The Non-Science Of “Intelligent Design”

Need I say more?

The Templeton Foundation, a major supporter of projects seeking to reconcile science and religion, says that after providing a few grants for conferences and courses to debate intelligent design, they asked proponents to submit proposals for actual research.

“They never came in,” said Charles L. Harper Jr., senior vice president at the Templeton Foundation, who said that while he was skeptical from the beginning, other foundation officials were initially intrigued and later grew disillusioned.

“From the point of view of rigor and intellectual seriousness, the intelligent design people don’t come out very well in our world of scientific review,” he said.

The article also claims that even evangelical colleges are getting disillusioned.

[Via (admitted conservative) John Derbyshire]

Blogger John Farrell has a suggestion for Dr. Behe.

[Monday morning update]

More thoughts on the sterility of Intelligent Design as science:

If we continue with Behe

The Non-Science Of “Intelligent Design”

Need I say more?

The Templeton Foundation, a major supporter of projects seeking to reconcile science and religion, says that after providing a few grants for conferences and courses to debate intelligent design, they asked proponents to submit proposals for actual research.

“They never came in,” said Charles L. Harper Jr., senior vice president at the Templeton Foundation, who said that while he was skeptical from the beginning, other foundation officials were initially intrigued and later grew disillusioned.

“From the point of view of rigor and intellectual seriousness, the intelligent design people don’t come out very well in our world of scientific review,” he said.

The article also claims that even evangelical colleges are getting disillusioned.

[Via (admitted conservative) John Derbyshire]

Blogger John Farrell has a suggestion for Dr. Behe.

[Monday morning update]

More thoughts on the sterility of Intelligent Design as science:

If we continue with Behe

The Non-Science Of “Intelligent Design”

Need I say more?

The Templeton Foundation, a major supporter of projects seeking to reconcile science and religion, says that after providing a few grants for conferences and courses to debate intelligent design, they asked proponents to submit proposals for actual research.

“They never came in,” said Charles L. Harper Jr., senior vice president at the Templeton Foundation, who said that while he was skeptical from the beginning, other foundation officials were initially intrigued and later grew disillusioned.

“From the point of view of rigor and intellectual seriousness, the intelligent design people don’t come out very well in our world of scientific review,” he said.

The article also claims that even evangelical colleges are getting disillusioned.

[Via (admitted conservative) John Derbyshire]

Blogger John Farrell has a suggestion for Dr. Behe.

[Monday morning update]

More thoughts on the sterility of Intelligent Design as science:

If we continue with Behe

“…One Of The Worst Tyrants In History…”

Rebecca Weisser has a sobering article about the real atrocities and crimes in Iraq.

Le Livre Noir de Saddam Hussein (The Black Book of Saddam Hussein) is a robust denunciation of Saddam’s regime that does not fall into the trap of viewing everything in Iraq through a US-centric prism…

…The obsession of many journalists and commentators with the fruitless hunt for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons has meant much of the evidence of Saddam’s atrocities in liberated Iraq has been under-reported. Sinje Caren Stoyke, a German archeologist and president of Archeologists for Human Rights, catalogues 288 mass graves, a list that is already out of date with the discovery of fresh sites every week.

“There is no secret about these mass graves,” Stoyke writes. “Military convoys crossed towns, full of civilian prisoners, and returned empty. People living near execution sites heard the cries of men, women and children. They heard shots followed by silence.”

Stoyke estimates one million people are missing in Iraq, presumed dead, leaving families with the dreadful task of finding and identifying the remains of their loved ones.

Why can the anti-war left not speak for those victims?

[Via Norm Geras]

“…One Of The Worst Tyrants In History…”

Rebecca Weisser has a sobering article about the real atrocities and crimes in Iraq.

Le Livre Noir de Saddam Hussein (The Black Book of Saddam Hussein) is a robust denunciation of Saddam’s regime that does not fall into the trap of viewing everything in Iraq through a US-centric prism…

…The obsession of many journalists and commentators with the fruitless hunt for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons has meant much of the evidence of Saddam’s atrocities in liberated Iraq has been under-reported. Sinje Caren Stoyke, a German archeologist and president of Archeologists for Human Rights, catalogues 288 mass graves, a list that is already out of date with the discovery of fresh sites every week.

“There is no secret about these mass graves,” Stoyke writes. “Military convoys crossed towns, full of civilian prisoners, and returned empty. People living near execution sites heard the cries of men, women and children. They heard shots followed by silence.”

Stoyke estimates one million people are missing in Iraq, presumed dead, leaving families with the dreadful task of finding and identifying the remains of their loved ones.

Why can the anti-war left not speak for those victims?

[Via Norm Geras]

“…One Of The Worst Tyrants In History…”

Rebecca Weisser has a sobering article about the real atrocities and crimes in Iraq.

Le Livre Noir de Saddam Hussein (The Black Book of Saddam Hussein) is a robust denunciation of Saddam’s regime that does not fall into the trap of viewing everything in Iraq through a US-centric prism…

…The obsession of many journalists and commentators with the fruitless hunt for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons has meant much of the evidence of Saddam’s atrocities in liberated Iraq has been under-reported. Sinje Caren Stoyke, a German archeologist and president of Archeologists for Human Rights, catalogues 288 mass graves, a list that is already out of date with the discovery of fresh sites every week.

“There is no secret about these mass graves,” Stoyke writes. “Military convoys crossed towns, full of civilian prisoners, and returned empty. People living near execution sites heard the cries of men, women and children. They heard shots followed by silence.”

Stoyke estimates one million people are missing in Iraq, presumed dead, leaving families with the dreadful task of finding and identifying the remains of their loved ones.

Why can the anti-war left not speak for those victims?

[Via Norm Geras]

Time To Give Up On NASA

That’s what Michael Mealing says.

while I agree with Rick and Jon that NASA and Congress could do a lot better, the odds of being able to convince the existing organizations to change is so slim that its hard to justify spending your time attempting to change it. The political reality is that the various Shuttle derived systems exist because no other plan pays the political bribe that gives NASA the budgets it needs to do other things. Any suggestion that causes the standing army to stand down is dead on arrival. It sucks but its just the nature of our system of politics. Its the nature of any large organization.

Does that mean you give up and start cheerleading for the Architecture as the only show in town? No. Did Jobs and Wozniak become cheerleaders for mainframe computing? No. They simply ignored the current way of doing things. While their products did eventually disrupt the computing industry rather radically, they didn’t set out with that goal. They did it by finding new markets and routing around adoption barriers.

I’ve thought this for a long time, which is one reason that I don’t devote much (unpaid) time or energy in trying to change the agency or its plans, or even in critiquing them. And Michael’s suggestion is exactly the path by which space will be opened up.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!