From the Mailbag: Skeptical Questions
Dean
Dean's world reader Mark writes:
Hey Dean-You've already posed some questions for skeptics wrt intelligent design, so how about some for the ID proponents?
If you decide to do a post like that, I was wondering if you might touch on one thorny subject. IDers are postulating a designer, and from what I gather the more philosophical-minded of them imagine this designer to be one that sets up the laws of the universe which then became increasingly complex, etc., until life came about.
Well, OK as far as that goes, but that's exactly what philosophers themselves do, meaning that these IDers are creating a God in their own image rather than the other way 'round.
That's creating an Idol to worship, isn't it?
-Mark
That's a fine question. I'll add another skeptical question for the Intelligent Design advocates: a key hallmark to a genuine scientific theory is that you make specific, falsifiable predictions. Real science doesn't require lab work per se, but making predictions is key. So what are the specific predictions that ID would teach us that we can test?
I'll note that I asked this in a comment on William Dembske's blog, and rather than being answered it was deleted. Possibly this was for being off-topic, I don't know.
ID proponents are at their strongest when they note the rather substantial areas not covered by evolutionary theory, the very biggest one of all being that we haven't got any more than vague ideas of how life made the leap from prebiotic to so much as the most primitive of single-celled organisms. But where they seem weak is that the ID proponents make very few predictions. At least, I've only seen one or two. So what are the big predictions ID makes?
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That they'll not be taken seriously by people more afraid of the idea of a creator than, say, terrorism. This position is falsifiable to boot. Someone needs only to actually listen for once.
I wouldn't deny the possibility that one day we could have a falsiable hypothesis ... that is, we make the primordial goop ourselves, expose it to sunlight, age it 5 billion years, and then have life. Which would prove nothing, now that I think about it ...
He deleted it. No explanation. I am left to assume that the implications of such a question for some of his supporters would lose him devotees to his theory.
What I wonder about ID (truly) is why those who are very religious aren't against it. Doesn't it undermine faith?
That is, if the primary ID assertion is that life, or certain aspects of life, are too complex and orderly to have developed through the random acts of the universe, then all one has to do to falsify the assertion is show that this development is actually probable and possible, or, better yet, document it happening.
So, I would argue that ID is a scientific theory. But it's also a philosophical viewpoint. And it's easy to mix the two together and not realize it - speaking as someone who's done just that.
"So that would mean that the Universe and everything in it was designed by an alien from another Universe? If it was from another planet, it would be an alien. If it was from outside our galaxy, it would be a super-alien. And if it was from outside the universe, it would be a super-duper-alien. Sweeeeet!"
He then went on to postulate what this creature would look like, etc. until "Vertigo" came on the radio...
Dembske also claims to be working on a mathematical theory that can tell the difference between random events and events caused by intelligence, and to have published some peer-reviewed materials to that end, which at least sounds interesting.
I can imagine some other predictions, but I'd rather hear it from them.
If you agree to this, you're explicitly committing yourself to a supernatural origin for life.
This is a very good question.
Now some of the evidence for Evolution can be read two ways. Is the fact that we have similiar DNA proof of Evolution, or is it simply that a Designer used the same techniques for similiar problems?
Like with my roof, and the sides of my house? Both have overlapping thin, waterproof substances. Its surprising when you look around you how few techniques there really are, most get used over and over again in very creative ways, but fundamentally the same thing.
Unfortunately, I don't see the existence of junk DNA as proof of Evolution. I'd consider it proof of genetic decay, of mutation downward.
Ultimately what happens in Scientific Theories is that Theory One keeps getting accepted even as it accumulates faults and anomalies,and the proponents of Theory One keep issuing promissory notes from an endless bucket, and patching up the increasingly dilapidated theory, until some bright guy comes along and proposes Theory Two which explains more, and has less anomalies.
...And then all the proponents of Theory One send him Christmas cards, and lavish love on this bright young scientist who advanced the cause of Science...
Back in the real world...the proponents of Theory One fight like crazy to trash the rebels, and sometimes only quit because they die of old age.
Naked ambition mated with a high holy justification can be an ugly thing. But its better than sending the old King's relatives to the chopping block, so I'll count it as an improvement.
So let me ask you a counter-question: does your refusal to believe in even the possibility of an artificial cause for life on Earth, or any ability to test for an artificial cause of life on Earth, suggest that you believe in spontaneous generation?
Likewise, some ID proponents suggest that the viruses and bacteria that cause disease did in fact once have a useful role in Nature. For example, we need E. coli bacteria to digest our food, but somehow some got out of whack and now they can make us ill. An ID proponent would theorize that if we could trace a bacteria or virus's origin far back enough, we would eventually find that it once did something beneficial.
IDers tend to be "entropic" in their understanding of the changes that are undergoing Nature--that is, they think things are slowly breaking down, not slowly getting better. Thus an IDer would propose that over time we would not see humans evolving into higher beings, but instead that our DNA would become more corrupted, our bodies would function worse and worse, and so on. It may be hard to separate evolution from technological advance--if human beings are getting smarter and living longer, is that due to evolution or better living? But if in, say, 1000 years' time we've measured a perceptible change either way in biological systems, we'll have our answer.
You said, "that no natural explanation can or ever will be found for the leap from prebiotic soup to an organism, because it simply doesn't happen naturally".
If it "simply doesn't happen naturally", what's left?
If you change the statement by adding "under any condidions known to have existed on Earth", you've converted your statement into a different one. Are you altering it that way by adding 'on Earth' to your reply? It's certainly possible life did not begin on Earth, that's not an appeal to the supernatural at all. Anyone who commits to a prediction that it simply can't arise naturally under any circumstances is committing to a supernatural explanation (unless there's natural, supernatural, and some third category I'm not aware of).
I believe abiogenesis is plausible, although I'd never argue that it's proven. Spontaneous generation usually refers to the belief that complex life forms such as maggots can spontaneously arise from non-living matter, so no, I don't believe that.
Who knows how God made the world? I do think it's interesting to study it. But God clearly made the world in a way that we are required to have faith ... and that means we're never gonna find a signature in the universe that says, "Made by God, In the Beginning."
There is a tendency here to make jokes about people who say "it could be aliens," but honestly it's not out of the question. I can spin out conjectures all day, but here's one line of conjecture:
Conditions elsewhere in our own existing universe are or were at one time more hospitible toward the spontaneous formation of life than here. Possibly creatures arising there seeded life elsewhere, tailoring some of their work. (See, for example, Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Oddyssey)
Another: turns out there's multiple universes. Turns out it's possible to move between them. In some universes conditions favoring life are better than here. Someone from that alternate universe acted to create life in this one, for purposes of their own (maybe even just as an experiment).
Occam's razor would tend to militate against these, because they require increasingly complicating questions. On the other hand, until we have strong proof of abiotic genesis of life--and we don't--I'm not sure which set of assumptions is the bigger set of complications.
Maybe the problem is our division of things into math, ["hard," which is the comparably easier kind] science, English, and social studies. Social studies can blur into science and English fairly easily, math and science differ only in the inclusion of philosophy, etc. Funny how you get a Doctor of Philosophy degree when you study quantum physics or evolutionary biology, isn't it?
I'm starting to think the Greeks had it right.
The point of science is that you formulate a falsifiable hypothesis, and make a falsifiable prediction.
Despite the rap they get, the social sciences are science in many cases, and yes by the way they involve math (Public opinion polling, anyone? Demography? Census tabulations and reports?).
I was amused just now to pop into Dembske's blog and notice this software package he points to which looks for evidence of plagiarism by students. He's being amusing, but I thought it was a good point: yes, you can test for artifice.
Actually many religious groups are against it. Though not because it denies faith, but because it disputes the literal account of Biblical Creation. No six 24 hour day creation, no "Young Earth" position, no designation of the Designer as the Christian\Jewish God.
That's why it surprises me that so many say ID is stealth creationism. The two groups are opposed to each other.
BK
I'm cool with all of those hypotheses. I don't think we have any way of distinguishing between them at this point, or unless we can convincingly demonstrate abiogenesis under condition similar to what we assume to have obtained on the Earth during the appropriate eras, but that's okay.
However, saying that third category along with 'naturally' and 'supernaturally' is 'artificially' is missing my point, which perhaps I'm not stating clearly enough. In all of your scenarios, at some point life must have come into being where there was no life. All subsequent life might have been an artificial creation of that first life, and we might be the result of that, but the initial life form had to come from somewhere and that just puts us back to the intial question, which is whether life simply doesn't ever arise from non-life naturally. Sure, it could be aliens. Where did they come from? What are the turtles standing on?
You might as well ask Plato where computers came from. Just because you currently lack the knowledge and tools to answer the question doesn't mean it is unanswerable.
BK
I will cop to not being clear when I said "life" that I did implicitely assume it meant "life as we know it here on Earth."
Still, one does get to an ultimate question no matter what your view of theology: the universe exists, and its rules clearly allow for the existence of life. The "it's turtles all the way down" joke is great, but even atheists have to admit we have no idea how existence came into, well, existence. Back around the turn of the last century, when the big bang was proposed some scientists objected strenuously to it because they thought it a stealth form of creationism; a steady-state model of the universe, infinite backwards in time and forwards in time, was the preferred scientific view.
We accept the big bang theory now, and one of its postulates--at least according to Stephen Hawking in A Brief History of Time--is that it is scientifically impossible to know what happened before that bang, or even really what exactly caused it. Sounds like turtles all the way down to me.
The big questions of existence are not easy, whether you ask them in a scientific or a spiritual way.
I would also like to ask ID proponents why the fossil record isn't more randomized, such as human remains co-mingled with dinosaur remains, co-mingled with fossilized eukaryotic cells (if possible) in, say, Pre-Cambrian era.
It seems to me that if evolution is a phantom construct, you would not be merely missing transitional species, you would have a completely imcomprehensible fossil record with near randomness -- species, individuals -- all over the map in time and space. I don't think we do.
Barnes, Hank
p.s. However, as philosophy of science, I don't have a problem with ID.
True. I'm resigned to the fact that we may never know how the universe came into being, and I honestly think "kicked off by God" is as good a theory as any other since what happened before the BB is literally unknowable. It's not a very interesting view of God in my opinion, but it's not irrational.
I have no objection to the concept of an artificial origin for life on Earth, since I don't think we know enough one way or another to rule anything out. However, once it's restated that way, how is this conjecture relevant to ID vs. evolution? Both evolution and ID are equally compatible with an extraterrestrial origin for Earthly life. ID makes claims not just about initial origins, but about 'irreducibly complex' processes and systems which only occur in complex life forms. According to ID's proponents, the aliens didn't just drop off their crude microorganisms and go on their way, they stayed around and intervened at intervals, inserting flagella and blood clotting cascades and giraffe necks and fish fins and so on. How do we create a prediction out of that and test it?
I am reminded when reading their stuff, once again, of Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Oddyssey. Note that I mention the book, not the movie, only because many people find the movie incomprehensible but the book is as clear as a bell what it's about: a race of superadvanced beings visited Earth at certain intervals measured in the hundreds of millions of years, periodically pushing the evolution of species on Earth to build toward sentience. They'd show up, give a push, and leave again. That's what the monoliths were, devices that would appear and work their wonders and then disappear.
That concept dovetailed into Clarke's famed axiom that any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic--for example, try to explain a nuclear power generator and a computer to someone who's never experienced electricity. There is a similar example in the cargo cult religion, primitive pacific islanders who thought of airplanes and the people who rode in them as spiritual beings, building altars to them (this is real, by the way--see Wikipedia on cargo cult).
So could you have beings with technology orders of magnitude more advanced than ours, with intellects that would be the equivalent of IQs in the 100,000 range as opposed to the 90-110 average of humans? Could they have at one time influenced things, doing things that to our primitive minds seem like magic? I can't deny the possibility.
So then the next question becomes: if it were true, could we possibly find any proof of this simply by examining their handiwork? Or would that be impossible and therefore unscientific?
Which materials are we talking about here? This is not an accurate characterization of _Of Pandas and People_ which is, after all, what the whole argument is about.
It's not an "either/or" proposition. Evolution and Intelligent Design are not mutually exhaustive hypotheses. It seems to me that both are compatible. More importantly, both are incomplete. We know evolution is incomplete, 'cuz it ignores its own central tenet -- ie, the "origin" of species. That's why Crick postulated "panspermia".
On the other hand, evolution, in my view, does offer a lotta good scientifically sound points, so I wouldn't throw it out wholesale (unless, of course, it is demonstrated to be false).
Notwithstanding, ID is exponentially more incomplete than evolution. It attempts to addresss origins by inductive reasoning (which is allright in my book), yet it has virtually nil to say about anything else.
Barnes, H
I would like to ask Electrical Engineers to explain circuits: why all electronics have it? Why do certain similar electronics have similar circuits, why defects in circuits cause death to the component (shorts), why complex circuits tends to reflect complex components?
I would also like to ask ID proponents why the fossil record isn't more randomized, such as human remains co-mingled with dinosaur remains, co-mingled with fossilized eukaryotic cells (if possible) in, say, Pre-Cambrian era.
I would also like to ask EEs why the "fossil record" of electronics isn't more randomized, such as CPU remains co-mingled with circuit boards, co-mingled with obsolete vacuum tubes in, say, the ENIAC era.
BK
From what I have read so far, OPAP does not deny the fossil record (misrepresent yes, deny no) but it does explain portions of it by ID rather than evolution. It is definitely not limited to the molecular biology/cellular level. Go take a look at Behe's testimony for evidence of this, he's challenged on it on cross-examination and seems really uncomfortable himself with some of the claims being made in OPAP.
Crick did not propose panspermia to answer the question of the origin of species he accepted evolution as the explanation for species. He proposed panspermia to explain the origin of life.
The theory of evolution does not address the issue of the origin of life.
Dean,
"...could you have beings with technology orders of magnitude more advanced than ours, with intellects..."
Sure but such speculation is more appropriate for science fiction than 9th grade science class.
Crick did not propose panspermia to answer the question of the origin of species he accepted evolution as the explanation for species. He proposed panspermia to explain the origin of life.
Meaningless hairsplitting. Reflects poorly on the evolution crowd, inches me towards giving ID folks a break
The theory of evolution does not address the issue of the origin of life.
Right. It dodges the central question. That is why it is an utterly incomplete hypothesis, and why it has invited challenges from creationist crowd and the ID crowd (which I believe are closely related, but, ultimately, separate crowds.)
Is your name really John Doe?:)
Barnes, Hank
You may think so, but clearly this is an issue that something close to half of Americans want discussed in the classroom. Saying "no, you may not do this" strikes me as wildly counterproductive.
What the ID people mostly want to get away from apparently is scientific naturalism, and they are willing to bend over backwards to discuss in the broadest possible terms that something higher than man has had a hand in evolution. They want to do it, they've been frustrated at being denied the ability to do it, and so they've wound up creating this network of alternate schools, think tanks, publications, and so on just to do it, mostly because they feel they've wrongly been trod upon by academia and the courts. This is why all the fulminating claims that "polls don't dictate science" miss the point entirely: if a huge segment of the population believes that scientists and science teachers are not telling the full truth and are forbidding discussions that to them seem like just plain common sense, it creates a mutual environment of hostility and mistrust. We need to get over this. To be blunt ID strikes me as probably the best attempt to bridge that gap I've ever seen, and the most harmless one. I don't buy the "slippery slope" logic that if this is allowed soon we'll have astrologers and witchcraft and phrenology in the classroom--although on principle I'd say that if a local schoolboard wants classes in witchcraft it's their own business, but in truth I simply don't buy the "slippery slope" logic that that's the logical consequence. Indeed, if there's any slippery slope here, it appears to me toward a greater and greater intolerance to anyone who questions the established dogma. Jesus, let them in, let them have their say, acknowledge it when they have a good point and otherwise let it go damn it.
To argue at all about, or even understand ID you have to know evolution very well. This is both an argument for and against teaching it in Public Schools. The for side is that it won't cause direct harm or produce students who don't know about evolution. The against is that it may require too much knowledge of evolution to discuss rationally, and thus is a waste of time. We don't teach Quantum Physics in high school, because the students haven't aquired the background to understand it.
Of course, a High School physics class that taught that Newtonian physics was all the physics there was, rather than that their is more to the whole thing but Newtonian physics is a fine aproximation for almost all circumstances and all we are going to go into would be a pretty bad science class in my opinion.
Meaningless hair splitting?
No not exactly. There's a tremendous difference. The theory of evolution does not dodge the question. It is the answer to a different, but related obviously, question. Expecting Darwin to also explain how life originated, while explaning how living species arose and why they are so similar to one another and the progression of forms through the fossil record is a little much to ask of a guy who didn't even know what DNA was.
The origins of life are researched seriously but there is far less evidence to work with than say the fossil record, or the existing species on the planet earth, so progress is a little slower. Neverltheless, there are some simulations that indicate that biological molecules could have arisen and once present might have undergone the same type of mutation and selection that living organisms have undergone. It's an active field of research but I don't know if we'll ever be absolutely certain how life arose.
Saying that the theory of evolution is incomplete because it doesn't say where or how the first living thing came to be is a little like saying Einstein's theory of relativity is incomplete because he didn't explain how spacetime arose.
No, John Doe is not my real name. When I registered it said that "real" names were preferrable to silly internet pseudonyms, which I usually use, and suggested names like John Doe were preferrable. So I used John Doe just so everyone would know it was pseudonymous.
Some science classes ARE sci-fi.
I disagree with the way that you are characterizing the discussion in science classrooms. Who has said “No. You may not discuss this?” That is certainly not the case in the Dover lawsuit. (I’ve mentioned this in the other two recent threads on ID here. I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to see my comments there. If you have, and declined to respond because of their tone I apologize but the two day wait for an opportunity to say what I wanted to say after I registered left me somewhat pent-up and things came out all of a sudden. I don’t mean to be harsh or rude but this is a subject of considerable importance to me as a scientist.)
I rather think that half the population does not want to discuss the possibility that space aliens did it. They want to discuss the possibility that the God of the Christian Bible did it. If it was just discussing space aliens I would say “Great have at it!” It would be a great way to get 9th graders, especially boys, involved in the discussion and thinking about the possibilities. When the God possibility comes up that leaves science and the theory of evolution as being in conflict with people’s deeply held religious beliefs such as the Genesis account of The Bible. That could be somewhat problematic for the science teacher or for any students advocating evolution or space aliens. That’s OK with me but I really don’t want religious students to feel that their religious beliefs are under attack or that science claims to have proven their religious beliefs, The Bible, etc wrong. So it’s a thorny subject but I believe that science teachers are allowed to discuss it. If you think they are not, please provide me with a link or some kind of documentation. The thing about ID is that people are making it mandatory to mention it as a part of the curriculum and it does not have sufficient standing as science to warrant such consideration. Also it is arguable just religious belief masquerading as science. Now such a masquerade is fine to discuss if students ask science teachers: “What about this?” but it is not fine for the public schools to make such a religious masquerade part of the mandatory science curriculum.
“What the ID people mostly want to get away from apparently is scientific naturalism,...”
Aliens, to my knowledge, are natural. =:)
I disagree with your assessment that the slippery slope argument is not valid, and I disagree with your suggestions of where the slope leads. The obvious destination we are headed towards once we start sliding is: “Well, who is the intelligent designer?” This question will be asked in the very first class that discusses Intelligent Design, and I would argue is the entire reason the concept has been formulated in the first place. If the discussion comes from the students I don’t have a problem with that, but putting in place a curriculum that includes the mention of an idea with absolutely no scientific merit, no evidence, no established body of research solely to provoke the question “What about God?” is not something that should be made a mandatory part of the public school science curriculum.
The other place a policy of allowing fringe ideas and “theories” a place in science curriculum leads to is not astrology etc., like Intelligent Design a good science teacher can explain why astrology is a bad “theory”, but what about history class? If we cannot exclude a discredited theory that still has vocal proponents from being included in science curricula then how are we able to exclude say Holocaust denial from World History class? Just because the "theory" has been rejected by experts in the field, and their is no evidence to support it is no longer sufficient to exclude things from a curriculum because of the precedent set by ID. If some town in Podunk, wherever becomes enamored of the idea that Hitler did not exterminate six million Jews and decides to introduce the topic in history class with the purchase of sixty supplemental books describing the Holocaust as a hoax, as an alternative view of WWII would you support that too?
As such, it is incompatible with "young-earth" creationism and "literal-truth" readings of the Bible, but it is not incompatible with either mature understanings of Christianity nor with evolutionary science. It is a philosophy of science, even if some of its proponents are making grander claims than that. As a philosophy of science, it is as valid as the purely atheist philosophy of science.
If it offers falsifiable claims, then it is a scientific hypothesis, and is valid so long as those claims are not falsified.
Don't let the
Intelligent Design advocatesI mean Religious Right hear about that one. They'll be there with bells on protesting the new eugenics movement in public high schools.Better, but still amiss.
Expecting Darwin to also explain how life originated, while explaning how living species arose and why they are so similar to one another and the progression of forms through the fossil record is a little much to ask of a guy who didn't even know what DNA was.
Nice try. Not expecting "Darwin" to do this — expecting Darwin's followers to do this. Richard Dawkins — arguably the leading Darwinist — declaimed that Darwin made it possible to be "an intellectually fulfilled atheist".
This strongly suggests that Dawkins believes that Darwin's hypothesis of evolution explains origins -- without a reference to God.
The origins of life are researched seriously but there is far less evidence to work with than say the fossil record, or the existing species on the planet earth, so progress is a little slower.
Right. That's why intelligent design has kinda, sorta attempted to fill this vacuum.
Neverltheless, there are some simulations that indicate that biological molecules could have arisen..
"could have arisen?" That sounds suspiciously like the analog of Behe's assertion that flagella "could not have arisen"...
.. and once present might have undergone the same type of mutation and selection that living organisms have undergone.
"might have?" See above.
It's an active field of research but I don't know if we'll ever be absolutely certain how life arose.
Goalpost movin'. Nobody's looking for absolute certainty. People are looking for most likely explanations — based on scientific hypothesis and observation.
We already agree that Creationist explanations of origins are well and dandy — but not scientific. You and I are kindred souls on that, no doubt.
But, I have seen some strange "deification" of old Charlie by a lotta scientists who ought to know better.
Myself, I have no blinders a priori — I just follow the evidence and test the hypotheses.
(But that's also why I have so few answers:))
Barnes, Hank
"1) If the world exhibits a most wonderful and constant order, it has a most wonderful and intelligent designer; nay, its designer must, in the last analysis, be the infinite First Cause or God;
Now, the world exhibits a most wonderful and constant order;
Therefore, the world has a most wonderful and intelligent designer; nay, its designer must, in the last analysis, be the infinite First Cause or God. Hence God exists.
2) The execution of a design of such marvelous complexity and perfection as the design of the world demands, in the last analysis, the exercise of infinite power;
Now the exercise of infinite power is the exercise of the power of God;
Therefore, the execution of the design of the world demands the exercise of the power of God. Hence, God exists."
There are 17 pages covering this argument that was used to teach Catholics how to justify their faith. It was among a number of other arguments but it rings so similar to ID that I had to bring it up.
Yes. I feel the same way. Didn't Thomas Aquinas do this same argument in 9 different ways about a thousand years ago?
I went to Catholic grammar school, Catholic high school, and Catholic university. I had numerous classes in religion, comparative religion, philosphy, logic, and anything remotely bearing on religion for Catholics. I used tear the nuns in grammar school and high school to shreds because I was a pain in the ass. They were not capable; they were nice people who devoted their life to God and to doing good; they simply shunted me forward to the priests in high school and college. Some of those priests were very, very sharp.
They have listened to 2000 years worth of arguments against. They have heard it all, and they have answers for everything. Try to catch them in a bright sophomoric trap of your own (original!) devising, and you will soon be writhing like an insect caught on a probe against a black wax pan.
ID proponents are pikers in comparison to those guys.
John
I have thought long and hard about the objections to allowing the teaching of Intelligent Design as a scientific theory, and I have come up with some theories of my own.
1) Intelligent Design Theory is NOT supported by Biblical interpretation.
2) Therefore, Intelligent Design is not a backdoor version of creationism as we understand creation from Biblical literalism.
3) The scientific methods used in Intelligent Design have proven to be valid when testing for human intelligent design, e.g. detecting fraud. So there is some scientific basis for Intelligent Design Theory - even if it is ultimately proved wrong.
4) But Intelligent Design Theory, while not supporting any particular religious version of creation, does postulate that it is possible to scientifically detect the existence of a creator.
5) The real issue for objectors is that Intelligent Design Theory allows for the possibility of God.
6) Since some scientists have assumed that they have eliminated the possibility of God - indeed since some of them gravitated toward evolution precisely because they had a philosophical need to deny the existence of God - any so-called scientific theory that reopens the question of the existence of God is anethema to them.
7) The evidence for this is that the groups so vigorously protesting the inclusion of Intelligent Design in the classroom are the very same groups who object to any reference to God in our public discourse at all.
In Conclusion: The real issue is not whether Intelligent Design Theory supports any particular religious dogma - it self-evidently does not. The real issue is that it allows for the POSSIBILITY of God. For those who are psychologically and emotionally invested in the notion that there is no God, this MUST NOT be allowed. I suspect that if Intelligent Design Theorists could actually prove that life was planted on earth my some more highly evolved, but not supernatural entity, these objections would fall away.
So the real issue is the so-called scientific viewpoint that there is no God. These people want their religious viewpoint to dominate the conversation and will brook no opposing point of view. The real issue at stake is not the religious convictions of the proponents of Intelligent Design Theory. The real issue is the religious belief of the atheists who have gained control of the scientific discussion in America. They don't want to relinquish that control.
You are 100% right. That is exactly what I've been thinking throughout this entire discussion.
nedludd wrote:
"There are 2 points here. The ID argument seems to derive from very ld religious arguments and as such cannot be dressed up as new or as scientific. The second point is that the conclusion on ID as with the conclusion of these arguments is a religious one; there is a God."
And you have a problem with that?
Several people have commented upon or complained about Dembski's handling of his blog. Go here for his explanation of what his blog is about:
http://www.uncommondescent.com/index.php/archives/9
It ain't a place to go for discussion of all things ID or evolution. Try many other places for that. It isn't a place for scintilating discussion. It is a good resource for news about ID in general.
You can differ with how he uses his blog, but to each their own.
I wouldn't try to impute any significance to the fact that he deleted or didn't answer any particular question, such as:
It isn't a particularily insightful question, as far as I can see, and the likely answer can be easily gleened from his published works. I don't see any hazardous implications for ID to answering said question, but feel free to enlighten me if you do see them.
The issue is a little more complicated than might first appear. What is ID? And what is evolution?
They are concepts. They are facts. They are hypotheses. They are theorems. The list goes on and on.
It may surprise some of you here to know that some prominent ID proponents view ID as a concept, and disclaim any theory of ID at this time. It is the theories (or hypotheses) that are tasked with the burden of making predictions. Concepts in science may or may not be useful, but they aren't burdened with the task of making predictions.
Now, Dembski is one who does propose a theory of ID. But it isn't a creation myth, in the sense that many view Darwinism. Instead, his theory is specific to making claims about the ability to detect design. Now, if his theory were true, and if it could be successfully applied to the biological world, it would certainly have implications for the TOE and creation myths in general. But it would not necessarily predict what we should see in the biological world. Indeed, it would be a tool to evaluate it.
Now, before you concede the "prediction test" event to the Darwinist camp, take a step back and think what predictions are really inherent in one or more specific theories that undergird Darwinian evolution. In order for it to be a true prediction, it must be, or come close to being, a falsifiability test, else why would it be a prediction? If theory X predicts outcome Y, and Y doesn't come to pass, either X is falsified, or Y wasn't truly a prediction.
Now Darwin claimed his theory predicted that no system or structure would arise that could not be explained by small successive modifications acted on by natural selection. That appears to be what Behe is claiming with his irreducuble complexity. If Behe's investigations aren't "science", then Darwin's "prediction" isn't either.
"Well, OK as far as that goes, but that's exactly what philosophers themselves do, meaning that these IDers are creating a God in their own image rather than the other way 'round.
That's creating an Idol to worship, isn't it?"
That is completely illogical. Since man and woman are created in the image of the Godhead, that means we resemble the Godhead in key respects -- and, therefore, the corollary: the Godhead resembles us in those same key respects. If B is like A in some important sense, then A cannot be totally unlike B.
"Anthropomorphism" may be a favorite sneer-word among today's "intellectuals" to debunk traditional religion, but it is certainly preferable to "amorphism". The ancients were right and the moderns are wrong.
You'll have to take that up with Dawkins.
Just because he or I or anyone cannot answer every question about human origins down to the level of the first instance of life does not mean that we cannot anser some of the more recent questions precisely. For instance, most of us know who are parents are, many of us know who are grandparents are, a few of us know who our greatgrandparents are, and very few of us may know who some distant ancestor of ours were. If we cannot anser the question of who was your great X 50 grandmother does not mean we do not have accurate answers to more recent family history.
My point is, just because explanations for the first biological origins of life are uncertain does not mean that the theory of evolution is does not explain speciation and even human origins after the occurrence of the first primate.
You would have had to read the article he pointed to and his comment. It was germaine there, and flowed from the argument being made in the linked article which claimed to be putting another nail in Darwins coffin.
Feel free to link to the Dembski blog entry, the related article, and then make your case. I'll be happy to attempt to take on your question, although I'm not clear on exactly what you are asking at this point.
Take a look at this list if you're interested in understanding why evolution has a place in science classrooms and ID does not.
When ID has a similar list we can talk.
Sorry, but I don't recognize your ability to dictate the terms of discussion. You can certainly opt out. But as I read the opinion polls, it is your side that needs to gain recruits, not mine.
I'll be happy to discuss your list, if you wish. Many of the claims are not "predictions" of the theory, as I defined it. Indeed, many are dependent on the findings of the fossil record, about which we clearly have incomplete knowledge. And if they hadn't been found, could be easily attributed to such incompleteness.
Actually relevant polls are on my side. Something like 99.999986% to .000014% I beleive.
Regarding the question to Dembski, as I said, it's no longer there, he deleted it. As someone, perhaps you, pointed out he does not intend it to be a question answer forum, perhaps that's why he deletes questions about ID and leaves questions about the theory of evolution.
"I'll be happy to discuss your list, if you wish."
Not really. I need to get some work done.
I understood that he deleted your question, but you reproduced that question here. I assume that his blog entry and the article he linked to are still available. Since you were trying to draw dire inferences about ID as a result of that deletion, I thought it may be useful to examine that a little more closely. But maybe that won't be quite as useful to your POV than the assertion that Dembski had something to hide.
Hmmm...
Well, no matter.
The article has a lot of problems, please nobody who reads this comment accept the things in the linked article as being correct. (No I will not catalogue its errors. ;)
Here is the link and quote from Dembskis blog:
Specifically this sentence from the article:
“There are far too few human genes to account for the complexity of our inherited traits or for the vast inherited differences between plants, say, and people.”
prompted me to ask this question:
Pardon me, I have not read your books, I understand they are very mathematical in nature I however, am not. But the article claims that there are too few human genes to account for the differences between plants and humans. Do calculations of specified complexity or complex specified information differ between say: humans and an Arabidopsis plant?
Later that day it was gone.
was present when I posted my question and remains to this day suggests to me that silly or stupid questions are not deleted on site and that it was something specific about my question that caused the long erasers to be drawn.