A Voice of Sanity on Intelligent Design
Dean
As a non-theist and a believer in Darwin (indeed, I'm a big fan of the entire field of evolutionary psychology), I have never agreed with most of the arguments over the supposed dangers of "Intelligent Design Theory," and I've wondered why I seem so alone in this.
Now along comes Michael Balter. He is a correspondent for Science Magazine, and serves as one of their chief sources on archaeology and human evolution. (For those who don't know, Science is one of the two most prestigious peer-reviewed journals in the world, the other being Nature, put out by our buddy Harvey Bialy's friends). In writing on the "Intelligent Design" controversy, Balter asks a simple question:
"Could it be that the theory of evolution's judicially sanctioned monopoly in the classroom has backfired?"
If I said more I'd be gilding the lilly. Please click here to read Intelligent design and evolution, let's have a debate!
I invite you to leave your comments in response to Balter here, and I will bring them to his attention. However, while I shouldn't have to say this, I will:
If you leave a comment which makes it obvious that you have not clicked the above link and read Balter's (quite short and quite eloquent) piece, I will not only delete your comment, but I will also press the secret button that only certain bloggers are given access to which blasts you with a 1.21 gigawatt thunderbolt right through your monitor screen. You have been warned!
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- The Woodstock of Evolution
- Where it belongs...
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- A Voice of Sanity on Intelligent Design
...oh, we ARGUE, but to be able to set forth falsiable premises? IE..."this is what I believe...in order for me to change my mind, this has to be the case." No.
It started as "respecting others viewpoints" but it ended up making science unquestionable. Which is bad for any information concept.
I say...bring it on.
Natural selection and Evolution has whethered 150 years of attacks and grown stronger with time.
I agree. You want a fight? You've got one .
Bring it on.
"Could it be that the theory of evolution's judicially sanctioned monopoly in the classroom has backfired?"
Not in most of the world, it hasn't. Only in America.
1) As I said above, if the theory is strong then a competing theory such as ID shouldn't pose much of a threat.
2) As Balter points out, "45% said they believed that God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 or so years," despite many of them not being taught creationism in schools. In other words, people are going to believe what they are going to believe sometimes regardless of what they are taught.
3) To the extent that there are holes or shortcomings in evolutionary theory, they should be addressed.
4) I've often heard teachers and college professors complain that students aren't taught critical thinking. While I think some of these complaints might be exaggerated in that I'm not sure many of the complainers know how to teach critical thinking skills, nor possess much of them themselves, I do think an assignment that would require students to critically compare and contrast evolution to another theory, whether it be intelligent design or something else, would provide a more valuable learning experience than simply writing a paper that regurgitates the basic tenets of evolutionary theory.
Second, a dependence on "some intelligent force caused these unexplained things to be this way" encourages intellectual laziness. Why bother trying to explain the unexplained if we presume it was simply ordained by an omnipotent hand?
What if scientists had defaulted to an ID explanation for the many scientific advances over the centuries? Where do we draw the line? When do we abandon scientific research and say the only possible explanation is Intelligent Design?
I don't fear ID; in fact, I embrace it, at least my own version of it. I believe that science is the way it is because God made it that way. I believe that physics and biology and geology and chemistry (and so forth and so on) exist because God made it that way. That is God's intelligent design, in my opinion.
I don't understand why so many of my fellow Christians (and people of other faiths as well) seem to want God to always work in mystical ways. Why do they reject the notion that God set up the scientific "rules" the Universe plays by?
There's really not as large a distinction between philosophy and science as some people believe. "Science" and the "scientific method" are related to the positivist and post-positivist philosophical movements. Postmodernists, for example, don't embrace science the same way that positivists would. To grossly oversimplify, a postmodernist would be skeptical of science because he or she would believe that no person can be truly objective. Some of the more annoying postmodernists believe science to be a "tool of the man" used to keep down the oppressed or at the very least, a tool used to keep the status quo. For example, if science shows that women and men do indeed differ in many psychological and physical abilities and traits, then differences that we already observe in outcomes between men and women in various arenas of life are to be expected. Many, if not most, postmodernist feminists won't accept or embrace that position.
Anyway, the point of all of that rambling was just to point out that the value one places on science is, in itself, a philosophical view.
If that's the case, then this devolves into a circular argument where there's insufficient common ground between the two sides to produce useful results.
I have to ask, though, why we don't label our current science classes as "positivist science" and then also have "post-positivist science" classes?
I suppose I'm just too accepting of the positivist approach. Even as it currently stands, there's enough debate over the positivist "facts" to bring almost any conclusion (or theory) into sufficient question that we can be frozen into "paralysis through analysis." A scientific "philosophy" that depends on mysticism rather than evidence doesn't have much value for me. In other words, I don't see it as science.
daf9 (www):
"Could it be that the theory of evolution's judicially sanctioned monopoly in the classroom has backfired?"
Not in most of the world, it hasn't. Only in America.
I write here: "I could not have said it better myself."
So do you consider statistics to be mysticism? From what I can read, the ID folks rest their case on statistical probabilities, not on theology. I don't buy their statistics; but I also know that I'm not qualified to judge their statistics. I need experts to evaluate the stats and tell me how sound they are. And when all the experts refuse to look at the stats and just label the whole thing as mysticism, well, that's polemic, not debate.
Scientists use statistics all the time to say: "This event is so statistically unlikely that we can dismiss it as impossible, barring evidence that it has actually happened. If it did happen, we have to question our assumptions, and posit new assumptions." Now the ID folks are arguing that certain necessary steps in the evolutionary path leading to the present are so statistically unlikely that we can dismiss them as impossible, save for the fact that we exist. And then they say that we have to question our assumptions, and posit new assumptions. And their new assumption is ID.
Now there are some good opposing arguments I can envision:
1. They misinterpreted the assumptions.
2. They did the statistics wrong.
3. They did the statistics right and identified a real unexplained phenomenon; but there are other, more plausible new assumptions to explain them. Either way, they've actually performed a service to science by identifying a new avenue of research.
But "They're all mystics!" isn't a counter argument. It's just dogma.
On the other hand, Balter argues that natural selection does not fully substantiate evolution, so other possibilities should be explored. I have always found natural selection the bedrock of evolutionary theory. The extent to which any alternative perspective feels obliged to refute natural selection is the measure of its folly.
Balter also alludes to Darwin's refutation of Christian apologist William Paley. I prefer to think that winning a debate was the least of Darwin's intentions--and there's evidence to back me up on this. As a young man studying to become a clergyman, Darwin admired Paley's teleological arguments in Natural Theology. As he grew older, of course, a variety of forces changed Darwin's thinking on God, say nothing of creationism. Darwin's views on God were no small source of anguish...
On balance, I applaud Balter's effort to welcome ID into the debate.
Cheers,
Well, positivists and post-positivists are fairly similar, and are both under assault from postmodernists. I only brought this up because I work in education, and being in the positivist/post-positivist camp myself, I find postmodernism to be much in favor, esp. among university education faculty, while science and the scientific method seems to be falling out of favor.
I find the debate somewhat interesting, in a way, because generally university faculty are left-wing and thus opposed to creationism being taught, and will use the word "scientific" in their defense of evolution. However, many of these same people have little regard for science beyond getting their own preferred policies intacted. I suppose that's a human tendency, though. You use the arguments that appeal to your opponents, not necessarily the ones you buy into yourself.
But that aside, Michael Balter's credibility with me took a nosedive when I read this:
...in particular natural selection, is so well supported by the evidence that it is the consensus scientific view. As such, it deserves a monopoly in school curricula.
Int the words of Michael Crichton: I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.
Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.
There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period.
Then he contradicts himself on concensus later in the article with: Among other things, students would learn that science, when properly done, reaches conclusions via experimentation, evidence and argument, not through majority view.
So even though I tend to agree with Balter, right or wrong, I chalk the whole article up to politics.
And that is my real problem with the intelligent discussion by Balter. Opening debate when the level at which it will be conducted is so shallow can only be highly counterproductive. Better to fix the way science and mathematics are taught from the first grades. Other countries do it much better than the US, and perhaps we can learn something from them.
The most common glaring error (which also makes it easier for uninformed people to believe evolution unequivocally) is a completely opposite view of cause and effect as proposed by Darwin. These people think that stressors in the environment CAUSE beneficial mutations; rather than the more improbable case of a random beneficial mutation being propagated slowly through the rest of the population where it becomes the norm.
I say improbable, not to say I don't believe in evolution, it's just that the real theory takes a heck of a lot more "coin flips" than the common misunderstanding of the theory.
ID requires natural selection to explain most of life's diversity, it is only in a few places where it says that natural selection is not a sufficient explanation and a designer is a more rational choice.
One can argue whether High School is able to provide enough of a foundation in natural selection to understand ID, and if it does not then perhaps discussing IDs merits is a waste of time.
Still, any aspriring biologist who is able to adequately discuss ID has a good foundation in Natural Selection and Evolution.
The present situation has the peculiar symmetry that each side views the other as 'religious'. It is a comment on the very sad state that science education as come to that such a view from an overtly religious person is not without justification.
As a much, much better example of course, I point to my favorite obsession with an issue of scientific religiosity, namely whether HIV is the cause of AIDS.
Personally, I don't think there are enough points of evaluation when looking at fossil records and so forth to draw a statistically valid conclusion. So I suppose I fall into the "they did the statistics wrong" camp, although that doesn't exactly fit, either.
More to the point, it seems to me that the more prominent protagonists of ID are not the thoughtful, intellectually honest folks you describe. It seems very clear to me that the loudest and most influential voices for putting ID into science classrooms most definitely started with a philosophy and a conclusion ("science is the opposite of faith," and "the world came about through acts of God over the course of 168 literal hours (ie, one week)," respectively).
Of course, I can't support my opinion factually, although I doubt anyone could dispute it factually, either. Again, I feel like much of the ID camp, especially the loudest ones, prefer to give up on scientific exploration and rest comfortably in the lap of "God did it."
Oh, and a question for you: I haven't heard about ID being responsible for uncovering new, more likely assumptions or theories. Could you list or point to some? (And I'm not trying to be snarky here; I'm always open to learning something new)
I do believe that Dr. Bialy just called my post "precise". After such a compliment from a man far better skilled at science than myself (and I mean that most sincerely), I think the wise move for me is to retire from the blogosphere for the day, while I've got a high mark on my record. I can only screw it up from here.
It's no surprise to me. Science and religion have always been intertwined, with many proponents of the former being adherents of the latter. Religion hasn't always been the opponent of science, as portrayed by many mythic aspects of the trial of Galileo. Atheistic science is really a 20th Century phenomenon.
When Enstein proposed the General Theory of Relativity, did he suggest that high schools should teach his theory as an alternative to the Newton’s theory of gravity and then let high school students and teachers debate which theory worked better?
Was the great Shapley – Curtis Debate on the scale of the universe and the nature of spiral nebulae held in high school classrooms?
In case you are not familiar with the Shapley – Curtis Debate, it was actually a formal debate held before National Academy of Sciences in 1920. It is considered a classic scientific debate. Both sides believed passionately in their position. As it turned out, there was some truth in both sides of the argument. There were some experiments that had been done wrong and gave bogus results. There were things going on in the universe that no one anticipated. By the 1930 the questions that were debated had been largely settled through experimental observation.
Science is all about free and open discussion of ideas. Scientists propose experiments that can help decide between competing theories and then multiple scientists attempt to perform those experiments.
Balter seems to have fallen for the Discovery Institute’s propaganda that high schools are the correct place to debate ID vs Evolution rather than debating it in scientific books and journals and perhaps in front of scientific societies. The Discovery Institute is part of the conservative war on science.
Yes, scientist are angry about how ID is being promoted, but it is not because they are close mined and do not want to debate the issue (this is Discovery Institute propaganda), it is precisely because ID proponents refuses to debate the issue in scientific forums. They do not publish papers in scientific journals. They do not propose experiments to settle the issue. They mostly churn out press releases and try to completely by pass scientific debate on ID and go directly to classrooms to teach their theory.
I thought I was implying something almost the opposite. Namely science in modern times has come to look more and more like religion.
But your remarks made me recall a fellow graduate student from my Bezerkeley daze of the 60s. He worked in Howard Shachman's laboratory on very sophisticated problems of protein size and shape as measured by analytical ultracentirfugation. He was obviously way smart (way smarter than me), and he was also a very devout orthodox Jew who firmlñy believed the world was exactly as old as whatever the Hebrew calendar said it was. His standard reply to all questions concerning how he could reconcile his scientific studies with his (pardon the expression) completely off the wall (even for Berkeley in the 60s) beliefs about the age of the planet, was to smilingly say that God had made it all for us to wonder and explore.
I always thought he had a point.
Dale
Intuitively compelling, definitive evidence of something other than God-centric intelligent design (i.e. extraterrestrial) would also distinguish those whose support of ID is really support of a particular religious agenda from those who are honestly trying to resolve issues with evolution.
Did you really mean this?
It would also be true if the new line of inquiry addressed big open problems in an existing line of thought as in your case.
This has got to be the most supportive forum at Dean's in which I have ever had the pleasure to participate.
And having been given such rope, I will now proceed as usual to hang myself by announcing here that Dean will soon post a never before seen on the planet tool by which any scientist can for the first time investigate the scientific bases of AIDS causation, on their very own computer, and in a fashion actually preferable to a live debate.
Now if that is not tantalizing, I have nooooo idea (as my dear departed friend Harry Smith was so fond of saying) was might be.
If you were coming to me for venture funding to develop a business based around selling your computer program illustrating AIDS causality, my inclination would be not to fund - not because I don't believe you, but because I don't believe that the people in what Dean described as sounding like the AIDS equivalent of the military industrial complex want to buy what you have to say.
In fact, some debates are enjoyable, 'cuz you can pick a side with which you don't necessarily agree. It makes you work harder.
Science, in my view, has been corrupted by the endless pursuit of research dollars from NIH or royalties from patents for various big pharma drugs that work or don't.
Too many entrenched interests to have a constructive debate.
With evolution, Yes, there should be a debate. But, you got too many egos attached to their respective views, which will be shattered, if proven wrong.
I'm skeptical of ID. It seems more like philosophy of science, than science. But, I have no problem with a full airing out of its propositions and counter-propositions. Maybe, it will best evolution a la Thomas Kuhn. Probably, it won't.
Barnes, Hank
And why would anyone "apply the huge 'dunno' factor"?
Paleontologists do not "apply the huge 'dunno' factor" when they come across evidence of design in their work, such as arrowheads in a heap of mastodon bones. Why should biologists?
If I understood your post correctly, I'd ask the same biology question as you did.
Dale
Moze said, "Balter argues that natural selection does not fully substantiate evolution, so other possibilities should be explored."
Balter made no such argument. What he did was quote a petition that had been signed by 400 scientists expressing THEIR skepticism. Balter is reporting what the other side is saying, NOT sharing his own opinion.
Sandi said, "But that aside, Michael Balter's credibility with me took a nosedive when I read this: ...in particular natural selection, is so well supported by the evidence that it is the consensus scientific view."
No, Balter did not say that at all. Balter said that this was the position taken by scientists who don't want to debate the ID people.
Furthermore, a lot of nations that are poor are rapidly coming up in the world--Mexico certainly comes to mind, and there are others in a similar boat. A lot of those countries are extremely religious. I would not be in the least surprised to see these debates show up in those countries at some point in the future.
Also, I would like to point out that so far as I know, America is the only country where debate in the classroom has been QUASHED BY COURT DECREE. Which I think is very supportive of Balter's point--using the courts to force these discussions out of the curriculum has had a terrible backfire effect.
The point is that by declaring that this debate is off-limits in the classroom--and doing it by court fiat no less, completely bypassing the desires of parents and elected school boards--all that has been accomplished is to make people suspicious of science and scientists and less open to believing what they have to say.
Mike CA wrote:
"The Discovery Institute is part of the conservative war on science."
Very interesting.
Positivists vs. post-positivists? I oppose both. I'm a pre-positivist, an ante-positivist, an anti-positivist. I oppose the progressivist philosophy of Auguste Comte, founder of "positivism", "sociology", and "altruism". The West's Akhenaton? Both positivists and post-positivists ("post-modernists" -- negativists? as in "nattering nabobs of"?) are atheistic (or anti-theistic) collectivists. I oppose both.
1) Should ID have its status elevated by being included in the science curriculum, currently being debated as a result of recent events surrounding the Dover, PA, school system?
2) Even if you disagree with the proposed curriculum, is it not even more harmful to have a court decree, over the will of the Dover school board, that ID is not science and should be banned from science classes?
The first question appears to be what we've been debating here while Dean slept the day away. Dean returns to remind us that the second question is the one he actually proposed.
I believe that if the folks in Dover think that the school board's actions were wrong, they should express that opinion in the next school board election. I believe that the most likely result of any addition of ID to the science curriculum is that the students will have something different to get bored over. I doubt that many teens will be wooed away from "scientific realism" (or whatever you want to call it) into the waiting arms of any ID fantasy.
It equates a balance if you will between evolution and ID. See website scale on link. It also presupposes objectivity in scientific method as though we humans are actually unbiased objective spectators in the worldly realm. Thirdly, it was invented under the egis of christian thought and presented as a
politicalan equality issue to teach in public schools. The criteria is largely political and philosophical.Evolution on the other hand attempts to explain that which was not sought out but the observed in natural phenomena. That it is presented as scientific dogma in my view is unacceptable as well, but it does have an established database.
Schools in my view should teach that honest differing viewpoints are worthy of discussion just do not make it a politically correct issue. There is more than enough polarization without introducing more.
Dean, can you hold off the smiting until tomorrow morning? I'm going to be editing until midnight if not past, and I shouldn't be here at all.
They do not publish papers in scientific journals. They do not propose experiments to settle the issue.
These are not exactly valid criticisms. In the first place, you don't just get to publish in scientific journals. You have to get past the editor. And one of the perennial complaints of IDers is that their articles don't get published.
Look at the expierience of Richard Sternberg. An evolutionary biologist and editor of "Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington", he chose to include an ID article with which he disagreed because he thought it had some interesting points. He's since been accused of everything from taking money under the table to being a "crypto-priest."
(From the Washington Post: http://makeashorterlink.com/index.php)
Second, evolutionary theory isn't experimental science. You don't get to do experiments to prove it, you have to wait for it to happen or argue for it from the evidence. After all, evolutionists aren't proposing experiments to settle it once and for all, either.
Hank Barns wrote:
I'm skeptical of ID. It seems more like philosophy of science, than science.
It is a philosophy of science. So is naturalism, which influences much of the evolutionists' debates. But we've been told for years that "naturalism" and "science" are synonymous. They aren't.
Science says "we can't measure the supernatural because we don't have tools that will do so." Naturalism says "we can't measure it because it doesn't exist."
The problem I have with many IDers is that science is supposed to be inductive. The premises of your argument support your conclusion, but do not prove it. You gather the facts and data and make a conclusion - one that may be falsified with later research.
But many IDers seem to be functioning deductively without admitting it. God made the universe, they say, so anything we can't explain is proof of that. But that's not science, that's a philosophy informing the interpretation of the data.
But I do note that Boyd is correct in saying that what Balter points to is the one that is so frequently overlooked: is it healthy to any purpose at all to declare that this discussion is unacceptable (and, I would add, to run to the courts to ban it by fiat)?
"...my preliminary notion is that ID is faulty as currently presented. It equates a balance if you will between evolution and ID.
Following which I said,
"Schools in my view should teach that honest differing viewpoints are worthy of discussion just do not make it a politically correct issue.
So I guess I'll just chime in with the view that, while I happen to find Intelligent Design persuasive, I don't think it is science and as such, cannot really be properly taught in a science classroom.
That said, the way that evolution is taught these days isn't science either. It is a series of "facts" that the students are told to accept on faith. I remember in my High School Biology class, my teacher's response to the debate was essentially: "Just sit down and write the answer that the book tells you to write."
"Science says "we can't measure the supernatural because we don't have tools that will do so." Naturalism says "we can't measure it because it doesn't exist.""
Exactly. And if evolutionists would keep that distinction clear, I, for one, would be more receptive to their theory.
Steven Hawking and others deal only with the measureable universe. For such scientists and others, if it cannot be measured, it cannot and does not exist.
But Acquinas tells us :
"...eternity becomes known from two characteristics: first, from the fact that whatever is in eternity is interminable, that is, lacking beginning and end, taking terminus as applicable to both; second, from the fact that eternity itself lacks successiveness, existing entirely at once." Thomas Acquinas
That may be a bit much for Monday night football and all.
Profoundly true. Science can measure only what is temporal, and also only what is repeatable (e.g., it cannot measure the Battle of Waterloo -- which falls into the realm of history not science). Science is not the be-all and end-all of truth.
I not only read Michael Balter's posted article, but I have have a strong interest in archeology, in which my wife, Stefanija Prasnjak Harris, earned both bachelors and masters degrees and included studies at the prestigious Institute of Archaeology of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
The two of us have frequently and sometimes heatedly discussed the timing and ultimate fate of the Neandertal populations, in much the same spirit as has Michael Balter.
All of us are playthings -- and perhaps prisoners -- of the particular weltanschauung that we sometimes wear as ornaments around our throats but which occasionally poison us against furtherance of our self educational processes. I freely admit, as a non-believer, that such a philosophy predirects me in a specific orientation in regard to questions of evolution vs intelligent design.
But as a quasi-objectivist who has worshipped at the shrine of the mind of Ayn Rand for many decades, I must freely admit that an argument could be made on behalf of the validity of both evolution and intelligent design. After all, just because I do not necessarily give a damn about the existence of any god, gods, goddesses or that ilk, I certainly cannot make the statement that their existence, in past, present or future, automatically is precluded from consideration as the instrumentation of biological evolution.
Which brings me back to SMA's argument, spelled out elegantly in so few words above.
If evolution is in fact a result of the exercize of scientific method. But if evolutionary theory cannot bear comparison to intelligent design, then it would not be a very substantial basis for science.
And if intelligent design cannot survive examination from the standpoint of what we know about evolution and its relationships to physics, chemistry and biology, than it would not be a very substantial basis for religious belief.
SMA, you are slowly bringing me around to acknowledgement, if probably not belief, that the the basis of human life, where their exists intelligence sufficient to allow it to do so, is pursuit of the perfection of beauty.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Excellent. Up With Beauty!
OK, so open it up to debate. While I have little use for ID as promulgated by the Discovery Institute, I'm not fond of shutting ID out by claiming evolution is the way things are and no more thought is needed. But let the debate be moderated (Dean, are you available?), preferably not by sixteen-year-old students just having both views dumped in their laps. And biology-oriented (I suppose paleoligists might qualify) scientists on both teams, please: I have heard (years ago) that there are some molecular bioligists who believe in ID or Creationism. Bring 'em out! Not physicists, engineers, English teachers...
- - -
Such things probably should not be legislated, but there is precedent. In the 19th Century CE, a con man persuaded the Ohio legislature to pass a law that [i]pi[/i] was exactly three, and buy the books he had printed with that information.
Anyway, ID is, as someone said, boring. If you don't know how something happened, emulate the old cartoon by proclaiming "here a miracle occurs" and move on.
Evolutionists like their re-defining terms. Breeding dogs, and moths changing color is proof, proof I tell ya'.
See, what practically everyone means when they say Evolution is Chemical Soup to Bacteria to Fish to Monkey to Man. I suspect thats what Evolutionists mean, except when they realize someone slightly smarter than the average bear is catching them at their shell game. Then they start re-defining terms.
No pre-biotic leap, and breeding dogs is proof of evolution. Uh hunh.
However, I look forward to an open ID-Evolutionist debate, and I salute the writer of the article as a man with the courage of his convictions.
*Theists are a throwback or detour in the evolutionary line of progress.
Michelle, "The pre-biotic to biotic leap" is not part of evolutionary theory, and I don't think ID concerns itself with that either. The disagreement is about how life went from that first leap to what we have now.
You mean to say that evolutionists paste a big gray question mark over how there ever came to be self-replicating molecules? We just take those as given, never mind where they came from? I thought the big gray question mark was the thing the ID folks were ridiculed for using. How is "we have no idea how self-replicating molecules came into existence" substantially different from "we have no idea how blood-clot formation came into existence"?
I don't know much about ID, but Behe's Darwin's Black Box, IIRC, devotes a whole chapter to the origin-of-life problem and the attempts to solve it (the "sludge-struck-by-lightning" experiments of my high school textbook figure in there). I would not say that IDers are un-"concerned" with the subject. What puzzles me is that people who explicitly link Darwinian evolution to atheism — Dawkins, Dennett, et al. — aren't more concerned with it. You can ask natural selection to do anything you want, and make a case for it; but you can't ask natural selection to do a damn thing if there isn't some self-replicating system for it to operate on.
How do we get to that step? Is there any mechanistic explanation that doesn't look silly? (The going ones are silly enough, in fact, that Crick (Crick!) was driven to propose, more or less, DNA insemination from outer space.) I haven't seen one, anyway, and if anyone else has, I should like very much to see it.
I say this as a Darwinian who more or less accepts that that gap was bridged somehow . . . on faith. But it's a helluva gap, is it not?
Someplace out there must be or have been a life form one molecule up from non-life. That means that someplace out there must be or have been some compound one molecule short of life.
Noplace.
The non-life to life jump is not the same as evolution. It's entirely a different issue and causes distraction.
Years ago, Buckley hosted a debate between conventional evolutionists on one side and scientific creationists on the other. Two things struck me. The scientific creationists could have taught a course on evolution if they'd felt like it. And the evolutionist side of the table included the then head of the ACLU and the head of the Americans United for The Separation of Church and State.
As life scientists, both of them are pretty good golfers.
This was solely a scientific debate.
The presence of the ACLU and Americans United on one side shows that there is more to this than mere science.
Some have said it's a proxy for the culture wars. I can buy that.
1) The "bring it on" attitude seems like a rhetorical trick which means "The fact that I am unafraid of debate demonstrates how strong my position is". I mean, there has been plenty of debate on this issue in the past few decades, even if none of it was in science classes.
2) The classroom issue is a constitutional issue. You have to start with a legal argument as to what is permissible in science class. Only then can you intelligently discuss whether ID qualifies as permissible. It shouldn't be legal or illegal to teach ID just because this is good or bad for science.
3) I think Balter, like many others, greatly overestimates the effect of classes on high school students.
BTW, does anyone know if it would be legal for a county to teach that the Earth is flat? (assuming this isn't considered a religious view)