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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
 Posted - 06/03/2005 : 10:21:53
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Thanks, once again, to the Panda's Thumb, I found the Discovery Institute trumpeting, "Another Biology Journal Publishes Article Applying Intelligent Design Theory to Scientific Research." Nevermind the fact that the journal in question is hardly a mainstream biology source, and that its level of peer review is questionable, at best, based upon what else it publishes, the real question about Well's article is, "so what?"
The article, titled "Do Centrioles Generate a Polar Ejection Force?" asks a basic question. And the abstract (I can't seem to get the online purchase stuff to work for me for the full article) makes it absolutely clear that the origin of centrioles is irrelevant to that question.
Wells is positing that centrioles serve a purpose within the cellular "machinery" which has so far been unknown. And if that's the only thing the paper is suggesting, then it simply doesn't matter if the centrioles were "designed" to be turbines, or evolved to be turbines.
So once again, ID publishes something which they claim to be about ID, but for which both ID and evolution appear completely beside the point. Just more politicking, just more spin.
[Edited to fix link to abstract - Dave W.]
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- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 06/03/2005 : 11:18:35 [Permalink]
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quote:
So once again, ID publishes something which they claim to be about ID, but for which both ID and evolution appear completely beside the point. Just more politicking, just more spin.
<shrug> It's all they have, Dave. I read that one and was impressed at how they located an obscure journal that no one ever heard of, or at least I hadn't. I think that we can expect more of this sort of thing.
These people do no science. The have no labs worthy of the name and send no research teams into the field. Their biological credentials are suspect at best; astromomers, mathmatitions, engineers, chemists, and so forth. When I read of them, I wonder why they are not working in their fields of expertise, rather than farting around in religious politics.
And it's not just the ID blatherers. Jonathan Sarfati is a PhD chemist who has not published in the literature in decades. Carl Wieland is an MD, and as far as anyone can tell, he hasn't looked down any throat but his own in a mirror in decades either, but will write and spin on any topic, as will Sarfati, et al.
They are all well-educated dillitants dabbling in fields that they really know little about. They get by with it because their selected audience knows even less and can be impressed by big, smart-sounding words.
And that audience continues to grow. Discouraging....
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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| Edited by - filthy on 06/03/2005 11:19:56 |
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 06/03/2005 : 12:59:51 [Permalink]
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| Right. It's hard to see the "theory" of ID working anywhere in their study-- at least as far as the abstract goes. The closest they come to anything relavent is when they say "instead of viewing centriols through thr specatcles of molecular reductionism and neo-Darwinism, this hypothesis assumes that they are holisitically designed to be turbines." It's not clear, though, that their results work better using their new assumption than they would using that crusty old neo-Darwinist view. Indeed, it seems that their work have been not different had they replaced "assumes that they are holisitically designed to be turbines" with "assumes that a UFO is in my back yard." |
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