Sandwalk: I'm Going to a Lecture on Intelligent Design

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

I'm Going to a Lecture on Intelligent Design

Denyse O'Leary is teaching a course on Intelligent Design at the University of St. Michael's College, University of Toronto [Denyse O'Leary's University Course on Intelligent Design].

The outline of the course was posted on Post-Darwinist [ COURSE: By Design or by Chance? An introduction to the intelligent design controversy].

Students in the course are allowed to invite a guest for one lecture and one of my friends, who shall remain nameless for now, has urged me to come along. By all accounts the course is going well and Denyse is presenting both sides of the controversy.

Tonight's lecture is ...

Session 5. Intelligent design: What the ID proponents actually say (and don’t say) Tuesday November 20, 2007

Michael Behe, author of Edge of Evolution (2007), sees actual design where, for example, Richard Dawkins, author of The Blind Watchmaker, sees the illusion of design. Who’s right? Are they both wrong?

Guest: Kirk Durston, biophysics PhD candidate at the University of Guelph.

Kirk Durston (right) is the National Director of the New Scholars Society. According to his biography on their website,

KIRK DURSTON, B.Sc (Physics), B.Sc. (Mech. Eng.), M.A. (Philosophy), Ph.D. Candidate (Biophysics) at the University of Guelph.

Kirk Durston is the National Director of the New Scholars Society. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Biophysics at the University of Guelph, specializing in the application of information to biopolymers. His other interests include amateur astronomy, wilderness canoeing & camping, and landscape photography & art.

What is it about creationists that they always seem to have multiple redundant degrees? In this case he has two Bachelor's degrees. What's with that?

It's easy to find out what Kirk believes because there's a Statment of Faith on the website.

The sole basis of our beliefs is the Bible, God's infallible written Word, the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments. We believe that it was uniquely, verbally and fully inspired by the Holy Spirit, and that it was written without error (inerrant) in the original manuscripts. It is the supreme and final authority in all matters on which it speaks.We accept those large areas of doctrinal teaching on which, historically, there has been general agreement among all true Christians. Because of the specialized calling of our movement, we desire to allow for freedom of conviction on other doctrinal matters, provided that any interpretation is based upon the Bible alone, and that no such interpretation shall become an issue which hinders the ministry to which God has called us.

Jeffrey Shallit had a few things to say about Kirk Durston on Recursivity [Kirk Durston: Apologist for Genocide]. This is going to be an interesting lecture.

4 comments :

TheBrummell said...: Urgh. I'm a PhD student at the University of Guelph, in the department of Integrative Biology. I don't know which department Mr. Durston is currently a part of, but our association through this University is enough to bug me. Also, as a PhD candidate, Mr. Durston has apparently passed his candidacy examinations, a feat I have not yet accomplished.

Thanks Dr. Moran, now I feel (mildly) bad.

On a lighter note, how was Dr. O'Leary's lecture?; Tuesday, November 20, 2007 3:00:00 PM
Anonymous said...: Here he is:

http://biophysics.uoguelph.ca/computational/students/durston.htm

This is his PhD research.

My research focuses on the application of information theory to biosequences, with the objective of developing a method to classify proteins in terms of functional entropy, and map their distribution in information space relative to each other. Such a method may make possible the reconstruction of evolutionary pathways and the prediction of other novel proteins within reasonable evolutionary range, as well as providing a more objective method of computing distance between biosequences. For my test suite, I am using a subset of 80 universal proteins that appear to occur in all living organisms.

Sounds reasonably interesting, but I can see the potential for creationism (e.g. I can see how "other novel proteins within reasonable evolutionary range" could turn out to be Behe's edge of evolution, dressed up with some information jargon).; Tuesday, November 20, 2007 5:03:00 PM
lee_merrill said...: That's neat, I would hope Prof. Moran, that you could make it...

Regards,
Lee <- Creationist with multiple bachelor's degrees, not even counting his current bachelorhood; Tuesday, November 20, 2007 10:50:00 PM
Anonymous said...: I was really hoping that you would attend and comment on one of Denyse's lectures. Thanks for taking a hit for the team...

Looking forward to a review of the lecture.; Wednesday, November 21, 2007 8:57:00 AM

Quotations

The old argument of design in nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me to be so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection has been discovered. We can no longer argue that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by man. There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows.Charles Darwin (c1880)

Although I am fully convinced of the truth of the views given in this volume, I by no means expect to convince experienced naturalists whose minds are stocked with a multitude of facts all viewed, during a long course of years, from a point of view directly opposite to mine. It is so easy to hide our ignorance under such expressions as "plan of creation," "unity of design," etc., and to think that we give an explanation when we only restate a fact. Any one whose disposition leads him to attach more weight to unexplained difficulties than to the explanation of a certain number of facts will certainly reject the theory.

Charles Darwin (1859)

Science reveals where religion conceals. Where religion purports to explain, it actually resorts to tautology. To assert that "God did it" is no more than an admission of ignorance dressed deceitfully as an explanation...

Peter Atkins

Quotations

The world is not inhabited exclusively by fools, and when a subject arouses intense interest, as this one has, something other than semantics is usually at stake. Stephen Jay Gould (1982)
I have championed contingency, and will continue to do so, because its large realm and legitimate claims have been so poorly attended by evolutionary scientists who cannot discern the beat of this different drummer while their brains and ears remain tuned to only the sounds of general theory. Stephen Jay Gould (2002) p.1339
The essence of Darwinism lies in its claim that natural selection creates the fit. Variation is ubiquitous and random in direction. It supplies raw material only. Natural selection directs the course of evolutionary change. Stephen Jay Gould (1977)
Rudyard Kipling asked how the leopard got its spots, the rhino its wrinkled skin. He called his answers "just-so stories." When evolutionists try to explain form and behavior, they also tell just-so stories—and the agent is natural selection. Virtuosity in invention replaces testability as the criterion for acceptance. Stephen Jay Gould (1980)
Since 'change of gene frequencies in populations' is the 'official' definition of evolution, randomness has transgressed Darwin's border and asserted itself as an agent of evolutionary change. Stephen Jay Gould (1983) p.335
The first commandment for all versions of NOMA might be summarized by stating: "Thou shalt not mix the magisteria by claiming that God directly ordains important events in the history of nature by special interference knowable only through revelation and not accessible to science." In common parlance, we refer to such special interference as "miracle"—operationally defined as a unique and temporary suspension of natural law to reorder the facts of nature by divine fiat. Stephen Jay Gould (1999) p.84

Quotations

My own view is that conclusions about the evolution of human behavior should be based on research at least as rigorous as that used in studying nonhuman animals. And if you read the animal behavior journals, you'll see that this requirement sets the bar pretty high, so that many assertions about evolutionary psychology sink without a trace.

Jerry Coyne
Why Evolution Is True

I once made the remark that two things disappeared in 1990: one was communism, the other was biochemistry and that only one of them should be allowed to come back.

Sydney Brenner
TIBS Dec. 2000

It is naïve to think that if a species' environment changes the species must adapt or else become extinct.... Just as a changed environment need not set in motion selection for new adaptations, new adaptations may evolve in an unchanging environment if new mutations arise that are superior to any pre-existing variations

Douglas Futuyma

One of the most frightening things in the Western world, and in this country in particular, is the number of people who believe in things that are scientifically false. If someone tells me that the earth is less than 10,000 years old, in my opinion he should see a psychiatrist.

Francis Crick

There will be no difficulty in computers being adapted to biology. There will be luddites. But they will be buried.

Sydney Brenner

An atheist before Darwin could have said, following Hume: 'I have no explanation for complex biological design. All I know is that God isn't a good explanation, so we must wait and hope that somebody comes up with a better one.' I can't help feeling that such a position, though logically sound, would have left one feeling pretty unsatisfied, and that although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist

Richard Dawkins

Another curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understand it. I mean philosophers, social scientists, and so on. While in fact very few people understand it, actually as it stands, even as it stood when Darwin expressed it, and even less as we now may be able to understand it in biology.

Jacques Monod

The false view of evolution as a process of global optimizing has been applied literally by engineers who, taken in by a mistaken metaphor, have attempted to find globally optimal solutions to design problems by writing programs that model evolution by natural selection.

Richard Lewontin

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Tuesday, November 20, 2007

I'm Going to a Lecture on Intelligent Design

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