While I won’t fall into the trap of labeling actors “brave” for taking roles that are almost guaranteed to have critics mouthing “Oscar”, I will say that there are a lot of extremely talented people involved in the movie.

Gay men have been playing straight characters for years. I’m not sure how “brave” it is to play a gay role in an industry that is heavily influenced and extremely sympathtic to “gay issues.”

Brokeback Mountain is already here in Denver. We were part of the second-week opening. It’s playing at the Mayan.

I didn’t realize--and now I feel stupid. I need to go see it over my Christmas break.

Dark Matter, Big Bang, quarks, Schrodinger’s Cat, quantum theory, fuzzy logic, irrational numbers…

Oh, yeah? Well you’re an irrational number, pal.

Nathan: Do you have a point?

Me?  Nah.  I’m just sitting here, singing my little songs and drinking beer.

"For it to be science, it has to be provable...”

Nope, it has to be at least theoretically disprovable, and explain things better than any previous theory.  Intelligent Design/Creationism isn’t theoretically disprovable; Evolution is.  ID is philosophy.

This says nothing about my belief or disbelief in ID.

Hmmm...Doug, be careful.  If you don’t have a stance on ID vs ET, one will be assigned to you.

”...it has to be at least theoretically disprovable...”

That’s what I meant to say. Only I didn’t say it. At all. But that’s what I meant to say.

Anyway, what Nathan was saying--even if he isn’t saying it for himself here--is that those other things that he lists are also things that we cannot prove.

That are unprovable.  That are still taught in science class.

At least, that’s what these song lyrics say.

Now comes perhaps the worst news of all: the has-been guest spot. Dio will be making a guest appearance.

Let’s not get personal now. I don’t go around bashing on Mark whatshisname now do I? 

But yeah, it’s probably going to suck.

Man, I can still listen to “Holy Diver” and I fully respect Dio’s place in metaldom, but this news fills me with fear.

Fear I tell you.

“Mark whatshisname,” he says. I’ll show you and your mangy dog, too!

Or something like that.

I’m trying to figure out which whatshisname you are talking about.
Cohn? -y Mark? Twain?

I completely agree, David J.  I find it amazing that Christians demand “transparency” (all the finger pointing to humanists cloaking their philosophy in Darwinism and “Evil"ution) and then drape themselves in “Intelligent Design (wink-wink).”

It couldn’t help but address religious issues (even those of the scientologists and Raelien’s who advocate Alien Theory), and that is never the place of anyone but a parent, caregiver, or whatever one chooses to name the position.  Simply said, there are millions of people who went through the public school system, the public higher education institutions, who, having been exposed to, taught, and shown aptitude in learning evolution that still believe in Creation, or perhaps a modified version of a co-exisiting evolution and creation.

It isn’t my place to usurp the right and freedom of parents to educate their own child/children both academically and religiously.  Living in Utah proves that to me every freaking day.

"If you don’t have a stance on ID vs ET, one will be assigned to you.”

Cool, I can collect the whole set.

(Note that I didn’t say I didn’t already have a stance, merely that defining the term does not express that stance.)

TW: “didnt” — see!

In the Supreme Court’s 1972 Keith decision holding that the president does not have inherent authority to order wiretapping without warrants to combat domestic threats, the court said explicitly that it was not questioning the president’s authority to take such action in response to threats from abroad.

This is almost perfectly wrong. The USSC in Keith went out of their way to emphasize that they were not considering the issue of foreign powers. Your formulation suggests that they endorsed presidential authority to ignore the 4th amendment when dealing with national security/foreign powers, but in fact, the decision states: Further, the instant case requires no judgment on the scope of the President’s surveillance power with respect to the activities of foreign powers, within or without this country.... Our present inquiry, though important, is therefore a narrow one.
And later:
We emphasize, before concluding this opinion, the scope of our decision. As stated at the outset, this case involves only the domestic aspects of national security. We have not addressed, and express no opinion [407 U.S. 297, 322]as to, the issues which may be involved with respect to activities of foreign powers or their agents.

That is a long, long way from ‘explicitly not questioning the president’s authority to wiretap’, a formulation which assumes that such an authority exists.

You also misrepresent Gorelick’s position. At the time, FISA did not cover physical searches, ergo she cannot be advocating action go[ing] beyond the act’s terms (except in the sense that it had nothing to do with FISA). In 1995, the act was amended to include physical searches.
There is no suggestion from this quote that Gorelick or Clinton ever attempted to assert authority beyond that provided for in FISA. Or that they ever supported warrantless searches of US citizens (’warrantless’ including the retroactive warrants issued by the FISA court).

Your position here appears to be nothing more than recycled spin and misrepresented quotes borrowed from other bloggers (ie I give you the benefit of the doubt in thinking that you didn’t perform this misrepresentation yourself). If this is all you have to offer on the subject, I think you should either spend more time with the source material (so as not to be so easily deceived), or leave the commenting to those who’ve spent more than 2 minutes considering the matter.

Actually, Carleton, if you want to throw stones at those words, you need to cast them at “Jon Schmidt, former Associate Attorney General under Clinton"--the person who wrote them. See, that entire section after the colon is an extended quote from Schmidt who has, I imagine, spent more than 2 minutes considering the matter.

So, hey, until you can actually manage a little basic reading comprehension, you might want to keep from the snide comments, don’t you think?

Oh shit. Everyone stand back! “David J” (J is for Judo)just all up in Carleton’s grille.

Oh snap. 

Doug,
I should clarify: if you don’t specify a stance, one will likely be assigned to you.  The default Evolution assumption seems to be: if you aren’t actively engaged in the effort to stamp out ID anywhere it appears, you must be an anti-science fundamentalist Christian trying to hide your [essentially dishonest] tacit approval of ID being taught in the classroom.
Luckily, the regular denizens of this website don’t engage in that sort of behavior.  But outside of the safe haven of Resurrection Song...whew!

Nathan, that was your cue to come in with, “Oh no he di-int.”

Nathan: “The default Evolution assumption seems to be: if you aren’t actively engaged in the effort to stamp out ID anywhere it appears, you must be an anti-science fundamentalist Christian trying to hide your [essentially dishonest] tacit approval of ID being taught in the classroom.”

There’s an equal and opposite default assumption as well.

To all of that I’ll say:

1) Pushing politics into a science classroom is inherently anti-scientific.

2) Pushing philosophy into a science classroom is inherently anti-scientific.

None of that says anything about my opinion of politics, philosophy, or any particular political or philosophical position.  You can probably infer something about my opinion of science from it though, though partisans of all stripes will probably infer incorrectly.

Assign away; be assured that I will make my own assignments in return.

I won’t be charitable.

Patrick,
Daggumit, I didn’t get the updated copy of the script!  Now, where were we...?  Crap.  Line!

Doug,
I won’t do any assigning.  I have been the victim of drive-by assigning, and I just don’t want to see it happen to you.

See, I don’t support ID.  I don’t espouse it.  I find some of the points the theory brings up to be interesting...compelling, even.  But I don’t believe, support, or advocate it.  I could care less whether it is taught in schools.  But even though I state that clearly, you’d be surprised what sort of viewpoints get assigned to me just by that little formluation of “I find some of the points interesting...compelling, even.”

There’s an elitist attitude, by no means present among all Evolution supporters or ID critics, but rather among a specific sub-set that really, really raises my hackles and makes me want to get in an argument.  It’s an attitude of: “If you don’t think the way I do, you’re an ignorant tool.” It irritates me all the more that it flies in the face of open scientific-philosophic inquiry and ignores the implications of Quantum Theory.  It also amuses me that the same people who deride the “consensus science” that results in Global Warming deductions depend on it for their main defense of Evolution Theory over ID.

Let me make absolutely clear, however, that I’ve never gotten that elitist attitude from David J. or most of the people who post here. 

If I have one objection to anything you said, it’s when you said that philosophy is inherently anti-scientific.  I’ve got one word for you: epistemology. 

Or a set of questions: How do you interpret a data set?  How do you determine if an experiment was successfully replicated?  Why are the greatest scientists also great philosophers?  Where do you get the questions scientists seek answers to?  What determines what falls in the realms of science and not-science? 

Philosophy without science is indistinguishable from a drunken conversation, true; but science without philosophy is dead, useless, and impossible.  One perfect example: we wouldn’t have satellites and global communication without Occam’s Razor.

Most of the most compelling thoughts on the ID side is really just poking at evolution and finding weak spots.

Which is a shame, because what I find most worthwhile about the ID concept is that it addresses things that happen before evolution comes (or “allegedly” comes) into it.

Evolution has nothing whatsoever to say about the origins of life, and I don’t see anything in ID that ever had a snowball’s chance of challenging evolution.

I think I may work up a blog post.

Most of the most compelling thoughts on the ID side is really just poking at evolution and finding weak spots.

Thanks for reminding me of David J.’s words, Kevin, because I forgot to say in response:

Exactly!  That’s how incomplete theories become better.  If that’s all ID is good for (and I suspect that is all it’s good for), it’s worth it.  Do people actually not want a stronger Evolution Theory?  Nothing is gained by the current adversarial interaction.

One of the more interesting arguments in Evolution’s favor is coming from examining homology data. I’m still considering the piece, but haven’t had much time for reflection lately. [sigh] But from what I understand, this is a recently-developed angle of attack that really wasn’t a part of the body of knowledge until after ID began challenging assumptions.  At the very least, it’s clear that the author wrote that article in direct response to an ID advocate’s challenge

What does Occam’s Razor have to do with satellites?

Or, more accurately, what do satellites have to do with Occam’s Razor?

The principle of Occam’s Razor, paraphrased, is that if you have multiple explanations for something observed, the simplest explanation is probably true.
The original cosmology had Earth at the center of the universe, and everything revolving around the Earth.  As more information was discovered, the model got more and more complex.  Impossibly burdensome, lacking computers to do the calculations.  Finally, the application of that philosophical concept simplified our cosmology, making follow-on questions/experiments obvious, ultimately resulting in knowledge of atmosphere, gravitation, orbits, etc that allow satellites to placed and maintained in orbit.

That was just the first example off the top of my head.  There are many more examples similar to that: in which the interaction of philosophy and science led to deeper knowledge and better science.  Schrodinger’s Cat, as another example, highlights that in many cases, the very act of observing can alter the outcome.  It doesn’t mean you can’t observe, but keeping that principle in mind makes better science.  Point is, without an understanding of any number of philosophical precepts, you can’t perform effective science experiments. 

Put another way, how can you even set up an experiment, much less draw conclusions from the results, without considering how you know what you know?  (Epistemology)

Objecting to ID because it is philosophy without science might be a good point, and I’d enjoy discussing it.  Objecting because it is philosophy doesn’t make sense.

Nathan:  Fair points, though I’ll say that there’s a difference between pushing philosophy into science classes, and using the philosophical elements inherent in science.  I didn’t say that “philosophy is inherently anti-scientific”.

“Schrodinger’s Cat, as another example, highlights that in many cases, the very act of observing can alter the outcome.”

That thought experiment is purely philosophical, and not science.  It’s “provocative”, not dispositive.  Absent observation, falsification is impossible in principle.  A thought experiment cannot, by its nature, “show” (in the sense of “prove”, at least) anything other than mental agility.  By definition, anything impossible in principle to falsify is not science.  If you can use that “experiment” to make a falsifiable statement, that’s science.

Next, “consensus”, in science, can inform ex ante assignments of probability.  Now, since probability is all science has (though I would assign some probabilities as approaching 1 asymptotically, they are still only probabilities), that can be an important consideration.  But after observation, ex ante assignments of probability are rather moot.  The probability that San Diego would beat the Colts was arguably below .5 last week.  The probability that San Diego did beat the Colts is, umm, rather higher (not P=1, since I might be imagining this whole conversation, but I’m willing to act as if it were).  In fact, “global warming” was one of the specific examples of pushing politics into science that was in my mind when writing my manifesto.

Finally, thank you for your solicitude, but as I said, I’m just fine with having opinions or positions “assigned”, so long as the assigner doesn’t mind my returning the favor.  Strawman arguments are as easy to demolish as the strawman they are aimed at.

...I think you begin to see my point, even if you still (always will?) disagree.  To repeat: Philosophy does belong in science classes, as an adjunct topic; you have to know how to think to know how to theorize.  However, pure philosophy should be taught in philosophy classes, not science classes.  However, I don’t think ID is pure philosophy, and so such arguments about it belonging in philosophy class is a form of rhetorical sleight-of-hand.  It seems to me that the objection to ID was estblished first, and then the reasons for objection were thought up after the fact.

Another way to put it: to get me to agree that ID should not be discussed in science classes at all, you would have to demonstrate to me that only falsifiable Theories should ever be discussed in science classes, and you would have to demonstrate that there is absolutely no utility in discussing ID as a theory, ever.  One obvious method of teaching: “Class, today I’m going to teach you the difference between a Theory, i.e. a falsifiable premise, and a theory, i.e. an interesting thought process that doesn’t rise to the level of science.  Your assignment will be to compare and contrast the Big Bang and Evolution Theories to Dark Matter and Intelligent Design theories.” Woot, there it is: you satisfy the schools requirement to teach ID as an alternative, and get to make fun of it at the same time.  Every Evolutionist should be happy, and the hypocritical ID supporters would be exposed.  The people like me who just want free discussion would be absolutely satisfied, and ID would be useful in teaching.

I don’t know why you continue to think I have any desire to assign you a stance.  I get irritated enough that if I dare to utter a word of doubt regarding Evolution, or a word of interest in some of the questions posed by ID, that I’m an ID supporter worthy only of ad hominem, derision, contempt, condescension, etc.  My comment was a snarky warning to a fellow Styx fan, nothing more.

Styx fans! Now that’s a stance worthy of derision, contempt, and ad hominem.

(I kid, please don’t hurt me. As far as ID in the classroom, I’m all for Nathan’s plan. Can we officially call it the “point and laugh” compromise?)

Sorry, when I wrote, “thank you for your solicitude”, I actually meant, “thank you for your solicitude”.  8-)

There’s irritation there, but it’s not directed at you.

While I agree that we differ on the value of discussions of ID, I don’t have an inherent problem with discussing it in schools, especially in the context you offer.  I have a serious problem with pushing it into science classes by way of legislative action (or really serious church-lady frowny faces, if it comes to that.) My opinion would not be appreciably different if the legislature were to mandate discussion of Schröaut;dinger’s notional cat or string theory (at least until string theory [loosely constuing “theory"] can offer falsifiable predictions).

Uh-oh.  We’re dangerously close to an understanding and/or agreement here.

Yep: Point and Laugh sounds great to me.

I also have a serious problem with pushing ID into science classes through legislative action.  Then again, as someone professional pointed out, the ID trials are less important for the ID vs ET argument than for clarifying that perhaps we shouldn’t have the state enforcing top-down, one-size-fits-all education rules.  Oh, and that the Teachers’ Unions mostly suck as far as actually doing things for the kids’ education, but we already knew that.

Unless the G-phrase thinks that Teachers’ Unions are awesome.  Then I retract the comment, because I respect the G-phrase enough I want to stay on her good side.

I’d like to get back to some of the other points, like number 6:

I’d love to see Brokeback Mountain (confession:  only to see Ledger and Gyllenhaal kiss, even if briefly) but, yeah, here we’ll just get the latest Mormon film. 

Woohoo.

COMPLETELY UNEXPECTED. A real monkey wrench is about to hit both sides in the ID vs Evolution debate and particularly religion is in for difficult times. For a wholly new interpretation of the teachings of Christ, contained within the first ever religious claim and proof that meets all the criteria of the most rigorous, evidential, testable scientific method, is published and circulating on the web. It is titled The Final Freedoms. An intellectual, religious and political bombshell!

It is described by a single Law and moral principle, offering its own proof, one in which the reality of God confirms and responds to an act of perfect faith, by a direct intervention into the natural world, delivering a correction to human nature, including a change in natural law [biology], consciousness and human ethical perception [proof of the soul], providing new, primary insight and understanding of the human condition!

So while proponents of ID may have got the God part right, if this development demonstrates itself to be what it claims, and the means exist to do so, all religious teaching, tradition and understanding of ID are wholly in error, while the proponents of evolution who have rightly used that conception to beat down the credibility of religious tradition, but who have also used it to deny the potential for God, are in for a very rude shock.

However improbable, what history has presumed to be impossible now looks all too real. The implications defy imagination! No joke, no hoax and not spam.

Pre publication review copies of the manuscript, The Final Freedoms, are a free pdf download at http://www.energon.uklinux.net and http://thefinalfreedoms.bulldoghome.com