Evidence for the integrity of the Discovery Institute

I wonder if there is some rule here that we must have one, but only one, @Eddie at any given time?

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And on a related note I’m not a “hater of theists” and I don’t consider it important to be an anti-theist, nor do I consider theism(the belief that there is a personal God) a bad thing in and of itself.
While I do think theism is either wrong factually(not to be confused with morally/ethically), or at least poorly supported by evidence, but I don’t hate theists or even the idea of theism.

I harbor no particular ill-will against people who in my estimation are wrong or misguided about theism.

When and if I do argue against theism it is when I think those forms of theism have a negative influence on society, but I’m well aware that theism can take many forms and there are aspects of religion that I have basically no problem with(some theists are members of my immediate family).

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But that Peaceful Science is a hot bed of frothing-at-the-mouth anti-theism is a convenient trope that members of the DI use to excuse their refusal to engage here.

The real problem, of course, is that many members of this board really know their stuff and will call the ID’ers out on their BS. If @Sam didn’t know that before, he sure does now.

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27 posts were split to a new topic: The COVID Clinic

  1. Because ID defenders can’t contain themselves from dragging up Covid, as in @Marty here, @Eddie here and yourself here. You three were in fact the first to bring up the subject on this thread.

  2. Because nature abhors a vacuum, and given that there is no evidence being presented on the “integrity of the Discovery Institute” (and if such evidence existed, you wouldn’t be reduced to hand-waving ineffectually about mere bare possibilities), so the bandwidth not spent discussing that non-existent evidence in instead being devoted to discussing what ID defenders are in fact bringing up – i.e. Covid.

Addendum: I’ve corrected this thread’s title to account for these two factors. :smiley:

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it is not my claim.

You are noting a dearth of scientific evidence for the claim made here,

Again, I can count on the Peaceful Science champs to know when scientific evidence is even applicable. What would scientific evidence even look like for the assertions in the above paragraph? What in that paragraph do you even dispute?

I recently noticed a pattern in @Sam’s posts on this topic:

These repetitively vacuous ad hominem attacks on this forum bring to mind the old lawyers’ aphorism:

If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts; if you have the law on your side, pound the law; if you have neither the facts nor the law, pound the table.

One has to wonder why, if this forum is so repulsive to @Sam, he persists in participating, and “pounding the table” with his own “vitriolic vacuous vomit”, here? It’s not as though he’s either winning any arguments, presenting any actual evidence, or presenting ID in a positive light.

I’m sure there are a great many forums where support for ID, Covid contrarianism, and other unsubstantiated conspiracy theories, are viewed far more positively. The only thing that could be keeping him here is some form of twisted ‘fight the good fight’ masochism.

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Well, as I said earlier, the PS ecosystem seems to have an empty @Eddie -shaped niche at the moment. Someone has to fill it. IIRC, it took “Eddie” a while to figure out the quote function, as well…

niche n.fig. A place or position adapted to the character or capabilities, or suited to the merits, of a person or thing.

One has to wonder what “character or capabilities” or “merits” it is that suits them to this hypothesised “niche”, as their shared defining feature seems to be the near complete lack of such.

BTW, if you are going to keep citing Francis Collins as an exemplar of something you call the “Peaceful Science method,” I suggest you first learn a bit about the history of this group and how it came to be…

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Sam does seem to be fond of false dichotomies. IIRC, he’s used this phony one already.

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I don’t understand your comment.
Can you tell me what you think I’m suggesting Francis Collins is an exemplar of? What characteristic?

I assume you are talking about the group Peaceful Science?
Isn’t it very possible that the group has evolved to be something very different from what was hoped for it?

Something you refer to by the term “The Peaceful Science Method,” which you seem to have made up yourself.

If you don’t know what the term means, then why are you using it?

Francis Collins had an indirect and unintentional, but nonetheless important, role in the very existence of this group.

Which is why your cluelessly citing him as an example of something you call " “The Peaceful Science Method” is so laughable. Don’t worry if you don’t get it. We are laughing at you, not with you. So you don’t need to get the joke in order to play your role.

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Have you eliminated design inferences, and if so, why?

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Ok, thanks for that.
Can you help me with another question,
I figured out how to do @Tim, but I’m not sure why I’d do that instead of a mere Tim. What is the purpose of adding the @ and the background highlight?

It does two things: (i) it alerts the user to the post (in the same way that replying or quoting them does); and (ii) provides a link to that user’s profile. It also serves the purpose of making it explicit that you’re talking about the person who has that username – either to distinguish them from others of the forum that may have (for example) first name “Tim” (e.g. Tim Anderson, Tim Horton, etc) but a different username, or for extra emphasis.

Good. Thanks.
I wondered if (i) might be the case, but had no way of confirming it.

In case you are of the impression that Behe is unimpressed with Doolittle’s accomplishments, here is a quote form Behe,
PROFESSOR DOOLITTLE is a prominent scientist, a member of the National Academy of Sciences who has worked hard on many aspects of protein structure over the course of a distinguished career. He knows more about the process of blood clotting, and more about the relationships among the protein members of the clotting cascade, than perhaps anyone else on earth. He does not, however, know how natural selection could have produced the clotting cascade. In fact, he has never tried to explain how it could have. Nonetheless, as reflected in his comments in Boston Review, he clearly thinks he has addressed the question. This results from a basic confusion, which I will try to clarify.

Behe, Michael J… A Mousetrap for Darwin: Michael J. Behe Answers His Critics (p. 56). Discovery Institute. Kindle Edition.

As the issue of whether Behe is impressed or unimpressed is irrelevant to the issue I raised, I am completely disinterested in his impression.

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But what is relevant to the present discussion is whether Behe is a man of integrity, or a lying liar who tell lies.

Behe:

(Doolittle) does not, however, know how natural selection could have produced the clotting cascade. In fact, he has never tried to explain how it could have.

And yet:

Step-by-step evolution of vertebrate blood coagulation - PubMed (nih.gov)

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