Discovery Institute valittaa taas, osa 2

Tässä lupaamaani jatkoa EvolutionNews-sivuston tekstistä. Laitan jokaisen kohden perään vain lyhyen selonteon siitä mitä itse ajattelen. En käsittele niitä kohtia jossa puhutaan yhteisestä polveutumisesta, eli Discovery Instituten "Emme ole rasisteja, mutta neekerit pois täältä"-logiikkaa.

2. PBS falsely claims that Scott Minnich did not testify about his own scientific research on the irreducible complexity of the flagellum.

PBS shows a re-enactment of the Dover Trial where pro-ID microbiologist Scott Minnich is asked if he had performed an experiment to assess whether the bacterial flagellum could evolve. The fictionalized scene shows Dr. Minnich saying that he had not performed the experiment. But this scene is highly misleading because Dr. Minnich did testify about his own genetic knockout experiments that showed the bacterial flagellum is irreducibly complex, and could not evolve in a Darwinian fashion. For more information, see:

Ohjelmassa käytiin tällainen vuoropuhelu:

ACTOR ROBERT MUISE: You specialize your focus and research on the flagellum, is that correct?

ACTOR SCOTT MINNICH: That's correct.

ACTOR ROBERT MUISE: And you've done experiments on flagellum?

ACTOR SCOTT MINNICH: I have.

ACTOR ROBERT MUISE: And have written peer reviewed articles on it?

ACTOR SCOTT MINNICH: Yes.

ACTOR ROBERT MUISE: Dr. Minnich, a complaint that's often brought up, and plaintiffs' experts brought it up in this case, is that intelligent design is not testable. It's not falsifiable. Would you agree with that claim?

ACTOR SCOTT MINNICH: No, I don't. I have a quote from Mike Behe. "In fact, intelligent design is open to direct experimental rebuttal. To falsify such a claim a scientist could go into the laboratory, place a bacterial species lacking a flagellum under some selective pressure, for motility say, grow it for ten thousand generations and see if a flagellum or any equally complex system was produced. If that happened my claims would be neatly disproven."

ACTOR ROBERT MUISE: Would this be an experiment that you would do?

ACTOR SCOTT MINNICH: You know, I think about it, I would be intrigued to do it. I wouldn't expect it to work. But that's my bias.

ACTOR STEPHEN HARVEY: Now you claim that intelligent design can be tested, correct?

ACTOR SCOTT MINNICH: Correct.

ACTOR STEPHEN HARVEY: Intelligent design, according to you, is not tested at all, because neither you nor Dr. Behe have run the test that you, yourself, advocate for testing intelligent design, right?

ACTOR SCOTT MINNICH: Well, turn it around in terms of these major attributes of evolution. Have they been tested? You see what I'm saying, Steve? I mean, it's a problem for both sides.

EvolutionNews valittaa väärästä asiasta. Scott Minnichiltä kysyttiin juuri sellaisesta kokeesta, jota Michael Behe on ehdottanut tehtäväksi bakteeriflagellalle. Behe, eikä Minnich, eivät ole vieläkään tehneet ehdottamaansa koetta. Toki Minnich on voinut tehdä knock-out kokeita, mutta tässä ei ollutkaan kyse niistä. Minnich on tunnistanut IC-systeemejä, mutta ei testannut voiko IC-systeemi kehittyä.


4. PBS quotes an NCSE staff member wrongly claiming there is no "complete explanation" of why some pro-ID expert witnesses did not testify.

Two Discovery Institute senior fellows--Michael Behe and Scott Minnich--did testify in the Dover Trial. Discovery Institute has long explained why some other Discovery Institute senior fellows chose not to testify: "Meyer, Dembski and Campbell were all willing to testify as expert witnesses. They simply requested that they have their own counsel present at their depositions in order to protect their rights. Yet Thomas More would not permit this. Mr. Thompson has been quoted in media accounts as stating that to permit independent counsel to assert the witnesses' rights would create a 'conflict of interest'--a claim for which he can offer no legal justification. When the witnesses refused to proceed without legal counsel to protect them, Thomas More cancelled the deposition of Prof. Campbell and effectively fired all three expert witnesses. After dismissing its own witnesses, Thomas More made an 11th-hour offer to Dr. Meyer alone to allow him to have counsel after all. But Meyer declined the offer because the previous actions of Thomas More had undermined his confidence in their legal judgment." For more information on this issue, see:

Tässä ei ole paljon selitettävää. Discovery Institute ymmärsi, ettei juttu mene hyvin. Asiantuntijat (Stephen C. Meyer, Dembski, Campbell) halusivat omat lakimiehet, ja tämä aiheutti kitkaa omissa riveissä. Sen seurauksena oikeuden eteen päätyi kuultavaksi vähemmän IDeistejä. Vaikka Dembski & kumpp. olisivat uskaltaneet saapua saliin ilman ylimääräisiä lakimiehiä, niin tulos olisi tuskin muuttunut. Veikkaan, että jos Dembski olisi päässyt ääneen, niin tuomari Jones olisi ollut vielä tarmokkaampi nykyisen päätöksen teossa.

5. PBS wrongly claims that the Type III Secretory System (T3SS) refutes the irreducible complexity of the bacterial flagellum.

PBS features flagellum expert David K. DeRosier repeating the testimony of Ken Miller, claiming that the flagellum is not irreducibly complex because the T3SS "is a structure that functions that is missing several" of the proteins of the flagellum. In fact, this is not the correct test of irreducible complexity. Behe properly tests irreducible complexity by assessing the plausibility of the entire functional system to assemble in a step-wise fashion, even if sub-parts can have functions outside of the final system. For more information, see:

Tässä EvolutionNews on oikeassa. Behe todellakin määrittelee redusoimattoman systeemin (IC) sellaiseksi, että sen osilla voi olla omia funktioita. Kokonaisuuden redusoimattomuus on hänelle tärkeää, ja samalla yhtä epäolennaista biologiassa. Jos systeemin osilla on omia funktioita, on niillä myös omat valintapaineet. Ken Miller ja useat muut ovat osoittaneet, että flagellan kehitykselle on olemassa epäsuoria kehitysreittejä. Näissä asteittaisissa kehitysreiteissä on omat vaiheet, ja jokaisella vaiheella on jokin funktio, ja täten jokin syy miksi luonnonvalinta suosisi sitä. Behe vaatii, että IC-systeemin pitäisi kehittyä epärealistisella tavalla.


7. PBS wrongly asserts that intelligent design is creationism because of the contents of early drafts of the Of Pandas and People textbook.

PBS claims that the usage of creationist terminology in early drafts of Pandas indicates that ID is just creationism after the Edwards v. Aguillard ruling. As stated in our Montana Law Review article: "By unequivocally affirming that the empirical evidence of science 'cannot tell us if the intellect behind [the information in life] is natural or supernatural' it is evident that these pre-publication drafts of Pandas meant something very different by 'creation' than did the Supreme Court in Edwards v. Aguillard, in which the Court defined creationism as religion because it postulated a 'supernatural creator.'" PBS fails to mention that Charles Thaxton testified in his Kitzmiller deposition that he adopted intelligent design terminology out of a desire to limit statements to scientific claims that can be made based upon the empirical data: "I wasn’t comfortable with the typical vocabulary that for the most part creationists were using because it didn’t express what I was trying to do. They were wanting to bring God into the discussion, and I was wanting to stay within the empirical domain and do what you can do legitimately there." For more information, see:

Luominen sanoo, että älyn alkuperä on yliluonnollinen. ID sanoo, että älyn alkuperällä ei ole väliä. Ergo, luominen ja ID ovat kaksi aivan eri asiaa. Of Pandas and People-kirjan tekijä Charles Thaxton halusi välttää Jumalaan viittaavaa, ja pysyä empiirisen tieteen parissa. Ratkaisevaa on kuitenkin se, että Of Pandas and People-kirjan eri vaiheet ovat vielä tallella. Alkutekijöissä Panda-kirjassa puhuttiin luomisesta, Jumalasta. Nykyisessä versiossa puhutaan älystä, älykkäästä suunnitelmasta. Ratkaisevat muutokset tapahtuivat kuin sattumalta juuri kriittisellä hetkellä:

NARRATOR: After days of digging, she hit pay dirt: buried in these documents were two drafts of Pandas straddling the 1987 case of Edwards v. Aguillard—in which the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional to teach creationism in public school science class.

One draft was written before the case—and the other revised just after.

BARBARA FORREST: In the first 1987 draft, which is the pre-Edwards draft, the definition of creation reads this way: "Creation means that various forms of life began abruptly through the agency of an intelligent creator with their distinctive features already intact: fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks and wings, et cetera." 8:06:08:00 The same definition in this draft, the second draft, after the Edwards decision, reads this way: "Intelligent design means that various forms of life began abruptly through an intelligent agency, with their distinctive features already intact: fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, et cetera." Same definition, just one is worded in terms of creationism, the other one worded in terms of intelligent design.

NICK MATZKE: Everyone said intelligent design is creationism re-labeled. Never in our wildest dreams, though, did we think that this would actually be recorded in paper in a way that could be documented in a court case.

Päiväyksistä selviää, että Jumala muuttui älykkääksi suunnitelmaksi Edwards v. Aguillard oikeustapauksen jälkeen. Discovery Institute sanoo sen johtuvan jostain muusta kuin Edwards v. Aguillard-tapauksesta, ja toteaa vielä, että alkuperäisessa Panda-kirjassa käytettiin paikoitellen myös termiä "intelligent design." Muutokset vain tehtiin suurella kiireellä, ja siksi meillä on tallella legendaarinen meemin välimuoto: cdesign proponentsists.
Jos Panda-kirja oli valmiiksi ID:tä, ja oli muotoiltu sellaiseksi ettei se sodi Edwards v. Aguillardin päätöstä vastaan, niin miksi siihen tehtiin päätöksen jälkeen niin paljon muutoksia?

8. PBS quotes Barbara Forrest wrongly insinuating that Discovery Institute seeks to impose theocracy, and leaves off mention of Forrest's own anti-religious motives.

During her Kitzmiller testimony, Barbara Forrest testified that Discovery Institute sought to impose "theocracy," and PBS quotes her making statements to a similar effect. This is a blatantly false claim, for Discovery Institute has adamantly opposed any attempts to create "theocracy." Moreover, Forrest is quoted talking about the alleged religious motives of ID proponents, but PBS hypocritically leaves off any mention of Forrest's anti-religious motives or her membership on the Board of the New Orleans Secular Humanist Association. For more information on this double-standard, see:

Olen sitä mieltä, ettei Discovery Institute ole ajamassa Yhdysvaltoihin teokratiaa. Discovery Institute on ilmoittanut tavoitteiksi vain lisäystä Jumalan kannattamiseen, konservatiivisten arvojen palauttamiseen, materialismin tuhoamisen, ja kristinuskon kanssa yhteensopivan tieteen kehittämisen, ja ID:lle valtaa politiikassa. Mutta he eivät ole missään suoraan sanoneet tavoitteekseen saada kristillinen hallitus. Forrestin sekulaarihumanismi on yhdentekevää, sillä ID:n vastustajista löytyy niin kristittyjä, agnostikkoja kuin ateisteja. Verratkaa tätä suoraan Kiila-todisteeseen, jossa kerrotaan kristilliset tavoitteet.


9. PBS falsely claims that intelligent design is a negative argument against evolution that appeals to the supernatural.

ID proponents have long-refuted these false characterizations of ID. For rebuttals on these points, see:

Judgment Day meni sitten väittämään, että ID on negatiivinen argumentti. Järkyttävää! Discovery Institute ilmoittaa, ettei asia ole näin, ja tarjoaa kahta linkkiä. Jälkimmäisessä linkissä tarjotaan positiivista argumenttia Suunnitelmalle. Annan ihmisten itse päättellä onko siellä sitä mitä luvataan.

10. PBS makes the false insinuation that intelligent design is no more scientific than astrology.

PBS’s “Judgment Day” portrays a dramatized and sharply truncated account of Michael Behe's Kitzmiller testimony, making it appear as if he said that ID is no more scientific than astrology during hostile examination from the plaintiffs' attorney. Of course Behe and all ID scientists reject astrology, but PBS insinuates that astrology falls under Behe’s definition of a “scientific theory.” What PBS fails to acknowledge is that 500 years ago, the ancient scientific consensus would have claimed (erroneously) that astrology even meets the U.S. National Academy of Science's definition of a scientific theory, as "a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, and tested hypotheses." The problem with astrology is not that it could have fit the NAS’s definition of a scientific theory, or Michael Behe's definition of a scientific theory 500 years ago, for something that is "science" can still be be wrong. The problem is that astrology is not supported by the evidence. That is why, unlike ID, no serious scientists are advocating astrology as a good theory which could be presented to students in science classrooms. For more information, see:

Tässä olen samaa mieltä Discovery Instituten kanssa. Behen kommenttia on levitetty väärässä valossa. Mutta olennainen asia ei ole muuttunut. ID:ltä puuttuu vieläkin tieteellinen teoria.