Thinking Christian Comments
Original Post: Does Intelligent Design Stifle Science? It's a Scientific Question
If ID ends critical thinking then how does that differentiate from what the certainty of unguided evolution crowd is doing? These people really dont get how silly they look with their dogmatically declaring an end to dogmatism.
Seems to be a plethora of Steve's around here 
ID (in its current form) is a threat to science, but not just because it admits non-explanatory theories.
The really nasty element is that ID proponents discredit science altogether by trying to make scientific questions a matter of politics. The DI aims to destroy the authority of scientific institutions. Authority that has been established by centuries of verified research and certification.
ID is pseudoscience, just like homeopathy. Homeopathy advocates go out and try to persuade the general public that medical science is perpetuating a giant hoax with all it's silly talk of clinical trials, placebo effects and statistical analysis.
When medical science condemns homeopathy as pseudoscience, the homeopathy proponents cry foul, and accuse the medical scientists of dogmatism when homeopathy papers don't pass peer review.
The homeopathy folks even manage to sway a handful of MD's with legitimate qualifications, and hold them up as the shining lights of homeopathy.
ID is a fraud, just like homeopathy. The difference is that ID has more political force because of its religious connotations.
Don't those biologists (and medical researchers) look silly with their dogmatism?
DL:
While ID may not be a science (more specifically, an MES) in it’s current form, it is not a threat to science. You appear to be the only one that’s threatened given your descent into straw man political accusations. You are the one who is on record as shutting objective reality off from science—thereby threatening it far more than ID could ever do—because You are the one who claims the only thing we know are patterns/ideas rather than the object itself… and then contradict yourself by asserting (without justification) that somehow, mysteriously, beyond questioning those ideas correspond directly to real objects. You are the one who imposes the broken-record mantra of “prediction” upon things to which it doesn’t even apply. Who is the “dogmatic” one here?
“Authority that has been established by centuries of verified research and certification”?!? Since when did science (which is by its very nature contingent on new information) have to rely on authority rather than reason? Authority is the weakest form of argument in the realm of reason—St. Thomas said that, so take it to heart. This is another example of why you are, indeed, a weak scientist: you don’t understand science… especially its limitations. And regarding logic, I’ll spare everyone an enumeration of the long list of fallacies you’ve attempted to foist through your comments (as a rhetorical tactic) over the past several months.
ID is a threat—and rightfully so—to the interpretation of observable data. Neo-Darwinism has adopted a particular philosophical stance—one that is self-stultifying—to interpret data and draw wild, unscientific, and unsubstantiated conclusions that “God doesn’t exist.” ID tries to do something similar by trying to use science to “see” design—which is wrong… but ID has a much better chance of succeeding (than Darwinism) if properly married to a realist philosophy that can confirm (based on MES data) that there is design in nature. There is nothing wrong with ID employing solid science to criticize neo-Darwinism—this happens all the time in the scientific world. How else would science progress if corrective criticisms weren’t leveled against current understandings? It appears this is the last thing you want to hear, for it presents a deep threat to your worldview.
Don’t expect any pity-party to help you feel good about wallowing in your personal, subjective dogmatic assertions. You’re not here to discuss and learn, you’re here to complain and impose. Maybe it would help if you did not leave your brain at the door of Haloscan—better to leave your scientistic arrogance there.
You want to see a threat to science? Note how Richard Dawkins has responded to what's happening right at his own university, as chronicled in several of those entries.
Additionally, I agree with Holopupenko's response, and I would ask you, doctor(logic), for data to back up what you're saying. This too is a sociological thesis you put forth. I mean data about ID, not homeopathy, because you can't do sociological research by analogy.
In your research, please demonstrate the distinction, if any, between ID's politics undermining science and the dogmatic evolutionists' politics undermining science; for example, by using distortions and misrepresentations instead of facts to carry out their agenda; and please show us why the dogmatic evolutionists' approach is more innocent in regard to preserving high-integrity scientific inquiry.
We could carry this out on a theoretical level, and I have no doubt that's where the discussion will lead, because I doubt anyone has done the research I'm recommending. But it would be nice if the research were done.
All Steves are welcome, by the way. Really! 
That's a chilling thought, Tom - the Steves descending en masse.
I'm glad I waited for you and Holopupenko to respond to DL's latest.
And I'm sure DL has some lesser version of "authority" in mind than I have, but what a strange way to describe "scientific institutions".
Very reverent and 1984-ish (not to mention the distinct hint of straw in the warning ... or should I say "I love the smell of strawmen in the morning?...I'm quite on my way to a limerick there).
There once was a forum of thinkers
A place for removing your blinkers
A strawman one morning
Made a dire warning
Of designers most likely to tinker
It ought to end in a plural, I guess...
"Of designers enlisted as tinkers?"
H,
You are the one who is on record as shutting objective reality off from scienceOoh, yet another lie. Isn't that something you say you're supposed to avoid? Maybe you purchased a dispensation or something.
I am on record as rigorously defining what is objective, not denying it. I'm just not convinced that, say, Newton's laws of motion are more real than moving things.
Since when did science (which is by its very nature contingent on new information) have to rely on authority rather than reason?So, for medical treatment, you seek out any old person on the street? Or do you seek out a doctor with qualifications (i.e., someone who has been selected for their ability to reason and perform medical procedures)?
And if you are curious about quark-gluon plasmas, do you seek out "street-corner Mikail", or do you go to the PhD's at the university physics department who, likewise, have been trained in reason and the current research on the subject?
You, Mr. bona fides, fail to see the point of qualified authority? Could you be any more hypocritical?
Tom,
This too is a sociological thesis you put forth. I mean data about ID, not homeopathy, because you can't do sociological research by analogy.Perhaps there's no sociological data for homeopathy either.
Given that there's no study as yet, does that place you firmly in the homeopathy camp? The Area 51 conspiracy camp? The Elvis lives camp? Or are you picky about your conspiracy theories?
As for so-called distortions and misrepresentations on the part of scientists, they are nothing of the kind. You said:
It's all rhetorical trickery, designed to interfere with a research program.Where's this research, Tom? The DI has millions of dollars in funding. Much more than a typical university department would allocate for the relevant type of research. So where's the research? Why does DI spend the money on PR, politics and "education" (i.e., propaganda) instead of research? Because they know that their ideas can't withstand qualified scientific scrutiny. They can only hope to persuade an ignorant public.
There are rigorous tests, including observational, statistical, and logical, that ID applies to that question.On the one hand you claim not to understand the details, and on the other, you laud their rigor. This is on the authority of Behe and Dembski et al. What of the authority of the other 99% of biologists?
This is what I'm talking about. Scientific authority is established by a transparent process of training, certification and peer review. If you don't think this system works (even if imperfectly), what will you replace it with?
Kansas just rolled back an eminently sensible standard that evolution should be taught thoroughly, to include the challenges the theory is currently facing; and Humburg and others lobbied for this restricted teaching standard.So, do you want to apply this "thorough" teaching standard to all domains, or just evolutionary biology? How about challenges to gravity and Newtonian mechanics? Challenges to psychology by the Scientologists?
I heard that the Scientologists purchased the Cult Awareness Network. Good or bad? Suppose the scientologists set up an institute to oppose psychiatry. Well-funded, and appealing to the masses, the institute fails every test of the scientific community. Good or bad? Maybe you think it would be healthier than the dogmatic medical community and their crazy scientific method.
This all smacks of the postmodernism you decry. I think that the truth of scientific claims are to be found in their predictions, and they are uncovered using scientific methods. The DI and ID movement wants to move the debate from the scientific arena into a political one. Is that a good idea?
Holopupenko and doctor(logic),
H,
You are the one who is on record as shutting objective reality off from science.
Ooh, yet another lie. Isn't that something you say you're supposed to avoid? Maybe you purchased a dispensation or something.
We're not getting anywhere this way. Holopupenko wasn't lying when he said that; what he was doing instead was presenting a summary of what he has said earlier (many times), interpreting what doctor(logic) has written.
I don't know if he wants to go through all that again. I do think that the summary failed to communicate.
doctor(logic),
Given that there's no study as yet, does that place you firmly in the homeopathy camp? The Area 51 conspiracy camp? The Elvis lives camp? Or are you picky about your conspiracy theories?
Short answer to all that: no.
Slightly longer answer: what makes you think you can make any progress with weak analogies like that?
As for so-called distortions and misrepresentations on the part of scientists, they are nothing of the kind.
Well, yes, they actually are. See my post on Humburg.
Where's the research? That's been answered often enough. And I don't know how that affects whether ID opponents are distorting Intelligent Design, anyway. I suppose we could debate the one point, that is, whether ID is carrying on legitimate research; but the distortions extend far, far beyond that question.
On the one hand you claim not to understand the details, and on the other, you laud their rigor. This is on the authority of Behe and Dembski et al. What of the authority of the other 99% of biologists?
This is what I'm talking about. Scientific authority is established by a transparent process of training, certification and peer review. If you don't think this system works (even if imperfectly), what will you replace it with?
I think the system can work very well if it is applied with transparency, which includes integrity, which includes not lying about the other guy's viewpoint. So in an ideal world I would replace the current system with one more like that.
So, do you want to apply this "thorough" teaching standard to all domains, or just evolutionary biology? How about challenges to gravity and Newtonian mechanics? Challenges to psychology by the Scientologists?
No. If there are challenges to be raised in science classes, they should be based on current empirical observations and problems. That's what should be done in the case of evolution.
The DI and ID movement wants to move the debate from the scientific arena into a political one. Is that a good idea?
That's a very, very interesting issue. I'm quite sure that it would be far better if the debate could be conducted in proper scientific and philosophical journals and conferences. I think that the empirical science of ID ought to stay there.
There are at least two problems with that, though:
1. Obstinate opposition on the part of many schools to empirical ID research. This needs to be addressed on levels that will clear away that opposition so the research can proceed, without danger that people will lose their jobs and etc.
2. In the public schools, there is already a huge political agenda which is currently dominated by philosophical materialists. This viewpoint is not shared by a majority of parents sending their kids to those schools. The answer is not to teach ID at this point; but the answer is also not to teach philosophical materialism. I think that's a legitimate political conflict.
By the way, Charlie, I think you're right--we don't really need all the Steves "descending en masse." We'd have a lot to keep up with if that happened!
But I'd welcome, well, a bunch of them...
DL:
I'll just restate my view that:
a) ID isn't what we call science yet, but it is being pursued by some in a scientific manner. It's these people that need to be allowed to continue their pursuit.
b) The research/investigation going on in my view is preliminary or in the very early-stages and should be allowed to continue. If nothing materializes then so be it.
c) Until then, ID should not be taught in science class yet, or maybe ever, until more work has been done.
d) Until then, ID should not be banned from discussion in science class. Neutral/factual discussion should be allowed and even encouraged.
DL:
I am on record as rigorously defining what is objective, not denying it. I'm just not convinced that, say, Newton's laws of motion are more real than moving things.
Speaking of defining what is objective, you never answered my questions here and here.
Tom, Steve,
There's no ID theory to undergird a research program. There are no predictions that follow from premises, and this is precisely because no reference is made to the character of the designer.
b) The research/investigation going on in my view is preliminary or in the very early-stages and should be allowed to continue. If nothing materializes then so be it.Nothing is stoppping the DI from doing research, Steve. They can do as much research as they like. As soon as they have a legitimate scientific theory or a scientific discovery, the scientific community will welcome them with open arms. ID presently lacks any scientific basis, so ID looks more like a politico-religious trojan horse than a research program.
I don't think schools ought to teach philosophical materialism today. They can stick to scientific consensus. That's fine. Neo-Darwinian synthesis is consensus science. There's still room for theists to cling to theistic evolution if they want to.
Tom, in what way is the analogy with homeopathy weak?
Nothing may be stopping the DI from doing research, but in other institutions the pressure against such research is enormous. So let's keep all the facts in front of us.
The analogy with homeopathy is weak because tests of homeopathy are so much more straightforward. It's not an historical science like origins research is.
Oh, and your charge that ID is not a science is old news, a bit worn out, and more evidence that ID opponents engage in distortion. I'm just going to drop that and let it sit there; since it is a worn out trope, I'm not motivated to fight it again and again and again.
One major historical example comes to mind where faith in supernatural design shut off further research. Isaac Newton applied his gravitational laws to the planets. He found general agreement, but some anomalies. For the rest of his life, he wondered why God designed in these "imperfections." A century later, agnostic Pierre-Simon de Laplace saw the anomalies as a natural phenomenon, and invented a theory of perturbations to study them. This, of course, led to the discovery of several new planets. Newton could have done this, but his adherence to divine design prevented it.
The greater problem, however, is the inherent sterility of a design inference. Designs are by definition arbitrary; they could have been otherwise, except for a conscious choice by a designer. So we have no basis for linking designed things to each other or to an environment operating under natural laws. On the other hand, evolution persuades us that we might discover something valuable by asking how, when, or where a trait evolved. For example, current research is researching how cancer first appeared, and whether it may have resulted from an aspect of evolution itself. This would certainly advance our search for a cure. We hope that studying the evolution of the HIV virus will tell us what specific change allowed it to cross species lines to humans, and to attack it---or bird flu---at that point.
ID proponents themselves are the best example of research-stoppers. Their sole and only concern is to show that design did occur in a given case. Have they proposed any practical applications of that knowledge? Any ways in which a design inference could lead to further research? They even adamantly resist any inquiry into the nature or characteristics of the designer---which inquiry might lead researchers to investigate other biological systems by the same designer.
Intelligent Design, both inherently and as advocated by the Discovery Institute, kills scientific research.
As soon as they have a legitimate scientific theory or a scientific discovery, the scientific community will welcome them with open arms. ID presently lacks any scientific basis, so ID looks more like a politico-religious trojan horse than a research program.
The ID theory that asks scientific questions pertaining to IC and specified complexity isn't 'doing science'?
The IC theory that can be investigated by knock-out testing that Charlie mentioned isn't 'doing science'?
Neo-Darwinian evolution is the interpretation of various bits of evidence in favor of "no designer required".
ID is the interpretation of (often the same) evidence in favor of "designer required".
It's that simple.
Steve,
Speaking of defining what is objective, you never answered my questions here and here.Just to dereference for reader convenience, you said:
Can there be a subjective X without there first being an objective X lying at the root of the subjective experience?Ironically, I think the answer is "no" from a physicalist perspective, and "maybe" from a non-physicalist perspective. Not being a physicalist, I won't go as far as saying "no". Maybe there are subjective X's that have no objective basis. However, let's shelve that possibility for the moment because it's not needed for our discussion.
If you live in Boston, then, to you, "home town" is a property of Boston. We can even say objectively that Boston is your home town. But we cannot say that "home town" is an objective property of Boston for everyone.
The "home town" property of Boston is subjective to you. It depends on all sorts of objective facts about you having been brought up in Boston, and owning a house there. Had history been different, San Diego might be the city that had the "home town" property for you instead.
This is what I mean by a subjective/objective boundary. Conventionally, a property of a thing is objective when we have reason to believe that the property is part of the thing itself rather than in our reaction to it.
In the case of morality, you have the same problem. Yes, there are objective historical reasons why some people think that certain actions are wrong (e.g., evolution, culture, environment). There are objective facts about what laws are conducive to social harmony in a given culture. However, that does not imply that the wrongness of an act is in the act itself rather than in the subjective interaction between the act and the observer.
If our culture were different, if our biology were different, and if our upbringing were different, good and evil would be defined differently. That's what I mean when I say that morality is subjective. Your saying that "homosexuality is wrong" really means "homosexuality is wrong to me." But if you're going to say that "homosexuality is wrong, period" then you might just as well declare that "Boston is the home town, period."
The reason that this appears so unintuitive in the case of morality is that moral preferences are preferences about what other people should do. They are preferences about actions to be taken by others.
When the inevitable differences of moral opinion arise, there is a protocol for settling the question. It's called politics. And when that fails, coercion. And this same protocol is used whether one is a moral realist or moral relativist.
Maybe there are subjective X's that have no objective basis. However, let's shelve that possibility for the moment because it's not needed for our discussion.
Whoa! It's very much needed for our dicussion. Here's why:
If there is no objective basis for a subjective experience then that experience resides only in your mind - and nowhere else. That subjective moral experience you're having has no connection with external reality.
On the other hand, if there is an objective basis then the law of non-contradiction applies to all subjective experiences. Experience "A" cannot also be Experience "not A".
So relativists like you have a choice concerning morality:
a) Your moral experience exist only in your mind - an nowhere else. In that case it is neither good nor evil to torture a baby to death for the pure enjoyment of watching it scream because good/evil experiences have no connection to external reality.
- OR -
b) Your moral experience has a real connection to external reality. That experience may be morally 'good' or 'not good' (evil), but never morally 'good' and 'not good' at the same time.
Steve,
You didn't read my comment.
Morality, "home-townness", and gastronomic taste all have an objective component. London is my home town. That's objective. But that doesn't make "home town" an objective property of London. It's an objective property of the relationship between me and London.
Whether I perceive an act as good or evil is an objective property of the relationship between me and the act. It is not a property of the act itself.
So, your claim about subjective attributes that don't have an objective element to them is quite irrelevant to the question at hand. We're discussing subjective things with objective components. In fact, it is the dualists who are more likely to think that subjectivity goes beyond objective facts, e.g., that your qualia for color go beyond the objective facts about color.
DL:
I read your previous comment entirely. Given your latest comment, you and I agree that you accept my position outlined in option a).
The phrase 'morality is an objective property of the relationship between me and the act' is code-speak for "my moral opinion is objective to me" - which is consistant with option a).
Is objectivity, objective?
Steve,
The phrase 'morality is an objective property of the relationship between me and the act' is code-speak for "my moral opinion is objective to me" - which is consistant with option a).I don't think your original options make sense, since an idea in your mind could still be objectively within your mind, even if it were subjective. But I don't think the dichotomy is very relevant.
Let's just clarify your paraphrasing:
"my moral opinion is objective to me"
means
"my moral opinion is objectively mine"
If that's what you mean, then we are on the same page. For example, I expect I could establish objectively that you think murder is wrong.
No arguments from me there. We're still talking moral relativism at this point.
Is objectivity objective?
Hmmmm. If we can objectively say that something is subjectively about a relationship, then I think objectivity is objective. Can we objectively say that the "home townness" of London is subjective to me? I think so.
Excuse me, I thought the question was, "Does ID stifle scientific research?" But apparently it was about homeopathy and objective morality and philosophical materialism.
Let's try the original topic once again. Suppose, arguendo, that complex specified information or irreducible complexity might be sufficient to demonstrate that a particular biological system was designed.
What does that result tell scientists? How does it guide any further research? This is the point beyond which ID has not gone, and refuses to go. The only guide is "stop looking for any further cause or reason, it was designed that way." That's what I call stifling.
The Discovery Institute has megabucks from its wealthy religious backers for any purpose they like. Last fall DI announced a laboratory to conduct ID research---although nothing has been heard since, and the nature of the research is said to be "secret." No research papers, even in their own captive house journals, have applied design principles to any specific biological questions, but only to determining whether or not a design exists. No research projects, not even a program outlining how one might go about doing research or what questions one might fruitfully ask.
Meanwhile, in Science and Nature I read every week about practical results from applying evolutionary principles. Two weeks ago, a researcher reported how two obscure proteins had evolved, and used that to determine the functions of many common cell-wall components that had not been known previously. Last week an investigation into the evolution of walking in amphibians showed that primitive walking differs from swimming only in the frequency of a single neural signal, which led to the design of a simple robot that both swims and walks.
Sure, scientists are biased against ID. Ludwig Boltzmann fought for 30 years, conducting experiments and suggesting tests to doubting---sometimes vituperative---physicists. But I'd be prejudiced against Boltzmann too if all he did was try to convince school boards to include his theory of the atom in their curricula.
You started out by reminding us of the question, but you didn't address it. You're saying ID is unfruitful. That's a different question.
You started out by reminding us of the question, but you didn't address it. You're saying ID is unfruitful. That's a different question.
Evidence of whether ID stifles research includes whether ID itself has produced or suggested any fruitful research. It has not. None. Nada. Nichevo.
Absolute statements are dangerous. But you're entitled to your opinion, and it's not worth arguing over.
Opinions are one thing, facts are another. You can post a citation to biological research that ID proponents have carried out, or have suggested. New results. Experiments. Tests. Any. Any at all.
I thought not.
Wait, I can think of one recent ID suggestion for further research: that introns ("junk DNA") will turn out to have some kind of function after all.
Unfortunately, real biologists had been working along this line already for several years, and have come up with some pretty interesting stuff. Including evolutionary histories of some of the introns.
The Discovery Institute did not predict what sort of functions the junk DNA might have---just something more than zero. Pretty safe bet, I'd say.
"Wrong." Typical ID. Pure conclusion. No evidence. No logic. Just "wrong."
Once more: does ID stifle research? My first post gave a major historical example of how belief in divine design delayed astonomical research for 100 years. The second gave evidence that ID is itself barren.
Motion for directed verdict, yer honor.
Motion denied. You asserted, but did not defend your assertion, that it was adherence to divine design that led Newton to be such an idiot (for we all know that he was among the least important, least productive, and most unsuccessful scientists of all time, a prime exemplar of how belief in design can spoil an otherwise promising career).
Further: see Lindberg and Numbers. See numerous other similar items.
Newton was decidely not an idiot. He originated the concept of "field," and provided the first quantitative definition of "force" (F=ma). These were revolutionary ideas, and blew the minds of contemporary physicists.
But then he faltered. Gravitation was consistent with his beliefs. However, orbital perturbations offended his notion of God's perfection, and he stopped. A hundred years later,
Another French mathematician, Pierre Simon, marquis de Laplace (1749-1827), worked to explain the small discrepancies between Newton's predicted and the observed orbits of the planets. Laplace understood that Newton's calculations had ignored the small yet significant gravitational influences of the other planets in the solar system. Newton largely discounted these perturbations in his mechanistic universe. In fact, Newton and natural theorists explained such aberrations as requiring the hand of God to constantly "wind the celestial watch, lest it run down" or to otherwise "reset" the mechanism of celestial mechanics. Laplace rejected this need for divine intervention, and strove to fully explain nature along mechanistic and deterministic lines
(http://www.bookrags.com/research/enlightenment- age-advances-in-dynam-scit-04123/) This is not my original source, but it's one of a number turned up by Google.
The references Tom gives above are general and not on point.
It may be ironic that Genesis 1 encourages materialistic study of the universe. Its precursor, Gilgamesh, treated oceans, storms, mountains, fire, etc. as the whims of the lesser gods. How can one make any sense of that? Genesis 1 proposed instead that the sun, the moon, the earth, the waters under the earth, and everything else are not themselves divine, but are phenomena created as objects by one God. Therefore, they are subject to laws. (Genesis 1 was written by urbanites acquainted with sophisticated technology of the time; the earlier account, Genesis 2, was the product of simpler country folk.)
Olorin,
All of this aside. I have a question for you, seriously.
Why are you so sarcastic and mean? I'm not saying you can't be this way, but why are you this way?
I read through your comments and I believe I'm seeing a desperate person (I could be wrong). There are many things that I'm passionate about, and in which I believe I am more right than my opposition.... but I don't treat them the way you treat your opposition. And I certainly don't believe that you have that much reason to think you are that right with this.
Even if you were truly this confident, well then that would only be more reason to NOT get so upset and insultive and arrogant. Confidence should breed some level of understanding and patience - because you would be THAT confident.
I don't know maybe it's your parents fault. That's not meant to be a dig, but the way you act is a question to be addressed.
Now on topic:
Ralph Seelke has demonstrated that evolution is unable to clear two hurdles at once (and even more so with 3, 4, 5...) - E.coli lacking a gene that codes for lactase has 2 hurdles it needs to clear. It needs the protein permease to allow lactose in the cell, then it needs to undergo concurrent mutations to the ebg-gene to code for an enzyme that can break lactose into glucose and galactose. But, if not lactase (the original enzyme) is available then no permease (which brings lactose into the cell) is coded for. The presence of lactase is part of the feedback loop that tells the cell to have some permease present. No study has shown that both of these hurdles can be cleared at once (ebg mutation to have a suitable enzyme and permease to be triggered to bring lactose in) in the absense of an external (experimenter utilitized) inducer.
So there's one study for you.
All of this aside. I have a question for [Olorin], seriously.
Why are you so sarcastic and mean? I'm not saying you can't be this way, but why are you this way?
I'm sarcastic and mean because the Designer Designed me that way. Darwinian evolution refused to have anything to do with me.
I read through your comments and I believe I'm seeing a desperate person (I could be wrong).
I think you were looking in a mirror. Fear is what you see on my face. If ID were only an incorrect scientific theory, I could be more phlegmatic about it. But most of the people at Discovery Institute promote it dishonestly---not for the furtherance of science, but in order to insinuate (their own) religious principles into education and legislation at every possible opportunity. DI claims their Wedge Document is merely a tentative draft of a nebulous idea for a potential fundraising idea long, long ago in a galaxy far away. As Big Daddy intoned in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, "Ah smells the odor of mendacity."
And there you have it. Olorin's secret agenda and chowder recipe.
But what do I fear? Here's a scary little story. You probably remember Nazi Germany only as B-29s carpet-bombing Dresden on the History Channel, but I remeber it from Walter Winchell on the radio. During the 1930s, the Nazis banned the teaching of relativity and quantum mechanics as "Jewesh science." German physicists fled to England and America, where some of them helped us beat Germany to the atomic bomb. (Germany was still ahead in 1941.) After WWII, the German physicists did not return to Germany. Politics trumped science, and Germany lost, maybe forever. Today, the Discovery Instritue wants to persuade our children that Darwinian evolution is godless and therefore must be tossed out---not possible today, but eventually. Cutting-edge biology is even now moving to the Far East, in significant measure because of political interference in the US---including, I would assert, ID's regious-based interfernce in education.
Our American grandparents had to learn German to do serious research in physics. Today, everyone has to learn English. I hope our grandchildren don't have to learn Chinese to do serious biology. Scare-mongering? I'm scared for the future of science in the US, and ID is one of the reasons.
"Discovery Instritue wants to persuade our children that Darwinian evolution is godless"
It's not only DI that's promoting this idea. It's darwinian proponents themselves.
Why don't you think that the criticisms of darwinian evolution are the product of the evidence? I'm catholic, I'm not told of any denominational fiat that states I can't accept the theory. Actually, catholic theologians and scholars typically tell me to avoid ID. I wish it were as simple as evidential support for darwinian evolution, because - for me- it would be a non-issue. However, I refuse to be bullied into accepting a theory simply because the consequences of rejecting it are so pronounced.
However, I refuse to be bullied into accepting a theory simply because the consequences of rejecting it are so pronounced.
Right on, Gatsby. You should accept evolution because there's tons of evidence for it. Unfortunately, evolution has not been taught much in high-school biology---partly to avoid offending the sensibilities of parents and school boards who are creationists. (Remember who decides which textbooks to purchase.) More than 50% of the US population rejects darwinian evolution, studies show.
Of course, the same studies show that 10% of American adults believe the sun orbits the Earth. Hard to believe, but there you are.
I'll admit that, until the past couple of decades, evolution has not played a big part in biological research. This is changing rapidly. And we're finding out all kinds of interesting and useful stuff. New tools are being developed; for example, now we can trace the histories of DNA itself, rather than relying on fosils.
Science resists appeals to authority. However, not all of us---certainly not I---can know or weigh all the evidence in any field of science. We thus have to form a judgment on the basis of what seems "reasonable" to us.
Unfortunately, much of science violates (uneducated) "common sense". Space itself is curved? C'mon. An electron can exist at two different locations at the same time? Hogwash. The Earth orbits the Sun? You can face east in the morning, and see the sun rise, move across the heavens, and set in the west. If the Erath rotated, there would be a 700 mph wind that would destroy almost everything. Well, there are worldwide "prevailing" winds, but guesss what? They blow in the opposite direction from what they shouild if the earth rotated!
The situation as to evolution is that tens of thousand research biologists, whose motivation is to produce results in universities, companies, and organizations around the world, accept evolution. Half a dozen biologists question it, because they wish to impart a religious basis into science education. Their work has been roundly refuted many times. (See my list in another comment on this blog.)
Although appeal to authority is not the ultimate test in science, we lay people are often called to decide questions upon incomplete information, based at least partly upon experts in the field. I have myself seen enough evidence, and worked with enough people in the field, to make it a slam-dunk decision. Maybe some day, when science education in the US doesn't trail the rest of the wotrld by such a large maargin, more people will also accept it. Not because they're bullied, but because they understand it, and it feels more resonable to them.
I'm scared for the future of science in the US, and ID is one of the reasons.
I think Tom covered that already.
Qualify what you mean when you say "You should accept evolution because there's tons of evidence for it".
Do you neglect the 'tons' of evidence that run contrary to evolution (when I say that I mean macro-unguided)?
Gatsby, how can the vast majority of biologists believe that "nothing makes sense in biology apart from evolution," as it is sometimes said, without the vast majority of evidence being in favor of evolution?
Paul:
Dawkins said:
The diagnostic of things that look (or are) designed is that their parts are assembled in ways that are statistically improbable in a functional direction. They do something well: for instance, fly. Darwinian natural selection can produce an uncanny illusion of design. An engineer would be hard put to decide whether a bird or a plane was the more aerodynamically elegant.
Dawkins again:
So powerful is the illusion of design, it took humanity until the mid-19th century to realise that it is an illusion.
Which means 21st century humanity now knows how to differentiate design from the illusion of design. How does Dawkins say we know one from the other? He answered that above - we know it via statistical analysis.
Do you neglect the 'tons' of evidence that run contrary to evolution (when I say that I mean macro-unguided)?
You confuse "tons of stuff we don't yet know" with "tons of evidence contrary." They're not the same; the former is "God of the gaps", and the latter seems less and less likely. If there were tons of truly contrary evidence, entire fleets of real biologists would prepare to abandon ship.
The Dicovery Institute has begun to claim that the the number of evolutionary gaps is increasing, not decreasing. But you have to remember how they count gaps. A few years ago, we had no known link between whales and land mammals. One gap. Then paleontologists found a fossil smack dab in the middle. Fewer gaps? No. Now there were two gaps! Other workers find more intermediate fossils. Three gaps, four gaps, five gaps! As Dave Barry would say, I'm not making this up. A recent ID post that has slipped my leaky mind just now trumpets a forthcoming book, paper, or somesuch about "a miilion gaps." Well, a million gaps is a million research opportunities. If a biologist should truly find the proverbial rabbit in a bed of trilobite fossils, many others will change their minds.
The DI counts distortions in the same manner. I followed the Kitzmiller trial closely at the time, and was surprised that (a whole year!) later, the DI asserted a number of factual errors and distortions in the decision. I reviewed the transcripts and the opinion. The "errors" occurred when a DI witness stated a fact ("The blood clotting cascade is IC and thus inaccessible to unguided evolution") and the judge decided the other side's evidence (58 papers on evolution of the BCC) was more credible. Deciding against the ID "facts" was an "error."
The "distortions" were similar. For example, the ID witnesses gave reasons why ID is not religion. The judge "distorted" those reasons in accordance with evidence from the other side to find that ID is religion. The DI seems to have toned down that controversy, perhaps because it was beginning to make them look like dunces to the legal community as well as to the scientific community.
He answered that above - we know it via statistical analysis.Correct. Design & Manufacturing doesn't need common descent, neo-Darwinian evolution does. Design & Manufacturing doesn't need billions of years, NDE does. Design & Manufacturing doesn't require a common physical mechanism (DNA), NDE does. Game, set, and match, neo-Darwinian evolution.
Do the Bayesian analysis.
Qualify what you mean by 'evolution'. It's simple, and you're not doing it.
Half a dozen biologists question it, because they wish to impart a religious basis into science education.
Olorin, I tire of refuting that. I'm not talking about your "half a dozen" understatement; I'm talking about your rhetorical ploy of subsuming a research program that was kicked off (for both Phillip Johnson and Michael Behe at least) by an agnostic named Michael Denton.
It's a rhetorical ploy whose time has come and gone. It has no bearing on the truth or falsehood of ID. It's either a genetic fallacy or "poisoning the well," depending on where it's used. It can be answered very directly by pointing to the anti-religious motivations of evolutionists like Dawkins, Simpson, Wilson, Dennett, Provine, Lewontin, and on and on and on. So even if it were true, it's still time now to set it aside regardless.
Paul:
Gatsby, how can the vast majority of biologists believe that "nothing makes sense in biology apart from evolution," as it is sometimes said, without the vast majority of evidence being in favor of evolution?
There obviously is evidence in favor of evolution. That should not be disputed. There is overwhelming evidence that nobody does dispute in favor of variation within species, and this form of evolution guides a lot of research these days. Other aspects of biology, like the genetic relatedness of species, make a lot of sense in light of evolution but are also explainable on other paradigms.
Even that quote from Dobzhansky is questionable, though.
Olorin again, you wrote,
You confuse "tons of stuff we don't yet know" with "tons of evidence contrary." They're not the same; the former is "God of the gaps", and the latter seems less and less likely.
No, there is actually contrary evidence, like the continuing and growing difficulty of the Cambrian explosion, Ralph Seelke's work, and more.
And as a matter of discussion technique, I'd like to ask just how you know Gatsby's and Steve's mind on this? How do you know they're making that confusion? Have you made a stereotyped assumption, perhaps?
No, there is actually contrary evidence, like the continuing and growing difficulty of the Cambrian explosion, Ralph Seelke's work, and more.
First, ever-increasing evidence concerning the Cambrian explosion shows more and more that it was not as suddenen as previously thought: prviously 5my, now more like 15-40my, or even more. It was also far less all-inclusive than researchers had thought from the first Burgess-shale fossils:
The debate centers in part around an earlier notion that all phyla in existence today (and all others now extinct) except one were first found in this period. This would be as if one were pacing off the length of a football field (starting 4 bya), when between paces 78 and 79 all the different phyla suddenly sprang into existence.
According to more recent research, only some phyla appear in the Cambrian explosion. On talkorigins.org, in response to the Creationist claim of sudden appearance, Mark Isaak [Isaak 2004] gives the following summary:
Only some phyla appear in the Cambrian explosion. In particular, all plants post-date the Cambrian, and flowering plants, by far the dominant form of land life today, only appeared about 140 Mya [Brown 1999].
Even among animals, not all types appear in the Cambrian. Cnidarians, sponges, and probably other phyla appeared before the Cambrian. Molecular evidence shows that at least six animal phyla are Precambrian [Wang et al. 1999]. Bryozoans appear first in the Ordovician. Many other soft-bodied phyla don't appear in the fossil record until much later. Although many new animal forms appeared during the Cambrian, not all did. According to one reference [Collins 1994], 11 of 32 metazoan phyla appear during the Cambrian, one appears Precambrian, 8 after the Cambrian, and 12 have no fossil record.
And that just considers phyla. Almost none of the animal groups that people think of as groups, such as mammals, reptiles, birds, insects, and spiders, appeared in the Cambrian. The fish that appeared in the Cambrian were unlike any fish alive today
Various mechanisms have been proposed, although not yet proven, for the radiations of the Cambrian. Sexual reproduction first appeared around that time. Hox genes either appeared or assumed their present functions in that general time frame; these genes determine the overall body plan of all animals.
As to Richard Seelke, he is a biological researcher, and believes that darwinian mechanisms cannot account for evolution. He may be right. But all he can speak to is presently known mechanisms. We used to think that only mutations produce variation. Now we have duplication, frame-shifting, reverse-transcription integration, and a wheel-barrow load of others. Scientists today have noticed that environmental stress greatly increasses the number of mutations; huh--some natural variation might be non-random, even. "Natural selection" used to be the only known method of evolutionary selection. Today we have sexual selection, group selection (still somewhat controversial), and others. In order to demonstrate his conclusion, Seelke needs to show, as ID claims, that all possible darwinian mechanisms are incapable of sustaining evolution. "An impossible task, provong a negative," you say. Well, but that is exactly ID's claim: that no present or future darwinian mechanism can possibly account for life as we know it. If you can cite any demonstrations by Seele, please do so; I am aware only of his opinions.
(I avoid the term "unguided," because, darwinian selection mechanisms are in fact guided---guided by the environment of the organism.)
Finally,
I'm talking about your rhetorical ploy of subsuming a research program that was kicked off (for both Phillip Johnson and Michael Behe at least) by an agnostic named Michael Denton.
It is interesting to note that, although Denton was originally a Discovery Institute Senior Fellow, he no longer allows his name to be used in connection with them. And he seems to have recanted his 1985 book, Evolution: a Theory in Crisis in his 1998 book, Nature's Destiny. He still believes the universe as a whole was guided, but now seems to think that biological evolution is a natural consequence of the laws of physics. DI continues to quote his earlier work, but apparently without his consent. Comntinuiing to quote discredited work is also a common tactic of the DI.
Trashing DI from its motivation is indeed a genetic fallacy. But in forming an opinion on facts, I still find tens of thousands of biologists presenting their views to other scientists as more persuasive than a handful who urge their biological views on laymen---church congregations, school, boards, and legislators. The motivation is in addition to the evidence against ID, not in place of it. I'm sorry you don't accept the evidence in the references I've cited, but you have not presented any specific references refuting them. My conclusion is the same as Judge Jones' when Prof. Behe merely waved away 58 papers on the evolution of the clotting cascade.
Correct. Design & Manufacturing doesn't need common descent, neo-Darwinian evolution does. Design & Manufacturing doesn't need billions of years, NDE does. Design & Manufacturing doesn't require a common physical mechanism (DNA), NDE does. Game, set, and match, neo-Darwinian evolution.
Do the Bayesian analysis.
So design inference/detection via mathematical analysis is real science now?
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