Posted on 08/03/2006 12:22:06 PM PDT by SirLinksalot
10 Ways Darwinists Help Intelligent Design (Part I)
----------------------------------------------
Eighty years after the Scopes “Monkey” Trial, the public still refuses to accept the idea that Darwin’s theory of natural selection is a sufficient explanation for complex biological phenomena. In fact, opinion polls show that fewer people are willing to accept the idea that human beings developed from earlier species than they were just ten years ago.
In Britain—a country that is not exactly known for fundamentalist Christianity—fewer than half accept the theory of evolution as the best description for the development of life. (And more than 40% of those polled believe that creationism or intelligent design (ID) should be taught in school science lessons.) Even doctors, who are more informed about biology than the general public, overwhelmingly (60%) reject the claim that humans evolved through natural processes alone.
Why do so many people have such difficulty accepting the theory? Is it due to a resurgence of religious-based creationism? Or is it that the Discovery Institute and other advocates of Intelligent Design are more persuasive? I believe the credit belongs not to the advocates of ID but to the theory’s critics.
Had the critics remained silent, ID might possibly have moldered in obscurity. But instead they launched a counter-offensive, forcing people into choosing sides. The problem is that the more the public learns about modern evolutionary theory, the more skeptical they become.
I won’t argue that critics of ID are always wrong or that ID is always—or even mostly—right in its claims. But I do think a compelling case can be made that the anti-IDers are losing the rhetorical battle. Here is the first five in a list of ten reasons ways in which they are helping to promote the theory of intelligent design:
#1 By remaining completely ignorant about ID while knocking down strawman versions of the theory. – Whether due to intellectual snobbery or intellectual laziness, too many critics of ID never bother to understand what the term means, much less learn the general tenets of the theory. Instead, they knock down a strawman version of ID that they have gleaned from other, equally ill-informed, critics. The belligerent or paranoid advocates of ID will assume that the misrepresentation is due to dishonesty or a conspiracy by “Darwinists.” But even those who are more charitable will agree that when a critic misrepresents the theory, it undermines their own credibility.
#2 By claiming that ID is stealth creationism. -- Resorting to this red herring is one of the most common arguments made against ID. While it’s true that ID could be used to promote a particular religious agenda, this is not a sufficient argument against it being a legitimate scientific research program. There is no a priori reason why a research program could not be completely in adherence to accepted scientific methods and yet be completely compatible with a particular religious viewpoint.
But it also refuses to acknowledge the vast majority of people throughout history have believed in at least a basic form of creationism. Most people believe that some form of intelligent being (i.e., God) created the universe and everything in it. For most of these people, “creationism” is not a derogatory term. The phrase “stealth creationism” might appeal to the pseudo-intellectuals (those who know almost nothing about science but do know that they despise “fundamentalist Christians”) yet for most ordinary people it sounds like bigoted nonsense.
#3 By resorting to “science of the gaps” arguments. – Critics of ID often claim that the theory relies on a “God of the Gaps” “argument. (Don’t understand how something occurred? Well…God did it. Case closed.) As scientific reasoning, this method is obviously flawed. Yet the critics of ID often resort to the same tactic, only instead of saying “God did it” they claim “Science will find it.”
The problem is that this almost never happens. Closing a "science gap" almost always leads to the discovery of other, even more difficult to explain gaps in knowledge. For example, when evolution was first proposed by Darwin, there was no explanation for the mechanism of transmission of traits from one generation to the next. With the discovery of DNA, Watson and Crick closed that particular “gap.”
But as physicist David Snoke notes, no one today has an adequate explanation for how this highly complicated molecule arose out of nowhere. Also, we do not have an adequate explanation within chemical evolutionary theory for the appearance of the mechanism that gives us a readout of the information, or for the appearance of methods that replicate information with out error, or for the appearance of the delicate balance of repair and maintenance of the molecular systems that use the information stored in DNA.
Scientific discoveries tend to find that nature is even more complex than we imagined which makes it even more unlikely that a process like natural selection is a sufficient explanation.
#4 By claiming that ID isn’t science since it's not published peer-reviewed literature...and then refusing to allow publications of ID papers in peer-reviewed journals. – The hypocrisy of snubbing ID because it lacks peer-review was exposed by the treatment of Richard Sternberg, a journal editor who made the career-killing mistake of actually publishing an article that was sympathetic to ID.
The resulting controversy exposed just how close-minded some scientists were to criticisms of neo-Darwinism. As Sternberg—who is not an advocate of ID--said after the incident, “It's fascinating how the 'creationist' label is falsely applied to anyone who raises any questions about neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory. The reaction to the paper by some [anti-creationist] extremists suggests that the thought police are alive and well in the scientific community."
#5 By making claims that natural selection is responsible for all behaviors and biological features. -- Instead of saying that “God created X”, Darwinists tend to claim that “Sex selection created X.” Take, for instance, this statement made by zoologist Richard Dawkins:
"Why did humans lose their body hair? Why did they start walking on their hind legs? Why did they develop big brains? I think that the answer to all three questions is sexual selection," Dawkins said. Hairlessness advertises your health to potential mates, he explained. The less hair you have on your body, the less real estate you make available to lice and other ectoparasites. Of course, it was worth keeping the hair on our heads to protect against sunstroke, which can be very dangerous in Africa, where we evolved. As for the hair in our armpits and pubic regions, that was probably retained because it helps disseminate "pheromones," airborne scent signals that still play a bigger role in our sex lives than most of us realize.
Why did we lose our body hair? Sex selection. Why do we retain some body hair? Yep, sex selection. Why do humans walk on two legs? Again, the same answer, sex selection. Why do dogs walk on all four? You guessed it, sex selection.
The same goes for human behavior. Hardly a week goes by that some newspaper or magazine article does not include a story claiming how “evolution” is the reason humans do X, avoid Y, or prefer Z.
Even scientists grow weary of hearing such faith claims presented as if was “science.” As Philip S. Skell, emeritus professor at Pennsylvania State University, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, notes in a recent edition of The Scientist:
…Darwinian explanations for [human behavior] are often too supple: Natural selection makes humans self- centered and aggressive - except when it makes them altruistic and peaceable. Or natural selection produces virile men who eagerly spread their seed - except when it prefers men who are faithful protectors and providers. When an explanation is so supple that it can explain any behavior, it is difficult to test it experimentally, much less use it as a catalyst for scientific discovery.
Even those who flunked high school biology can see that when a theory can be used to prove any behavior that it ceases to be science and enters the realm of faith. Yet when evolutionists make such claims they are often flummoxed by the public’s skeptical reaction. They can’t understand how we could be so stupid as to not accept their claims. And we wonder how they could be so stupid as to think we are really that gullible.
To be continued in Part II
Theologians believe it had an origin.
Astronomers, cosmologists, cosmogenists, physicists, et alii, all believe it had an origin.
May I inquire as to your particular (out of mainstream) view, and why? It would spice up this thread.
Sauron (Time to go home, people. Have dinner. It's 5:00 Friday!)
Sniff...It just doesn't seem fair.
You mean...you guys get to believe in a theory--abiogenic evolution--that cannot be proven, even by your own standards?
Sauron
Isn't one of the hallmarks of a theory the ability to prove it falsifiable?
Isn't it?
Sauron
Astronomers, cosmologists, cosmogenists, physicists, et alii, all believe it had an origin.
No, they don't. The BB is not an origin. This 'conversation' is getting boring.
99.999% of people don't understand Einstein's theory of relativity. 99.99999% of people don't understand theories behind quantum physics. Doesn't mean they're not true and shouldn't be taught.
Please don't. I used to teach logic, and you're seriously embarrassing yourself now, in what is admittedly a rather hilarious fashion. To wit:
Yep, boys and girls, the shocking thing you learn in college when you take your symbolic logic course is that truth and validity are mutually exclusive.
I do not think you understand the meaning of "mutually exclusive". I'd offer to recommend a dictionary, but you're probably not interested in that either.
"Mutually exclusive" is essentially a restatement of the Boolean exclusive-or, in that the statement "A and B are mutually exclusive" is equivalent to A XOR B, which in turn means that one can have A or B, but having A implies that you cannot also have B, and having B implies that you cannot also have A.
To say that truth and validity in arguments are mutually exclusive is to say that an argument can be either true, or valid, but not both, and if it is true, it implies it is invalid, and if it is valid, it is implied that it is untrue. This is patently false - in fact, an argument can be both true and valid, hence the two qualities are not mutually exclusive. Witness:
P1: All cats are mammals.
P2: All mammals have spines.
C1: Therefore, all cats have spines.
This argument is both true and valid - it is of the classical "Barbara" form, consisting of all A-propositions. Ergo, by counterexample, truth and validity are not mutually exclusive.
It is possible to have a logically valid form that is untrue.
Of course it is, but if the were mutually exclusive, that would imply that all valid arguments are in fact untrue. Which is patently false, not to mention quite silly.
You may very well own the book. I highly recommend you now move on to the next step and read it.
It is currently incorrect if it says (QT) that decay is uncaused.
No, that statement is false. There is no hidden or unknown cause for the decay - this is provably true. There will not ever be a hidden or unknown cause discovered, because it does not exist. You might as well look for unicorns.
It started out as an inanimate object called singularity. Nobody knows where it came from and how it got there. Nobody knows how long it sat there, wherever *there* was, because since space didn't exist yet, there was no *there* for it to be. And it was unexpanded but nobody knows for how long. Then is expanded but nobody knows why either. If it was being held together, why did it expand? What was the mechanism that caused it to let go?
Then it expanded all on it's own to fill all of known space in a trillion-trillionth of a second, set up it's own laws by which to function and then organized itself into stars, planets, galaxies, and a whole host of other celestial objects.
After that this inanimate object proceeded to produce life. Once the life started, which we aren't sure how happened anyway because that's abiogenesis and not evolution so we don't deal with it, then through random mutations pressured on by random environmental factors which is called *natural selection* life came to increasing complexity and produced consciousness and intelligence. All with no guiding or controlling mechanism.
If scientists (or whoever chooses) are going to reject ID or creation because IDers/creationists can't explain where the creating agent came from, by that reasoning, no one should accept sciences explanation of how the universe came into existence and life arose because they can't explain where IT came from.
If ID is going to be considered a scientific theory, it can't be just whatever one wants it to be.
ID theory (from what I was told) proposes more than just a teleological purpose to the formation of life + macroevolution. It insists on occasional "fiddling" with the genome by the hand of the designer.
So, no, it doesn't include the entire group of theistic evolutionists. Also, there are theistic evolutionists (like me) that do not agree with ID as a scientific theory because God is not a proper subject for natural testing.
Yup. and as a gnostic, I go by the first.
No relation to the website, obviously. :-)
(some of their reasoning leaves a lot to be desired...)
There's an 'I know' category and an 'I don't know' category. I'll put you in the 'I know' category.
Microscopes? Try chemical analysis. But I'm curious about the facts here. Are there actually any stsudies of undersea volcanic vent surface chemistry that disprove that particular abiogenesis hypothesis? Or are you just making this up?
furball4paws: You are totally full of it. Organic molecules are so efficiently scavenged by soil and water microflora, that newly happening abiogenesis would never have a chance. Dontchknow. Get with the program. VA is spot on.
Thanks, Fur Ball. Abiogenesis depends on sterile conditions.
I'd really like to see a large-scale Miller-Urey type of experiment with lots of different kinds of igneous rock present, and running over decades at least.
Some people simply take note that it is illogical to say the universe has to have a creator, but God doesn't. But then faith shouldn't require logic.
It is a mistake to bring up the first cause argument. It's worthless from all points of view.
Huh? All Fur Ball and I were saying was that the chemical reactions that preceded life cannot occur in the modern environment, one reason being the existence of bacteria that would eat the chemicals before they had time to engage in further reactions. Another reason is the presence of O2
This says nothing at all about setting up experiments to test various aspects of abiogenetic hypotheses.
... theory that cannot be proven ...
Huh? again. As you should know from these crevo threads, theories are never proven; they are confirmed (or falsified) by evidence, but proof (in the logical/mathematical sense) is not possible; science is more like law in this respect, "proof beyond a reasonable doubt" is the best we can do.
PS: The relation between validity (of an argument) and truth (of a proposition) is "logical independence" not "mutual exclusion". [GIGO]
Multiple strawmen placemarker.
Incidentally, when God punished the tempting serpent did he simultaneously punish billions of other talking legged serpents that *hadn't* tempted Adam and Eve (a curious act of casual malice against innocents)? Or are all of the thousands of snake species descended from that one guilty serpent? The differences between modern snake species go well beyond what creationists would consider macroevolution.
It seems the legless lizards were also collateral damage.
Validity and truth are independent in logic because formal logic systems are only as truthful as their axiomatic premises. When Sauron said in an earlier post that logicians and philosphers had declared that certain logical arguments concerning the existence of God were both valid and truthful he was wrong, since logic can never tell us anything about truth, independent of the assumed truth of axioms. The axioms of the real world are unknown so formal logic can never arrive at truth when describing the real world. In certain perfect domains such as planar geometry formal logic can arrive at truth, but only with respect to that perfect domain with its defined axioms.
The argument from first cause that Sauron expounds is a trivial linkage between assumptions and conclusions. Essentially Sauron supports a couple of assumptions that guarantee the conclusion, "A being created the universe", to wit, "1. The universe exists", "2. Everything that exists was created by a being". The moment you don't accept these presumptions as axioms (and many don't) the uncaused cause argument falls apart.
Doubtless all of this is covered in the logic primers that Sauron has been telling us about. When Sauron gets round to reading them he'll understand better.
Remarkable coincidence that XOR has been misunderstood twice in one week on FR crevo threads.
Ping to above
See post 317 above for links to articles about amphisbaeniae. Some are legless and look like big worms, some only have forelegs.
Why do all the other apes have the same defect as we do in one of the genes necessary for ascorbic acid synthesis?
God (to Adam and Eve): So you like fruit eh?! Well I'll fix it so you have to eat it every day! [zap!]
Oh, sorry about that Mr. Ape...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.