Apparently watching a debate will tell you all about intelligent design and make it scientific.
Unfortunately, there is no falsifiable hypothesis. The arguments boils down to information must be intelligently designed without any way to refute the claim. Hence, it’s not a scientific argument–it’s a claim of faith.
The first clue might be to search the actual scientific literature, but, you know, videos are the same thing.
Frankly, his conclusions are logical for his system of belief about beginnings, which rejects the notion that an Intelligent Designer had anything to do with the way things are on Planet Earth.
Wrong, and I pointed this out:
Nothing Watson said on intelligence is demonstrated by the scientific literature. And, in fact, his statements are refuted by the literature just as Charles Murray’s claims are.
And history in the United States demonstrates the problem. His assumption of distinct populations that do not interbreed is simply false. African-Americans in the United States frequently, if not usually, have white ancestors. Even in the case of isolated tribes in Africa, there is significant genetic evidence that the populations of humans interbreed frequently and such genetic isolation does not exist in reality.
Because Eaton has a caricature of science, she doesn’t understand apparently anything in the post that directly refutes her claim above. Watson isn’t making a scientific conclusion, he’s making an idiotic bigoted statement refuted by science.
There are not distinct human populations that are not interbred and so at the most basic assumption of Watson’s claim is wrong and nothing logically can follow. Insisting it does does as much abuse to the scientific process as Watson does in his silly claims.
Furthermore, the entire conception of intelligence is flawed as Watson tries to claim. Of course, the primary person that kind of garbage isn’t Watson, it’s conservative hack Charles Murray.
Finally, evolution isn’t a theory of beginnings–it is a theory about how life on earth changes over time. More specifically how alleles vary from generation to generation. Having a basic grasp of what one is talking about is, in most company, considered good form.
Because the intricacies of a micro-organism and the incomprehensible details of something as complex as the human eye or the ear, the brain, the heart, the lungs, not to mention the unfathomable depths of the sea, the infinite universe around us all clearly point to an Intelligent Designer rather than a Cosmic Coincidence, I am a “moron” and a “sh(r)ill beast”?
No, you are moron because you are confusing entire fields of science and multiple theories with one theory that discusses how life has changed over time on Earth.
Evolution doesn’t address God. It addresses biological life that is observable. Unless one believes the evidence for evolution was planted to test one’s faith or perhaps to discover why 42 is so important, it’s the most parsimonious and only non-falsified theory to explain life on Earth as it exists now.
I swear this belongs on the Colbert Report, but no, it is real.
The winners? Thom Mannard and…
State Senator Dan Kotowksi.
I hope they give him a plaque. He can put it up in his office and be proud.
Tom Roeser is upset too. It appears someone didn’t know who he was and Dan Kotowski is making a very serious mistake by not going on WLS.
Let’s be clear here. WLS is a station of rightwing fruitcakes who think they are really, really important and everyone should listen to them because they are very important and very serious.
Bullshit. WLS is the Fox News of Chicago radio and Democrats should tell them to shove off. If everyone on your station are wingnuts and your listeners are wingnuts why should a Democrat go on? To make the small group of very serious people feel good about themselves.
Sorry, that time is over.
Tom Roeser’s show has a small audience of the village elders idiots who claim they are very serious and so they expect everyone to pay attention. He has no real influence other than with other wingnuts and they don’t vote for Democrats.
There is no reason to bother. Tom Roeser is nothing more than a bloviating old fool who is self-important. His best days were when Henry Hyde was still having youthful indiscretions. Whining that someone is too cowardly to come on your show just demonstrates my point.
This is equivalent to arguing because Fran is a moron who doesn’t understand logic or the scientific theory of evolution, believing in Christ makes you a moron.
The most basic problem with her argument is that she cannot distinguish between a positive and a normative argument. She seems to believe what one believes about the natural world should be based upon what one wants the world to be like.
Science is about making positive statements about the world–or describing the world as it is.
Normative statements are statements about how something should be based on certain principles.
Nothing Watson said on intelligence is demonstrated by the scientific literature. And, in fact, his statements are refuted by the literature just as Charles Murray’s claims are.
And history in the United States demonstrates the problem. His assumption of distinct populations that do not interbreed is simply false. African-Americans in the United States frequently, if not usually, have white ancestors. Even in the case of isolated tribes in Africa, there is significant genetic evidence that the populations of humans interbreed frequently and such genetic isolation does not exist in reality.
IOW, he’s a senile old man who is offensive.
That said, Eaton does not grasp the difference between science being a process of discovering the natural world and wanting the natural world to be the way someone would like it to be. Science is not in the business of creating a utopian society, it’s in the business of identifying the most parsimonious answer to why natural phenomenon occur.
The Intelligent Design canard feeds off just such ignorance. There is no testable theory of Intelligent Design and it isn’t science–it’s an attempt by ignorant people to insist the God of the Bible is really Zeus who routinely manipulates the natural world. Indeed, just this sort of claim led the Pope to recently compare creationists to pagans.
FInally, one doesn’t believe in evolution, one accepts the evidence for evolution. Again, there is this basic confusion over what science is and evolution only addresses how life on Earth has changed over time, not everything that might be called a ‘beginning.”
So enjoy more creationist follies
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More fun with creationists
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I just want to point out the woman towards the beginning is Janet Fogler who put together to the Values Voter Debate.
This is how nutty they are.
Trueman says the Alliance Defense Fund is encouraging citizens to get involved in this fight over this pornography policy. “What we’re going to do is try to get more and more complaints into the military about this policy. Because in justifying this policy by the military what they’ve said [is] they’ve had few complaints from families about the sale of pornography in the military,” he says.
Trueman says sexual harassment and other problems in the military are exacerbated by pornography. He says this new policy, of deeming magazines like Penthouse and Playboy as not sexually explicit, counters common sense.
John Cox is very, very concerned about Transexual Teachers
Why? That’s a very good question.
The best highlight reel yet of the Values Voter Debate has been put together by the Drexel Democrats:
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Go visit them here–I’ll link through the graphic. The blog will be liveblogging tomorrow from the courtroom.
Planned Parenthood Volunteer Videos
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Keyes, Cox, and Schlafley make appearances at the Voter Values Debate
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Phyllis is real worried about the black helicopters and world government.
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Cox plays the bestiality card
There’s some more fun from the debate, but only a few clips are available.
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Says City’s actions to block opening motivated by politics, not law
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 13, 2007
CHICAGO – Planned Parenthood/Chicago Area today asked a federal court to allow its new health center in Aurora to open as scheduled on September 18, saying the City of Aurora has no legal basis for blocking the opening and that its revocation of a temporary operating permit is motivated solely by political opposition to the constitutionally protected right to abortion services.
The request filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago asks the Court to issue an injunction barring the City of Aurora from preventing the scheduled September 18 opening. The City has revoked a temporary occupancy permit issued on August 16 pending completion of a review of the permitting process that won’t likely be completed until after September 18.
“Aurora’s actions … are not related to any legitimate municipal concern, but instead are motivated solely by political opposition to the fact the Planned Parenthood provides abortion services as part of a broad range of health care services for its patients,” the filing states. “Accordingly, Planned Parenthood seeks injunctive relief … to prevent Aurora from continuing to deprive Planned Parenthood’s constitutionally protected right to equal protection under the law.”
The City of Aurora’s refusal to allow Planned Parenthood to open pending a review of the permitting process is “both undefined in scope and indefinite in nature,” argues PP/CA. Without intervention by the Court, “Planned Parenthood may never be able to operate its facility in Aurora.”
As to claims by Planned Parenthood opponents that the organization “misled” the City about the type of medical facility it would operate, today’s filing argues that those accusations are factually and legally wrong – and irrelevant.
“The City of Aurora’s fig leaf argument that it was ‘misled’ about the nature of the services that Planned Parenthood intends to provide at its facility is neither factually nor legally persuasive,” PP/CA says.
As a factual matter, the complaint notes that Planned Parenthood had publicly announced its intention to operate a medical facility providing a full range of reproductive services – including birth control, family planning counseling and abortions – in a front-page Chicago Tribune story in late July, well before City issued the temporary occupancy permit on August 16.
“Only when protestors began appearing at the Planned Parenthood facility in late August and testifying at public hearings before the City of Aurora, did the status of Planned Parenthood’s facility change,” PP/CA argues.
Furthermore, PP/CA issued more than $8 million in tax-exempt bonds through the Illinois Development Finance Authority in May 2007, a process that required extensive documentation and notices published in newspapers. In those disclosures, PP/CA disclosed that the named developer of the facility, Gemini Office Development, was affiliated with PP/CA.
Finally, the complaint points out that architectural drawings provided to Aurora during the permitting process displayed not only the surgical rooms in the facility, but also the security measures built into its design. These included bullet-proof drywall and bullet-proof glass for the entry lobby.
“None of this was hidden from the City in any way,” the filing says.
On legal grounds, Aurora’s implied claim that it was somehow misled are even less persuasive, PP/CA argues. It cites a 2001 federal case in New Hampshire that parallels the Aurora situation, in which the court issued an injunction blocking the city of Manchester, N.H. from preventing the opening of a Planned Parenthood clinic after public criticism.
In that case, the court noted: “If the issuing authority was ‘misled’ as to the identity of the prospective tenant who would be providing medical services at the site, that identity would have been irrelevant to any impartial decision … {T]hat the proposed tenant proposed to engage in constitutionally protected activities in providing medical services – such as providing abortion and contraception counseling and services – would have been equally irrelevant.”
Your many assertions about the Pro-Life Action League (“the League”) and Joseph Scheidler, its director, are red herrings as they have nothing to do with the Aurora protests. But they too are false and misleading.
It depends on your meaning of nothing to do with the protests. If one thinks financially supporting Fox Valley Families is having something to do with the protests, that would be inacurate.
The efforts of Families Against Planned Parenthood are underwritten by the Pro-Life Action League. Please consider making a donation to the League to help fund this campaign.
Joe Scheidler is the Executive of the non-profit 990 here. You can also see Eric Scheidler is counted as a key personnel and the Communication Director. IOW, Fox Valley Families or Families against Planned Parenthood are a project of Pro-Life Action.
Eric Scheidler, who resides with his family in Aurora and coordinates Fox Valley Families, has never been arrested let alone convicted of any criminal act in connection with pro-life or anti-abortion activity. He has never advocated violence against either persons or property. Nor has he engaged in any such violence in opposing abortion, or otherwise. Nor has any other coordinator or leader of Fox Valley Families. Nor to our knowledge has any violent act been committed, much less condoned, by any participant in the 40-day vigil in opposition to your new facility. Protest against your facility has been entirely peaceable and prayerful.
It’s important to dispel the myth that PLAN engaged in nothing but peaceful, First Amendment-protected activity. It did not. PLAN’s blockades, invasions and the other RICO violations that the jury found PLAN committed are acts of force and violence. The jury heard testimony from patients and clinic workers who were attacked during PLAN’s blockades, including blockades at which Joseph Scheidler and Randall Terry were personally on the scene. One doctor, Dr. Susan Wicklund, was grabbed and slammed against a car as she tried to get through the blockade and into her office. Patients were tripped and pushed to the ground. One clinic administrator was grabbed by her hair and thrown to the ground by an Operation Rescue leader. Another was viciously choked by Operation Rescue protesters, leaving serious bruises on her neck. One patient, who was trying to enter the clinic — not for an abortion but for post-operative care following cancer surgery — was beaten with an Operation Rescue protester’s sign. The protesters clawed at her and attacked her, causing her sutures to rupture, and she passed out. This is not speech or advocacy.
This case is not about First Amendment activity. My clients have never objected to peaceful picketing, leafletting, or even to hateful, ugly speech by abortion opponents. Calling our clients “murderers,” “whores” and “sluts” is not a RICO violation, and we have never claimed it is. The First Amendment protects speech, even ugly speech. But it does not protect the acts of force and violence on which our suit was based. Our case was not based on speech or advocacy, but on acts and threats of force and violence.
The letter isn’t a serious threat, it’s trying to change the subject. If Pro-Life Action League tried to make the argument that the Fox Valley Families group is independent and thus Joe Scheidler irrelevant, a judge would laugh them out of the courtroom. It’s a diversion, plain and simple to avoid talking about the curious incidents of violence wherever Joe Scheidler shows up.
Gura is involved in Scheidler’s group Pro-Life Action
On Sept. 2, the editors of this newspaper opined it “would not be a wise move” for “abortion opponents” to picket the homes of Planned Parenthood employees “in an attempt to bring shame on those who work in a facility that performs abortions.”
The day we start accepting advice from a newspaper that refuses to even call us by our correct title, pro-life, we are doomed to failure.
The opinion piece fails to note that protesting in front of abortionist’s house is nothing new. Since 2002 I personally have led more than four dozen pickets in front of the Inverness house of an abortionist. In fact, on June 4, 2004 this newspaper ran a story headlined “It’s peaceful, but protesters out of place at doc’s home,” which reported that the police “have not made (any) arrests nor have they received complaints from neighbors.”
So what exactly happens when we picket in front of an abortionist’s house?
We line the road (staying on the public right-of-way) holding bright yellow and black signs warning that an abortionist lives in this neighborhood. We hold large posters showing stages of fetal development as well as a smiling baby captioned LIFE. While standing (for two hours) we silently pray for the abortionist to use his God-given talents to save lives instead of ending them. We end with Bible readings and a group prayer.
That’s it. No crazed anarchists, no ugly confrontations, no violence. We are pro-life, and we respect and follows God’s laws, including “Thou shalt not kill. “It goes without saying that a five-year record without a single arrest for any reason, not even a single parking ticket, belies the hyped up editorial fears.
Chapter 37 of Joseph Scheidler’s landmark book, “CLOSED: 99 Ways to Stop Abortion” is titled “Picket the Abortionist’s Homes.” Scheidler states, “If it were widely known that they are abortionists they night be very uncomfortable in their communities, and their communities might be uncomfortable with them.”
Thanks to our continuing efforts, all of the abortionist’s neighbors know how he earns a living and, judging from the large number of positive comments I have received, most of them are not comfortable having someone in his profession living in their million dollar plus subdivision. We will never stop praying that he will adopt a more honorable profession, one which allows him to hold himself proud before his fellow man.
Dan Gura
Lake Zurich
Of course, that’s not all Pro-Life Action has done. They are a direct action group that split with Right to Life over it being too timid. Yesterday, I covered two of those actions:
Mar. 26, 1986 — Members of Pro Life Action Network (PLAN), a coalition co-founded by Scheidler and which Scheidler called the “pro-life mafia”, invade a clinic in Pensacola, FL. They throw the clinic administrator down the stairs, injure a NOW chapter president, and destroy medical equipment. The clinic is forced to close for days. According to NOW, “Joe Scheidler stands outside during the invasion, praising those who went in and taking credit for the mayhem.” (From the NOW website: http://www.nowfoundation.org/issues/reproductive/scheidler-timeline.html)
As I mentioned when Keyes came to the state:
For example, in Delaware, Joseph Scheidler and three other large men illegally entered a clinic, trapping the clinic administrator inside. The men put the phones on hold ? effectively cutting her off from the outside world ? and told her they were there to “case the place.” This was shortly after several clinics had been bombed. In another incident, Scheidler went to Pensacola and met with John Burt and Joan Andrews. Together, they discussed and planned an event to take place at the Ladies Center.
The next day, while Scheidler was outside doing “P.R.” (he did not want to get arrested), Burt, Andrews and two others burst into the clinic, shoved the administrator to the floor and slammed an escort up against a wall. Then they went upstairs to wreck equipment.
Still more evidence of force and violence came as the jury heard from a doctor who had been stalked, her house surrounded, and her life threatened. She was also physically assaulted by Monica Miller and Matt Trewhella.
The jury also heard evidence of scores of blockades, which deprived people of access to the clinics, and where people were assaulted for daring to try to enter. One woman, who was going to see her doctor for postoperative surgery (surgery that in no way was related to abortion and that had been done to try and save her reproductive organs), was hit over the head with a picketer’s sign. And the jury heard more.
If you are around Aurora:
On the Ground Sign up to volunteer locally http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=mVbQSX7JNAsBqRJbMj_2fxYw_3d_3d
Pick up a sign to post in your yard.The signs say “This family supports Planned Parenthood.” Here’s where you can pick up your sign:
Aurora Planned Parenthood Health Center
3051 E. New York Ave.,
Aurora, IL (at the corner of New York Ave. and Oakhurst St.)
Monday thru Thurs.: 12 pm to 2 pm & 5 pm to 7 pm
Friday & Saturday: 12 pm to 2 pm
Online Ribbon campaign: We are asking Planned Parenthood supporters in Illinois and across the country to stand with us by filling out a form to have a ribbon in their name tied outside the clinic in Aurora.
http://www.ppaction.org/campaign/aurora1/b0809htr08
Donate to keep our doors open:
https://secure.ga0.org/02/aurora1/b0809htr08
I always try and be respectful of those readers who are pro-life and that will continue and I respect the position. However, this is a legal clinic being attacked by extremists who want to not just ban abortion, but eliminate contraception and sex education work that Planned Parenthood does also. Also feel free to place these on your blog or other site:
