Lecturer gets creative on origins of life
Whether intelligent design is a "smart" choice is up for debate, critics say
Michael Hamlin, Correspondent
Issue date: 2/25/08 Section: News
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Nearly 200 people attended the lecture - "Origins: Who Needs Faith?" - which was the first in a two-part series. The second part will take place Thursday from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. at the University Lecture Hall.
The lecture included a PowerPoint presentation dealing with scientific defenses of intelligent design. The event, hosted by the student organization Sowers of the Seed, looked at the natural world to decide if it is a product of natural forces or intelligent design and discussed whether intelligent design has a place in science.
The lecture featured H.E. Payne Jr., who holds a doctorate in mathematics from USF, as the speaker. Douglas Northcutt, a biology professor at Florida College; Howard Colvin, who has a doctorate in organic chemistry; and John Coffman, who holds master's degrees in physics and math, made up the discussion panel following the speech.
Payne began by emphasizing the secular nature of the lecture, saying it would be fully reliant on science and leave the audience to determine which theory makes more sense after the evidence was presented.
"Usually, we all tend to see what we expect to see whenever we approach this subject with our own presuppositions," he said. "There is no room for philosophy or religion in this discussion, only science."
Payne showed a model from William Dembski's book The Design Inference, which can be used to determine the likelihood of an object being designed intelligently. This model was challenged during the discussion panel by members of the Freethinkers Club at USF for being unscientific.
"The model was pseudoscience and unable to be criticized," said Joe Oberfrank, an education major at USF.
The concluding argument Payne gave for intelligent design was the example of the human DNA strand. Because it is a double helix with crossbars that contains a certain characteristic structure he described as contingent, complex and specified, the double helix meets Dembski's model, and is thus the likely product of intelligent design, Payne said.
Viewing Comments 1 - 6 of 6
Oh Tham Eng
posted 2/25/08 @ 7:42 AM EST
SAD THAT THEORY OF EVOLUTION HAS BECOME ENTRENCHED AS ANOTHER INTOLERANT RELIGION
God bless you, Mr Payne! It is easier to believe in the
Creation model than in the Darwinist Evolution model for the origin of species, as it is more attuned to real science. (Continued…)
Ryan Paulson
posted 2/25/08 @ 6:01 PM EST
They don't have experiments, no scholarly works or research papers in peer review journals to support their work, and their model for desegn inference has methodological flaws that are not truth preserving. (Continued…)
Oh Tham Eng
posted 2/26/08 @ 8:22 AM EST
[QUOTE id="f9d0e8c4-8702-4c13-8d8b-ad4889a3181b"]They don't have experiments, no scholarly works or research papers in peer review journals to support their work, and their model for desegn inference has methodological flaws that are not truth preserving. (Continued…)
Jim Speiser
posted 2/26/08 @ 12:39 PM EST
<Continued…)
Dave
posted 2/26/08 @ 1:07 PM EST
Oh Tham Eng, using big words only makes your argument even more ridiculous. Things evolve, deal with it - for an example try researching the history of AIDS, but perhaps first you should read up on evolution and understand what it is (FYI, it does not involve oranges giving birth to domestic pets). (Continued…)
Leah
posted 3/01/08 @ 1:45 PM EST
His whole point was that Intelligent Design was not a scientific impossibility. He also stated that origins was not ultimately an issue of science, but of faith, since neither evoltutionary or intelligent design theories can be scientifically proven. (Continued…)
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