Sounds more to me that Hoyle was a proponent of the Anthropic Principle. That is the notion that physical constants of the universe were fine-tuned to provide a universe so that humans could/would evolve.

No, physics finetuning is something else and well defined, and anthropic finetuning from the religious Anthropic Argument something else and fallacious.

There is a whole range of more or less likely APs, from the Tautological AP (TAP) that the universe has suitable parameters (which could be due to coincidence or a perfectly constrained fundamental theory), over the Weak AP (WAP) that observers are likely to be found with suitable parameters, to the Strong AP (gods or similar principles ordained that observers must be found with suitable parameters).

The AA is mistaking a posteriori likelihoods for a priori probabilities – it is very unlikely I got the poker hand I got when I was dealt, but it was very likely that I got a poker hand when I was dealt.

Hoyle makes arguments for why Evolution is incomplete, but I don’t see any offerring of alternate mechanisms for the development of life

Actually he makes (fallacious) arguments for why abiogenesis is incomplete. Same mistake as creationists willfully propagate.

Yeah… and all that means he’s not a creationist kook, woo-woo and someone we should be afraid of ever having a position as important as VP?

Ok… so resumes are the deciding factor for you… try this one on:

This person:

Scored a 1590 on his SAT’s
Graduated Princeton with honors.
Scored a perfect score on his LSATs
Graduated with honors from Harvard Law School
Won his party’s gubernatorial nomination with a whopping 81% of the vote.
Spearheaded reform in the Securities and Insurance industries by investigating and prosecuting crooked executives while a District Attorney.
Led the investigation that put an end to the Gambino family’s control of the trucking and garment industry in Manhattan.
Won his state’s gubernatorial election easily, with 69% of the vote.

Seems like a pretty good resume right? Well, that resume belongs to one Eliot Spitzer. So please spare me your “look at his resume” rhetoric. Doesn’t prevent him from being a whack job.

Graduated high school at 16.
Graduated from Brown U (Rhode Island) with honors in biology and public policy.
Master’s degree from Oxford. Rhodes Scholar.
Led Louisiana’s Medicaid program from a $400 million deficit to a $220 million surplus, in 3 years.
In 1999 he became the youngest president of the University of Louisiana system.
Unanimously confirmed by Congress to be Bush’s Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services for Planning and Evaluation.
In 1997, he won as Louisiana Congressman with 78% of the vote.
He’s the youngest serving governor in the country, and the first non-white Louisiana governor since 1873 (another Republican).
And he was (1) born in the US, and (2) is now 37.

So you can take your pitchforks and torches, and in the immortal words of Miranda Priestly, find someone else to bother with your silly questions.

tacitus said:
> I would be amazed if you could come up with anything to show that there was a shift from atheism to agnosticism at any time in the last hundred years.

Especially since those two are not mutually exclusive positions.

KC said:
> Tacitus is dead-on that what Hoyle believed is different from what Creationists would be comfortable with – which I think is partially my point. Because of this introduction to ID, I cannot say ID = Creationism.

Sounds more to me that Hoyle was a proponent of the Anthropic Principle. That is the notion that physical constants of the universe were fine-tuned to provide a universe so that humans could/would evolve. It’s relationship to ID is that the ID camp does rely on the anthropic principle and AP arguments. ID is most visible in the Evolution/Creationism debate, but don’t let that fool you, ID is looking at other realms of science. Guillermo Gonzalez, the guy that the ID crowd cry foul over not receiving tenure, is an astronomer. He is the author of The Privileged Planet, which is heavy on AP reasoning. In its strong form, the Anthropic Principle reads very much like Intelligent Design – something is guiding and controlling the universe.

From the wiki article linked:

“If one proceeds directly and straightforwardly in this matter, without being deflected by a fear of incurring the wrath of scientific opinion, one arrives at the conclusion that biomaterials with their amazing measure or order must be the outcome of intelligent design. No other possibility I have been able to think of…”

Sir Fred Hoyle reached the conclusion that the universe is governed by a greater intelligence. In 1978, Hoyle described Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution as wrong and claimed that the belief that the first living cell was created in the “sea of life” was just as erroneous.

Reading that material, I’m at a loss to understand what other kind of guiding intelligence could be at work. Furthermore, Hoyle makes arguments for why Evolution is incomplete, but I don’t see any offerring of alternate mechanisms for the development of life. He proposed panspermia, that life came from space and not originated on Earth, but that doesn’t address the origins question, how did life form in space? So he fails in exactly the same way the Discovery Institute fails. It’s still magic. I can’t see any justification to argue Hoyle is not a creationist. Hoyle may not have been a biblical literalist (I don’t know), but he certainly has some notion of a creator being at work.

The universe started with Hydrogen, helium, and some Lithium, no methane.

Maybe God did burp, and the last 13.6B years has been indigestion, with occasional flatus.

Do you suppose Titan has a lot of cabbage and soft drinks??

kid cool

>>>”But I have a quarrel with scientist for not giving even 0.001% chance of an ID or God existing who may have started the universe. Dont scientist always take the escape route and call it ‘nature’ when they can’t explain something?”

There is always the possibility that a God may have started the universe. But that has nothing to do with science. Unless there is some observational evidence of its existence. There are many scientists who are religious, but STILL reject ID, since they understand that ID has nothing to offer science because it is simply apologetics dressed up in “sciencey” sounding language. And I’ve never heard of scientists using nature as an “escape route”. If they don’t know something, they will admit that and say “Let’s try and find out.” But postulating “GODDIDIT” as an answer serves no useful purpose in helping us to try to understand the world we live in, as it makes no predictions. It might make people feel better if they are believers, but again, this is for theology, not science.

>>>”Though we have no evidence of time travel or existence of parallel universes, scientist say that it is possibility. How come? The same way, why can’t God be a possiblity though we dont have any evidence?”

There is at least the maths to back those up. For instance, Hawking talks about quantum computers in his book, The Universe In A Nutshell, I think it was. Stretching my memory a bit here, but he talked about quantum computers being faster than your average computer. The reason being that using quantum calculations there was possibly many computers in parallel universes all working on the same calculations all at the same time working in tandem with each other. Now, this may not necessarily describe reality, there may or may not be parallel universes, but the maths works because it makes useful predictions. And it has practical applications. No, I don’t know how quantum science works either.

The point is, that God is unfalsifiable. The moment it becomes falsifiable then maybe useful predictions can be made from that hypothesis. Until then, whether a god really exists or not is a moot point in science. So asking for a “fair hearing” of a “god hypothesis” is a counter-productive idea, until anyone can posit a falsifiable test or theory for such a being. Note that just because the idea of a god is kept out of the science arena (for pretty obvious reasons when you think about it) that doesn’t mean to say it doesn’t exist. But it doesn’t mean to say the Invisible Pink Unicorn doesn’t exist either.

Isn’t that right, Robbie? (grin)

KC

>>>”In this case, what Fred Hoyle believed is important in that it scuttles the ID = Creationism claim, for Fred Hoyle wasn’t a Creationist.”

Maybe not, but if still alive, going by what was in that link, he might have been considered one today. Certainly, the Creationists have adopted all of his “arguments” as their own. Even if they didn’t, and his ideas of an ‘intelligent creator’ were somehow different to creationists, all it shows is that creo’s had this idea of changing the word “creationism” into something that sounds more “sciencey” and they just happened to come up with a similar sounding-name for their idea, or they stole the phrase from Hoyle. Either way, ‘Creationism’ was deliberately changed to ‘Intelligent Design’ for the express purpose of circumvent the law in order to teach Creationism in public schools (cdesign proponentsists cough cough). And many of Hoyle’s ideas on certain areas of science are simply not accepted by the scientific community in general, like quasi-steady state cosmology for example. And this has little to do with his opinions on a creator. Simple fact, ID as it is pushed today, IS Creationism, and whether it be Hoyle’s ideas or Creationists ideas, even if there were any difference, simple fact, ID is not science.

My take is that real conservatives were pushed out by fiscally liberal religionists. The iconic conservatives of decades past like Barry Goldwater would never have put up with this theological nonsense. In fact, Goldwater specifically warned against mixing religion and politics.

In fact, here’s a handy page:

http://www.liberalslikechrist.org/about/Goldwater.html

Key quote: “I don’t have any respect for the Religious Right. There is no place in this country for practicing religion in politics. That goes for Falwell, Robertson and all the rest of these political preachers. They are a detriment to the country.”

If the GOP can recapture *that* type of conservatism, I might look at the seriously again. Dim hope, I know, but I have to hope for something. Obama wants to rape my financials because I made an effort to live responsibly.

BA, Here’s a question for you:

Let’s say that you have an election in Boulder for city councilman. One candidate is rumored to be, shall we say, not quite an upstanding citizen. The other is so squeaky clean he makes Pat Boone look like a hoodlum. The only thing is that the squeaky clean politician also is a supporter of ID, and wants to get it into the Boulder school system.

Who do you cast your ballot for in the election?

A. The Shady politician who won’t try to get ID into the school system but who might be a corrupt official, or

B. The Squeaky clean politician who will be the very pillar of integrity, but who wants the schools to teach ID alongside evolution.

# The Bad Astronomer replied:

That’s easy. I’d speak loudly and clearly and let everyone know that we need a third choice.

Unfortunately, we often have a fourth choice: the candidate who wants to put ID in the science curriculum who is also in the pocket of every corrupt special interest in the county? Worse yet is when there is really no choice because that describes both candidates and the incumbent . . .

Dumb question here, but what is a petard? Im sorry but I really dont know; I feel ignorant. Is it sumthin I dont wanna see in a photo? )

@Kid Cool:
“He says “God played a role” that could very easily mean that 13.7 billion years ago God said “let there be light,” or maybe he burped.”

It wasn’t a burp…where do you think all the methane in the universe came from anyway? Huh? Answer me that. )

Which is why I’m somewhat bemused that people are touting a court rulling in arguing that ID = Creationism.

It isn’t so much the ruling as the provided evidence.

This goes far outside the court room to satisfy those who suspected the historical trend from creationism to “scientific creationism” continued unbroken into “intelligent design”. (And then “teach the alternative” which became “academic freedom”.) It is the same arguments and the same players recycled.

Again, please note that the issue wasn’t if Hoyle was right, it’s that he supported the idea. Tacitus is dead-on that what Hoyle believed is different from what Creationists would be comfortable with – which I think is partially my point. Because of this introduction to ID, I cannot say ID = Creationism.

In this case, what Fred Hoyle believed is important in that it scuttles the ID = Creationism claim, for Fred Hoyle wasn’t a Creationist.

Well, your reference is indeed what is called Hoyle’s fallacy, as pointed out earlier.

The argument (which is actually of older heritage), and the term “intelligent design” (again of older heritage) was adopted by the ID movement that started at about the same time. Simple as that.

But FWIW Hoyle was a creationist at that time, just not a fundamentalist creationist as IDers; your own reference says so. These types of fallacies and their motivation are more often than not connected.

I would be amazed if you could come up with anything to show that there was a shift from atheism to agnosticism at any time in the last hundred years.

That is especially difficult given that the trend is observably in the other direction:

Statistically speaking, the conflict between religion and science is enormous. Folks like Ayala and Collins are outliers.

Most scientists are irreligious. Most scientists who were raised religious become irreligious.

The spin in and around Ecklund and Scheitle’s RAAS (Religion Among Academic Scientists) is ridiculous.

They want to make it sound like science doesn’t erode religious belief. Their own data show that it very seriously does.

According to their data, atheists and agnostics are overrepresented by a factor of 7.5 relative to the (mostly liberal) theists.

Atheists outperform agnostics, who outperform liberal theists, who outperform liberal theists, who outperform traditional-but-not-literalist theists, who outperform raving biblical kooks.

Btw, that and similar statistics that has recently been doing the rounds are simply misinterpreted by apologists:

["WHY THE GODS ARE NOT WINNING", by Gregory Paul & Phil Zuckerman, Edge]

Far from providing unambiguous evidence of the rise of faith, the devout compliers of the WCE document what they characterize as the spectacular ballooning of secularism by a few hundred-fold! It has no historical match. It dwarfs the widely heralded Mormon climb to 12 million during the same time, even the growth within Protestantism of Pentecostals from nearly nothing to half a billion does not equal it.

[The author's thesis is that "the great majority [of democracies] enjoy long, safe, comfortable, middle class lives that they can be confident will not be lost due to factors beyond their control. [...] Not a single advanced democracy that enjoys benign, progressive socio-economic conditions retains a high level of popular religiosity. They all go material. ” The US differs, as it, ironically, is involved in the “darwinian” rat race that fundamentalists yearn for in their societies, competing without for these purposes enough social security.]

Actually, the Scopes case went to the Tennessee Supreme Court, which upheld the ruling. Such a case didn’t reach the USSC until 1968.

Here’s an interesting thing: First the courts rule that Tennessee can ban the teaching of evolution, then several decades later the Supreme Court said it can’t. Courts can – and have – reverse rulings, and based on similar evidence. Which is why some fear the USSC could one day overturn Roe vs Wade.

Compare this to science, on which theories stand on facts until such time as new facts come to light. This isn’t lost on the general public.

Frankly, my opinion of the Dover ruling matches that of Mr. Bumble in “Oliver Twist,” when he was told that the law presumed his wife acted under his direction.

Liberals here may have a hard time understanding just how unpopular McCain is with the far right of the GOP, demonstrating once again that these things are relative.
Among other things, the rightâ??s complaints involve McCainâ??s stances on immigration and campaign funding, and his refusal to deny the facts of global warming. His worst sin in their eyes, though, is his willingness to work with noted liberals at the legislative level; terms like McCain-Feinstein and McCain-Kennedy are anathema to the far right.

In the 1960s, Senator Goldwater was far and away the most prominent conservative in national politics. He literally wrote the book on it; (Conscience of a Conservative 1960).
Yet today, his positions would place him firmly at the left of the Republican Party, if he could remain a Republican at all. In 1989, at the height of the religious rightâ??s power, Goldwater told a reporter that the Republican Party was â??being taken over by a bunch of kooks.â??

It’s utterly obvious that the kind of “intelligent design” promoted by the discovery institute etc is just creationism re-branded in an attempt to circumvent the establishment clause. That is what the Dover decision ruled. The fact that there might be other theories which could be called “intelligent design” (like Hoyles panspermia argument) is irrelevant, because it isn’t related to what people are trying to get put into the science curriculum.

It’s quite disingenuous to keep conflating these after the difference has been pointed out.

Bringing up Scopes is rather disingenuous too, since the courts (all the way up to the Supreme court) have repeatedly repudiated that decision.

I suppose you are refering to the Scopes Trial (1925). That is a little bit of a stretch. There have been several ruling since. Most notably Epperson 1968 and Edwards in 1987 by the US Supreme Court.

So unless the ID’ers are going to appeal Kitzmiller v Dover, it will be the basis of legal precedence.

Once again, if you have any doubt that ID = creationism, google the words:

cdesign proponentsists

kid cool

“But, I was born in the Roman Empire so I’m going to argue pro-Jupiter every time (and his only-begotten son, Mars).”

HERITIC!

Everyone knows that Vulcan was also a son of Jupiter!

And Vulcans can kick Martians’ butts any day of the week!

So there!

(* Display Grin *)

Courts also ruled that Tennessee could forbid the teaching of evolution. Which is why I’m somewhat bemused that people are touting a court rulling in arguing that ID = Creationism.

He says “God played a role” that could very easily mean that 13.7 billion years ago God said “let there be light,” or maybe he burped.

Notice he never says he believes in ID, creationism, just his BS about big govt is the enemy and let kids have the best information.

By the way KC, Dover did in fact conclude that Creationism did equal ID. They showed that the ID proponents simply replaced scientific creationism with intelligent design. The also found that the authors were not as careful as they should have been during the editing process and found the “transitional fossil” of intelligent design:

cdesign proponentsists

http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2005/11/missing_link_cd.html

You can find all the info you want on the talkorigins web site They have the ruling and transcripts of the trial.

kid cool

But, I was born in the Roman Empire so I’m going to argue pro-Jupiter every time (and his only-begotten son, Mars).

If you go to some of the ID websites, their mission statement says just that. They believe that a higher power created us, but not just any higher power, the Lord God Almighty only.

If ID theories are allowed into the classroom, I’d like to see how they weed out the other gods and just allow theirs to take the credit.

Then again, I’m guessing Jindal doesn’t want his children being taught that we might have landed here on earth in airplanes.

There is NO evidence for ID. None that can be scrutinize with the scientific method, which the curricula requires.

How can you give children both theories and let them critically evaluate them? Unless of course you tell them the scientific method only applies to one. It is plainly evident that we are trumping science for faith and encouraging our students to do so as well.