The Prestigious Journal Nature did a COVER STORY on Intelligent Design in the Universities.

The intelligent-design movement is a small but growing force on US university campuses.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v434/n7037/full/4341062a.html


Salvador Cordova

its just unfortunate intelligent design didn't make it between pages 1087 and 1159 where the actual research is published - but who knows, maybe one day intelligent design will actually make some scientific contribution

Originally posted by chickenman

its just unfortunate intelligent design didn't make it between pages 1087 and 1159 where the actual research is published - but who knows, maybe one day intelligent design will actually make some scientific contribution

No chance! It hasnt produced anything yet and won't in the future. It has no scientific contribution to make.

Yeah, they pointed out that the ID movement is a purely political one whose ranks are mostly populated by as-yet scientifically uneducated U.S. teenagers following their childhood religious training out of inertia.

They also pointed out that ID "theory" has provided zero testable hypotheses, makes zero predictions, done zero research work, published zero peer reviewed articles, and provided zero positive supporting evidence.

The best description to date of what ID is really about:

"I'm too stupid or too lazy to research this phenomenon any deeper, so I'll just quit and declare GOD the Intelligent Designer did it!!"

- Tiggy

Well, it was a good article on sociology.

I thought the accompanying poll, while not much different from previous polls, was still interesting.
Particularly the bottom one.
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yo tiggy
just because evolution can explain a load of stuff doesn't mean it has any validity.
take psycholgy
in this field, there is great variety of expalnations for the phenomena studied, so people do not feel threatened by the idea that evolution may not always be the be best approach to the facts.
also, in psychology, a theory needs to have practical application to gain very widespread acceptance. and as far as i know evolution is not of assitance when it come to helping people. this is because it is based on a very broad set of assumptions which are then streched over the facts, rather than drawing a very specific set of cause-and-effect based conclusions from each type of situation looked at which are then modified and discarded as more facts are learned. so although evolution can explain most things in psychology it is in this field at least neither proved nor provable.

Iktovian,

If you go to college you'll probably see where your errors here lie. Until then, I suggest you bone up a bit on evolution (and perhaps psychology). Might also want to familiarize yourself with the nature of theory, which is well covered in the philosophy of science.

okay min, guess where i am now?

and kindly check this out:

"...the evolutionary approach to psychology has been questioned on several grounds. One ground is that evolutionary theorists seem quick to assume that quite specific behavioral patternshttp://arjournals.annualreviews.org/...ities/2014.giffor example, the tendency of women to seek mates who have large amounts of money (Buss 1989), or of men to kill wives suspected of infidelity (Wilson & Daly 1996)http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/...ities/2014.gifare directly determined by biological mechanisms. Yet no such mechanism that would allow genetic or physiological determination of human behavior to such a precise degree has ever been specifically identified. It might seem more plausible to posit that to the degree that behavioral patterns are biologically hard-wired, the wiring produces general capacities and propensities. Evolutionary theorists, in response, point to examples such as bird songs and spider webhttp://arjournals.annualreviews.org/...ities/2013.gifspinning to show that specific behaviors can be built into an organism. Still, proximal biological or even psychological mechanisms in humans are almost totally missing from evolutionary theorizing. As one writer has observed, It would be refreshing to hear evolutionary psychologists directly acknowledge the importance of empirically evaluating whether those human social preferences posited to be adaptations are indeed genetically specified. Skepticalhttp://arjournals.annualreviews.org/...ities/2026.gifpsychologists might be more receptive to evolutionary accountshttp://arjournals.annualreviews.org/...ities/2026.gifif these critical and controversial points were put forth as hypotheses that need to be tested rather than as forgone conclusions. (Berry 2000, p. 325)...
....(another) source of difficulty for evolutionary psychology is a by-product of its greatest strength. Its greatest strength is its ability to account for a wide range of behaviors, from preferences for salty foods to strivings to achieve dominance, that otherwise would have to be accepted as having become part of human nature for no particular reason. Pinker's (1997) ambitious survey vividly demonstrates how evolutionary theorizing can organize a broad sweep of behavioral phenomena. This very breadth, however, makes the theory difficult to test in any convincing way. The ability of evolutionary psychology to explain nearly everything is not an absolute virtue."


found at

http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/...psych.52.1.197



if you have any questions i could maybe ask my psyche lecturer for you

Originally posted by Iktovian

yo tiggy
just because evolution can explain a load of stuff doesn't mean it has any validity.

Yeah, well, what about its validity when explaining that 'stuff'? Is it not valid then?

take psycholgy in this field, there is great variety of expalnations for the phenomena studied, so people do not feel threatened by the idea that evolution may not always be the be best approach to the facts.

Okay, let's take gravity. Evolution doesn't explain that either. Should I be bothered? Your line of logic is anemic.

also, in psychology, a theory needs to have practical application to gain very widespread acceptance. and as far as i know evolution is not of assitance when it come to helping people. this is because it is based on a very broad set of assumptions which are then streched over the facts, rather than drawing a very specific set of cause-and-effect based conclusions from each type of situation looked at which are then modified and discarded as more facts are learned. so although evolution can explain most things in psychology it is in this field at least neither proved nor provable.

But it does explain biology and the fossil record. Do you still say that the theory of evolution is not valid? This is a specious argument. You say that TOE doesn't have ANY validity and then proceed to specifically and conveniently ignore any field where it is practically indispensable in explanatory powers. Let me guess: you are a sophomore in college...

A pink omnipotent unicorn can explain biology and the fossil record as well.

... but not with a detailed mechanism that can be used to generate testable predictions.

Iktovian,

None of your links, except for the last, function. The last requires subscription, which, of course, no one is going to bother with.

Iktovian: “just because evolution can explain a load of stuff doesn't mean it has any validity.”

Now there’s some interesting logic

Iktovian: “also, in psychology, a theory needs to have practical application to gain very widespread acceptance. and as far as i know evolution is not of assitance when it come to helping people.”

Good thing the biological and physical sciences aren’t psychology. You need to do some serious reading and learning before you embarrass yourself any further with such non-sensical statements. First, the validity of any theory doesn’t depend one iota on the amount of practical applications it generates. Secondly, the sciences that support ToE – biology and genetics to name just a few - have generated huge advances in the fields of health and medicine. Do vaccines ever help people? The same DNA analysis techniques that support the chimp/human common ancestor also are used to convict criminals. Does getting murderers off the streets ever help society?

Iktovian: “this is because it (evolution) is based on a very broad set of assumptions which are then streched over the facts, rather than drawing a very specific set of cause-and-effect based conclusions from each type of situation looked at which are then modified and discarded as more facts are learned.”

It’s really difficult dealing with so much ignorance crammed into one small paragraph. What you are saying is flat out wrong. The ToE has been developed and refined from over 150 years of cross-corroborating hard data and hard research from many different scientific disciplines. That you are unaware of how vast the quantity and quality of the supporting evidence is says more about you than it does the sciences.

Let me guess – you’re a Psych major who hasn’t come within 500 yards of a science class or laboratory in your whole brief academic career – right?

- Tiggy

Originally posted by Superbug

... but not with a detailed mechanism that can be used to generate testable predictions.

There really aren't any useful predictions evolution can make. Mutation does, but I highly doubt we can predict what all the animals in the world are going to evolve into(especially since mutations are random). Unless, of course, there is some sort of predictions that evolution can make which I don't know about, in which case I would appreciate some enlightenment.

Evolutionary theory has made many successful predictions. In the 70’s ToE predicted that many extinct intermediate species between ancient land mammals and modern whales would be found, and they were. Evolutionary theory also predicted the existence of a mechanism for passing on inherited traits well before DNA was discovered.

The most important practical one I can think of is the prediction of the evolutionary path followed by pathogens such as the AIDS virus of the new and deadly Avian flu. Such predictions are critically important in understanding how to best stop the spread of these killers. The medical profession is well aware of the dangers of over-prescribing antibiotics to combat infectious diseases. Such over-prescribing in the past has given rise to new drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis, gonorrhea, and other diseases that are very resistant to existing medication. Similar things were predicted and proved correct in the rise of “super insects” resistant to commonly used industrial pesticides.

Here is a good overview with many more examples

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA210.html

- Tiggy