Is Intelligent Design Theory Scientific?

http://RussP.us/IDscience.htm ^ | 2005-12-20 | Russ Paielli

[Hoplite]

When Monsanto produces genetically engineered corn, is that ID ?

Depends what definition of "intelligent design" we're using, as there doesn't seem to be a commonly accepted definition, upon review.

With that said, stripped of its "alternative to the ToE" baggage, the phrase "intelligent design" certainly applies to the products of genetic engineering, or any other item produced by man.

But stripped of its "alternative to the ToE" baggage, "intelligent design" becomes rather mundane in an empirical kind of way, inasmuch as it is understood how things are made, anything anyone has ever made can be reproduced by anybody else, and the supernatural doesn't enter into the picture.

[Torie]

Yep, Mr. Walsh does have a definition of creationism that is not the one used in common parlence on this issue. He uses the term to mean the big bang theory. It certainly has succeeded in confusing his opponents. :)

Judge Jones decided to push the envelope for the reading pleasure of the higher courts, alas not in the Dover case, which is not being appealed, but in other cases, such as Cobb. It I think will do his cause more harm than good. He went way over the top it appears, and stuck his foot in his mouth. But then the trial court judge in Cobb indulged in the same thing, in a more modest way, and the 11th circuit was not pleased.

[wintertime]

"Prediction: This post will be responded to with the usual chants of "evolutionists refusing to debate the merits of evolution". ( DaGman)

DaGman,

While I personally subscribe to the theory of evolution I would NEVER force on other parent's children.

The problem isn't evolution it IS having compulsory attendance, compulsory tax funded government schools.

Education can NEVER be free of political, cultural, or religious consequences. Evolution or intelligent design is merely one of HUNDREDS of issues that have religious CONSEQUENCES for the children.

The solution is to begin the abolishment of government involvement in education. No matter how government approaches this topic or any of hundreds of other issues, the government will ESTABLISH the political, cultural, and religious beliefs of some and undermine those of others.

For those children who do not have an alternative armed police, social workers threatening foster care, and court action stand ready to FORCE attendance. For the citizen who can not or objects to government school taxes, armed sheriffs will auction homes and businesses to pay for government education. This what government education is: ARMED police enforced non-neutral indoctrination of children.

Since this government education will establish political, cultural, and have non-neutral religious consequences, it is fundamentally unconstitutional on both the state and federal levels.

Parents, teachers, and principals should be negotiating these many matters privately in PRIVATE schools.

[wintertime]

"Prediction: This post will be responded to with the usual chants of "evolutionists refusing to debate the merits of evolution". ( DaGman)

DaGman,

While I personally subscribe to the theory of evolution I would NEVER force on other parent's children.

The problem isn't evolution it IS having compulsory attendance, compulsory tax funded government schools.

Education can NEVER be free of political, cultural, or religious consequences. Evolution or intelligent design is merely one of HUNDREDS of issues that have religious CONSEQUENCES for the children.

The solution is to begin the abolishment of government involvement in education. No matter how government approaches this topic or any of hundreds of other issues, the government will ESTABLISH the political, cultural, and religious beliefs of some and undermine those of others.

For those children who do not have an alternative armed police, social workers threatening foster care, and court action stand ready to FORCE attendance. For the citizen who can not or objects to government school taxes, armed sheriffs will auction homes and businesses to pay for government education. This what government education is: ARMED police enforced non-neutral indoctrination of children.

Since this government education will establish political, cultural, and have non-neutral religious consequences, it is fundamentally unconstitutional on both the state and federal levels.

Parents, teachers, and principals should be negotiating these many matters privately in PRIVATE schools.

[js1138]

Clearly Behe would have an extremely difficult time getting a fair review of his book.

The reviewers were people Behe himself suggested.

[wintertime]

some here who are unhappy with the outcome of the trial are quite revealing. ( longshadow)

LongShadow,

Although I subscribe to the theory of evolution, I am unhappy with Judge Jone's ruling. Why? Because he sidestepped the real problem.

The REAL issue is that government schools can NEVER be politically, culturally, or religious free of consequences. And,,,those consequences are NEVER neutral.

Evolution is merely one of hundreds of issues with non-neutral consequences. Government schools will always, everyday, every minute be establishing the political, cultural, and religious beliefs of some while undermining those of others.

Solution: Get government OUT of the education business.

[RussP]

"The problem isn't evolution it IS having compulsory attendance, compulsory tax funded government schools."

I agree completely. The same principle applies to prayer in schools. The solution is not to mandate prayer in public schools, but to give parents the option of choosing an appropriate private school without having to "pay twice." That means school vouchers at a minimum.

What I find ironic is that secular humanists are so worried about having public schools degraded with even a mention of ID, yet the private schools that are not so restrained do a far better job of educating their students.

[Coyoteman]

What I find ironic is that secular humanists are so worried about having public schools degraded with even a mention of ID, yet the private schools that are not so restrained do a far better job of educating their students.

Catholic schools actually teach evolution, but they TEACH!

That is a big difference.

[RussP]

"Catholic schools actually teach evolution, but they TEACH!"

And public schools are free of ID, but they DON'T teach!

[longshadow]

Solution: Get government OUT of the education business.

Separation of School and State? Works for me!

[DaGman]

" Parents, teachers, and principals should be negotiating these many matters privately in PRIVATE schools."

I don't think the matter of teaching sound science is open to negotiation in private or public schools. You talk about evolution like it is a matter of opinion or ideology subject to argument and if it somehow offends someone they shouldn't be forced to learn evolution. I don't think there should be a choice to learn or not to learn about evolution. Would we negotiate teaching the Pythagoran Theorum because it is "only a theorum" or maybe because it offends someone? Or how about the theory of gravity because someone believes there is no gravity because the earth sucks? Suggesting negotiation implies doing the "politically correct" thing. Sorry, I can't do that.

And I think public vs. private schools is irrelevant to the ID issue. Public schools are going not going away. They've been here for a great many years and will likely be around for a great many more. That's just the way it is, but that's getting into a totally different discussion.

[wintertime]

"if it somehow offends someone they shouldn't be forced to learn evolution. I don't think there should be a choice to learn or not to learn about evolution. Would we negotiate teaching the Pythagorean Theorem because it is "only a theorem" or maybe because it offends someone? " (DaGman)

DaGman,

Is the theory of evolution or the Pythagorean Theorem sooooooooo important that the government should have the power of armed police to force it on children? Really? It is THAT important?

My kids entered community college at the young ages of 13, 12, and 13. Since I drove them every day, I had the privilege of observing exactly just what when on in these institutions ( two different community colleges in two states). For your information, community colleges take in armies of people who haven't a clue about evolution, or even the basics of long division ( forget the Pythagorean Theorem) and in an amazingly short amount of time can bring motivated students to college level in biology and math.

So?.......If an entire GOVERNMENT system of so-called "professional" teachers can graduate battalions high school seniors who have NO understanding whatsoever of evolution, multiplication, fractions, decimals and are a far cry from understanding the Pythagorean Theorem, then why should we hold parents, teachers, and principals in a private school to a higher standard of achievement than private schools?

DaGman, if you wish to persuade an adult that evolution is important to the fulfillment of their life's goal, then please do so. If they are lacking in knowledge, please direct them to their nearest community college. In ONE pre-college credit biology course, they will be completely and fully prepared to take an arts major's course in biology. If they really apply themselves and learn the chemistry and math needed ( again available in community college) they can even take biology for pre-med and science majors. Gee! Imagine that! In an amazingly short amount of time they can be working their way to medical school!

Somehow, I suspect that if universal K-12 education were entirely privatized, not only would far more children learn evolution, they would also learn long division, and the Pythagorean Theorem.

This isn't about evolution or intelligent design, DaGman, it about CONTROL of other people's children and the use of government guns to impose their anointed educational worldview.

By the way, I subscribe to evolution, but didn't discuss it much in my homeschool. Most of what is called "science" in government school isn't. What is it? It is really merely general information about the natural world. Children are completely incapable of doing much of any real science. They haven't the knowledge of math, chemistry, or statistics. In fact, when government schools call the learning of general information about the natural world "science" they are grossly mis-educating children about the real study or work of science.

In my homeschool, we merely gutted the children's section of our county's main library. We literally read every book and some many times. When they went to community college at the ages of 13, 12, and 13, they had NEVER studied any formal biology, chemistry, or physics, however, they were eminently well prepared in math. Their math background plus the pre-credit, and arts major's courses in science prepared them for the science courses for science majors.

Two graduated from university with B.S degrees in math by the age of 18. One just completed a masters degree in August at the age of 20. The oldest in a nationally and internationally ranked athlete and before leaving on a Russian speaking church assignment, at the age of 19, was a mere 13 course shy of an accounting degree.

Also evolution has NOTHING to do with the work that the vast majority of Americans do every day. In fact, it is of importance to only an elite group of scientists in the field. Other scientists in other fields, as well as health workers of all kinds actually spend little time dwelling on evolution and rarely even consider it as they go about their daily lives. ( By the way, I have a doctorate in a highly respected health field, and my husband in a Ph.D. biochemist. We testify that this is indeed TRUE!)

So....I testify that not knowing evolution is not a death sentence for any child and does NOT Justin aiming police guns at their heads to force them to learn it or to force citizens to pay for it.

One more thing,,,,,My homeschooled children and their academic accomplishments are NORMAL. It is government schooled children who are abnormally delayed.

[wintertime]

Public schools are going not going away. DGman

DGman, Government schools crush freedom of conscience. The evolution and intelligent design cat fight is merely one among hundreds of examples.

They are completely unconstitutional on both the federal and state levels. If our nation's citizens can be convinced that government schools can NEVER be politically, culturally, or religiously neutral in content and consequences, yes, I do believe that we will see their abolishment.

If I and other can convince our nations citizens that government schools, in its curriculum and policy decision, WILL establish and uphold the religious worldview of some while trampling that of others, yes, I do believe we will see the abolishment of government schools.

[wintertime]

Separation of School and State? Works for me! (Longshadow)

Longshadow,

Then please take the opportunity of pointing out that evolution/intelligent design is merely one of hundreds of curriculum and policy issues that can not be decided in a manner that is free of political, cultural, and religious consequences.

Point out that government schools in making its decisions ( evolution is only one among many issues) WILL establish and uphold the worldview of some and undermine those of other and this WILL have religious consequences.

Therefore, government schools can NOT be constitutional on either a federal or state level.

The following is an excellent essay:

http://www.newswithviews.com/Stuter/stuter9.htm

[JCEccles]

Good post.

I'll repost one of my own from a few days ago, because it illustrates a related point.

In an immediate sense ID theory embraces the genetic engineering initiatives being carried out in thousands of laboratories worldwide today. Suppose a new strain of a formerly harmless bacteria were to emerge that possesses startling quantum leap pathogenic qualities that targets specific racial or ethnic groups (analogous to discovering a strain of E. Coli that produces human insulin), would it be important to know whether it had been genetically engineered?

Materialist Darwinists would simply shrug their shoulders and say, "My, isn't it impressive what natural selection can accomplish!" Then they would publish endless dull turgid a priori justifications about how this newly discovered mutation was really natural selection, Dawkins' "blind watchmaker" at work.

More practical people might start looking at the forensic evidence to see how it might fit a hypothesis that a laboratory somewhere was up to no good, engaging in a bit of intelligent design to cleanse the human race of "undesirable" racial or ethnic groups.

This has already been alleged in connection with the AIDS virus. The idea sounded wild and tinfoilish when it was first raised, partly because the known science and technology in the 1970s and 1980s were considered inadequate to the task of genetically engineering a virus in that manner and partly because biogeneticists believed the modification of the virus was small and subtle enough to be adequately explained by random selection.

But today it is easy to posit a genetic change so immediate, so fundamental, and so radical that the best inference for its origin is genetic engineering in a well-equipped laboratory somewhere.

If that should happen today, who in our country would be allowed to investigate the possibility that the change was genetically engineered (intelligently designed) for a specific purpose? Publicly funded laboratories would run the risk of igniting the ire of the ACLU and sympathetic judges desperate to keep the foolish idol of Natural Selection enthroned as god.

Perhaps Judge Jones would allow a publicly-funded laboratory to test the evidence forensically against a hypothesis of genetic engineering (intelligent design) versus dumb natural selection. First, he would have to be persuaded that none of the laboratory personnel was a religious believer, especially (heaven forbid) a Christian.

[JCEccles]

Edward O. Wilson in a recent essay sought to dismiss ID theory as unscientific on the grounds that it requires a supernatural agent. It most emphatically does NOT require a supernatural agent, a point that is badly and consistently missed by men like Wilson who are so desperate to prove their fidelity to directionless, brainless, purposeless natural selection (for that matter, natural selection is rife with deliberate choices of purposeful agents; but we'll leave the materialist Darwinists stewing in their silly 19th Century delusions for the time being).

Life can be considered a von Neumann machine that has a set of solutions--its programs--written into DNA. The solutions may stay dormant, develop gradually, or be triggered by environment or other factors into releasing exponential and dramatically complex changes, Behe's "black boxes." The strategy fits well with the theory of punctuated equilibrium through the mechanism of natural selection.

Such a strategy would enable the programmer to achieve his goals over long periods of time without having to actually intervene physically from moment to moment.

[staytrue]

I am unhappy with Judge Jone's ruling. Why? Because he sidestepped the real problem.

He is not a legislature. He was not charged with fixing the real problem.

[ThinkDifferent]

It most emphatically does NOT require a supernatural agent

Really? So ID wouldn't dispute the possibility that life on Earth was seeded and manipulated by Ancients from the Pegasus galaxy. But then where did the Ancients come from? They're presumably even more advanced than humans, and therefore couldn't have arisen via natural processes either, right? At some point a supernatural entity is required. Or does ID claim that while humans couldn't have evolved naturally, it's possible that different life forms of equal or greater complexity could have?

[RussP]

"Edward O. Wilson in a recent essay sought to dismiss ID theory as unscientific on the grounds that it requires a supernatural agent. It most emphatically does NOT require a supernatural agent, ..."

I think ID *does* require a supernatural agent, but I don't think that's a legitimate reason to dismiss it. Such a dismissal would amount to a mere assumption. And we all know what we do when we ass-u-me, don't we.

What if a supernatural agent *does* exist, but we simply dismiss the possibility. Imagine how embarrassing that will ultimately prove to be!

Isaac Newton believed stongly in a supernatural agent. So did James Clerk Maxwell, Joseph Faraday, Lord Kelvin, and Louis Pasteur. The list of great scientists who were devout Christians goes on and on.

Who are modern evolutionists to simply rule out the possibility of a supernatural agent whose existence and influence can be detected through the study of nature?

[freedumb2003]

Who are modern evolutionists to simply rule out the possibility of a supernatural agent whose existence and influence can be detected through the study of nature?

Your argument is well-made but is in the wrong arena. Science requires physical world explanations. To use the crutch of magic basicall means science throws up its hands and says "it's too hard! Boo hoo. "

ID belongs in religion/mythology/philosophy.

I believe that God put this whole thing in motion. But He, in His Infinite Wisdom, established rules for the Universe. We are just detecting the very first of them. But to suggest that God cut corners just to create people or anything else diminishes His Glory and is intellectually bankrupt.