Immmagine that! I'm living in the Atlanta area and the local PBS when we would normally see the same NOVA as the rest of the country, instead is airing a program on what? Certainly not this program revealing journalistic objectivity on the transgressions of religons intrusions into domains clearly not relevant to mysticism...of course, Atlanta's #1, the governor his-self took center stage at the festival of American stupidity last week by sponsoring a public prayer to end the drought...though not the drought that for quite some time has been in effect in their minds...So, if you're looking for a non-muslim analogy of wahabism and the taliban, look no further than next door and in the whitehouse.
Posted by: doug l | Nov 24, 2007 12:53:45 PM
"Certainly not this program revealing journalistic objectivity on the transgressions of religons intrusions into domains clearly not relevant to mysticism"
Well. It wasn't bad, neither was it particularly objective. They left no doubt as to their side in the debate and did not dive quite as deeply into Behe's Irreducible Complexity argument as I would have liked. The result was not quite a strawman argument, but that mostly depended on your perspective and previous exposure to his key cases. It seemed like the perfect forum to dismantle his more complex arguments, but they contented themselves with merely injecting a sense of plausible deniability with color synchronized computer graphics instead of an outright refutation.
It was also on several weeks ago in NY State, so your missing it might not have been due to the evil censors at PBS.
Meanwhile, though, we're glad to hear y'all are finally getting some rain!
Posted by: Carlos | Nov 24, 2007 8:49:24 PM
Did we watch the same program, Carlos? Chapter 8 destroyed Behe's "irreducible complexity" argument. I thought they did a great job of slamming down every one of the IDiot's arguments.
Posted by: anon | Nov 25, 2007 12:45:34 AM
Very disappointing that Nova would waste a moment 'debating' this ludicrous idea. To give
'ID' a second of air time or serious consideration is to lend it credibility that it doesn't deserve. How embarrassing.
Posted by: Anna | Nov 25, 2007 8:43:35 AM
Well apparently they took a bit of Behe's segment and put it into Chapter 9 as well, but you are right not to want to include that. If there was refutation contained within the dramatic pile of books placed on the table, why did we not delve into it? Why was it not given to Behe in advance so that he could have at least gotten a sense of it? The Flagella/Mousetrap is only the most grade school example of the concept, and leaving the bulk of the evidence, apparently, locked ironically within the Black Box of an unexamined pile of textbooks and publications was a copout standing in for what could have been real progress.
Some of his more interesting challenges to NS: immune systems, intracellular transport and the clotting mechanism, would certainly seem like ripe fields for an in-depth public defense, but instead of taking them apart, they decided to attempt to demonstrate that someone wearing a mousetrap as a tieclip could possibly pass on his genes. This is an assertion about which I remain dubious, but regardless, I just wish they had taken on the tough stuff.
Posted by: Carlos | Nov 25, 2007 8:45:17 AM
"why did we not delve into it?"
Because it's only a two-hour program? How much nonsense do they have to refute? They took apart the bacterial flagella example and indicated that the rest of his assertions were just as bogus (as testified by that stack of books).
Here Ken Miller goes into a little more detail, if you haven't seen it before (39:30-51:20, but the rest is great):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVRsWAjvQSg
"what could have been real progress"
Again, I don't think we were watching the same program. Intelligent Design is not about science at all--it is only about getting religion into the classroom. They did a great job of showing this.
"This is an assertion about which I remain dubious"
Don't tell me that on top of all your other beliefs, you have a craving for ID too? Rein in that credulity please! Anyway, see the youtube link.
Anna--it wasn't a debate at all. I thought it was very responsible. You should watch it.
Posted by: anon | Nov 25, 2007 11:50:59 AM
"This is an assertion about which I remain dubious"
"Don't tell me that on top of all your other beliefs, you have a craving for ID too?
Um.
That was a joke. Apparently faith is not the only sense Providence has seen fit to deny you. A double cross...
As per your you-tube link. That is precisely what I'm talking about. Dr Miller in 3 minutes and 10 seconds refuted Behe's blood clotting cascade argument. Apparently, his argument was even presented at the trial. It would have taken the same amount of time as the faux trial segment with the stack of books.
Dr Miller's You-Tube video has been seen 221k times, while Nova has a worldwide audience of 40 Million. Which would have had a broader reach?
And the reason Darwinists should (and continually do) demonstrate that any argument does or does not fail examination is because the concept of falsification is core to any robust theory. This is demonstrated by the fact that the blood clotting challenge has in fact been replied to. That so many lay advocates feel science should disregard any such challenges reveals ignorance of the common scientific practice of trying to catch itself out. That so many in the media agree, apparently, with that ill-informed lay position is only prolonging the "debate." One might almost imagine they wanted to perpetuate the confusion in order to afford themselves more opportunities to scold. Certainly they afford their "more enlightened" viewers more opportunities to cluck at the natives. Is your PBS membership paid up?
Posted by: Carlos | Nov 25, 2007 1:29:07 PM
I don't understand your last paragraph. What does "catch itself out" mean?
"I couldn't tear myself
away from 3 Quarks Daily, to the point of neglecting my work. Congratulations on
this superb site."—Steven
Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University.
"I have placed 3 Quarks Daily at the head of my list of web bookmarks."—Richard
Dawkins, Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University.
"Just wanted you to know I’m one of many who reads and enjoys 3 Quarks....almost daily."—David Byrne, musician, former lead-singer of the Talking Heads, artist, intellectual.
Comments
Immmagine that! I'm living in the Atlanta area and the local PBS when we would normally see the same NOVA as the rest of the country, instead is airing a program on what? Certainly not this program revealing journalistic objectivity on the transgressions of religons intrusions into domains clearly not relevant to mysticism...of course, Atlanta's #1, the governor his-self took center stage at the festival of American stupidity last week by sponsoring a public prayer to end the drought...though not the drought that for quite some time has been in effect in their minds...So, if you're looking for a non-muslim analogy of wahabism and the taliban, look no further than next door and in the whitehouse.
Posted by: doug l | Nov 24, 2007 12:53:45 PM
"Certainly not this program revealing journalistic objectivity on the transgressions of religons intrusions into domains clearly not relevant to mysticism"
Well. It wasn't bad, neither was it particularly objective. They left no doubt as to their side in the debate and did not dive quite as deeply into Behe's Irreducible Complexity argument as I would have liked. The result was not quite a strawman argument, but that mostly depended on your perspective and previous exposure to his key cases. It seemed like the perfect forum to dismantle his more complex arguments, but they contented themselves with merely injecting a sense of plausible deniability with color synchronized computer graphics instead of an outright refutation.
It was also on several weeks ago in NY State, so your missing it might not have been due to the evil censors at PBS.
Meanwhile, though, we're glad to hear y'all are finally getting some rain!
Posted by: Carlos | Nov 24, 2007 8:49:24 PM
Did we watch the same program, Carlos? Chapter 8 destroyed Behe's "irreducible complexity" argument. I thought they did a great job of slamming down every one of the IDiot's arguments.
Posted by: anon | Nov 25, 2007 12:45:34 AM
Very disappointing that Nova would waste a moment 'debating' this ludicrous idea. To give
'ID' a second of air time or serious consideration is to lend it credibility that it doesn't deserve. How embarrassing.
Posted by: Anna | Nov 25, 2007 8:43:35 AM
Well apparently they took a bit of Behe's segment and put it into Chapter 9 as well, but you are right not to want to include that. If there was refutation contained within the dramatic pile of books placed on the table, why did we not delve into it? Why was it not given to Behe in advance so that he could have at least gotten a sense of it? The Flagella/Mousetrap is only the most grade school example of the concept, and leaving the bulk of the evidence, apparently, locked ironically within the Black Box of an unexamined pile of textbooks and publications was a copout standing in for what could have been real progress.
Some of his more interesting challenges to NS: immune systems, intracellular transport and the clotting mechanism, would certainly seem like ripe fields for an in-depth public defense, but instead of taking them apart, they decided to attempt to demonstrate that someone wearing a mousetrap as a tieclip could possibly pass on his genes. This is an assertion about which I remain dubious, but regardless, I just wish they had taken on the tough stuff.
Posted by: Carlos | Nov 25, 2007 8:45:17 AM
"why did we not delve into it?"
Because it's only a two-hour program? How much nonsense do they have to refute? They took apart the bacterial flagella example and indicated that the rest of his assertions were just as bogus (as testified by that stack of books).
Here Ken Miller goes into a little more detail, if you haven't seen it before (39:30-51:20, but the rest is great):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVRsWAjvQSg
"what could have been real progress"
Again, I don't think we were watching the same program. Intelligent Design is not about science at all--it is only about getting religion into the classroom. They did a great job of showing this.
"This is an assertion about which I remain dubious"
Don't tell me that on top of all your other beliefs, you have a craving for ID too? Rein in that credulity please! Anyway, see the youtube link.
Anna--it wasn't a debate at all. I thought it was very responsible. You should watch it.
Posted by: anon | Nov 25, 2007 11:50:59 AM
"This is an assertion about which I remain dubious"
"Don't tell me that on top of all your other beliefs, you have a craving for ID too?
Um.
That was a joke. Apparently faith is not the only sense Providence has seen fit to deny you. A double cross...
As per your you-tube link. That is precisely what I'm talking about. Dr Miller in 3 minutes and 10 seconds refuted Behe's blood clotting cascade argument. Apparently, his argument was even presented at the trial. It would have taken the same amount of time as the faux trial segment with the stack of books.
Dr Miller's You-Tube video has been seen 221k times, while Nova has a worldwide audience of 40 Million. Which would have had a broader reach?
And the reason Darwinists should (and continually do) demonstrate that any argument does or does not fail examination is because the concept of falsification is core to any robust theory. This is demonstrated by the fact that the blood clotting challenge has in fact been replied to. That so many lay advocates feel science should disregard any such challenges reveals ignorance of the common scientific practice of trying to catch itself out. That so many in the media agree, apparently, with that ill-informed lay position is only prolonging the "debate." One might almost imagine they wanted to perpetuate the confusion in order to afford themselves more opportunities to scold. Certainly they afford their "more enlightened" viewers more opportunities to cluck at the natives. Is your PBS membership paid up?
Posted by: Carlos | Nov 25, 2007 1:29:07 PM
I don't understand your last paragraph. What does "catch itself out" mean?
Posted by: anon | Nov 25, 2007 1:47:18 PM
catch out
To detect (another) in wrongdoing or error.
Posted by: Carlos | Nov 25, 2007 2:33:16 PM
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