Columnist Jon Malone wrote an article Tuesday titled, “Students should keep an open mind about evolution debate.”
This advice is applicable and profitable to people throughout their lives, but Malone urged this open-mindedness specifically in the context of the intelligent design events held Monday and Tuesday evenings.
After attending both events, I want to comment on key features of the presentations that serve to exemplify or fail to meet the standard set by the grad-student columnist, as well as mention my perspective concerning the events.
The first of these took place Monday evening in Meacham auditorium. Dr. Stephen Meyer, who earned his doctorate in the History and Philosophy of Science at Cambridge University, lectured on the arguments for intelligent design that he asserts in his recent book “Signature in the Cell.”
Dr. Meyer took questions from the audience after presenting. (You might check out a Tuesday article in The Daily if you are interested in learning more about the lecture.)
The Tuesday event consisted of a screening of the recently released “Darwin’s Dilemma,” followed by a Q & A session with Dr. Meyer and Dr. Jonathan Wells. Dr. Wells is the author of “Icons of Evolution,” in which he details that it is no longer intellectually honest to cite traditional evidences of Darwinian evolution (peppered moths, Darwin’s finches, Haeckel’s embryo drawings, the Miller-Urey experiment, etc.) as being representative of reality.
The documentary, produced by the Discovery Institute, argues that a period of time called “the Cambrian explosion” provides strong evidence for the existence of an intelligence active in natural history.
One of the most spectacular features of these events was the broad spectrum of people who attended. As secretary of the IDEA Club, the student organization that hosted the lecture and film screening, I am thrilled that so many people with different viewpoints could converge to join a discussion about intelligent design – that may be the first step in attaining the open-mindedness advocated by Malone.
Compared to similar events in the past, the behavior of the audiences was also largely commendable. When intelligent design proponent William Dembski spoke in Meacham Auditorium in 2007, many audience members proved to be disreputable in their hostility. Thankfully, that fire was not lit at the recent events.
As audience members exited the auditoriums, I was glad to hear many people comment on the quality of the presentations and speakers. Some left persuaded, while others considered the events to be well orchestrated but disagreed with the conclusions drawn by the intelligent design theorists. Still others believed that the events were “slick” – convincing to the uneducated but either mistakenly incorrect or dishonest.
Journalism students at OU learn that there are more than two sides to every story, and the diversity of attendees at these two proceedings provides empirical support for that lesson.
This diversity also provided excellent opportunities to interact with others in an open-minded fashion. Although some attendees chose to discuss the events in small groups of people with whom they already agreed, others engaged in conversations with those of varying viewpoints.
For the purposes of the IDEA Club, “Promoting Discussion on the Problem of Design,” the events were successes.
Increase Text Size
Decrease Text Size
Print Story
Mail to Friend
More Stories
Comments
Yup, everyone was happy and smiling, throwing flowers in the air... and it all finished with a wonderful song like in a good Disney movie. Mother Theresa was there too. See what you can achieve with open-mindedness and courteous, peaceful, discussions around a cup of tea? It did not turn out like the 2007 bloodbath where the poor Dumbski was mauled by ferocious atheists on the order of satan himself.
Thank you IDEA, and his illustrious secretary Mr. Trevor Clark. You all have been good christians, clean and polite. And the two sides of the story were covered too. Marvelous, I did not see the other side. So ID people are not preposterous charlatans who hate to know their species has common ancestry with monkeys, huh?
And what about Dr. Stephen C. Meyer? He obtained a PhD in 1991 in... History and Philosophy of Science. He sure is knowledgeable in BIOLOGY. He once published... ONE paper in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. The funny thing is that the paper had to be withdrawn shortly after because the editor at the time, a fellow ID proponent, forgot to send his paper to the reviewers... Oups.
Dr. Jonathan Wells, PhD in Molecular and Cell Biology from UC Berkeley. That looks more serious... in fact he is so serious that, get this, according to him AIDS is not caused by the HIV... Yes, that is the kind of serious people who hang at the IDEA club. Bravo.
Whoa, what? So you've basically BS'd every single reader of the paper by promoting "open-mindedness" while not disclosing that you're a member of the student militia of the Discovery Institute? That was a breach of ethics. You're just another fake promoter of the "teach the controversy" wedge strategy of people who have a political, not scientific, mission. I am definitely offended and felt taken in by the general niceness (if misguided) about seeing both sides of all issues, but it's now clear that you have nothing like an open mind - you're just another dumb stooge (maybe pig would be a better word, since you've unethically misled everyone by failing to disclose a conflict of interest) who is an anti-scientific idiot. Ughh... people like you make me so frustrated. Hopefully you get deluged with hate mail.
I must admit, the intelligent design concept stumbled upon a brilliant public relations position with slogans like "academic freedom", "teach the controversy", and "openmindedness". These ideas appeal very well to an American culture that encourages such topics as free and open debate. This is a splendid situation for ID, as it allows the idea to appeal directly to voters and school boards without having to win the acceptance of the scientific community. Normally, any sort of new hypothesis or theory would have to be proven as scientifically viable before it would be legislated into school curricula, but ID has cut to the front of the line, an illegal immigrant in the metaphorical nation of education.
Or more specific, at 7:45 this morning I forgot that Trevor Clark and Joe Malone are different people - I thought this was a follow-up to the older piece about keeping an open mind when it comes to science.
dio - although ad hominems can be fun, your criticism would be more meaningful if you demonstrate that
1) Meyer and Wells faltered on the biology questions
or
2) Meyer's combinatorics, which contained the force of his argument, were incorrect
or
3) Mathematics has little correspondence to reality
I agree that Clark suggests the events were more peaceful than they were, but I do think Meyer's and Westrop's lectures, the video, and the Q&A times were intellectually stimulating.
Hello pearljamrun,
1) I am sorry but this debate is old. Please check out what everybody said last semester here or, please, - please -, do open a textbook.
2) Meyer is absolutely no mathematician.
3) You are definitely not an engineer. If you were true then we would have to back off from all electronic devices, evacuate all buildings and avoid crashing satellites.
Anyway, if people want to believe in intellectually vacuous pseudo-religions, that is perfectly fine. But that would be much better if they can keep their ID church outside all educational establishments.
Hello pearjamrun,
Perhaps we can use dio's response to test the two theories. Let's see, was the specific information in dio's response created by:
A. An intelligent agent using a 26 letter code, or
B. Letters randomly chosen through a process that had no specific intent, but just happened to produce the complexity observed?
Methinks dio has proven that information is the product of intelligence.
Kinda what Stephen Meyer says we observe in cells, where information creation, storage, retrieval, and processing is just a tad bit more complex than dio's response, as each cell contains enough specific information to fill 30 volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
You rock, pearljamrun... and so do you, dio, for helping us get to the bottom of this mystery!
Hello jason,
1. Evolution is not randomness. An individual does not have more offspring randomly.
2. Complexity needs no intent. Just open an organic chemistry book. You will see how complex chemical structures are generated without the help of an invisible pink unicorn.
3. Information is not the product of intelligence. See point 2.
Dio,
Specified complexity does require intelligence.
Complexity: yihdaeyyaeydhvdvdldjj
Specified Complexity: "Complexity needs no intent. Just open an organic chemistry book."
Big difference, my friend. Specified complexity does require intent and the information in the nucleus of each cell is specified, instructing the cell to build proteins from amino acids.
No. 3 in your previous post needs a little work.
@jason
A molecule structure is not random, it is the product of all the interactions between atoms. Hence the reason why there is no "yihdaeyyaeydhvdvdldjj" molecule. Elementary chemistry Sherlock.
If you go a step further you will quickly figure out that molecules interact between them to form larger structures, just because of their mutual physical interactions and not because someone is designing anything (or whatever BS words creationists are using these days). That molecules can replicate themselves or generate other molecules by interacting between them is absolutely no magic.
Also you should define what you mean by "complexity" or "specified complexity". So far your point makes no sense. The proof?
Stupidity: yihdaeyyaeydhvdvdldjj
Specified Stupidity: "No. 3 in your previous post needs a little work."
Dio,
Quoting from your earlier post, "Information is not the product of intelligence."
....on which planet?
Pearljamrun,
Check out the reviews on Amazon of Stephen Meyers' Signature In The Cell.
WOW!
Dio,
"Also you should define what you mean by "complexity" or "specified complexity". So far your point makes no sense. The proof?"
Gladly. You can take the alphabet's 26 letters and combine them in numerous was to make a complex configuration of letters. But only a letter structure like yours, which introduces intelligence can take the letters and make a coherent sentence. Now the structure of the sentence has specified complexity. Proteins have specified complexity as they can only be created from specified amino acids. Proteins are created with information and information comes from? Can we say intelligence?
The proof. Whenever you find specified complexity it is immediately recognizable as the product of intelligence.
Let me ask you this question. How do you know that Mt. Rushmore was
created by intelligence rather than carved out by millions of years of natural forces working on the mountain?
@jason
"Quoting from your earlier post, 'Information is not the product of intelligence.' ....on which planet?"
On a planet, unlike yours, where the notion of information is clearly defined (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information...). Many aspects of the notion of information does not require intelligence at all (see notably information in physics).
"But only a letter structure like yours, (...) Proteins are created with information and information comes from?"
And what is a "letter structure"? Is "A" alone a structure? There are words you evidently do not understand. Therefore let me repeat, again, something that obviously just flew over your head.
A molecule structure is not random, it is the product of all the interactions between atoms. Hence the reason why there is no "yihdaeyyaeydhvdvdldjj" molecule. If you go a step further you will quickly figure out that molecules interact between them to form larger structures, just because of their mutual physical interactions and not because someone is designing anything. That molecules can replicate themselves or generate other molecules by interacting between them is absolutely no magic.
"Mt. Rushmore was created by intelligence rather than carved out by millions of years of natural forces working on the mountain."
Mount Rushmore carvings are not the result of a process of erosion and shifts in tectonic plates. Your mistake is to confound two different processes in order to deliberately create a confusion for the readers. One aspect is the result of the geological process (the mountain per se), the other one the result of human carvings. Both are distinct and their nature can be easily identified.
Same thing with molecular biology. Lifeforms are the direct results of chemical and evolutionary processes. Makeups and tattoos are the results of artistry. Do you get it now?
Post a comment
Commenting requires registration.