Letters to the Editor
droogoy
Published Letters: 589 Editor's Choice: 9
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Evidence is there!
[Read the article: Norman Mailer 1923 - 2007]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]JNagarya wrote:
As for the religio/cottage industry notion that JFK was killed by a conspiracy: where, after all these years, is the "evidence" for that which can withstand analysis for intellectual honesty and logic?
The evidence is there - in spades and abundance. Read my other Salon letters to do with it, as I recommended. If you did, you wouldn't have to ask such a daft question.
Go to "read droogoy's other letters" and read at will. I have almost 77 Salon page contributions on the evidence and how it meets ALL logical and other standards.
This is not a "cottage industry" though a lot of the "lone nut" purveyors, like that moron Gerald Posner, have tried to make it so.
To see where PR shills like Posner go wrong, check out the Posnerisms below:
http://www.acorn.net/jfkplace/09/fp.back_issues/19th_Issue/posner_dozen.html
READ AND MAKE YOURSELF AWARE!
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What constitutes science
[Read the article: The evolution of creationism]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Can science say anything about the existence of a creator and still be science?
Maybe, IF the underlying hypothesis has:
i) predictions - which can be tested in the real world
ii) proposes means of falsification.
Evolution bears both of these, ID does not. Hence, ID cannot be considered as "real science" irrespective of how many mutations it undergoes. ID is religious doctrine window-dressed as science by the dubious likes of Dembski et al.
A theory (such as evolution) is precisely the HIGHEST formal embodiment of scientific research - it means that sound predictions have already been made, and fulfilled, and ALSO that tests of falsification have been passed! Thus, it has been verified to the highest standards of science.
The problem is that too many numbnuts conflate theory with speculation or conjecture.
In the end, "irreducible complexity" (which is the specious basis of ID) inevitably amounts to a cop-out argument from ignorance. Because a structure (e.g. eardrum) or process (origin of life from inanimate matter) appears difficult from the inferior vantage point of the percipient, it's automatically assumed that no scientific appeal can be made. No model, however remotely probable, can be offered. Thus "intelligent design" is latched on to as a "god of the gaps". But history shows how absurd such an approach is.
Though proponents bandy about words like "design" and "designer" they are yet unable to state clearly what this entity is. Is it some kind of deity? (If so, they are definitely in the realm of religious dogma). Is it a space alien from Tau Ceti, or Zeta Reticuli? Is it an invisible, inter-dimensional "essence"? They can't even specify their "designer" so why should we take it any more seriously than the tooth fairy or elves?
If the proponents of "irreducible complexity" want to be taken as more than zealous hot air windbags, let them explicate their designer. In what conditions (or not) does it operate? To have a genuine counter theory (far less a proof of an associated entity), one must provide a positive hypothesis and observational infrastructure - not merely attempt to negate the existing prevailing theory by myriad cheap potshots.
It would be analogous to me finding fault with umpteen aspects of Einstein's general relativity, and then somehow imagining that this recitation of negativity alone constitutes a genuine alternative theory.
It doesn't, it only shows I have bones to pick with Einstein's theory. Ditto with the ID naysayers and their ilk in regard to evolution.
All Darwin's words notwithstanding (and recall he lived in an era predating modern science) proponents of ID still haven't produced the "goods" to warrant our taking it any more seriously than a bizarre creationist tract- such as the claim that human co-inhabited the planet with dinosaurs in some early epoch. That means first establishing a base of facts and evidence unique to itself. Then, formulating testable predictions which can be made - and that turn out to be more accurate than those of naturalistic evolution.
Until ID's proponents accomplish that - preferably in the context of publishing in established scientific journals - it will remain rank speculation. Along the lines of insisting millions of little green men are annually surveying the Earth in flying saucers. We tune such folks out or prescribe appropriate medications to assuage their hallucinations - but we never take them seriously.
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Horse pockey!
[Read the article: The evolution of creationism]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]verelse wrote:
I assert that Evolution is a non-falisifiable theory with very little evidence to support it.
What a load of total ignorance! Merely because you haven't a clue WHERE the evidence and tests for evolution's falsifiability resides - doesn't mean it isn't there.
Here are some ABC's for you, bozo:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section4.html
Excerpt:
"Humans and chimpanzees have the exact same cytochrome c protein sequence. The "null hypothesis" given above is false. In the absence of common descent, the chance of this occurrence is conservatively less than 10^-93 (1 out of 1093). Thus, the high degree of similarity in these proteins is a spectacular corroboration of the theory of common descent. Furthermore, human and chimpanzee cytochrome c proteins differ by ~10 amino acids from all other mammals. The chance of this occurring in the absence of a hereditary mechanism is less than 10-29. The yeast Candida krusei is one of the most distantly related eukaryotic organisms from humans. Candida has 51 amino acid differences from the human sequence. A conservative estimate of this probability is less than 10-^25."