Posted on 08/03/2006 12:22:06 PM PDT by SirLinksalot
10 Ways Darwinists Help Intelligent Design (Part I)
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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
"If it were, more people would believe in man-made global warming...wait a minute?
"
The topic of the day is the Theory of Evolution. Climatology is a different science. Is climate change influenced by human actions? I don't know. That's under study. Some folks believe it is. For me, it doesn't matter. It appears that the climate is changing again, as it has done in the past. I'm more concerned with figuring out how much it will change so I can plan ahead.
In any case, science does not include poll results. Rather, it is done by people with a lot of training in the specific discipline that is being studied. We call those folks scientists, in general, and have names for all the specific disciplines in science, such as geology, physics (several sub-disciplines in there), chemistry, etc.
I'm not a scientist. When I have questions about one of the sciences, I consult the journals for that science, insofar as I am able to understand them. If I cannot, I consult journals like "Science," which try to explain research for people not in a particular discipline.
I do not consult religious publications for information regarding the sciences, nor do I consult science publications for information regarding the various religions of this planet.
Specialists are the best source for information on a specialty. All others are less well informed.
"But he's right, you know. His own Google research shows that Danes, Australians, and Canadians are increasingly interested in Intelligent Design."
Maybe, just maybe, ID suffers from the same quandry that faces Darwinism. Are you aware of a testable hypothesis put forth by Darwinism that can lend proof to the concept of speciation from a single-cell through a slow process of mutation and natural selection? If Darwinists could have proven their theory, this debate would have been long over. 150 years of speculation, and the debate still rages.
George will and Dembski are certainly great biologists. You should know Dembski pretty well. Just look in the mirror.
"A mechanism that could be tested."
Somegoddidit. Prove 'em wrong. Pretty funny, huh? I'm not really sure what experiment you'd use to test that, given the supernatural nature of deities.
I use the term as one of derision.
"Honestly I don't know if I've ever met a "Darwinist". "
That's because there are no "Darwinists." Nobody identifies himself as a "Darwinist," particularly in the scientific disciplines.
Darwin was the founder of the science of evolutionary theory, certainly, but his writings are primarily of historical interest these days.
About the only people who use the word "Darwinist" are those who are attempting to discredit the Theory of Evolution. They use it in the same way people use other incorrect terminology when they try to discredit something. It's so transparent.
When I'm finished horseback riding placemarker.
How about those of us with a full brain?
LOL. Good catch. I guess evolution is a proven fact for those with half a brain.
Yeah, Biology is like that - except for biochemistry, of course. Once you get up to the organism level it just ain't the same kind of science that chemistry or physics are.
Shalom.
And those with a whole brain know better, that's why they don't buy it hook, line , and sinker.
You are not addressing my point ( calling me Dembski as a potshot isn't helping the discussion either ).
The point Dembski is making is that proponents of materialistic evolution invariably invoked as evidence for their theory experiments in which structures of biological interest evolved reproducibly. But for the results of an experiment to be reproducible, they must occur WITH HIGH PROBABLITY.
Thus, if high probability confirms evolutionary theory, shouldn’t, by parity of reasoning, low probability disconfirm evolutionary theory?
If not, the theory is insulated from empirical falsification.
Demski for instance, offers as an example the original success of the Miller-Urey experiment in origin-of-life research and the subsequent failure of that origin-of-life research to explain information-rich biomacromolecules.
These are the kinds of "testability" experiments that can be done to confirm/disconfirm Evolution ( and by implication, intelligence ).
Ping for interest. I always like your comments.
If you are not Dembski, why do you publish his work under your name?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1650646/posts
Make that Atlantians.
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