{"id":340,"date":"2007-03-10T15:54:38","date_gmt":"2007-03-10T15:54:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scientopia.org\/blogs\/goodmath\/2007\/03\/10\/lets-arrest-the-discovery-institute\/"},"modified":"2007-03-10T15:54:38","modified_gmt":"2007-03-10T15:54:38","slug":"lets-arrest-the-discovery-institute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/2007\/03\/10\/lets-arrest-the-discovery-institute\/","title":{"rendered":"Let's Arrest the Discovery Institute!"},"content":{"rendered":"

This isn’t really math, but I can’t resist commenting on it. I was looking at Evolution News and Views<\/a>, which is yet another<\/em> “news” site run by the Discovery Institute, because the illustrious Dr. Egnor had an article there. And I came across this<\/a>, which I found just hysterically funny:<\/p>\n

\n

If You Have Laws, Don’t You Have to Have Punish Lawbreakers?<\/b>
\nRobert Crowther<\/p>\n

The Advocate today gives a big hip-hip-hooray for Darwin’s “process.” They worry that the public doesn’t accept Darwinian evolutionary claims to explain the complex diversity of life and the universe. Must be that they just don’t understand. Their solution?<\/p>\n

Perhaps the “law of evolution” would be more easily understood by the public than the “theory” of evolution.<\/p>\n

It’s interesting that evolution is so solid, so proven, that it will only survive if it is declared a law. When evolution is the law of the land, what will happen then to those who dissent?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Yeah. The reason for talking about the law of evolution is so that we can throw anyone who disagrees with it in jail. Just like we do with the law of gravity, or the laws of thermodynamics.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

There are two reasons for using the term “Law of Evolution” – one scientific, and one political. The scientific reason for talking about a law of evolution is because the term
\n“evolution” covers a bunch of different things, among them:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • The process<\/em> of evolution: that is, the specific observed process(es) by
    \nwhich evolution occurs, including mutation, natural selection, and drift;<\/li>\n
  • The fact<\/em> of evolution: that is, the direct and indirect observations of
    \nthe results of process of evolution, both historical and experimental in the laboratory;<\/li>\n
  • The law(s)<\/em> of evolution: that is, the rules that describe the observed processes
    \nof evolution.<\/li>\n
  • The theory<\/em> of evolution: the scientific theory that is derived from observations
    \nof the facts and process of evolution, and from which the law(s) of evolution are derived.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    The political reason is because cranks from places like the DI constantly criticize evolution
    \nby saying it’s “just a theory” – trying to play on the common misunderstanding of what the term
    \n“theory” means to make it appear more speculative than it actually is. The “law of evolution” is a
    \nlaw in exactly the same way as “the law of gravity” or “the laws of thermodynamics”: all are rules
    \nderived from well-validated theories with volumes of evidence. Referring to it as a law is a
    \nresponse to the silly rhetorical trick of playing on the word “theory” to suggest uncertainty.<\/p>\n

    Of course, people like the DI cranks hate this idea – it deprives them of one of their
    \neasiest tricks. So they need to find some way of weaseling around this – and as usual, they
    \nplay the paranoia card. Just like they constantly claim that there’s tons<\/em> of ID research, but they can’t talk about it, because the evil evolutionist boogeymen would get them for it; and they can’t publish peer reviewed research, because the evil evolutionist boogeymen stop them – so
    \nthe reason for talking about a “law of evolution” can’t be a response to the pathetic word games played by the IDists and friends, but instead, another way for the evil evolutionist boogeymen to get them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    This isn’t really math, but I can’t resist commenting on it. I was looking at Evolution News and Views, which is yet another “news” site run by the Discovery Institute, because the illustrious Dr. Egnor had an article there. And I came across this, which I found just hysterically funny: If You Have Laws, Don’t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-intelligent-design"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4lzZS-5u","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.goodmath.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}