Wesley:
>I thought we were talking about the attempted rescuscitation of a
>paradigm discarded in the mid-1800's. I think that the hurdle
>is appropriately placed even higher for such "paradigms".
Three things. The teleological view (which played an important
role in the birth of modern science) made the mistake of
expressing itself as vitalism. Yet vitalism is not the only
way to express a teleological view. Secondly, all of the
reasons that lead me to suspect that ID is behind the origin
of life were not known in the mid-1800s. Third, while
the teleological view has long been officially banished
from science, it has not been shown to be false. Thus,
all the ingredients exist for a viable rescusitation.
>Plenty of research programs have had to demonstrate some level
>of worth *before* achieving general acceptance.
And shutting down the Polanyi Center is a good way to
prevent this from happening.
>The old Zenith slogan of "The quality goes in before the name goes on"
>definitely is the inverse of the situation with the IDC
>movement. They consistently clamor to have the name of
>"science" (and the rights and privileges that go with it) to
>be accorded their enterprise before producing anything of
>scientific content. If the IDC program were as hot a ticket
>as has been claimed by its proponents, it should be a cinch
>for them to *produce* some *results* of a pilot scientific
>research effort. Look at the funding available to the
>Discovery Institute and other anti-evolutionary organizations.
>If these folks were really interested in performing research,
>they don't have to rely upon the usual sources of scientific
>research funding.
Who does the vast majority of hands-on science that is
relevant to the concerns of this reflector? Answer:
graduate students. They constitute the vast bulk of
the labor behind all those publications we read. They are
the ones working the 12-hour days running countless
experiments. Thus, as long as we keep something
like the Polanyi Center far away from academia, we
can be sure to cut-off the main artery of labor that
would generate such research. But there's more.
Scientific research is a communal project, where
departments typically have weekly seminars where
these students present their data and receive feedback.
Departments also facilitate the exchange of ideas
(often crucial for coming up with new experiments)
and the sharing of equipment. And then there are
the various meetings and conventions. Since ID is
excluded from these communal interactions, again
we can ensure not much research will come out.
>They have access to potfuls of money that
>many scientists would find far more than adequate to
>accommodate studies.
Let's run the numbers. To set up a single modestly
sized lab, we will need to pay the salaries of the
PI and one post-doc. Let's make that $75000. We'll
need plenty of state-of-the-art equipment, so let's
add another $100,000. A small lab has at least
two grad students. Let's say $40,000 for stipends
and another $40,000 for tuition. And let's add
$25, 000 for a lab assistant. Let's also throw in
another $10,000 for supplies and reagents. So,
to start up a lab, we'll need about $260,000. Let
it run for a meager three years, and we
have $520,000 (of course, I am ignoring the
capital budget, social security, health care, etc.)
Now, keep in mind, this is just one small lab.
To set up and run 10 such small labs (compare
to the thousands of labs that exclude ID, including
many mega-labs), the potfuls from the Discovery
Institute would have to fund 5.2 million every
three years. I didn't realize they were spending
millions on travel. Perhaps you can document this.
>All they have to do is show that IDC
>*works*.
I've done that already. But since I failed to
prove darwinian evolution is impossible and
have not yet snapped a picture of the intelligent
designer, it doesn't count. I understand how it
works around here. ;)
Mike
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Apr 20 2000 - 02:25:57 EDT