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Intelligen Design vs Evolution


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HARRISBURG, Pa. - The concept of "intelligent design" is a form of creationism and is not based on scientific method, a professor testified Wednesday in a trial over whether the idea should be taught in public schools

 

Robert T. Pennock, a professor of science and philosophy at Michigan State University, testified on behalf of families who sued the Dover Area School District. He said supporters of intelligent design don't offer evidence to support their idea.

 

"As scientists go about their business, they follow a method," Pennock said. "Intelligent design wants to reject that and so it doesn't really fall within the purview of science."

 

Pennock said intelligent design does not belong in a science class, but added that it could possibly be addressed in other types of courses.

 

In October 2004, the Dover school board voted 6-3 to require teachers to read a brief statement about intelligent design to students before classes on evolution. The statement says Darwin's theory is "not a fact" and has inexplicable "gaps," and refers students to an intelligent-design textbook for more information.

 

Eight families are trying to have intelligent design removed from the curriculum, arguing that it violates the constitutional separation of church and state. They say it promotes the Bible's view of creation.

 

Proponents of intelligent design argue that life on Earth was the product of an unidentified intelligent force, and that Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection cannot fully explain the origin of life or the emergence of highly complex life forms

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Robert T. Pennock' date=' ... He said supporters of intelligent design don't offer evidence to support their idea.

 

"As scientists go about their business, they follow a method," Pennock said. "Intelligent design wants to reject that and so it doesn't really fall within the purview of science."

 

Proponents of intelligent design argue that life on Earth was the product of an unidentified intelligent force, and that Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection cannot fully explain the origin of life or the emergence of highly complex life forms[/quote']

DAMN!! I thought Pennock was going to be smarter than this. First, he knows bloody well that IDers do offer evidence in support of their idea. What does he think Darwin's Black Box is? Second, he should know from Popper that any theory can have evidence supporting it. That isn't what counts. What counts is the evidence against a theory.

 

I hoped they were going to take Quinn's approach. Instead of futzing around with whether ID is science or not, simply meet it head on: Call ID a scientific theory and then say it has been falsified. The evidence shows that natural selection can indeed explain the emergenc of complexity and that the origin of life is chemistry, not natural selection. Since ID is a falsified theory, the only reason for wanting to teach it as a valid theory is to promote a religious idea.

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I hoped they were going to take Quinn's approach. Instead of futzing around with whether ID is science or not, simply meet it head on: Call ID a scientific theory and then say it has been falsified.

 

 

Why do that, when it's not true? ID isn't a scientific theory. To the extent that it has any science in it, you can show that it has been falsified, but I see problems with calling it a theory when it isn't.

 

The trial isn't about whether it's science, good or bad. That's not a constitutional question. The trial is about whether it's religion. Scientists (and their lawyers) have to show it violates the establishment clause. IDjits want it to be about free speech.

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Why do that, when it's not true? ID isn't a scientific theory. To the extent that it has any science in it, you can show that it has been falsified, but I see problems with calling it a theory when it isn't.

Scientists and philosophers of science have tried for over 400 years to find a way to tell when a theory is scientific and when it isn't. It's called the Demarcation Problem. There has been no solution.

 

What you are doing here is Special Pleading. You are trying to say ID isn't science. That isn't as strong as saying "it is wrong". My position is stronger. I'm not invoking special pleading to avoid the major claims of ID. ID does make testable statements about the physical universe. And that is the essence of what hypotheses/theories are; they are testable statements about the physical universe. So let's not *****foot around in the morass of what is and isn't scientific. Meet ID head on. It's scientific but it's wrong.

 

The trial isn't about whether it's science, good or bad. That's not a constitutional question. The trial is about whether it's religion.

The constitutional issue is whether government promotes a religion. That's the Establishment Clause. It's not whether ID is a religion, but whether having public schools teach ID promotes a particular religion.

 

As I said, ID is a falsified theory. But that isn't how IDers want it taught. Now, if ID is false, the ONLY reason to teach it as valid is to promote a religion. In this case the religion is theism in general and Christianity in particular.

 

Of course, the reason IDers promote this as free speech is that they say they have a theory that is equally valid to evolution. They say only special rules prevent them from presenting this idea to students. And you are helping them! You are setting up arbitrary rules of what is and isn't science. So IDers can say "See, our idea is correct but evolutionists don't want it taught and are manipulating what is science just to avoid mentioning an intelligent designer."

 

I'm not doing that, and neither was Quinn and Laudan. If the theory involves a supernatural designer, and if the theory is correct, then that is that. Science will have to live with that. Science is about what IS, not about rules to exclude possibilities. Instead, ID makes testable statements about how traits in organisms came about: they were manufactured and placed in the organisms in their present form. Fine, I can test whether organisms are manufactured artifacts. And we can show that organisms are not manufactured, but arise by the processes of biochemistry and evolution.

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Scientists and philosophers of science have tried for over 400 years to find a way to tell when a theory is scientific and when it isn't. It's called the Demarcation Problem. There has been no solution.

 

What you are doing here is Special Pleading. You are trying to say ID isn't science. That isn't as strong as saying "it is wrong". My position is stronger. I'm not invoking special pleading to avoid the major claims of ID. ID does make testable statements about the physical universe. And that is the essence of what hypotheses/theories are; they are testable statements about the physical universe. So let's not *****foot around in the morass of what is and isn't scientific. Meet ID head on. It's scientific but it's wrong.

 

The constitutional issue is whether government promotes a religion. That's the Establishment Clause. It's not whether ID is a religion' date=' but whether having public schools teach ID promotes a particular religion.

 

As I said, ID is a falsified theory. But that isn't how IDers want it taught. Now, if ID is false, the ONLY reason to teach it as valid is to promote a religion. In this case the religion is theism in general and Christianity in particular.

 

Of course, the reason IDers promote this as free speech is that they say they have a theory that is equally valid to evolution. They say only special rules prevent them from presenting this idea to students. And you are helping them! You are setting up arbitrary rules of what is and isn't science. So IDers can say "See, our idea is correct but evolutionists don't want it taught and are manipulating what is science just to avoid mentioning an intelligent designer."

 

I'm not doing that, and neither was Quinn and Laudan. If the theory involves a supernatural designer, and if the theory is correct, then that is that. Science will have to live with that. Science is about what IS, not about rules to exclude possibilities. Instead, ID makes testable statements about how traits in organisms came about: they were [b']manufactured[/b] and placed in the organisms in their present form. Fine, I can test whether organisms are manufactured artifacts. And we can show that organisms are not manufactured, but arise by the processes of biochemistry and evolution.

 

 

There is no cause for action, AFAIK, for teaching bad science in science class. We don't arrest bad physics teachers for using the "heavy boots" explanation, claiming that there is no gravity in space or on the moon. If the Dover school board just wants to use a really crappy textbook, it's sad, but not grounds for a federal case.

 

I don't see your argument as being stronger until one can point to an experiement in the lab that confirms abiogenesis. Only then can you show that life can arise by biochemical processes. Until you can do that, you just give fuel to those who claim that it's "only" a theory.

 

If ID is religious, then it supports religion. Teaching it violates the rights of the non-religious, or those of differing religions. That's the issue before the court, AFAIK (but IANAL). Showing it to not be science is a first step in proving that case. Wrongly say that it is science, and the case is over.

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There is no cause for action, AFAIK, for teaching bad science in science class. We don't arrest bad physics teachers for using the "heavy boots" explanation, claiming that there is no gravity in space or on the moon. If the Dover school board just wants to use a really crappy textbook, it's sad, but not grounds for a federal case.

No one got arrested here, either. This is a CIVIL SUIT, not a criminal one. No statutes were broken. We don't arrest bad teachers, but we fire them. Because, guess what? "heavy boots" isn't part of the science standards.

 

However, what happened here is that the local government -- the school board -- decided that ID should be taught as a valid theory. Why would they do that? What's the purpose of teaching a falsified theory as a valid one? In this case it is to promote a religion.

 

Now, quoting from Quinn in discussion of the 1982 MacLean vs Arkansas case of creation science, yes, you can declare that bad science fails the Establishment Clause:

 

"a statute violates the Establishment Clause if it fails any part of the following three-pronged test:

 

First, the statute must have a secular legislative purpose; second, its principal or primary effect must be one that neither advances nor inhibits religion. . . ; finally, the statute must not foster "an excessive government entanglement with religion." ...

 

Ruse's second ploy is to suggest that for legal purposes Judge Overton had to argue that creation science is not science at all because he could not have held Act 590 in violation of the Establishment Clause if he had merely shown that creation science, though testable, has been tested and massively disconfirmed, and is therefore bad or weak science.25 But this suggestion is mistaken on two counts. First, as I noted above, Judge Overton could have held Act 590 in violation of the Establishment Clause without even addressing the question of the scientific status of creationism merely by arguing, as he in fact did, that Act 590 fails part of the three-pronged test. Second, if Judge Overton had been able to show that Act 590 has as a major effect the advancement of religion, then he could at least have tried to argue from the premise that creation science is bad science to the conclusion that Act 590 has the advancement of science only as a minor effect at best. And if he had successfully done this and also shown that Act 590 has no other major effects, then he would have been entitled to conclude that Act 590 has the advancement of religion as its primary effect, which is all he needed to establish in order to show that Act 590 fails the second part of the three-pronged test."

 

I don't see your argument as being stronger until one can point to an experiement in the lab that confirms abiogenesis. Only then can you show that life can arise by biochemical processes. Until you can do that, you just give fuel to those who claim that it's "only" a theory.

The Dover board specifically excluded abiogenesis from the teaching of ID. Go to http://www.ncseweb.org and check out the written documents.

 

Why do you focus on abiogenesis? IDers don't. Neither Irreducible Complexity nor Complex Specified Information is about abiogenesis. And you must know -- because you have read Origin of the Species (right?) -- that abiogenesis is not part of evolution:

 

"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved." C. Darwin, On the Origin of Species, pg 450.

 

However, to meet your challenge head on, yes, life has been made experimentally in the lab, and under conditions that occur TODAY in nature:

http://www.siu.edu/~protocell/issue1.htm'>http://www.siu.edu/~protocell/issue1.htm

http://www.siu.edu/~protocell/

http://www.siu.edu/%7Eprotocell/

http://www.theharbinger.org/articles/rel_sci/fox.html

http://www.christianforums.com/t155621

 

If ID is religious, then it supports religion. ... Showing it to not be science is a first step in proving that case. Wrongly say that it is science, and the case is over.

That's my point: the case is not over if ID is a scientific theory (which it is). Being science is not enough to get a theory taught as a valid theory. The theory must BE valid. Can a school board mandate teaching flat earth as a valid theory in science class? Why not? The case would not hinge on the Establishment Clause, but instead it would discuss fraud and the deliberate deception of students.

 

Look, we both know that ID has a religious agenda. The question is: what is the best way, for science, to deal with that? Does science benefit if you try to artificially define science such that ID is not science? Since there is no clear cut way to determine what is science and what is not, you have to misrepresent science to provide such a criteria. How is misrepresenting science good for science or science education? How do you say that ID is not science? Because it mentions a (possibly) supernatural intelligence? What "rule" in science prevents a science from doing that? Do a PubMed search on "God" and you get almost 1,800 articles.

 

I say let science do what science does: test theories. Forget the religious implications of ID; they are irrelevant to deciding whether the theory is correct. Science doesn't care if there is a supernatural entity that manufactured life on the planet. Darwin showed that. OK, atheists care, but their religious views don't have any more place in science class than those of IDers. The universe is what it is and, if that would include a deity manufacturing life, then that is the way it is. Right? Don't you discard or modify beliefs when the evidence is against them? Why should that be any different for atheists than theists?

 

So, ID is testable, has been tested, and has been found false. I'll be glad to go into all that in separate posts. ID is a falsified theory. Why then do people want ID taught as valid? NOW is where the religious nature of ID comes in. IDers want ID taught as valid to promote a religion. Now ID fails the Establishment Clause. Here, let's see if I can summarize Quinn's excellent reasoning on this. I suggest you read the full article for yourself. BTW, Quinn is discussing the Opinion of Judge Overton in the 1982 MacLean vs Arkansas case. You are using the same arguments Overton used about creation science, i.e. it is not science but religion.

 

" Judge Overton begins with a statement of what he takes to be the essential characteristics of science:

 

(I) It is guided by natural law;

(2) It has to be explanatory by reference to natural law;

(3) It is testable against the empirical world;

(4) Its conclusions are tentative, i.e., are not necessarily the final word; and

(5) It is falsifiable (Testimony of Ruse and other science witnesses). 10 ...

6) If any statement S is scientific, then S either is a natural law or is explainable by a natural law and is testable, tentative and falsifiable. ... The problem is that (6) is demonstrably false. None of the characteristics it alleges to be necessary conditions for an individual statement to have scientific status is, in fact, a necessary condition of scientific status of an individual statement, ... To be sure, as Ruse notes, science looks for explanatory laws. 18 But if there are no laws to be found, scientists are prepared to settle for less and can do so without forfeiting the scientific status of their achievements. Certain statements about individual events in the quantum domain are not laws and have no known explanations in terms of laws; moreover, they can have no explanation in terms of laws if contemporary quantum theory is correct, as it seems to be. But they will remain scientific statements even if contemporary quantum theory is correct. Hence, either being a natural law or being explainable by a natural law is not a necessary condition for scientific status.

 

"Consider next the conditions of testability and falsifiability. As a result of the work of Pierre Duhem, it has been known to philosophers of science for three-quarters of a century that many scientific statements are neither testable nor falsifiable individually and in isolations but only conjunctively and in corporate bodies. Hence, being testable and being falsifiable are not necessary for individual statements to have scientific status, and the argument for (8) fails too. Moreover, it would not strengthen Judge Overton's argument to retreat to the more plausible claim that only in the case of whole theories, and not on the level of each individual statement, do testability and falsifiability count as necessary conditions for scientific status. Creation science as defined in Section 4(a) of Act 590 and as further interpreted by Judge Overton himself clearly satisfies these conditions. For example, the statements in 4(a)(l) and 4(a)(6), as Judge Overton interprets them, together imply that there is no matter on earth more than 20,000 years old. The trouble with this claim is not that it is untestable or unfalsifiable. Its problem is rather that it has been repeatedly tested and is so highly disconfirmed that, for all practical purposes, it has been falsified.

 

"Unfortunately, the patently false claim that creation science is neither testable nor falsifiable seems well on its way to becoming, for some evolutionary biologists, a rhetorical stick with which to belabor their creationist opponents. [same thing with ID]

 

"Rather than taking on the creationists obliquely and in wholesale fashion by suggesting that what they are doing is "unscientific" tout court (which is doubly silly because few authors can even agree on what makes an activity scientific), we should confront their claims directly and in piecemeal fashion by asking what evidence and arguments can be marshaled for and against each of them. The core issue is not whether Creationism satisfies some undemanding and highly controversial definitions of what is scientific; the real question is whether the existing evidence provides stronger arguments for evolutionary theory than for Creationism.39

 

The question is not whether creation science fails to accord with some dubious and probably ephemeral theories about what is necessary for counting as science. The real issue is whether creation science, whatever it may be, now has high epistemic status as compared to its rivals for credibility in the empirical domain. Since it does not, the following argument seems promising:

 

(21) Act 590 does have the advancement of religion as a major effect.

(22) Act 590 does not have the advancement of empirical knowledge as a major effect.

(23) Act 590 does not have the advancement of any other aim as a major effect.

(24) Hence, Act 590 has the advancement of religion as its only major effect.

(25) Whence, Act 590 has the advancement of religion as its primary effect."

 

I find this line of reasoning overwhelming, which is why I'm using it for ID. Substitute ID for "creation science" and the argument is still overwhelming.

 

"CONCLUSIONS

 

Scientists and their friends should derive little comfort from the outcome of McLean V. Arkansas. Victory was indeed achieved at the wholly unnecessary expense of perpetuating and canonizing a false stereotype of what science is and how it works." Phillip Quinn Chapter 25 in But Is It Science? Edited by M Ruse, pp. 367-385

(From Science and Reality: Recent Work In the Philosophy of Science, edited by James T. Cushing F. Delaney, and Gary M. Gutting. Copyright ~ 1984 by University of Notre Dame Press. Reprinted by permission.)

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That comic is funny, but eerily accurate.

Oh, it's very accurate. But you need to update your examples. Try the Kansas School Board minority report in July 2005 or the current case in Dover, PA.

 

http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/news/2005/KS/177_standards_debate_harming_kansa_9_1_2005.asp

 

http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/news/2005/PA/780_emkitzmillerem_trial_to_b_9_15_2005.asp

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Anymore of these? They are hilarious. And I for one, like Carl Sagan, am not afraid to call people who belive that the Christian God created the universe, IDIOTS.

Did you realize that you did not distinguish about how God created the universe? Creartionism is a particular method God is supposed to have used. Most Christians believe that God used the methods discovered by science to create the universe. IOW, God created the universe by the Big Bang, galaxies, stars, and planets by gravity, life by chemistry, and the diversity of life by evolution.

 

Now, some scientists who believe(d) that Yahweh (Christian god) created the universe:

Charles Darwin at the time he wrote Origin of the Species

Charles Lyell (the man who falsified the last version of Flood Geology and solidified uniformitarianism in geology)

Asa Gray (America's premier botanist in the late 1800s and one of Darwin's earliest supporters)

Theodosius Dobzhansky

Francisco Ayala (the most prominent living evolutionary biologist)

Kenneth Miller -- the most effective opponent of ID.

 

Now, if Carl Sagan thought these men were "idiots", or you think so, then I can tell you who the real idiots are. :mad:

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I think that most people who have common sense and a good understanding of the world around them will find out that ID is pretty much crazy talk. I think its important not to have to learn about creationism (such a waste of time). I think its OK if its optional in the curriculum, like the teacher says, "Extra credit" but students shouldn't be forced to learn it.

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The first thing to realize is that philosophers of science are just sidelines commentators.

 

What is a scientific hypothesis? One that can be tested and falsified, period. That's all. If this definition excludes "political science" or "economics", there's a reason why.

 

What about ID? Can it make hypotheses we can test and falsify? *NO*. Because, even if they come up with something testable, you can *never* falsify ID hypotheses; they rely on an all-powerful creator who can, if it wishes, hide it's signature, so any lack of evidence and failure to find support can be explained away.

 

Similarly, it cannot make true prediction. Oh, sure, it can say "We should find evidence of design", but that's not a *real* prediction. If you tried to publish in any reputable journal with a prediction like that, the editor would laugh so hard they'd have a heart attack. A *real* prediction is *specific*. For instance, one I've made (and not tested yet): Snake species which engage in upright 'wrestling' combat over females should display modified and possibly sexually dimorphic muscle and tendon configurations. Note that it's both falsifiable (if I find nothing, it means I'm *definitely* wrong) and *specific* (it says precisely what to test).

 

ID offers nothing testable that doesn't expand the word to the point of uselessness, and nothing falsifiable since they can put their god of the gaps anywhere they please.

 

Now, maybe the philosophers disagree, but these are people who have generated about 10 deciduous forests' worth of books on the nature of corkscrews. No, I'm not kidding.

 

Until ID actually adheres to the rules of *real* scientists (not just sideline commentators), it is not science. And given that, by it's very nature, it *cannot* meet those rules, it never will be.

 

Mokele

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Now, if Carl Sagan thought these men were "idiots", or you think so, then I can tell you who the real idiots are. :mad:

 

It's not so much that they're idiots as they are infected with a pathogenic meme. For some reason we fairly universally understand that certain pathogenic memes are always bad and declare them illegal (i.e. cults, pyramid schemes) but sadly religion is yet to receive this classification, probably because too many people are infected.

 

And as Tom Tomorrow so brilliantly pointed out, one bad meme leads to another as the primary meme is endangered by a competing symbiotic meme. Science is a meme which has dramatically increased our standard of living and given rise to the "modern world," so most feel they owe science a debt of gratitude. However, there are others that see science as undermining the foundational ideas through which their meme spreads, so the pathogen with which they're infected collectively begins to generate new memes to prevent its own demise.

 

I really wish we could decruft our society and scrape off the remains of millenia of bad thinking. Logic and the scientific method have given us an excellent foundation from which to perform sound thinking and reasoning, but sadly it hasn't yet allowed people to reveal to themselves that they're infected with pathogenic memes which have a detremental effect on society and human behavior.

 

I'd say this is mostly because religion is a meme which has evolved to motivate people to continue its spread through fear of an inescapable and eternal reprisal (i.e. Pascal's Wager) for anyone who "disbelieves," making it not only hard to escape without enduring something of a mental breakdown, but also uses the altruistic tendancies of people "concerned about the souls of the unsaved" as motivation to continue to spread the meme. It's really sad that the meme exploits the good and noble desires of people to selfishly further its own existence, but that's selfish gene theory for you.

 

Yes, religions are excellent memetic replicators; it's just sad they have so many deleterious effects (e.g. 9/11, The Inquisition, The Crusades, ID, etc.)

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Did you realize that you did not distinguish about how God created the universe? Creartionism is a particular method God is supposed to have used. Most Christians believe that God used the methods discovered by science to create the universe. IOW' date=' God created the universe by the Big Bang, galaxies, stars, and planets by gravity, life by chemistry, and the diversity of life by evolution.

 

Now, [b']some[/b] scientists who believe(d) that Yahweh (Christian god) created the universe:

Charles Darwin at the time he wrote Origin of the Species

Charles Lyell (the man who falsified the last version of Flood Geology and solidified uniformitarianism in geology)

Asa Gray (America's premier botanist in the late 1800s and one of Darwin's earliest supporters)

Theodosius Dobzhansky

Francisco Ayala (the most prominent living evolutionary biologist)

Kenneth Miller -- the most effective opponent of ID.

 

Now, if Carl Sagan thought these men were "idiots", or you think so, then I can tell you who the real idiots are. :mad:

 

AFAIK, God created the universe with his words, and it was. That does not sound like evolution, big bang theory, or anything scientifc to me. Sounds like wishful thinking to me.

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The first thing to realize is that philosophers of science are just sidelines commentators.
I'll take the views of the sideline commentators, who have a breadth and depth of vision that is lacking in the grunts who are crossing the 't's and dotting the 'i's of established paradigms, any day. [And the error is deliberate].
AFAIK, God created the universe with his words, and it was.
Which is a reflection on your knowledge rather than on lucaspa's observations.
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I'll take the views of the sideline commentators' date=' who have a breadth and depth of vision that is lacking in the grunts who are crossing the 't's and dotting the 'i's of established paradigms, any day. [And the error is deliberate'].

Which is a reflection on your knowledge rather than on lucaspa's observations.

 

 

Spare me your bullshit. I had enough of patronizing with that idiot "RevPrez", when he was around here.

 

In Genesis, it says God said "Let there be light" and such, and that it was created because he said so.

 

It doesn't give any explanation, just some super natural BULLSHIT.

 

I don't care what you think or any illogical person does, all I know is that super natural & science don't mix.

 

Saying the universe came into existence out of thin air because some beings words is BULLSHIT.

 

P.S: Ophiolite, I mean't no disrespect. I just get sick and tired (and I'm not saying you did) of people who say that it is possible that some being just creates things out of nothing, just with his words! Again, please don't misunderstand me.

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