Intelligent Design Petition
Dean
Like it or not, these people aren't going away. Have a look at this:
"We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged."Scary? Consider the fact that they got over 400 working scientists to sign that, including scientists from Princeton, Cornell, UC Berkeley, UCLA, Ohio State University, Purdue, University of Washington, and Moscow State University, among others.
I'm always a bit hesitant to talk about the Intelligent Design theorists since it seems no matter how many times I repeat myself, someone usually mischaracterizes my opinion and/or feels the need to hurl personal abuse at me. I suppose I should get used to it--to a certain extent, it's just a part of life if you're an opinionated weblogger--but it gets annoying.
1) I don't believe in God.
2) I believe evolution is sufficient to explain everything we see in life on Earth.
3) I think creationists are kind of silly but mostly harmless.
4) I think the Intelligent Design people have some arguments that deserve examination for what they are rather than mischaracterizing and distorting them.
5) I think calling them names, behaving as if they are a huge threat to scientific freedom, and distorting their position does more harm than good.
Having looked over the Intelligent Design people's literature, I find that they do not suggest that the Earth is 10,000 years old, they do not suggest that a Great Flood wiped out the dinosaurs, they do not suggest that God comes down and creates new species, or any of that. They suggest that at a molecular level certain features of life on Earth show signs of having been engineered rather than simply evolving.
Are they wrong about that? Probably. But to treat them like pariahs for wanting to examine the question? This is hardly rational.
On my home PC, 24 hours a day, I run Berkeley's SETI@HOME, a distributed processing system that scans the skies looking through the random cosmological noise for anything that shows signs of being generated by sentient beings. To fulminate that looking for signs of intelligence behind a phenomenon is "unscientific" is to brand the entire SETI project "unscientific."
To say that it is "unscientific" to look for signs of engineering is also to suggest that no scientist can look at Mt. Rushmore and tell you whether humans carved it or if it was simply the product of erosion. It is to suggest that if paleontologists uncover a 50,000 year old stone hearth with cooking utensils they cannot possibly tell you whether those were the product of natural forces or if people put them together.
All those geologists who claim they can tell the difference between an arrowhead and a funny-shaped rock must not be scientists either, eh?
The oddest criticism I've seen of the Intelligent Design people, though, is that somehow just by looking for evidence of a creator, free inquiry will be stopped. How do people come to believe this strange non-sequitur? If the ID people design testable and falsifiable hypotheses--which as it happens they have done (more here)--how is free inquiry or the persuit of science harmed? If they're proven wrong, then doesn't that just strengthen Darwinism?
Furthermore, how is it "science" to declare that there is no creator and therefore one shouldn't bother to look for evidence of one?
For people who claim to care about free inquiry, I've never seen a group who acts more like William Jennings Bryan than the "evolutionists" who angrily fulminate that the very question of the possibility of design should never be allowed anywhere outside of a church.
Oh, and by the way: I keep seeing reference to something called The Wedge Document that somehow proves the Intelligent Design people are sinister and have evil hidden movies. What those who point to this document never seem to mention, however, is The Wedge Document: So What?, available right off the Discovery Institute's pages. So apparently it's okay to attack these people but not to actually allow them to answer their critics.
From where I sit, I see no reason to believe that natural selection by itself is insufficient to explain life. But that's not a religious committment for me the way it is for some others. If some scientists want to look for evidence of engineering in life, let them. I fail--utterly--to see how science will be destroyed by allowing these questions.
The Discovery Institute's blog has a lot more to say. So here's a thought: try reading what they have to say some time.
Of course there are always a few people like Dean who are just natural skeptics, but most of us tend to be more trusting, and that early experience with questioning science is an important learning experience.
Too many people grow up treating science like a religion. If a scientist says it, then you can't question it. How is this any better than: if a priest says it, you can't question it? Sure, the scientist can appeal to Observation for his claims, but what do we have besides his word that Observation is better than Inspiration? Surely the priest would say the opposite.
BTW, I agree with every word in the paragraph quoted above from the petition, and I don't consider myself a skeptic towards natural selection. But how can you NOT be SOMEWHAT skeptical about an enormously important, but unproven theory?
(Now don't tell me about proof of evolution. Natural selection and evolution are two completely different things.)
If we canot figure that one out (including all these Nobel Laureats), what would make anyone rationally think that we can dismiss some intelligence in the cosmos.
We are not presupposing a form of that intelligence, only that there are things that we can measure, physics and chemistry that we do know, and yet none of this (as yet) yields a theory that explains what we observe everyday in examining life.
In my estimate, asking the question of ID is just good science--very basic. This question should not be politicized one way or the other. It is too important.
BTW, I don't see how any of this challenges Darwin's observations. ID is not some sort of static creationalism. I believe the relations that we are looking for are far far more fundamental than genetics. Yes, genetic adaptation should work. But how do those genes (and everything else) come about.
If you could have waded through State of Fear Michael Crichton pretty much said SETI was bunk and his reasoning was compelling.
I happen to read the DI's blog all the time, and I still think what they are doing is junk.
They are not trying to look at scientific ways to prove there is a creator. And their hypothesis is unfalsifiable.
They tell you that things are so complex that there must have been an intelligent designer. Creationism. THeir hypothesis cannot be proven wrong. There is absolutely nothing - nada, zilch, squat - that anyone can do or say to "critically evaluate" and "scientifically inquire" into creationism. And DI is creationism.
I'm not jumping all over you. I'm not telling you you are full of it for looking at their stuff critically. I'm telling you there is no argument or fact you can possibly give to a creationist to prove their theory wrong.
Here's something you need to read. All of you. It's copied from Scientific American.
15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense
It seems to me that most say that life couldn't have happened the way it happened so therefore there must be a creator. But where did the creator come from? Any putative creator would, necessarily, be very complex. If we are too complex to just occur, what about a creator? That's why I think man created God instead of the other way around. Making shaman the oldest profession by a few millenia.
As for SETI, I think that could, potentially, be the most dangerous thing we've ever done.
What if we find aliens and they think we taste good? Or what if they need workers for their underground sugar mines?
I just think that aggessive aliens who would like our world are at least as likely as friendly aliens who would be happy to sell us technology.
The second would be very, very, very cool, the first would really, really, really suck. I don't like being cooked and eaten and I seriously don't like slavery.
So I go back to square one: yes, it may be true that the idea that there might have been a creator is difficult to test for. Yet, is it not just as true that the idea that there was NOT any grand engineer just as difficult to falsify?
A simple single-celled organism is extraordinarily complex. And evolutionary theory has no very strong answer for this fact. Might there be a naturalistic explanation for this? Yes there might, and in fact I think there probably is one. Yet I have to go back to basic scientific method: if you don't know, you don't know. And so I ask the same question I've basically tried to ask all along:
What precise harm is there in searching for clues that what we see in biology might, at some level, be the product of some form of engineering?
Please focus on that question. What harm is there in positing that there was an engineer, and looking for clues that it may be so?
If they're looking for clues that there was an engineer, then they have to devise tests for that. And if their tests fail to find the engineer, then knowledge is advanced. And if they do find proof of the engineer, then knowledge is advanced.
Where is the harm in this line of inquiry, except to suggest that anyone who thinks there might have been an engineer is a drooling moron?
But, hey, I've only taken two semesters of college work. I could be wrong.
A person who is, is likely to buy into the ID theory to the exclusion of considering evolution as an alternative explanation. When they do so, it makes the next person that much more likely to veer away from evolution, and so on, etc.
But I don't agree with that. I'm just sayin'.
I think he's still a Creationist.
That is because our educational system is utter crap and getting worse thanks to "no child left behind". They don't teach science. They teach "science facts". So of course people treat it like religion... it's _taught_ like religion.
The scientific method is never covered in more than a cursory listing for a few minutes and then you proceed to cutting open frogs.
They should have students redo some of Newton's experiments, Galileo's observations, etc. And then grade based on process and NOT on "getting the right answer".
I will agree that serious ID scientists have an issue with creationists abusing their statements. Though even saying they are searching for a "Creator" is an issue. It should be "creator" or better yet, just call then UCE's "Unidentied Creating Entities" or just "aliens".
For all the ID proponents claim they aren't creationists, they certainly seem to imply it's a "Creator".
And show me a falisfiable ID statement that hasn't been falsified and I'll start giving them credit. The scientific community can be just as dogmatic as any other human community, but I still haven't seen anything out of ID that has been tested, or even can be tested.
Yours,
Wince
While Michael and I are often at odds on many, many issues, on this one I back him completely. ID is junk.
Evolution and natural selection have been around for nearly 2 centuries and what is so frustrating for the scientific mind is that we still find ourselves debating settled issues that have simply been reworded and put to a new generation.
So you have a list of 400 scientists that believe in ID. Out of what - millions currently on the planet? Apply your skepticism for a moment to that list. How many are biologists and zoologists? How many are affiliated with fundamentalist religious sects?
Let's turn the situation around. Instead of looking at the supposed "flaws" in Evolution and Natural selection, where is the proof of Intelligent Design? Where are the studies that back it? What testable hypotheses can ID make and what do the experimental results show?
Contrary to what ID believers will say, Evolution and natural selection have survived more challenges than any other scientific theory. The preponderance of the evidence weighs in favor of evolution and natural selection.
Instead of looking at the supposed evidence that supposedly undermines Evolution and natural selection, look at the evidence that supports ID - and then try to objectively weigh the two.
Doesn't it swing both ways, though? If ID can neither be proven nor disproven doesn't the same hold for evolution? And don't, by their very natures, both theories attempt to disprove one another?
If ID is illogical by the same token so too must evolution be.
Well, gravity is described best in the general theory of relativity. That's still undergoing tweaking. Every year you hear about some new theory of dark mass or dark energy or something. Also, it is conventional wisdom that the general theory of relativity will have to be compatible with quantum mechanics before it is truly "correct", and that this would require a serious revision.
So I would say that the theory of gravity is considered to be inaccurate (which I assume means it is also unproven), and that a lot of smart scientists are looking for a theory which could be proven beyond reasonable doubt.
"Here's something you need to read. All of you. It's copied from Scientific American."
I read it. If it proved that all known life is a result of random mutations, I must have missed it. Could you show me where that occurs?
Please show proof that random mutations can produce life as we know it.
Alternatively, explain how natural selection could be falsified.
Falsifying ID:
A sufficiently powerful computer could produce a sequence of genes from the first life form to present life forms, and show that random mutations can produce each step and that each step along the way produces a viable life form.
That wasn't too hard.
1) This is probably the strongest ID argument, and I'm not surprised so many scientists signed on to it.
2) The strongest argument against this ID argument imho is the weak anthropic principle, because it renders concerns of improbability moot.
3) ID has been accused of being nonfalsifiable, but I don't think that's true. It's just extremely difficult to falsify, because we can't directly replicate billions of years of evolution.
Interestingly, while I do believe in God, I agree 100% with Dean on his points 2-5.
Scientific American not only attacks Intelligent Design, i.e., anything that smells of the possibility of a Creator. They not only aggressively promote atheism and denounce any possibility of any form of theism as "un-scientific". They also promote all those other "scientific" hoaxes as well. "Nuclear winter"? Snow job, I say. "Global warming"? Send some my way, I say. They also actively promote abortion, they promote gun control, they promoted the "nuclear freeze" movement. They promote the Communist agenda. Scientific American is neither scientific nor American.
Not all atheists are Communists by any means. Some atheists, e.g., Dean or Ayn Rand, are and have been as passionately anti-Communist as I am.
But all Communists are, must be atheists -- including when, as Manning Johnson testified, when they infiltrate churches, church councils, and seminaries to preach the "Social[ist] Gospel"*. Atheism is the first premise of Communism, from which all else proceeds. Communists atheism is anti-theism. Communists hate all that is Divine. That is the very essence of Communism. They hate the very idea of a Creator -- of a Judge. In a way, I cannot say I blame them for that. If I were a Communist, I would, too. If I were a Communist, knowing what I had done and advocated during my time here on this earth, I, too, would be very afraid of the very idea of a Judgment in the hereafter. I would have some 100,000,000+ souls testifying against me.
I now agree with Jack T. Chick that "evolution is the cruelest hoax in history." I have to oppose Jack T. Chick -- for, like the Communists, he, too, denies the Most High Goddess --but I must say he does have style, and I must agree with him in opposing this anti-theist, anti-humanist, lie called "evolution".
*About the "Socialist Gospel", William F. Buckley, observing the promotion of the "nuclear freeze" movement within certain churches, paused to remark:
"There is something subversive, something objectively on the side of slavery, in contemporary Christianity. Mr. Nietzsche, you are wanted at your office."
Profounder words have seldom been spoken. (And, I must say that reading Nietzsche has brought me far closer to the Divine, to my Most High Goddess, than have all the pronouncements of the Communist-controlled National and World Councils of Churches. E. Merrill Root, you are wanted at your office.)
If evolution is a valid process (and I believe it is), why isn't that just one of the many tools contained within omnipotence? Why can't random mutations be divine pokes and prods in a specific direction?
This isn't meant to turn the thread in a religious direction. If ID accumulates the amount of evidence that evolution has, teach it in schools. I don't care. But without evidence, don't bother trying to convert me. I don't have any difficulties reconciling my faith and evolution (not to mention science in general). Am I just a rare breed? I hope not.
And here's a funny (read: sad) story about science and public education (for Tito, and anybody else who might be interested):
I was taught the scientific method in elementary school (I want to say 4th grade, but the memory is fuzzy). It was reinforced all the way through high-school graduation (I was class of '98). My brother was class of 2000. The scientific method was mentioned once or twice at best. I had to explain to him why it was important. We went to the same schools. What a difference 2 years makes.
-E. Merrill Root, "When Revolution Wars on Renaissance", America's Steadfast Dream
The problem with your argument is that you confuse science and religion. By your definition it would be impossible for a scientist to abide by his faith and remain a scientist. This completely disregards the importance of faith.
What is religion after all but an exercise in faith? I believe in God. Does that make me a bad scientist? Consequently I recognize the preponderance of evidence backing the theory of Evolution and natural selection. Does that make me a bad agnostic?
Trying to prove the existence of God ignores the deeper mystery of the divine and undermines the importance of faith.
To use a sports analogy, confusing science and religion is like comparing the St. Louis Cardinals with the New England Patriots. The baseball Cardinals are an excellent baseball team, and the Pats are inarguably (as hard as it is for me - an Eagles fan - to say this) an extraordinary football team. By your argument I have to believe that either the baseball Cardinals or the Pats are the "best team" - when the comparison doesn't make any sense because each operates in its own milleu.
I can be a Cardinals fan AND (begrudgingly) accept the superiority of the Pats without caving into cognitive dissonance.
What the ID people - and you - are doing is mixing up two completely separate ideas: religion and science. Religion cannot be scientific due to its foundation in faith, and dogma has no role in Science - which is why I've followed the anti-HIV hypothesis arguments here closely (and no, that argument has nothing to do with ID because unlike ID the anti-HIV hypothesis has evidence supporting it).
I believe in God and view the scientific method as the finest tool Humanity has ever devised for exploring the world. Evolution and natural selection are the result of that tool, so I can be an agnostic AND a scientist without difficulty.
Kevin D.,
I wear a watch that was made by a god. Prove me wrong.
I'm serious.
I'm not saying you shouldn't believe it. I haven't seen anything though. Can you post a link to a falisifiable ID hypothesis for me? I would love to read it. (No, I'm not being sarcastic.)
"Doesn't it swing both ways, though?"
Yes. However, Evolution has offered many falisfiable hypothesese. It has predicted many of the kinds of things we later found in fossiles. We aren't able to directly observe "it happening", but it is a very accurate explanation of the fossil record.
As for Scientific American being communist... WHAT? I've read that magazine for the last 10 years (since I was in H.S.) and I've never seen anything political in it at all.. unless you count then trashing ID as "political". And um.. am I right in reading that you think nuclear weapons aren't a bad thing?
I graduated H.S. in '96 and the scientific method was wonderfully taught in some places and horrible the next. The quality of teaching entirely depends on your individual teacher. (We would all do much better if people realized that and just paid teachers 2-5 times what they make now to get good people teaching.)
I don't need to. The fact that you are wearing a watch tells me that it was made by someone. We're halfway there already. Now if the person who made the watch is a god, well, that's purely subjective and a theological issue that science cannot define. I don't need to seek the identity or the nature of the creator of the watch. I just know that they exist as evidenced by their creation. One man's god is another man's David Koresh.
However, if your watch doesn't keep perfect time you may need to re-examine your faith. Or the warranty.
Your argument is philosophical. Answer Michael's question using the scientific method.
I'm haven't formed solid opinions ID or evolution -- like many people, my view is that evolution seems like a sufficient scientific basis to explain how we got here. But, also, I believe (hope?) there is some supernatural force out there, beyond mere energy and matter.
So, maybe there's a contradiction, but I'm too tired to resolve it.
Rather, I would stick to first principles of scientific inquiry without rancor or incivility:
To proponents of evolution:
1. What is your opinion on evolution?
2. Why do you hold such opinion?
3. What facts, if observed, would refute/undermine your opinion?
To proponents of ID:
1. What is your opinion on Intelligent Design?
2. Why do you hold such opinion?
3. What facts, if observed, would refute/undermine your opinion?
At heart, I guess, I stick with Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn on science, where even seemingly crazy hypotheses get a fair shake.
Does that make any sense?
Hank Barnes
Regarding the challenge that someone provide a link to falsifiable tests for intelligent design: I already provided links to same. But here they are again: See this and this.
I also note that to date no one has answered my most fundamental question: how exactly is the search for evidence of a cosmological engineer a threat to free inquiry and the scientific method?
I'll ask it again: how exactly is the search for evidence of a cosmological engineer a threat to free inquiry and the scientific method?
One more time: how exactly is the search for evidence of a cosmological engineer a threat to free inquiry and the scientific method?
1. Evolution is the single greatest theory ever advanced to explain our surroundings.
2. A lifelong passion for science. I have read all of Stephen Jay Gould’s books, some of them several times. I also have read most of Richard “Meme” Dawkin’s work – especially “The Blind Watchmaker”. “Science on Trial” by Douglas Futuyma has also played an important part in helping me understand evolution.
I have assisted in the study of wild chimpanzee and have been affiliated with wildlife centers in Tanzania and Kyoto Japan.
I also raise tropical fish – African Cichlids. I have witnessed random mutation, hybridization and other processes first hand.
3. A series of testable (falsifiable) hypotheses that explain the fossil record and biological diversity just as well as evolution does. These hypotheses should result in predictable and replicable outcomes.
Maybe it's because you're asking the wrong question, Dean. I assume you mean ID's quest for "equal time" in the classroom. Call me out if I'm wrong.
So the question then becomes:
Are you comfortable teaching politics in a math class? If not, why not?
I did not grow up Christian, I was a lazy agnostic until high school. (By that, I mean my attitude was: "I don't know if there's a God, but I don't care enough to think about it very hard.")
I'd always liked science (still do), and to me, when I heard the arguments in favor of creationism, they seemed bizarre and nonsensical. In retrospect, I realize that my position then was based as much on faith as the creationist one. (Faith in what my teachers had told me, rather than, say, faith in the Bible.) I had not done my own research or subjected the matter to any critical thinking. I just took it for granted that what my science teachers had told me was true.
In my junior year of high school, I became a Christian, and I'll spare you all my testimonial here, (though I'm more than willing to share it with anyone who is interested,) but through my new church, I was exposed, for the first time, to some of the more sophisticated creation science arguments. (i.e. Ones not expressed by my 16-year-old classmates)
It was a revelation, not so much because I agreed with everything they said, but the very idea that one of the so-called scientific "truths" I had been taught actually could be wrong. I did a lot of research and spent the next few years feeling vaguely angry and betrayed by the scientific community.
I switched sides in the debate, though mostly I was defending creationists as not being ignorant and stupid rather than defending any specific version of creationism. You see, I was not altogether persuaded by creationism, but it seemed to me that they had a number of legitimate points and questions about evolution that, as far as I could tell, had never been satisfactorily answered.
In college, I majored in biochemical engineering, and had plenty of opportunity for debates on the subject, and frequently they would get heated.
Then, I reached a sort of epiphany. My belief in God does not depend on the answer to the evolution question. It was a huge relief. Suddenly, this problematic issue that had been giving me such mental anguish was now just an interesting puzzle.
The fact, (perhaps the only real one in this whole debate,) is that we will never know with 100% certainty how exactly life originated. Whether it was people created from dust, or self-replicating RNA that came down on an asteroid, or whatever, we will only ever be able to look at the after-effects, and speculate.
That is not to say that these speculations aren't useful. I think that the desire to learn as much as is possible about this world and the universe at large is the intersection between philosophy and science.
My own take is that a God-assisted process of evolution seems the most likely explanation. Note, by the way, that it is the "evolutionists" who won't let me into their club for that reason, not the ID folk.
In college, I did a lot of advanced study in this field, even an entire semester course devoted exclusively to the subject. The current "official" theory of evolution insists that it is based on random changes, constrained by a few rules imposed by natural selection. I was specifically told by my professor that you cannot believe in scientific evolution and God at the same time. According to him, they are mutually exclusive.
I think that's a load of bulls#!t, but the fact remains that a great many scientists feel that way, and they are the ones leading the charge against Intelligent Design.
The Intelligent Design movement has its own problems of course, not least of which is the presence of literalist creationists among their ranks. I'm not saying that the literal Genesis account couldn't have happened, only that it doesn't seem the most likely explanation to me, and also that I don't think seven literal 24-hour days are required for creation to be a miracle.
Still, for most people, the only possible intersection evolution has with their day-to-day lives is the debate regarding how to teach it in schools.
Frankly, I'm not that concerned with evolution being taught in schools. What really irritates the hell out of me is that, in most schools, it's being taught wrong!
I don't mean that they should be teaching ID alongside it, I mean that they are not even teaching the actual scientific theory properly!
As a few people have mentioned above, science classes today are not being taught science. They are being taught facts. "This is the way things are, and you should believe it because I said so."
I don't know how any of you were taught eveloution in school, but for me, it went basically like this.
"Life gradually evolved from simple life forms to complex ones because of 'survival of the fittest', and we know it because of X, Y, and Z"
Where X, Y, and Z would be examples of natural selection rather than evolution.
A couple of examples of misunderstandings continually perpetuated by bad science teachers:
Note: These are all based on actual scientific evolutionary theory, not ID or anything weird.
1. Natural Selection is NOT the same thing as "Survival of the fittest."
The problem with "fittest" is that it assumes a level playing field. A great many examples of natural selection have nothing to do with "fitness". Example: you've got two populations of squirrels or something, each on one side of a river. The squirrels on the left side have less food and so they have to compete harder to survive, thus over time, they get smarter and stronger, etc. than the squirrels on the right side of the river. "Survival of the fittest" would suggest that the smarter, stronger left-side squirrels would survive, because they are "more fit" than the right-side squirrels.
But then there's a forest fire on the left side of the river and all the left-side sqirrels are burned up, leaving only the dumber, weaker right-side squirrels. That's an example of natural selection, but not of survival of the fittest. Evolutionary theory states that natural selection that is the driving force, not "fitness."
2.Proportional changes in population is not the same thing as evolution.
When I was in school, one of the examples we were given to support evolution was the story of white moths and gray moths near an industrial city in England. The tree bark there was mostly white, so white moths had an advantage over the gray moths, because they were harder to see by their predators. As a result, the white moths were far more plentiful than the gray moths. But then, as the air got polluted by the factories, the white tree bark started turning gray. (Observe also how there is a buried environmentalist message in this story.) With the darker tree bark, the gray moths began to have an advantage over the white moths, and thus, they grew in numbers until they were plentiful, and the white moths were rare.
Now, that is evidence of natural selection, but it is not evidence of evolution in any respect. Think about it, at the beginning of the story, we have white moths and gray moths. At the end, white moths and gray moths. The only thing that changed is their proportions. (This is sometimes called micro-evolution.)
There is no question that natural selection occurs, because we can observe it, as with the above example. Now if this story had been merely used as an example of natural selection, that would have been one thing, but instead, that story was presented as proof that evolution had occurred! And it wasn't just my teacher, this was right out of my textbook.
So I'm not going to insist that creationism or ID be taught alongside evolution in schools, (though I don't see how anybody is hurt by a disclaimer like: "Some people think that life is too complicated to have arisen just through random changes, but we don't have any way to test that.")
What really gets to me though, is not the teaching of evolution, but rather when it's taught wrong.
(Whew! If I'm lucky, powerblogs won't cut this off!)
Here's an interesting article which discusses why "Equal Time" and "Teach the controversy" are bad ideas. The former was knocked out of a school's curriculum by SCOTUS, and the latter fails in its application:
Second off, you have dodged my question completely. You also made an inaccurate assertion. The Discovery Institute--the people behind ID theory--has publicly and repeatedly opposed having ID taught in public school classrooms, and explained many times why they oppose this.
Still, to answer your question (even though you did not answer mine): given how often important political questions involve mathematics--especially when it comes to budgetary and statistical analyses--I am not at all opposed to politics being discussed in the math classroom.
So I ask my question again, and ask for a direct, no-bullshit answer: how exactly is the search for evidence of a cosmological engineer a threat to free inquiry and the scientific method?
Its not. Science grew up in a world that believed in a benevolent and orderly Deity; indeed Science is based on such a viewpoint. Its a distinct possibility that an atheist world would not have given birth to science. Its also likely that a world with a Celestial Chaos of Competing Powers would not have given birth to science.
Indeed, I see the Evolutionists' attack as an attack on the spirit of science, at least in part. I think theres a distinct element of bullying, rather than a search for truth going on.
Also, we can see the PoMo's, I believe, or perhaps it the Deconstructionists, some of them attacking Science. This to my mind is a reversion to a barbaric mindset.
Lastly, in response to the two worlds comment by another commenter. I don't think this is a good idea. I don't want blind faith. Blind faith can lead you to all sorts of very bad places. I am a creature of reason and intuition. Use the reason to check out what can be checked out, and the intuition to fill in the blanks.
Its not two worlds. Instead, Science is the daugther of Christianity. And right now, the girl wants her car keys even though she's only twelve.
Doesn't the quote go something like "It is impossible to use logic to get people out of a mindset they did not reason themselves into?"
ID is a threat to evolutionists merely because they perceive it as one. Most of them are, in fact, accepting evolution on faith; many of them think they understand the scientific method because they have read about it, not because they have actually applied it. Moreover, it is actually rare to find a person who is not only willing but happy to examine his preconceptions; I have worked hard to becomes so and I still am not particularly happy examining some deeply held beliefs.
Put it all together and you have a lot of people who have believed something for so long that any perceived threat to it must be stomped into the ground heavily before they begin to doubt. Doubt, after all, is a very uncomfortable position.
Should I get to discuss, in the classroom, how a magical being visits my bedroom every morning and wakes me at exactly six? l'm talking about the same magical being that made my watch, BTW.
Sound goofy right? Well why can't we discuss it during science class and critically evaluate it?
Exactly! Because it is lunacy and bunk. But it is no less valid than being allowed to debate ID.
It isn't. Nor should it be. If it is a question that impacts the scientific community in a scientific way (i.e. not a question of politics or economics), then it needs to be explored.
Or as another commenter stated, "every theory gets a shake."
Attempt #2:
It's not. Searching for God isn't much different than search for aliens. Based on the evidence we have today, neither exist.
So what's your point?
Okay Dean, gloves off. I've read all of Gould's work, and most of Dawkins. I'm afraid you can't easily brush aside their considerable bodies of work so easily. I would not characterize them as anti-religious at all. You'd have to show me the evidence that supports your assertion.
Jason G
Your comment is the "moral equivalence" of theories. Not all are alike or equally valid. The theory that the sun rotates around the earth is not equal to the theory that it doesn't.
B. Durbin
Most people accept evolution based on faith? I haven't tested gravity but I have faith that the scientists that have lived before me did. Otherwise what's the point of knowledge?
Your argument is philosophical - not scientific. I don't need to experience everything in order to verify everything's existence.
Eric A.
One of my favorite stories in the New Testament is that of "Doubting Thomas". In that story Christ reaffirms the importance of faith.
Is such faith blind? Absolutely not. There's a whole discipline devoted to the study of faith issues - theology.
BTW I hope you appreciate the irony that you are a self-described atheist arguing in support of Intelligent Design (though I'm still not sure to what end) - while I'm a theist arguing in support of the supposed "atheistic" evolution and natural selection.
So what is your point? The Discovery Institute exists. I'm not for banning them. However why do they exist? What's their agenda?
How is the improbable existence of a creator a solution to the improbable existence of life?
In Catholicism I was told many, many, many times that I have to "have faith" when I asked the tough questions. ID wants me to have faith. I don't believe in a god because I don't think he gave me a mind and told me not to use it. Ditto ID.
The thing about survival of the fittest and evolution is that we can see it happen.
Look at dog breeds. People are choosing the "superior" genes but that's not so different from nature doing so. Dead dogs don't breed nor do ones that aren't allowed to breed.
Viruses mutate, we are seeing new ones that are resistant to anti-biotics. They've evolved. We can see different species of horses starting with a huge one millions of years ago. Heck, look at Australia as you see kangaroos go from huge monsters Propleopus
Carnivorous kangaroos from the pliocene and pleistocene. The last pleistocene survivor of the lineage propleopus oscillans, stood about two metres tall. to today's herbivores.
Just because it isn't solved down to the last jot and tittle doesn't mean we haven't seen proof of evolution.
A leap of faith is a dangerous thing. What are you leaping too? without the use of reason, and evidence we have little way of judging whether an object of faith (such as a friend, a parent, a political philosophy, or the Person of Christ) is worthy of our faith.
I could have faith in Communism. Many have. Its a bad idea.
Furthermore, Christ said that by your fruits ye shall know them. That is evidence.
However, there does come a point when you've seen the evidence, and you've examined the logic, and then it is time to make the leap, or to walk away.
It is the same process for science. Examine the logic, examine the experimental evidence, make the leap, or walk away.
Check Dean's first link. Behe's hypothesis is falsifiable. I have read claims it has been falsified and counter claims that it has not.
Here is a hypothesis that is not falsifiable:
There exists a designer responsible for creating the various species.
Here is another:
There exists a natural process responsible for creating the various species.
Neither is falsifiable because you cannot prove a negative.
The valid claims that ID is not a falsifiable hypothesis result from moving to the philosophical root of ID, without realizing that the same movement to the philosophical root of evolution also results in a valid claim that evolution is not falsifiable.
That is why actual ID and evolutionary scientists do not take their philosophical root positions as their hypotheses. Instead they produce testable falsifiable hypothses. In Behe's case, he identifies a set of biomechanical objects and processes which he claims are irreducably complex. To falsify it, reduce the complexity. In Darwin's case, he identifies a specify process, natural selection. To falsify it, produce an irreducably complex biomechanical object or process.
This isn't rocket science, people. It's much more complex. :)
Yours,
Wince
Straw man fallacy. ID does not opine on the existence of God or gods (the same that Evolution does not opine on abiogenesis.)
The correct question would be, "my watch was made by incorporating the direction of an intellegent being. Prove me wrong."
Dog breeds are not evidence of evolution because you start with a dog, and you end up with a dog. There is no speciation involved. Natural selection in viruses is undisputed (as is natural selection in general) -- what is disputed is that there is indeed species creation happening there (and not just the emergence of supressed regressive genes) and that this has any bearing on, say, the process by which canis familiaris originated.
In other words, the government must attack religion instead in tax-supported government-monopoly (or teachers' union-monopoly) schools -- using the theory of evolution, as well as by removing "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance, removing "in God we trust" from our money, and whatever else they can think of to bring about a secular America. Will removing all references to a Creator from the Declaration of Independence be next?
"Scott: First off, both Gould and Dawkins are/were what I call "power atheists" -- people who absolutely insist that there is no God and, furthermore, that theism is pernicious and destructive and stupid. Both use Darwin to bolster that belief. How does that not qualify as religious belief?"
[Emphasis mine]
That's exactly what it's all about!
And since Gould and Dawkins are hailed by evolutionists as the two leading contemporary spokesmen for evolution, I suppose I must take their word for it that that is what evolution means, that is its purpose, its raison d'etre. Why is it that in all the two centuries since evolution was first proposed as a "scientific" alternative to creation, its leading (or loudest) proponents have always been atheists or at least agnostics, and also usually advocates of eugenics, Marxism, or other pernicious philosophies? Could it be that they love the theory of evolution precisely because it is the one and only theory of our origins that is consistent with atheism, and also with eugenics, Communism, or whatever other agenda seems "progressive" at the moment? And that they vehemently reject creation -- of any kind -- precisely because it gets in the way of atheism and "progress"?
The truth is, it all comes down to faith. None of it is provable or disprovable by looking at monkeys or fossils or anything else in a laboratory. It's not a scientific question, it's a theological question. Do you choose to believe in a Creator, or even in the possibility of a Creator, or not?
Yes, you are (temporarily, until they can either amend the Constitution or get enough atheist judges on the Supreme Court) allowed to have faith in a God, as long as you keep it to yourself in church on Sunday mornings -- and as long as you allow them to infiltrate your church and use it to promote their "Socialist Gospel" while watering down your God into an amorphous "Ground of Being" ("GOB"). I'm against that.
Tito asked:
"As for Scientific American being communist... WHAT? I've read that magazine for the last 10 years (since I was in H.S.) and I've never seen anything political in it at all.. unless you count then trashing ID as "political". And um.. am I right in reading that you think nuclear weapons aren't a bad thing?"
I wasn't supposed to find politics in Hollywood movies either. But there it is. As to nuclear weapons: Yes, I say nuclear weapons are a very good thing -- in the hands of freedom-loving Americans. America's nuclear weapons ended World War II and enabled us to keep the Communists at bay throughout the Cold War. We need to hold on to them as long as there are any enemies of freedom.
Not all evolutionists are necessarily atheists, and not all atheists are Communists (as I said, some atheists are as anti-Communist as I am). But all Communists are required to be atheists -- anti-theists -- and all anti-theists are totally committed to the idea of evolution because it is the one and only theory consistent with their total, vehement, rejection of anything resembling a Divine Creator.
I have more and more concluded that there is one and only one solution to this whole problem of evolution vs. creation in tax-supported schools: privatize the schools. Let schools compete openly in a free market (or battlefield) of ideas. If atheists want to teach their children atheism, I say by all means let them -- in their own schools. And let Christians and other theists -- in their own schools -- teach creation or intelligent design or theistic evolution or whatever other alternatives to atheistic evolution. I support private schools, home schools, and vouchers for the poor -- all of which are vehemently resisted by the same (Communist-infiltrated) teachers' unions which vehemently resist allowing the mere mention or hint of a God into their monopoly (paid for with our money).
I am a creationist. I am a fundamentalist. I'm for getting back to the fundamentals, the literal truth, of the United States Constitution, and the foundations of our freedom. I am a foundationalist.
(closing in on 2500 units BTW
Your rank out of 5436301 total users is: 140501st place.
The number of users who have this rank: 53
You have completed more work units than 97.415% of our users.
Look upon my SETI@home stats, 97.4% of ye mighty, and despair!)
First off, both Gould and Dawkins are/were what I call "power atheists" -- people who absolutely insist that there is no God and, furthermore, that theism is pernicious and destructive and stupid.
I wouldn't lump them together. Dawkins is very strongly, undeniably anti-theist. See here, for example. He's a great thinker in many ways, but tolerance for theists is not among his virtues.
Gould, despite his agnosticism, was interested in reaching out to the faithful; he even wrote a whole book, Rocks of Ages, that attempted to reconcile belief in God with evolution. He frequently spoke of himself as an agnostic. He was a spirited debater and a complex fellow, but not the "power atheist" Dawkins is.
That is true. Dawkins is far more vicious than Gould. I'll respect Gould as an agnostic, like T. H. Huxley (who coined the term), but Dawkins is an anti-theist, and I absolutely oppose him.
While I mostly agree with you, I have to point out something: The primary battleground over ID is not whether it should be researched at all, but whether it should be taught alongside evolutionary theory in high schools.
Where do you stand on that issue?
Just because I believe in evolution does not mean I don't believe in God. Nor does it mean that I support efforts by (mostly Leftists) to attack Judeo-Christianity. Let's be honest: they aren't attacking Islam, Hinduism or Buddhism. They have a bug up their butts about J-C.
I support the teaching of religion in schools. Does that make me a fundamentalist Christian? No. Public schools didn't exist until the 1830s, and the Founders didn't cover it directly in the Constitution. Therefore school control lays at the local level - where it belongs. As far as I'm concerned if my school district wants to teach astrology, I don't want the feds getting into it: I'll take care of it myself - even if it means running for the school board.
The problem is that the Supreme Court has made it quite clear that you cannot teach religion AT ALL in public schools. So what Creationists are proposing is an end run around this by going through Science class.
They recognize that evolution is a difficult concept for most people to understand - so they capitalize on the confusion and the general liberal tendency to entertain new ideas to introduce religion through the back door.
If Evolution was stronger and simpler, I believe that it would not be subject to such attacks by creationists. Instead they would use numerology and the Kabala to push into Math classes.
My resistance to creationism is not because I'm irreligious or atheist: it's because it doesn't belong in a science class. If you want to teach religion in schools, then it has to come through the front door - laws made that can overturn Supreme Court decisions. Yes it's hard to do, but leave Science alone.
Very good. I do not wish to imply that you yourself or necessarily even the majority of those who accept the theory of evolution, or what they think of as the theory of evolution (which may be quite different from what, e.g., Richard Dawkins considers to be the theory of evolution), are atheists or irreligious, and I apolgize if I left that implication.
If Dawkins and his like were treated by theistic, agnostic, and non-anti-theistic evolutionists the same way that Dean wishes Michael Moore (Lord Pork Pork) were treated by most Democrats, I would have less problem with it.
Intelligent Design is not young-earth creationism, and most young-earth creationists probably regard astrology, numerology, and the Kabala as Satanic.
He asked me to reveal the identity of the Creator. He asked me to prove the the Creator of the watch was not a god. That is philosophy. So, he asked me a philosophical question which I declined to answer because ID doesn't provide light on the topic. ID would agree, however, that someone indeed made his watch.
Phelps:
I think you're about right here. I believe that ID tells us there is a Creator and leaves it up to philosophy and religion to determine the identity and possible divinity of this individual. I'm not quite seeing where you're going with the second part. ID would agree that the watch was made at the direction of an intelligent being. That they would then attempt to disprove this fact seems odd. We already acknoledged that someone, if they didn't directly create it, they directed it's development. To then try to disprove a fact we already agree upon doesn't make sense to me.
Am I missing something?
Science just doesn't work that way. Both Newton's theory of gravitation and Einstein's theory of relativity were falsified within a few years of their publication, in the sense that they predicted certain things and those predictions were wrong. Yet scientists continued to believe in the theories and continued to use them.
Here's the essential problem: if you believe a general law, L, and you believe a particular observation O, and L is not consistent with O, then what is so scientific about dropping L? Why not drop O? Or why not look for something that could be used to make L and O consistent?
Finally, even if falsifiability were the criterion that poorly-informed people think it is, then the theory of evolution wouldn't do all that well. (By "evolution", I mean the theory that all life evolved over time from lifeless molecules. No one seriously disputes the mere existence of natural selection, and bringing that up is a strawman; what is under dispute is whether natural selection can explain all life.)
There is nothing that could directly falsify the theory of evolution. Whenever a difficulty arises in the theory: a failed prediction, or a failure to find evidence, then scientists work diligently to find ways to make this consistent with their theory. There are no reproducible experiments that can support the theory. The theory, in fact, consists of nothing but an interpretation laid over some data, which by itself says nothing. The theory can be neither verified nor falsified. There is, in fact, nothing identifiably "scientific" about the theory of evolution at all. The "science" of evolution is much more like historical research than like science.
Oh. Before I go...
Who made the guy who made my watch?
Lord Pork Pork made a movie (F-9/11), Dawkins has come up with a completely new and useful theory. Actually two: selfish genes and memes. He might be an ass but he deserves credit for that. But I take your point.
That's why I think that it's important for scientists who are religious to come out and stand up for evolution and natural selection. The ID and Creationists paint science as being anti-theistic which the vast majority of scientists are not.
Well, you see Michael, a man and a woman meet each other, and they like each other very much, and eventually the woman gives birth to the guy who made your watch.
You haven't read it, have you? The book has nothing to do with selfishness - it's about genes.
"The Selfish Gene" takes the action of natural selection down to the genetic level instead of the levels of species or individuals. It's just another view of natural selection. It has absolutely nothing to do with discredited concepts as Social Darwinism which you elude to.
I've been wondering why you are so vehement in your arguments against Dawkins. Now I see why.
Why not down to the atomic level? Quarks?
Ordinarily I try to steer well clear of these bootless evolution/creation/ID debates— I mean, I have better ways to waste my time.
A physicist is just an atom's way of looking at itself.
(I believe it was Niels Bohr who said that.)
The existence of a creator is even more improbable, due to the fact that willingly creating all life on our planet would require either omnipotence or magical uber-uber-uber-technology, both of which imply manipulating matter and energy in ways that contradict every observed law of physics.
Inanimate hydrocarbons (we know to exist) consisting of atoms (we know to exist), rubbing against each other for eons in volatile conditions become self-replicating clusters of molecules (we know to exist) which, eons later, happen to grow cell membranes (we know to exist) and eons upon eons upon eons later become us (we know to exist). I wouldn't bet money on those odds, but all the building blocks are there and it doesn't contradict any immutable laws known to us.
So ID wants me to believe that since spontaneous biogenesis is so unlikely, and that evolution is, for some gut rumble feeling, inadequate in explaining the complexity of life, we should look into...
...an intelligence creating it all? Because that sure makes a lot more sense. An omnipotent, ever-lasting (or self-actualized) being, using some sort of method or power impossible to comprehend, for reasons unfathomable to us, created a gazillion species of animal, plant, virus, bacteria, fungi, and whatever Pauly Shore is, and the wonder that is the appendix.
Sorry, sounds like an elaborate version of 'the dog ate my homework' to me.
There must be intelligent design behind the fact that if you rearrange two letters in that sentence, it becomes 'God ate my homework'.
P.S. Dean - ~300 scientist signing some proclamation of their deist/theist daydreaming is a ridiculous appeal to nonexistent authority. Newton dabbled in alchemy - this doesn't mean we should question the Laws of Motion.
When 300 respected, prolific evolutionary biologists suddenly have a change of heart and use the scientific method to demonstrate reasons for the sudden 360, lemme know.
Anything else is an exercise in metaphysical blather, something I personally regard as equal in importance to Buffy The Vampire Slayer fan fiction. Not that there's anything wrong with either.
Have you ignored the entire ID debate here? If someone made the guy who made your watch then we're simply dealing with another level of evolution. ID infers (in my opinion) that the guy who made your watch had no creator. They are the Creator. They are the First Cause. Therefore the creator of your watch is eternal.
Can't help but agree with you here, SMA. That he is so obviously hostile to the idea of a Creator belies his entire arguemnet. Additionally, he:
But he's more than willing to bet eternity on it. I'd say someone's priorities are skewed.
And why is the idea of a omnipotent Creator harder to believe than a chain of random events over countless eons that leads to us? I though faith was unsientific but Sam Muldia certianly has it in spades!
Not the same question, dude. The existence/nonexistence of a Creator does not automatically imply the existence/nonexistence of eternity, let alone the existence/nonexistence of eternal punishment or reward.
Nor that belief/disbelief in the existence/nonexistence of the Creator has anything to do with said punishment/reward.
Pascal's Wager, as interesting as it is, requires a leap of faith even in the asking of the question.
Sam is doing just that when he wouldn't even bet money on a process he believes created him than the existance of a Creator. At least he reconizes that the process he has faith in is so full of gaps that putting money down on its accuracy is unwise.
The evolutionary process has no room for a spiritual eternity. With ID you at least have a 50/50 shot. You don't even get odds like that in Vegas.
Well, there are two competing theories. Neither has been proven. One is more popular than the other among scientists.
Basically, you are not teaching science, because nothing has been proven. You are teaching what scientists intuitively find most likely (Sam Muldia gives a good example of this). If some scientists believe in ID you should be allowed to say "some scientists believe in ID". You should also be allowed to mention only the majority opinion.
Personally, I think that if students were actually made to try to decide which is more likely, they might actually learn something.