RE: [asa] Behe's Math... was Arrogance

Wow, I am quite surprised at this response re Dr Jonathan Wells and The
Peppered Moth. I haven't seen many papers in Scientific Journals that
describe the work of others to be 'silly'.

I wonder if we could elevate the level of discussion by reverting to well
tried methods that are factual/evidence based in response to Wells' paper on
The Peppered Moth?

To the person who asked me if I was in some way connected with the
Unification Church may I say that the discussion here is not about
personalities: the debate is, or should be, centred on relevant evidence. In
my opinion it should remain so.

Blessings

Peter

-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of PvM
Sent: Friday, August 31, 2007 5:56 PM
To: Peter Loose
Cc: Gregory Arago; Janice Matchett; George Murphy; Alexanian, Moorad;
AmericanScientificAffiliation
Subject: Re: [asa] Behe's Math... was Arrogance

 
Read more here
http://scienceblogs.com/authority/2007/08/wells_on_moths_a_case_study_in.php
and note in the comments how people react to Wells' claims.

I have been closely following the peppered moth debates and found that
Wells' claims were at best silly and at worst running afoul of St
Augustine's warnings.

Remember how the ID movement made much of what they considered to be
'flawed experiments' and Darwinian myths. Of course they were wrong in
most instances, but in this case, it took seven years to gather the
data to fill in some of the gaps.
Imagine if science had taken seriously ID's position, we would never
have gathered the knowledge that shows the link between bird predation
and the decline of the peppered moth.

Notice how more recently Behe's court appearances (yes plural, more on
that one later) have show how irrelevant ID's position has become and
how disconnected from science ID has to be to make its claims.
Imagine a world of science in which scientists follow ID's
proposals... Shudder. Imagine a world where Christians would take ID's
claims seriously and then run into these gaps that are filled, time
after time. What an unnecessary risky approach to faith not to mention
what a vacuous approach to doing science.
Is this what we as Christians should support, encourage or expose? And
as Christians and scientists?

On 8/31/07, PvM <pvm.pandas@gmail.com> wrote:
> Yes, Wells is not happy since he had previously and erroneously made
> many assertions about the peppered moth which were plainly wrong. Now
> that science has once again closed another gap of our ignorance, ID
> has to retreat, so what does it do? It makes silly and irrelevant
> accusations rather than to focus on the science.
>
> Use references to Wells at your own risk but remember St Augustine. Do
> we as Christians want to be associated with such obvious scientific
> nonsense?
>

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Received on Sat Sep 1 03:55:25 2007