My ex-girlfriend taught undergraduate courses at Princeton. She had Steve Forbes' daughter in one of her classes. Steve Forbes' daughter failed the class, but graduated the class with a 'C'. Let's just say the Ivy League Dean knows what side his bread is buttered on, and my infuriated ex-GF buttered the wrong side by giving Steve Forbes' daughter a richly-deserved failing grade. Of course, it would be conjecture for me to assume that George W. Bush would benefit from the same type of administrative grade-wrangling that goes on in at least one Ivy League school. Dubya's dad was only head of the CIA though, while Steve Forbes owns a magazine and has lots of money and stuff.
If you read the synoptic gospels (Mathew, Mark, & Luke), there are conflicts between what Jesus says. I believe almost all of them are trivial, but they exist nonetheless. Not to mention the fact that they've been translated by hand from Aramaic to Greek to Latin and then coppied untold numbers of times. I don’t want to sit down at the moment and try to read the three books in parallel to provide evidence, but to say that there are "precise words" of Christ is like saying a police mug shot is a "precise picture" of a criminal. Nothing in the bible is written by the hand of Jesus. If you absolutely deny this, I'll try and pull out my bible and try to find a few examples.
Interesting - would this be one isolated example, or do you think that there are people who have gone through Princeton without ever passing a class? I'm open to reevaluation of my position. In any case, I think that much of W's intelligence perception problem comes from his Texas accent, and his poor language articulation which at one point would almost have qualified as Conduction Aphasia. It's interesting to listen to him speak these days because he sounds like someone who has recieved therapy and is accutely aware of their own problem. He speaks in long drawn out vowels, and is excessively precice in his diction.
I mentioned his SAT scores to illustrate his intelligence. Also, I've heard many stories similar to thadeus'. I would not be surprised if that is what exactly happened in GWB's case. In fact, I'd be surprised if it didn't happen. You give too much credit to the Yale degree. After Yale lets in students based on nepotism, you think they would let them fail all their courses? The dean of Yale isn't THAT stupid.
I know of several cases of people let in to Ivy League schools on the basis of Nepotism that didn't graduate/failed out. In fact, I was almost one of them! I flat out recieved an unsolicited offer to go to Penn my fathers alma mater, and realized that I wouldn't have been able to handle it. Nepotism only gets you in the door. I know for a fact that in non-special cases the favoritism ends there.
I agree that for 'non-special' cases, that's where the giving stop. However, Bush's father is hardly the run-of-the-mill alumni. I guess that's where I'm getting at. You won't see GWB's daughters fail out of college, I'm pretty sure.
I'm not sure. I've only heard (directly) of this instance (and indirectly of many more). I seriously doubt that this is the only Ivy League free-pass that's been handed out to a "special" student. Before my ex-gf told me the story, I wouldn't have thought to ask if these sorts of things happened. It definitely opened my eyes to the fact that the Ivy League schools are not as pristine as they had appeared. I always had a rather idealized picture of them as the height of a genuine meritocracy. Now I'm pretty sure there's no such thing as a genuine meritocracy. Except maybe the NBA
This is lunacy. Having not taken a class at Yale, I can guarantee you this isn't the case...at least for most of the student population.
You seem to miss my point. I am saying that you can progress in education despite a lack of intelligence. This, however, requires a much larger amount of time spent on study effort. At Yale, most of the people are pretty smart. The smarter they are, the less they generally have to study. There are some people that get in Yale that are smart, but not as smart as the average. These people can and do graduate, but it they often have to put put in additional study time to a degree that is roughly inversely proportional to intelligence. Of course what you pursue as your major makes a difference as well. The "special dispensation" I speak of would bypass this as well. I'm saying that theoretically, to be of below average intelligence, graduating from Yale without "special dispensation" would require unreal amounts of work. Since most people that go there are well above average, they just study quite a bit. Obviously this breaks down at some point - no matter how much time available, someone who is clinically "special" probably couldn't get a degree in theoretical physics under any circumstances. You are correct, what I said isn't true for most of the population at Yale because most of the population at Yale is smart.
I think that there are some schools that practice it much less. My grandfather, aunt, uncle (who went on to win part of a Nobel Prize), and mother all went to and graduated from Rice. My sister, who on pure merit I would have considered a "borderline" case, was denied admission. I have heard similar things about Stanford, and some of the other good non-Ivy league schools. I think the Ivy League schools are still great schools and their graduate programs are genuine meritocracies, but they definitely are absolutely shady when it comes to undergrad admissions across the board. Two words to refute this - Vin Baker.
1-4, Thanks now I feel better knowing that the Genesis account of God creating the world is held as a possibility by most posters. I am glad they are keeping this option open. 5. No, the top evolutionary scientists are unified. Not all scientists. 6. Are you speaking of creationism or ID? 7. Not true, see Big Bang, virtual particles, dark energy etc. Not once is this being posted as if it is not a certainty.
1-4. Just because they don't agree with statement A doesn't imply they give credence to statement B. This doesn't follow logically. 5. You know what I mean. 6. I'm speaking about evolution. I thought that was clear. 7. I don't know where you are getting your information... Probably the same place you get information supporting ID ( *zing*) Doubters of Dark Matter Doubters of Gravity Doubters of Dark energy It's not the scientists fault that the media popularizes one idea or another. The scientific community, however, constantly questions each other and understands that each idea is a theory or a model that explains how the universe might work.
I've had a chance to go through this thread since my last posts about a week ago and the thing that really sticks out to me about this thread, this issue itself and why I feel so passionate about this is that it seems to me that the ID proponents have a profound misunderstanding of science and are judging it on a religious basis as if the Evolution were a faith belief. Rhester's seven observations Grizzled's argument that opposition to ID is an intellectual orthodoxy suppressing new ideas to me shows a profound misunderstanding of how the theory of Evolution was formed, has been tested and the scientific method. Further it displays a lack of knowledge regarding the amount and nature of the empiracal evidence supporting Evolution while the ID proponents only seem to be knowledgeable about the unanswered questions of Evolution. The ID argument seems to be boiled down to, "Evolution seems to have problems so therefore ID is plausible." Leaving aside for a moment the evidence supporting Evolution this is profoundly troubling statement because it only looks at two possible explanations when there is a multiplicity of other explanations. Further IMO the ID argument as put forward here is one that erodes the way we understand the world through science. It says that if a scientific theory cannot be absolutely proven then its a faith belief and as good as any other faith belief. Further as Grizzled's continued bringing up of that Evolution can't explain the creation of matter shows that the argument can be extended to any scientific idea. At that point then there is no point to the scientific method. All we have to do is say well this theory doesn't explain this or it doesn't explain everything so its nothing more than faith. My concern is more regarding the reasoning that ID proponents use and less with ID itself. I don't find ID plausible but if someone where to show me some empiracal evidence, like a spaceship dating to the time of the Cambrian Explosion, then I would definately say there is something there to ID. I don't believe absolutely Evolution is proven fact or that ID might not be true. All I'm saying is that we have a scientific method that so far shows Evolution to be the most likely method. Its not a faith belief except to the point that I believe in the scientific method itself.
I think everyone interested in this topic will appreciate this article. ________ If one judged solely by the newspaper headlines, or by what schoolchildren are taught in science classes, one might think that scientists unanimously agree on the details of the Big Bang theory of cosmic origins; on the reality of a mysterious force called dark energy, which is allegedly driving the universe to expand faster over time; and on the existence of many other things that might, in fact, be mirages -- or, at least, more poorly understood than orthodox researchers acknowledge. ____________ Cosmological iconoclasts offer new ideas From the Big Bang to carbon atoms, mysteries abound In recent years, our knowledge of the cosmos, its origins and evolution has improved by leaps and bounds. But is our new knowledge as reliable as it appears? Maybe not, if one believes a few doubters. If one judged solely by the newspaper headlines, or by what schoolchildren are taught in science classes, one might think that scientists unanimously agree on the details of the Big Bang theory of cosmic origins; on the reality of a mysterious force called dark energy, which is allegedly driving the universe to expand faster over time; and on the existence of many other things that might, in fact, be mirages -- or, at least, more poorly understood than orthodox researchers acknowledge. Behind the headlines, though, a handful of iconoclastic scientists question important details of such accepted knowledge. If history is any guide, most of these iconoclasts will fail to convince their colleagues that they're on the wrong path. In all likelihood, the doubters' objections are bound for the historical dustbin, the final resting place of the forgotten errors of yesteryear -- for example, the belief in an Earth-centered cosmos, or the 19th century notion that bumps on people's heads revealed their personalities. Yet in rare cases, iconoclastic scientists prove to be right -- sometimes spectacularly so. In the early 20th century, most geologists scoffed when German scientist Alfred Wegener proposed that continents move about, like bumper cars at an amusement park. Nowadays, the idea of continental drift is familiar to every schoolchild. Is the science of cosmology in the same position that geology was circa 1900 -- due for a big overhaul? Cosmology -- the study of the origins, nature, evolution and fate of our cosmos -- has been a respected and well-populated science for almost four decades. Popular books tell the sagas of its triumphs -- how, for instance, in the mid-1960s, two scientists working on a New Jersey communications antenna accidentally discovered faint cosmic radiation that poured from the sky. Later, that cosmic background radiation was identified as the leftover "glow" of the Big Bang, a sort of super-explosion that spawned not only space but also time itself about 13 billion years ago. But that isn't the whole story of the Big Bang theory. The thesis has evolved radically since the 1960s, and scientists continue to argue over crucial details. Recent months have brought a surge of iconoclastic studies in cosmology. They include: -- Doubt about present formulations of the Big Bang hypothesis. This month, a major problem in the mainstream Big Bang hypothesis is reported by two physicists at the University of Alabama at Huntsville. According to the Aug. 1 issue of the prestigious Astrophysical Journal, Professor Richard Lieu and research associate Jonathan Mittaz analyzed measurements of the cosmic background radiation made by a space satellite, the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, a few years ago. For more than a decade, scientists have known that the radiation is pockmarked with cooler-than-normal spots. Most scientists regard these spots as places where gravity tugged together primordial matter shortly after the Big Bang, forming seeds of the first galaxies, which are stellar swarms akin to our Milky Way. However, Lieu and Mittaz are disturbed that in the Wilkinson satellite's map of celestial radiation, the cool spots -- which caused an international sensation when first reported in 1992 -- are suspiciously similar in size to one another. They believe the size variations should be much greater, partly because so-called gravitational lensing -- the gravitational bending of light by unseen matter in the universe, which distorts the shapes of celestial objects -- should greatly distort the spots' size. That's especially true because the spots are presumed to be so far away, billions of light years distant, on the edge of cosmos. The lack of such distortion suggests a far-out possibility: Maybe the cool spots aren't nearly as far away as assumed. For this and other complex reasons, they propose the possibility that an overhaul of the standard model of the Big Bang is needed. "Could it be that although the radiation itself is from far away, some of these cool spot structures are caused by nearby physical processes and aren't really remnants of the universe's creation?" Lieu asked in a statement issued by the University of Alabama. "There is certainly plenty of room for unknowns." -- Doubt that a puzzling and so-far-unseen dark energy is causing the universe to expand faster and faster over time. When first reported in the 1990s, this discovery was recognized as one of the most counterintuitive developments in the history of astronomy. Previously, astrophysicists had assumed the universe was expanding but would either expand increasingly slowly with time or collapse back upon itself like a ruined souffle. The leading doubter is Edward "Rocky" Kolb, director of the Fermilab Particle Astrophysics Center near Chicago. In March, in a paper that he published with three colleagues in Italy and Canada, Kolb offered an alternate explanation for the ever-accelerating cosmic expansion, one that employs existing theories of physics rather than the new, unknown physics that is presumed to lurk behind dark energy. This spring, when Science magazine asked him if dark energy is an illusion, Kolb dryly replied: "I'm not willing to bet my life on it yet. I would bet my collaborators' lives, though." -- Doubt about neutron stars. Are some of them impostors? First discovered by their electromagnetic pulses in the 1960s -- by scientists who initially suspected the signals might come from "bug-eyed monsters" or BEMs in an alien civilization -- neutron stars, some of which are pulsars, are among the strangest cosmic phenomena. In theory, they consist largely or totally of extremely compacted neutrons. Whereas our sun is almost 900,000 miles wide, a neutron star might be as compact as San Francisco. (The three main building blocks of atoms are protons, electrons and neutrons, which are, respectively, positively, negatively and neutrally charged particles.) However, some purported neutron stars might be impostors. That is, they could consist substantially of matter other than neutrons, but have other properties that allow them to masquerade as neutron stars, say physicists at Washington University at St. Louis, Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, and Jefferson National Laboratory in Newport News, Va. "Most people agree that these stars have a surface layer of nuclear matter (mostly neutrons), but no one knows what is in the middle," said one of the scientists, physicist Mark Alford of Washington University, in an e-mail to The Chronicle. Conceivably, the core of a purported neutron star "might be something more exotic such as quark matter," in other words, a "hybrid star" that is substantially composed of even smaller particles called quarks. -- Doubt that our universe is the only universe. Until recent years, most astrophysicists dismissed as metaphysical mumbo-jumbo the "anthropic principle." This quasi-scientific hypothesis posits a mysterious link between the existence of human life and the existence of the universe itself. For example, scientists have long puzzled over certain physical phenomena -- say, the structure of the carbon atom -- which seem almost ideally designed to support the existence of organic molecules, of which living entities are composed. Religious people interpret this fact in "intelligent designer" terms -- they say, in effect, that "God made carbon atoms that way so that life would emerge." But some scientists prefer a nondivine explanation. They propose there are innumerable alternate universes, each with its own unique physical laws and properties. For example, some universes might not have carbon-type atoms, or even anything that resembles atoms as we understand them. The fact that our universe generates carbon atoms with life-supporting structures is purely a matter of chance, they suggest. By contrast, most alternate universes -- there might be zillions of them, for all anyone knows -- could be lifeless. The anthropic principle is defended as "one option in the physicists' arsenal" by two famed astrophysicists, Mario Livio of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore and Sir Martin Rees, the astronomer royal of England, in an essay for the Aug. 5 edition of Science. If the anthropic principle is right, they say, then "our universe isn't the neatest and simplest," but it has one dandy (for our purposes) feature: "the rather arbitrary-seeming mix of ingredients in the (physical) parameter range that allows us to exist." If so, then you have more in common with the cosmos than you ever dreamed. link
Nice post, Sishir. I've been trying to stay out of this ID debate, but I've been poking around in here from time to time. I think your point that ID is being used by some to push their version of "faith" is the problem many have with it. I respect those who have beliefs that dovetail with "intelligent design," but I don't like those who are using it as a foot in the door of our children's classrooms to push their version of religion, or to promote their political agenda, or their political careers. We are seeing a lot of that. I don't care for it at all. Keep D&D Civil!!
Interesting article. However, I don't think anyone here claimed any of the scientific topics as gospel. Also, I already pointed out many articles that question science. The problem with ID is that it is not science.
Intelligent Design? - Jack Kinsella President Bush is under fire from the humanist scientific community for proposing that schools teach the theory of 'intelligent design' alongside Darwin's theory of evolution. Speaking with reporters in Texas recently, he answered a question about the teaching of "intelligent design" as an alternative to evolution by saying it was something school districts should decide. However, he said he thought both should be taught in science classes "so people can understand what the debate is about." Bush's statement raised the ire of editorialists around the country. Wrote the Middleton, NY Times Herald-Record; "Debate? There is no serious debate in the scientific community on the validity of evolution. It is an important scientifically verified concept of the way life has developed on our planet. Generations of scientists have added to the vast store of empirical knowledge of how we got where we are since Darwin first posited his theory." Can that be true? That there is no serious debate in the scientific community on the validity of evolution? Then why is it in the news in the first place? According to the editorialist, "Intelligent design is really just creationism dressed up with a new name and a new approach to trying to get it taught in public schools. That approach, in essence, is to pretend that there is a serious scientific debate on the merits of evolution versus intelligent design." Let's revisit that last paragraph again. First, 'intelligent design' is not 'creationism'. 'Creationism' is the belief that the Sovereign God as He is identified in the Book of Genesis created the universe, the earth, man, trees, animals, water, light, air, and every thing else in creation that was created, and that He did it in six literal days, resting on the seventh. THAT is creationism. 'Intelligent Design' is the belief that the universe, in its complexity and attention to detail, could not have come about by a series of random coincidences and therefore, is the product of an unidentified Intelligence. The debate (yes, Middleton, there IS a debate) has grown more intense as science has begun to unlock the secrets of the genome and realized that genes are really micro supercomputers. 'Intelligent design' does not identify the Designer, ignores the Bible, imposes no moral or religious accountability, and allows for any and all religious worldviews. It is NOT creationism, or anything approaching creationism. There is room in the Intelligent Design theory for the Designer to be anyone from a Creator God to space aliens from the Planet Zenon. Writes our editorialist, "Many scientists believe that, while Darwin's theory of natural selection explains much about the development of life, it does not necessarily provide all the answers on the origin of life. Like nonscientists, they have their own theories, but these are philosophical or religious beliefs that differ from one another and, critically, from a scientific viewpoint, cannot be empirically proven." Sez you. Critically, from a scientific viewpoint, natural selection cannot be empirically proven. Indeed, for evolution to be correct, the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, the provable observation that all things eventually decay and break down with age, would have to be thrown out the window. Let's look at it this way. A living things live, die, decay and revert back to dust. This can be empirically proved -- there is no debate. The theory of evolution argues that, add a few million years, the process reverses itself. Since nothing can be empirically observed over a few million years, and since the passage of a few million years cannot be recreated in a laboratory, there is absolutely no empirical evidence for evolution. Both the evolutionist and the proponents of Intelligent Design are left with the same scientific conundrum. Evolution takes on faith that its theory is correct, based entirely on what we observe today and theorize backwards to its origin. Intelligent Design does exactly the same thing. The evolutionist theorizes that all that exists came into existence as the byproduct of random chance that cannot be examined, recreated or observed under laboratory conditions. Intelligent Design proponents look at the same evidences and say random chance cannot explain it. But, unlike evolution, Intelligent Design CAN be empirically proved. It CAN be recreated in a laboratory. It is not only possible, it is fact. Geneticists can manipulate genes to 'create' a different creature, in effect, 'designing' something altogether new. The same evolutionists who decry intelligent design also decry efforts to impose ethical standards on scientific breakthroughs on cloning. And if cloning isn't empirical evidence of intelligent design, then what would be? Sniffs the editorialist, "But the validity of evolution is regarded as a subject for scientific debate pretty much only by believers in creationism, which is to say, intelligent design. Science attempts to explain what can be observed, not the more elusive questions, such as why any of it matters. One belongs in school, the other at home or in places of worship." Liar, liar, pants on fire. Intelligent design is not based on religion. It is based on scientific observations based on empirical evidence, not religious texts. The theory proposes that some features of the natural world are best explained as the product of an intelligent cause as opposed to an undirected process such as natural selection. Although controversial, design theory is supported by a growing number of scientists in scientific journals, conference proceedings, and books. While intelligent design may have religious implications (just like Darwin's theory), it does not start from religious premises. Its best-known exponent was English theologian William Paley, creator of the famous watchmaker analogy. If we find a pocket watch in a field, Paley wrote in 1802, we immediately infer that it was produced not by natural processes acting blindly but by a designing human intellect. Scientists use the term "black box" for a system whose inner workings are unknown. To Charles Darwin and his contemporaries, the living cell was a black box because its fundamental mechanisms were completely obscure. We now know that, far from being formed from a kind of simple, uniform protoplasm (as many nineteenth-century scientists believed), every living cell contains many ultra sophisticated molecular machines. Darwin himself set the standard when he acknowledged, "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down." The complexity of the human genome, by Darwin's own standards, totally collapses the possibility of random chance. There is a project called 'SETI' or, the 'Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence' that spends millions each year scanning the universe for radio signals that would suggest they were transmitted by some extra-terrestrial intelligence. Outer space is filled with random radio waves, all of which are random and without coherence. SETI is looking for coherent signals. Since there is nothing in the laws of physics that requires radio signals to take one form or another, a coherent series of signals would indicate intelligence. Intelligence leaves behind a characteristic trademark or 'signature'. That signature is found where a complexity is contingent and therefore not necessary. For example, a piece of wood is a piece of wood. That is all that is necessary for it to be a piece of wood. Add a metal bar and a few springs and our piece of wood becomes a mousetrap. Specific complexity designed to a purpose not necessary to existence of its component parts. Do you follow? Scientifically, something's complexity is related to how easy it is to repeat it by chance. Evolution ignores the evidence of intelligence in the design of the universe, because it imposes its theory after the fact. Consider a guy who shoots arrows into a wall at random, and then paints targets around them, painting the bullseye around each arrow. That is how random chance theory works. They start with the fact that there are men and there are monkeys. They seem to be related. From there, evolution paints bullseyes around random chance theory that seemingly explains the origins of both. To make it work, monkeys had to at one time evolved from fish. Somehow, all this evolution occurred without leaving a single example a transitional lifeform somewhere along the line between fish and monkeys. Now, consider a guy who takes existing targets and then, aiming carefully, shoots arrows into the bullseye. Each bullseye is hit by design. That is how Intelligent Design works. Since the signature of intelligence is scientifically observable in everything from our genetic code to the fact that apple trees grow apples and we just so happen to eat apples, the theory of Intelligent Design is empirically demonstrable, and therefore scientific. Personally, I am a strict Creationist, which, by definition, means I agree with the ID theory, to the limited degree I believe God designed the universe and that God is an intelligent Being. But Intelligent Design is NOT Creationism. It is not religious. It does not impose worship of any deity. It doesn't even impose a deity at all. There is room in the Intelligent Design theory, as I noted, for space aliens from the Planet Zenon. Evolution is a religion. It is the religion of secular humanism, which worships man as god. That secular humanism is a religion is a matter of settled law. In the case Torcaso v. Watkins, the U.S. Supreme Court stated, “Among religions in this country which do not teach what would generally be considered a belief in the existence of God are Buddhism, Taoism, Ethical Culture, Secular Humanism and others.” Intelligent design is decried by the humanist as a religious belief rather than science, because it is a threat to his faith. It takes more faith to accept random theory as fact that it does to come to Jesus, (since humanism doesn't include a call from the Holy Spirit). For ID theory to be acceptable, the humanist must first abandon his faith in man as the supreme being, since, by definition, if the universe was designed by an intelligence, it is superior to man. And if there IS an Intelligent Designer, it at least opens the scientific possibility that there is Divine accountability. Nothing slams the door shut tighter on a secular humanist's mind than accountability to some Supreme Authority. Even a secular humanist knows in his heart, that if there is an accounting to be given for the deeds of this life, he will fall short of the mark, even if he doesn't know where that mark is. We are created that way. "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? " (Jeremiah 17:9) Consciousness of sin is as built-in to our genetic makeup as the color of our eyes. Even the humanist will admit to having a conscience. What else is that but consciousness of sin? And if there is consciousness of sin, then sin must exist. And if sin exists, then accountability again comes into play. If man is accountable to a Higher Authority, then the basic tenet of the humanist faith is shattered. Suddenly, abortion, homosexuality, promiscuity and so forth must be viewed in a new light. ID theory is not religious, but its validity means the destruction of secular humanism. "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen." (Romans 1:22-25) The propaganda campaign against ID Theory is already kicking into high gear, with the ACLU sharpening their pencils, and the secular media digging out experts to make the case the ID Theory is some Creationist conspiracy to impose religion over science. But the religion actually being imposed here is secular humanism, not Christianity. The rest is propaganda.
