Discovery Education Policy per Eddie

[Timothy_Horton]

@Eddie

It is certainly not an “empirically verified scientific fact” that whales arose out of a series of mutations, plus drift, plus selection, etc., from some primitive artiodactyl.

ZOOM! Look at those goal posts fly! Notice the facts under discussion were the evolutionary processes of random mutations, selection, and fitness. That those phenomena occur are all well understood scientific facts. Eddie countered with Shapiro’s unverified hypothesis of organism self-engineering. Then when caught with massive egg on his face tries to change the subject to cetacean evolution.

I love watching clueless IDCers faceplant while trying to argue against evolutionary science.

[Timothy_Horton]

@Eddie

James Shapiro’s ideas on evolutionary mechanism have been published in peer-reviewed technical journals, so you shouldn’t object to a short summary of those ideas, just a few sentences, being presented in high school biology class.

Note the bait-and-switch where Eddie above was arguing the DI’s position Shapiro’s hypothesis should be taught in 9th grade basic biology.

@Eddie

The main focus of debate has been not “high school” in general but ninth-grade biology, since in most jurisdictions that course is compulsory, and deals with evolution.

Funny how his argument turns to jello when challenged.

[Timothy_Horton]

@Eddie

You obviously either didn’t read or didn’t understand their analysis of the Dover decision.

Does that include Dembski’s “farting Judge Jones” animation?

[Faizal_Ali]

@Eddie

He’s a synthetic chemist. He makes complex molecules out of simple molecules for a living.

Exactly and, therefore, no better qualified to speak on the subject of biology than some guy who cleans toilets for a living. Except the guy cleaning toilets likely has the good sense not to advertise his ignorance over the internet for the world to point at and laugh.

@Eddie

He certainly has more knowledge of the chemical difficulties involved in an accidental origin of life (which also supposedly proceeded by taking simple molecules and building up complex ones) than all or almost all of the people posting here, and he has written about those difficulties.

Wrong again. He is an expert on the intelligent design of complex organic molecules. And he says this is impossible. So therefore his opinion is a refutation of ID.

He has no idea how natural processes would produce such molecules, and why would he? The people who are experts in that subject are working on the problem. If Tour was smart, he’d just keep his mouth shut and wait as they do their work.

@Eddie

James Shapiro’s ideas on evolutionary mechanism have been published in peer-reviewed technical journals, so you shouldn’t object to a short summary of those ideas, just a few sentences, being presented in high school biology class.

Only if every single biologist who isn’t an incompetent crackpot with delusions of grandeur and who has also managed to get a few things published gets mentioned first. Ol’ James might be waiting quite a while.

[Timothy_Horton]

@Eddie

Your track record with me shows a pattern of reflexive nay-saying, and I’m sure most people here have noticed that.

What a coincidence. Your track record with almost all pro-science posters shows a pattern of reflexive nay-saying and most people here have definitely noticed that.

[Faizal_Ali]

@Eddie

It is explicit that Discovery does not support mandating ID instruction in the schools.

And why doesn’t it? They keep saying that they have developed earth shattering new scientific ideas that have shaken the very foundations of biology. Why shouldn’t that be taught to our high school students?

It would appear that the DI is admitting it does not believe its own propaganda. Interesting.

[Timothy_Horton]

@Eddie

The point at issue was whether or not Discovery policy since 2005 has been to mandate the teaching of ID in the schools. I have repeatedly said that this was not Discovery’s policy. And I have repeatedly been told that I am ignorant of Discovery’s policy, have no authority to say what it is, etc. But now I have presented it. The textual evidence is there. It is explicit that Discovery does not support mandating ID instruction in the schools.

What the DI’s 2005 written policy is and what their actions indicate are two very different things. Recently the DI has sponsored any number of “academic freedom” bills in state legislatures across the country which would allow even public elementary school teachers to introduce any unscientific woo they want in their classrooms. It’s one more dishonest attempt by the DI to backdoor their religious science-free ID garbage into public science classes.

The DI counts on ignorant laymen to miss these less than subtle attempts to keep ID-Creationism alive. The science community hasn’t missed them and is not quiet on the DI’s nefarious actions.

[Eddie (Edward Robinson)]

@Faizal_Ali

Exactly and, therefore, no better qualified to speak on the subject of biology

I was discussing chemical origin of life scenarios. You aren’t even at the level of biology until you get to life. You’re still in the realm of chemistry. So the insight of someone who knows how difficult it is make indiscriminate chemical mixtures turn into anything stable or useful is very relevant there. More relevant, actually, than the biologist’s knowledge, until you get very close to the threshold of life, where life-like interactions between macromolecules begin to take place.

@Faizal_Ali

And he says this is impossible.

Your “this” has an unclear antecedent, but if it refers to making “complex organic molecules”, he says no such thing. It is certainly possible to manufacture complex organic molecules. He invented the nanocar, which is intelligently designed. It took immense planning and a carefully controlled environment.

What he says is that it’s very difficult to conceive of how the molecular arrangements required for life (arrangements much more complex than those in his nanocars, which certainly required intelligent design) could have arisen without any intelligent intervention.

You might make the effort to read what he says before you offer your opinions about him.

@Faizal_Ali

he people who are experts in that subject are working on the problem.

And have utterly failed to solve it. Tour’s discussion gives us some of the reasons why they are having so much trouble. And calling them “experts” gives them too much credit. People who have almost no results after 80 years of work in a field aren’t generally called “experts.” “Hopeful investigators” would be a more accurate term.

@Faizal_Ali

If Tour was smart

He is smart. He was rumored to have been short-listed for the Nobel Prize a few years back. I doubt that anyone posting on this site will ever get nearly as close as he has to that award.

@Faizal_Ali

who isn’t an incompetent crackpot

Your byline says you are a psychiatrist. If that’s your academic specialty, how are you qualified to say who is a crackpot in molecular biology and who isn’t?

@Timothy_Horton

The science community

And you, Tim, are part of the science community in what capacity?

[Timothy_Horton]

@Eddie

And you, Tim, are part of the science community in what capacity?

I’m recently retired so I can devote my time to educating blustering yet pitifully ignorant laymen on the difference between unverified hypotheses and empirically verified scientific facts.

[Eddie (Edward Robinson)]

@Timothy_Horton

I’m recently retired

Recently retired from what?

[Mercer (John Mercer)]

@Eddie

I was discussing chemical origin of life scenarios.

A subject in which you have zero expertise. Where’s your credentialism now?

@Eddie

You aren’t even at the level of biology until you get to life. You’re still in the realm of chemistry.

Once again, your claims about walls between disciplines are ignorant, as is the idea that the differences between life and non-life are bright white lines.

@Eddie

So the insight of someone who knows how difficult it is make indiscriminate chemical mixtures turn into anything stable or useful is very relevant there.

Not if he’s not in the field and doing experiments. How is his opinion more informed than Nick Lane’s?

Has Tour even mentioned the term “chemiosmotic coupling,” or does he just go on about syntheses?

@Eddie

More relevant, actually, than the biologist’s knowledge, until you get very close to the threshold of life, where life-like interactions between macromolecules begin to take place.

Same question.

@Eddie

What he says is that it’s very difficult to conceive of how the molecular arrangements required for life (arrangements much more complex than those in his nanocars, which certainly required intelligent design) could have arisen without any intelligent intervention.

So what? He’s not testing hypotheses in the field.

@Eddie

And have utterly failed to solve it.

You have zero factual basis for that.

Let’s do a hypocrisy check. The ID movement has utterly failed to test an ID hypothesis. True or false?

Let’s contrast their laziness with just a peek at OOL researchers’ productivity:

"origin of life" - Search Results - PubMed

@Eddie

And calling them “experts” gives them too much credit. People who have almost no results after 80 years of work in a field aren’t generally called “experts.”

Wouldn’t that apply much more to the ID movement?

@Eddie

He was rumored to have been short-listed for the Nobel Prize a few years back.

It wouldn’t matter if he had won. He’s out of his field and mere ideas don’t trump real theories.

@Eddie

I doubt that anyone posting on this site will ever get nearly as close as he has to that award.

No one posting here is proposing that their ideas be taught in public schools instead of theories and facts, Eddie.

@Eddie

…how are you qualified to say who is a crackpot in molecular biology and who isn’t?

More importantly, how are YOU qualified to opine that Tour understands the field better than those in it?

[Ashwin_s]

@gbrooks9

Do you think the topic of Neutral Mutations is part of Darwinian Evolution?

Do they teach neutral evolution in high schools?
Does anyone know? Perhaps @Jordan?
When I was on high school, it was just the Darwinian paradigm, random mutations +natural selection.
And then the miller Urey experiments… some claims of the first cell Probably arising from some pool…
And of course Haeckels spin on embryos and how that’s evidence for evolution.

There was an alternative explanation for the origins of life; one panspermia.

[Eddie (Edward Robinson)]

This:

@Mercer

Once again, your claims about walls between disciplines are ignorant,

contrasts nicely with this:

@Mercer

He’s out of his field

Oh? I thought that the “wall” that some people put up between chemistry and biology was “ignorant.” So how is a synthetic chemist, who makes complex molecules and understands the potentially sabotaging cross-reactions that can undo the operations, “out of his field” when he responds to origin-of-life biologists who speculate about what sequences from simple to complex molecules could have done the trick? That’s as “ignorant” a “wall” as can be imagined.

But why should I expect logical consistency from you, at this late date?

[Jordan (Jordan Mantha)]

@Ashwin_s

Do they teach neutral evolution in high schools?
Does anyone know? Perhaps @Jordan?
When I was on high school, it was just the Darwinian paradigm, random mutations +natural selection.
And then the miller Urey experiments… some claims of the first cell Probably arising from some pool…
And of course Haeckels spin on embryos and how that’s evidence for evolution.

There was an alternative explanation for the origins of life; one panspermia.

@Ashwin_s, I’m not exactly a biology ed expert but looking at the OpenStax AP Biology textbook online you can see evolution discussed in Chapter 18 & 19. They do talk about neutral mutations and genetic drift a bit and I think if you know what you’re looking for you can see a differentiation between Darwin being associated with common descent and natural selection, but not population genetics, genetic drift, etc.

What I think is missing, for me, from these textbooks is that while they describe things like a neutral mutation and allele frequency, etc. they don’t really tell you what they mean in terms of understanding how populations of organisms develop and how genetic material is changed through time. I got a whole lot more out of running some simulations than reading these types of descriptions. I think students often will memorize or “learn” what they need for the exam and have no idea of how to understand the world around them. That is a general problem though .

Lastly, regarding Miller Urey experiments, at least in the OpenStax textbook they do use it several times, although they seem to avoid making sweeping claims about what it demonstrated and there is even a homework problem that goes through some of the open questions in OoL.

[Ashwin_s]

@Jordan

What I think is missing, for me, from these textbooks is that while they describe things like a neutral mutation and allele frequency, etc. they don’t really tell you what they mean in terms of understanding how populations of organisms develop and how genetic material is changed through time. I got a whole lot more out of running some simulations than reading these types of descriptions.

They should teach the math behind it. It’s a little too complicated for 9th grade though… maybe gloss over the derivations and give the equations.

w.r.t to genetics… we learned Mendelian stuff in 11yh or 12th grade…

[Mercer (John Mercer)]

@Eddie

Once again, your claims about walls between disciplines are ignorant,

contrasts nicely with this :

Mercer:

He’s out of his field

No, it doesn’t, because my definition of “field” relates to working in it, unlike yours, in which everyone’s life stops at the PhD, apparently because your career clearly has gone downhill since your PhD.

Tour is perfectly welcome to work in the field. He chooses not to.

@Eddie

Oh? I thought that the “wall” that some people put up between chemistry and biology was “ignorant.”

It is, because the same people can and do work in both. Tour chooses not to.

@Mercer

So how is a synthetic chemist, who makes complex molecules and understands the potentially sabotaging cross-reactions that can undo the operations, “out of his field” when he responds to origin-of-life biologists who speculate about what sequences from simple to complex molecules could have done the trick?

Why isn’t he “responding” to respiration-first biochemists, Eddie?

And which biologists are allegedly just speculating, and which ones are doing real work in the field that Tour isn’t bothering with? And why are you pretending that there are no chemists in the field?

[Jordan (Jordan Mantha)]

I think one of the biggest things that has surprised me as I’m learning some pop gen and genetics is how hard it is to understand the scales. Time scales and rates. Mutation rates (per nucleotide, per organism, per generation), fixation rates, recombination, etc. Just trying to get a “feel” for the biology is tough, and not really something you can distill in a textbook easily, I think.

I, more or less, viewed the genome as a constantly changing thing (mutations happen all the time, right?) and very diverse within a population (I’ve started asking everyone at work to guess how much difference there is in the DNA between a two random people, a Neanderthal and a modern human, and between a chimp and a modern human. I need to add mouse and a rat. The point being, what kind of intuitions do we have about how biology really works?

[Ashwin_s]

@Jordan

I think one of the biggest things that has surprised me as I’m learning some pop gen and genetics is how hard it is to understand the scales. Time scales and rates. Mutation rates (per nucleotide, per organism, per generation), fixation rates, recombination, etc. Just trying to get a “feel” for the biology is tough, and not really something you can distill in a textbook easily, I think.

I think it can be done for 11th and 12th grade… The math is not too complicated (kids learn integration/differentiation in these grades). Some of the approach is very similar to Newtonian Physics.

@Jordan

I, more or less, viewed the genome as a constantly changing thing (mutations happen all the time, right?) and very diverse within a population (I’ve started asking everyone at work to guess how much difference there is in the DNA between a two random people, a Neanderthal and a modern human, and between a chimp and a modern human. I need to add mouse and a rat. The point being, what kind of intuitions do we have about how biology really works?

This is why it is important.
Of course difference in DNA need not be proportional to difference in phenotype. The human/chimp example vis a vis the mouse/rat one is a good indicator of that.

[gbrooks9 (GeorgeB)]

@Eddie

You are incapable of going to the Discovery site and finding the policy statements? I wouldn’t think so; you seem to have no problem going to Wikipedia or various other places to find information that you want. Why the lack of initiative to determine what Discovery has published on the subject?

@Eddie,

So here is the page that troubles me:

MODEL ACADEMIC FREEDOM RESOLUTION

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A RESOLUTION IN SUPPORT OF TEACHER ACADEMIC FREEDOM TO TEACH SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE REGARDING CONTROVERSIAL SCIENTIFIC SUBJECTS

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WHEREAS, the Legislature finds that:

(1) An important purpose of science education is to inform students about scientific evidence and to help students develop critical thinking skills necessary to become intelligent, productive, and scientifically informed citizens;

(2) The teaching of some scientific subjects required to be taught under the curriculum framework developed by the state board of education may cause controversy including, but not limited to, biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming, and human cloning; and

(3) Some teachers may be unsure of the expectation concerning how they should present information when controversy occurs on such subjects; now, therefore,

######################################################
THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF _____________ URGES:

(a) The state board of education, public elementary and secondary school governing authorities, directors of schools, school system administrators, and public elementary and secondary school principals and administrators and teachers should endeavor to create an environment within public elementary and secondary schools that encourages students to explore scientific questions, develop critical thinking skills, analyze the scientific strengths and weaknesses of scientific explanations, and respond appropriately and respectfully to differences of opinion about scientific subjects required to be taught under the curriculum framework developed by the state board of education.
.
.

######################################################

(b) The state board of education, public elementary or secondary school governing authorities, directors of schools, school system administrators, and public elementary or secondary school principals and administrators should refrain from prohibiting any teacher in a public school system of this state from helping students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories covered in the course being taught within the curriculum framework developed by the state board of education.

######################################################

Model Academic Freedom Resolution

######################################################

@Eddie,
The first problem is the presumption that ID is science. By definition, it cannot be science.
There is no way for science to evaluate or test the existence of a religious, theological or metaphysical reality.

The second problem: without specifically listing Intelligent Design issues as religious issues, this “Model Resolution” is nothing but trouble.

Thirdly (and finally), see the paragraph of legislative notes below:

######################################################
THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF ________ NOTES:
The above only is intended to support the teaching of scientific information, and shall not be construed to promote any religious or non-religious doctrine, promote discrimination for or against a particular set of religious beliefs or non-beliefs, or promote discrimination for or against religion or non-religion.
######################################################

… this final paragraph, an addendum?, says that nothing should be construed as promoting “discrimination for or against a particular set of [non-religious] beliefs”. This would mean the public secondary schools, colleges and universities, would be BARRED from promoting well established science… making even well established science a constant target for debate.

This initiative, even the way it is written in its most useless and impotent context … is still too dangerous in the hands of a religiously motivated movement.

[Eddie (Edward Robinson)]

George:

Did you find this page on the Discovery website? If so, why do you not provide a link to a Discovery page?

Anyhow, let’s take a look at your problems with this.

@gbrooks9

The first problem is the presumption that ID is science.

I’m sorry; I’m not following you. I don’t see “ID” or “intelligent design” anywhere in this document. And if ID is not mentioned in the document, the document can hardly to be said to presume anything about ID.

I see this document as an academic freedom resolution, and a resolution about how best to teach science, but not as a document about ID. Even the examples are not exclusively about biological origins questions; two of them concern climatology and medical ethics.

You will have to show me the statements about ID that I missed.

@gbrooks9

There is no way for science to evaluate or test the existence of a religious, theological or metaphysical reality.

There is nothing in this document that suggests the writers disagree with you.

@gbrooks9

says that nothing should be construed as promoting “discrimination for or against a particular set of [non-religious] beliefs”. This would mean the public secondary schools, colleges and universities, would be BARRED from promoting well established science…

Here you seem to be mixed up about what the addendum refers to. It is not talking about what will go on in the schools; it is talking about the above document. It means that nothing in the document shall be construed as promoting discrimination etc.

I’m having trouble seeing how clarifying the meaning of the document’s earlier statements poses any threat to teaching good science in the classroom. You seem to be moving from Line 1 to Line 8 of a math proof, without providing any of the middle steps. You will have to fill in the middle steps if you want me to see the danger you are worrying about.

In the meantime, do you now concede that all of Discovery’s explicit policy statements from 2005 forward clearly state that ID should not be mandated in the classroom?