn a jellyfish into a fish with a backbone?”
Slightly off-topic, but I was under the impression that jellyfish are actually sort of advanced, as such blob-type things go (I’m sure there’s a word I could use there, but “invertebrate” doesn’t work because of, for example, octopi). A quick Google search indicates that they have eyes, but also turns up a lot of creationist crap and I don’t feel like sifting through it all. Am I wrong?
My first encounter with Wells – circa Nov 1998. To an AOL ev/cre discussion, Wells made the following pronouncement (bold emphasis is mine):
“As for the specific points raised by your dialogue partner:
(1) Some developmental biologists used to consider retinoic acid a morphogen (i.e., an endogenous molecule, variations in the concentration of which control or significantly affect embryonic development), but almost nobody considers it that any more. It is certainly a teratogen (i.e., it induces developmental anomalies), but lots of things are teratogens, including heavy water, ultraviolet light, and ice. Some embryologists continue to use it (like other teratogens) to perturb development in interesting ways, but its putative role as a naturally occurring developmental control mechanism was almost universally abandoned years ago. If your dialogue partner considers it a morphogen, that tells me he is a novice, not a developmental biologist.”
Remember, this was November 1998. Not 1898.
Um, what? So those RARs are nonexistent?
The first Google hit for “cnidarian eyes” was this dissertation (PDF link) whose summary says the following:
Fun stuff!
ID has evolved into an opera, where nicely dressed men with beards and glasses and furrowed brows strut around making devastating refutations of evolution. Like the globetrotters or the mousetrap, it will play forever with replacement actors, and whether those actors believe it is irrelevant. Very few of the people who attend as a rite of passage will ever attend the other show, starring people with a clue who explain it properly
Maybe this is the first proven case of multiple personality.
ID is… Menudo!!!
Good call. ID is indeed a steaming bowl of tripe.
(Pun intended, BTW.)
(1) Some developmental biologists used to consider retinoic acid a morphogen (i.e., an endogenous molecule, variations in the concentration of which control or significantly affect embryonic development), but almost nobody considers it that any more. It is certainly a teratogen (i.e., it induces developmental anomalies), but lots of things are teratogens, including heavy water, ultraviolet light, and ice. Some embryologists continue to use it (like other teratogens) to perturb development in interesting ways, but its putative role as a naturally occurring developmental control mechanism was almost universally abandoned years ago. If your dialogue partner considers it a morphogen, that tells me he is a novice, not a developmental biologist.”
Retinoic acid is obviously much more than a teratogen.
It is no longer considered a morphogen in the strict sense of that concept. However, mutant studies show its importance for development, since knockout mice lacking CYP26 (RA metabolizing enzyme) or one ore more RA receptors have major problems.
Ignorance dressed up as authority. It makes me so angry, I could smash my keyb
Wait a minute, isn’t he here admitting that life doesn’t look like intelligent design? Collages are clearly intelligently designed; if life doesn’t look like it was scalped apart and then glued back together on a piece of paper, surely this disproves intelligent design.
Okay, yes, sure, that argument is nonsense, but isn’t it at least on par with ID’s own arguments? So, by their own standards of logic, haven’t they disproved ID? :-)
PZ, obviously, only novices consider retinoic acid receptors to be real entities worthy of study. Real developmental biologists laugh at the notion.
amph, I’m not sure I understand what you mean by “morphogen in the strict sense of that concept”. Are you saying that Wells’ definition (“an endogenous molecule, variations in the concentration of which control or significantly affect embryonic development”, a description that fits RAs to a tee) is incorrect?
Blake
Just to clear up a confusion that is endemic in transatlantic discussion of whether truth is a defence to libel in English law; the charge in Zenger was of criminal libel – that is, sedition. The mischief aimed at was not damage to reputation, but causing breach of the peace.
For civil libel proceedings, damage to reputation is the issue. Although the position is confused because it were born from criminal libel, truth – justification – has always been a defence to civil libel.
Oh what a crazy phenomenon these people are.
If they only took the viewpoint that, as physics ultimately drives chemistry (at the atomic/molecular interaction level, at least) and chemistry drives biology, one need only ask the question: Given the ‘rules’ for interactions between the elements, is the set of chemical interactions which resulted in the first life, and the use of DNA coding by life on Earth, inevitable, or could it have happened in some other way? Would it STAY inevitable if the atomic interactions were described by slightly different laws? With slightly different constants?
THEN there might be a place for an “intelligent designer” to set the initial starting conditions, but the (self-sustaining) development of everything since then would still be open to discovery and description by hard science, conducted properly, and there would be no need for true “Intelligent Design” adherents to come out of their corner and try to discredit the scientists. That they do, indicates not that “Intelligent design” is in itself a flawed doctrine (if you are a person of faith, it is a middle ground between hardline creationism and objective science), but that the agenda of the people driving it is nothing short of godawful.
If I were really going to define a Church of Intelligent Design, the One Question it would strive to answer would be: “Could physical, biological and cosmological systems be shown to be arranged in such a way as to demonstrate an underlying purpose, or is a self-initiating, self-sustaining, evolving universe the only way to go?”
Alternatively: “Is life with sentient consciousness an automatic consequence of a physically viable cosmos?” (Would we have ended up here, asking the question, regardless of the form we took?) If it is, ID is out the window. If it is not, there are still questions left to ask.
The science NEEDED to prove ID is probably beyond the current state of the art; the measure of the IDers’ hypocrisy is that they are not practising science at all.
People think theoretically time travel might be possible… and I suppose somewhere in some lab scientists are actually toying with experiments to prove the possibility.
IDists don’t even believe their own theory… if they did they would have some experiments to test the possibility. “THAT’S IMPOSSIBLE!” Is not a theory.
How can anyone (in this case Wells) that should know better be so IMmoral… to lie in the worst way. To lie and distort not to protect oneself or even to gain advantage (e.g. as for outright criminal gain) but rather to simply kill the truth!!! That to me so SINFUL… and I am an 100% atheist!!!
My sentiments exactly. After Wells pull that Dadaesque “quoting” of a biologist for his crap PIGID book I blew a gasket, too. Not good for the blood pressure. Of course atheists believe in “sin,” i.e., doing something wrong–you don’t believe in original sin. You don’t believe that eating some fruit on a tree in a garden that didn’t exist caused a whole host of crime and birth defects and child molesters and nearsighted “designed” eyeballs, but Wells does. That’s what this is about, and that’s disgusting.
In the meantime, we have heard zippity-doo-dah from these moral crusaders for truth and justice about what the consequences of what they’re pushing. I don’t think Wells and his “HIV skepticism” is directly responsible for what’s happening to the Tripoli Six, but you’d think these supreme moral commanders who are out to save the souls of Richard Dawkins and his ilk with fart-animations and such would at least work up some outrage at what is happening to a doctor and some nurses unjustly accused.
I raised that issue at Uncommon Descent and got told that I was incapable of being an atheist and a good person. So why don’t they, at least, join the blogosphere in calling for justice in this case, them being so moral and all? How about it Wells? How about it, Behe? How about it, William Dembski? Dembski, honey, I’m pretty sure you don’t believe one word Wells says about AIDS but you don’t have the courage to break ranks in your little children’s crusade.
And we know how that ended.
Art, I just tried to indicate where he was right (he copied the definition of a morphogen from a text book) and where he got confused (he thought that if RA is not a morphogen, it is not relevant). I remember an overenthusiastic Nature News and Views (by Jon Slack?) with headline “We have a morphogen!”, based on a (very careful) paper of Thaller and Eichele. It was followed 4 years later by another N&V “We may not have a morphogen”. The moment that scientific claims are retracted or modified is when a certain type of people get really excited. Think of creationists who hear about any novelty or correction re: evolutionary biology, and draw the conclusion that Darwin has been refuted
I don’t just mean taking a scalpel and rearranging the parts like you’re doing a collage in third-grade art class…
He turned a jellyfish into a trilobyte in his third-grade art class? Well, that just ablut clinches it — he’s the bestest biologist on Earth! And the bestest artist! (So why isn’t his work in the Hirshhorn?)
(Because it’s still on his mom’s refrigerator?)
Martin C said: “That is not even the biggest problem for them to explain though. That one is how Noah and his shipmates managed to survive temperatures of 500 degrees centigrade and and air pressure equivalent to the bottom of the Atlantic – which you can predict if enough rain fell to cover every mountain on the planet.”
Actually, the burning question *I* want answered is–who got stuck with poop patrol, and how long did it take to get from stem to stern?
Lynn
I’m currently reading a 20-year-old biology text called Living Invertebrates by Vicki Pearse et al., which is replete with tidbits like these:
and
The evidence of evolutionary relationships is everywhere, even in a the 1987 edition of what I judge to be a second-year or third-year undergraduate textbook.
After first Kansas in 1999 you started seeing the ID scam artists gravitate more to Wells’ junk. I found this hard to understand because my bet is that absolutely no one respected Wells at the Discovery Institute. Ohio demonstrated the reason for this, and fortunately for the science side it also demonstrated why Wells probably isn’t respected at the Discovery Institute, now if he ever had any respect. The junk that Wells perpetrates is all that ID basically had worth talking about. They didn’t have anything positive to put forward and all they had was the prevarications like the Wellsian junk. The political muscle behind the Discovery Institute has to be ticked that it was Wells’ dishonesty that linked ID and the Disocovery Institute with the “teach the controversy” ID replacement scam. [Why did they have to change what they call the “controversy” scam? Maybe they will run out of dishonest monikers for creationist scams.] Putting the Wellsian misrepresentation about “no moths on tree trunks” in the Model lesson plan and having web links to ARN recommended pretty much killed any notion that “teach the controversy” was anything but another creationist scam. Not only did the Wellsian lies link the “teach the controversy” scam to ID, but the creationist rubes that had just found out that they had been lied to about ID got a second dose of reality when they found out that they could not trust the “controversy” scam material coming out of the Discovery Institute anymore than they could trust the dishonest ID propaganda.
As far as I know Wells is still a fellow at the Discovery Institute and is probably getting his stipend. It is pretty sad because anyone with half a brain has to realize that they would dump the guy if they could.
This just seems to be another case of “evolution hasn’t yet solved one of the biggest, most complex mysteries around, and therefore must be wrong” arguements. To them, until a step-by-step, minute-by-minute, explanation is given, then the only explanation is goddidit. Similar to the complexity of the human brain/consciousness issue.
Steven H.
Mike Haubrich: Your career change and research ideas would prove most interesting. I am glad that the Dawkins foundation is funding research into the psychology and sociology of religion, perhaps you could get some of that money …
Dan: Nah, at least tripe can be used as a desperate food source for a human, or an excellent meal for our carrion eater friends. ID is far more useless.
As for Wells, he seems to be quite a clear example of a liar for Jesus. If not, we need a desperately new theory of cognitive dissonance.