What amazes me is that you always use examples that prove there is no orthodoxy to prove there is an orthodoxy.

Excuse me? Who was it who asserted just seven posts ago in this very thread that…

"There are no legitimate orthodoxies in science."?

It may be an in-joke among working biologists who actually publish research, but I have said I've encountered Culture Warriors pretending to be working biologists (some actually are working biologists) who have asserted this orthodoxy to me and others on message boards and blogs a lot like this one. They do not appear to take it as lightly as the working in-joke would suppose. It's part of their metaphysics, and as such is artificially placed on an inviolate level in their minds. Psychology.

Besides, someone with your superior intelligence wouldn't use words like "never" or "always" when trying to read other people's minds and motives. You'd know that absolutes are too easily falsified. Very sloppy.

You incorrectly mistake resistance to unfounded ideas with resistance to change.

No, I don't. I have asserted repeatedly for all the years I've been participating in these debates that science isn't about big-t truth, its theories are entirely provisional, and its job is to follow the evidence. In addition to mentioning here and there that there are no legitimate orthodoxies in science.

I know what science is and what it does, Todd. You're just engaging in off-topic distraction. The subject of this thread is not Joy. It's whether ID looks like Darwinism, and Dembski's statement about Darwinism looking like religion.

Joy: Perhaps you don't keep up with the literature or the science press. Almost daily something comes in that is reported (or is asserted, in appendices or copy) as 'challenging'…

What amazes me is that you always use examples that prove there is no orthodoxy to prove there is an orthodoxy. All these articles citing challenges to current understanding are getting published in main stream journals. In fact challenging results are favored because they are more interesting, more exciting. If people were clinging to an outdated orthodoxy as you constantly falsely claim then there wouldn't be so many articles counter to that "orthodoxy" that make it past peer review. Amazing claims require amazing evidence so a lot of your favorite pet theories might not get much support. You incorrectly mistake resistance to unfounded ideas with resistance to change.

I agree with this, but it is only critics like you who claim there is an orthodoxy. The existence of conspiracy theorists does not imply the existence of a conspiracy.

Perhaps you don't keep up with the literature or the science press. Almost daily something comes in that is reported (or is asserted, in appendices or copy) as 'challenging'…

Darwinian Orthodoxy, Neo-darwinian Orthodoxy, plain old orthodoxy, the "central dogma" or various "tenets" associated, or is just labled heretical. Presumably TO the orthodoxy's dogma and tenets. It all comes from actual scientists, reviewers who are scientists, or science writers and journalists.

Among the Culture Warriors who haunt the internet, I have noted that the purists try to assert selection as the primary mechanism of evolution. Even in the face of recently understood neutrality and even strict conservation of apparently pointless variations. And despite increasing incoming evidence that genomes were front-loaded eons ago toward pretty much what we see around us today. You can't just do a simple calculation on the relative birth and death rates in any given series of generations to understand evolution. Very little of the entirely unique DNA in any given generation plays a significant role in evolution, beyond that which was apparently front-loaded in the beginning. As my first great art teacher once told me, everything else is shading and perspective.

Others admit that the origin end of the RM-NS equation might not be so random after all. Variation proceeds by a number of clever mechanisms, not limited to random oxidative or ionizing accidents of life that damage DNA (which mostly just effect health). Radiating fruit flies never turned a fruit fly into anything but a deformed fruit fly.

Add epigenetics and including viral, retroviral and bacterial 'borrowings' plus genomic duplications and rearrangements quite drastic (but not deadly) and pretty soon you're talking about something a lot more dynamic and teleologically-oriented that "Random Mutation" suggests. Statistical randomness in populations is not the same thing as causal randomness. Too many Culture Warriors don't seem to understand this. Weird.

Joy: Sometimes your stereotypes are blinding. And sometimes your defenses are positively pubescent. This is one of those times.

So the fact that you know that nobody believes in "RM-NS is all their is" coupled with the fact you are the only one on this forum who constantly talks about "people who think RM-NS is all there is" means that I am guilt of using blinding stereotypes. Hum, amazing logic. If Joy uses a stereotype it apparently proves that I am guilty of using stereotypes. I guess Joy thinks that I am she?

Joy: Huh. I do not see that you 'never' encountering this claim 'recently' has anything to do with when or how often I've encountered this claim, or from whom. Is this supposed to somehow negate my own experience?

I'll go beyond "recently". Personally I've never encountered this claim from anyone other than Joy, who also claims she has never believed it. But then again I'm new to this whole dance.

Joy: There are no legitimate orthodoxies in science.

I agree with this, but it is only critics like you who claim there is an orthodoxy. The existence of conspiracy theorists does not imply the existence of a conspiracy.

Todd B: All religions are false religions, but consistency with reality has never been an important goal for any creationist. I think he should continue to be obviously absurd and inconsistent.

But consistency within one's religion would be nice. Dembski's brand of Christianity would say that Sun Myung Moon is a false messiah. And it would probably paint Moon as a worse danger than Darwinism.

The question nobody has asked me is, If the makers of Expelled were concerned to get Behe out of the picture, because his take on Darwin was too positive, why would they include Wells, risking that Christians would find out that he's a Moonie?

I think the answer is in the dictum, Follow the Money. Moon is at least a multi-millionaire, if not a multi-billionaire. I don't know this, but it wouldn't surprise me to find out that the Discovery Institute gets a lot of its funding from him. (Is there a way to find out?) Perhaps even the movie got a lot of its funds from him, but probably with the proviso that his boy (Wells) gets a part in it. I stress that this is all just speculation on my part. But I find it intriguing.

…got mad about it.

There you go with the mind reading again. When my wife announced she couldn't play the CD and having confirmed it was blank, I actually laughed. (A little ruefully, admittedly) I didn't begrudge a few euros, considering the state of the Cuban economy.

Then you've nothing to worry about.

I know.

Who is forced to buy books?

People following a particular career may need to buy specific reference books, but, on the whole, book buying is voluntary.

I included the word bankrupt because Demsbki has never acknowledged the considerable amount of criticism of his work, but continues blithely on as if his critics did not exist.

Then what in the world are you so het up about? Honestly, Alan. It looks like you spend way too much time leaping to erroneous conclusions designed to elicit the greatest amount of stress response, for trifles. Like the blank CD. That blank CD cost money - recording it cost nothing. Yet you decided your wife was ripped off and got mad about it.

This sort of outlook is what leads to high blood pressure and other serious health problems, you know. As I said, calm down. The sky is not falling.

Well, if I thought the issue important, I might suggest that, as you made the claim (I paraphrase)that Darwinists(?) state RM + NS is all there is, you might be able to cite an example. Burden of proof and all that.

Fortunately, the issue isn't important at all. It's just me saying I have encountered the assertion, and where it's come from. You'd be completely wasting your life spending your days and nights on the internet calling people liars whenever they say something you don't like. Which, considering your penchant for conclusion-leaping, would happen a lot.

Nonsense. Truth will out.

There are no legitimate orthodoxies in science. There is provisional theory, attempts at falsification, and occasional dramatic revolutions of knowledge. Science is not about big-t "Truth," and never claimed to be.

If Demsbki had the germ of a real scientific idea, it would be unstoppable.

Then you've nothing to worry about.

I am obviously much more of a cynic than you, Zachriel. Your advice, while fine in principle, would be difficult to implement, as the folk troops are touring and only in one town for one night. The show was free* so it was no great loss.

*No such thing as a free show. My taxes helped pay for it.:wink:

Alan Fox: I don't begrudge anyone profiting from a performance, a book or whatever. I am not so happy to finance dishonesty.

Who is forced to buy books?