Evolution Critics Are Under Fire For Flaws in 'Intelligent Design'

Wall Street Journal ^ | Feb 13, 2004 | SHARON BEGLEY

[The Raven]

Even before Darwin, critics attacked the idea of biological evolution with one or another version of, "Evolve this!"

Whether they invoked a human, an eye, or the whip-like flagella that propel bacteria and sperm, the contention that natural processes of mutation and natural selection cannot explain the complexity of living things has been alive and well for 200 years.

[Michael_Michaelangelo]

Here here!

[frgoff]

I looked at that site. At no point was the mouse trap made less complex.

In the first step, he removes the catch and replaces it with another, less efficient catch made from bending and filing the spring. We still have a five-part mousetrap.

In the second step, he removes the hook, and replaces it with a less efficient latch to act as the hook. We still have a five-part mouse trap.

In the third step, he removes the hammer and replaces it with a less efficient hammer made by bending the spring (he even says as much in the description). We still have a five-part mouse trap.

In the final step he removes the base and replaces it with some other base (a floor). We still have a five-part mouse trap.

All the author has done is show that he doesn't understand irreducible complexity. He simply made a different form of the mouse trap that has all five components in different configurations, but all five components are still there. Not one was removed.

[longshadow]

Festival of Irreducible placemarkers

[balrog666]

We still have a five-part mouse trap.

All made out of one piece performing the needed 4 or 5 functions. Wow, it seems that it's you who can't count.

[PatrickHenry]

[Ophiucus]

Science has to be taken on faith because there is no prime source for it

You went over the deep end there. Prime source for science is the elements of the universe around us. Observation and experimentation gives us data - the prime source.

By contrast, science is just a bunch of constantly changing gobbeldy-gook the fundamentals of which two scientists describe alike

Yeah - whatever. Science is the sum of knowledge produced by observation and experimentation coherently related by the rigorously worked out mechanisms. Science evolves as data is added to that sum of knowledge - changes aren;t whimsical or random.

BTW - God as prime mover is the handwaving of ID - no mechanism, no support, no proof, no nothing - just wave the hand and sacrifice a goat.

Maybe you should try the decaf.

[donh]

Yeah - whatever. Science is the sum of knowledge produced by observation and experimentation coherently related by the rigorously worked out mechanisms. Science evolves as data is added to that sum of knowledge - changes aren;t whimsical or random.

You mean like when bleeding patients was abandoned? Or do you mean like when the notion of the ether was abandoned? Or do you mean when Peking Man was abandoned? Or do you mean when fixed continents were abandoned in favor of continental drift? In the mean time, how often have christian churches abandoned the notion of God as the source of all blessings, or the Bible as the source of his word?

BTW - God as prime mover is the handwaving of ID - no mechanism, no support, no proof, no nothing - just wave the hand and sacrifice a goat.

The phrase "prime mover" substantially predates the ID movement, and there is every bit as much support for ID, or the notion of a prime mover, as there is for standard evolutionary theory, including all of the evidence that supports standard evolutionary theory, which does not conflict with most of the brands of ID theory floating around.

Maybe you should try the decaf.

Maybe you should try less dismissive, vague BS, and more rebuttals that actually feature enough detail to rebut something.

[Ophiucus]

State legislatures would not violate the 1st Amendment if they passed either of those because the 1st Amendment prohibits only the federal congress.

Constraints of the U.S. Constitution apply to all states. In regards to the First Amendment, Murdock v. Pennsylvania , 319 U.S. 105 [1943] "The First Amendment, which the Fourteenth makes applicable to the states, declares that 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." Part of the case law behind the case was the attempts by states to tax religious organizations and the subsequent violations of the First Amendment by the States. Supportive cases: Gitlow v. New York, 1925, 268 U.S. 652, 666 , 45 S.Ct. 625, 630; Near v. Minnesota, 283 U.S. 697, 707 , 51 S.Ct. 625, 628; Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, 307 , 60 S.Ct. 900, 905, 128 A.L.R. 1352.

This issue also came up in the 2000 fiasco. The U.S. Constitution holds a supreme legal position over a state constitution and any state legislation must conform the the U.S. Constitution.

The supremacy clause also may come into play:

Article. VI.
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

If a state constitution or law conflicts with federal law or the Constitution, the Federal must be upheld. A state can not pass laws contrary to the U.S. Constitution.

[js1138]

You mean like when bleeding patients was abandoned? Or do you mean like when the notion of the ether was abandoned? Or do you mean when Peking Man was abandoned? Or do you mean when fixed continents were abandoned in favor of continental drift?

You have just demonstrated the great strength of science as an intellectual system. All these examples and tens of thousands more are demonstrations of the strength of science as an intellectual system.

[donh]

You have just demonstrated the great strength of science as an intellectual system. All these examples and tens of thousands more are demonstrations of the strength of science as an intellectual system.

Indeed, however, what they are NOT a demonstration of, is that that strengh is in any way related to the notion that we can reliably avail ourselves of proof in science.

[donh]

You went over the deep end there. Prime source for science is the elements of the universe around us. Observation and experimentation gives us data - the prime source.

Gee, that's the exact same place my evidence for a prime mover came from--the rapturous wonder of showflakes, the beauty of the rainbow.......et cetera.

[general_re]

Science is useful because it accepts things that are useful to accept, not because it accepts things as unassailably true, which is the commonest ordinary meaning of "proof".

Well, no, but I think it's worthwhile to first stop for a moment and consider what we mean by "useful" in this context. Scientific principles are useful to us because they illustrate or illuminate some aspect of actual reality. Whatever else it may be, science is not a solipsistic exercise, and is predicated on the assumption that objective reality exists beyond ourselves. Given that, for our principles to be truly useful in a scientific sense, they must then bear some relationship to objective reality, and hence be in some sense, truthful, albeit as an imperfect approximation of truth, rather than being provably and indisputably true. The inverse-square law of gravitation is not deductively and provably true, but it is useful to us precisely because it appears to bear some relationship to the actual, objective behavior of physical objects. Insofar as that behavior objectively exists and is objectively real, the inverse-square law must then be at least an approximation of that objective reality, else we would not find it useful. And it seems to me that the better those approximations are, the closer they are to that unnattainable objective truth, the more useful they then are in a scientific sense - i.e., there are degrees of usefulness which correspond in some sense to the principle's correspondence with external reality.

This should not, of course, be taken to mean that "useful" and "true" are equivalent, or that "useful" even necessarily implies "true" in all cases. But I think it's clear that the principles we find useful are useful precisely because they represent some approximation, whether near or far, of actual reality, and hence, truth. When someone is sent up for trial, we expect the state to prove its case, that the defendant is to be proven guilty. Clearly, however, we do not expect the state to conclusively prove its case true as a matter of logical certainty. Instead we expect proof beyond a reasonable doubt, proof as a matter of reasonable certainty rather than absolute certainty - after all, no matter how good the prosecutor is, he or she can never eliminate as a matter of certainty the hypothesis that Nicole Simpson was killed by Colombian drug dealers or Martians or Santa Claus or whatever.

Instead, it is "proof" in an inductive sense that we seek, not proof in the absolute deductive sense. And I think this is the sort of proof that science is generally concerned with, where we examine where the bulk of the evidence rests, and when the evidence overwhelmingly lies in one particular direction, we then reasonably conclude that the issue is, at least for the moment, proven as a matter of reasonable certainty. Which we can do precisely because we don't restrict "proof" to mean "unassailably true" most of the time. In fact, by "proof", we usually mean "reasonably certain", and it's hard to see how it can be any other way - if we reserve the word "proof" for only those situations deductively demonstrable, we will probably tend to find that the word "proof" has ceased to have much utility for us at all, having no real application to any circumstances beyond the purely hypothetical.

It is certainly fair to state that the theory of evolution is not conclusively proven true, but I do not think it is at all unreasonable to state that, at least for the time being, it is proven as a matter of reasonable certainty. The theory of evolution is not expected to be taken axiomatically, after all - we consider it to be true because that is the direction in which the bulk of the evidence currently points. In the sense that it then illustrates some aspect of objective reality for us, it is both useful and reasonably true.

[PhilipFreneau]

Constraints of the U.S. Constitution apply to all states. In regards to the First Amendment, Murdock v. Pennsylvania , 319 U.S. 105 [1943] "The First Amendment, which the Fourteenth makes applicable to the states, declares that 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." Part of the case law behind the case was the attempts by states to tax religious organizations and the subsequent violations of the First Amendment by the States. Supportive cases: Gitlow v. New York, 1925, 268 U.S. 652, 666 , 45 S.Ct. 625, 630; Near v. Minnesota, 283 U.S. 697, 707 , 51 S.Ct. 625, 628; Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, 307 , 60 S.Ct. 900, 905, 128 A.L.R. 1352.

The 14th Amendment did no such thing. The federal judiciary claimed it did when it usurped power from the states and the people. Most people are so brainwashed they cannot see it.

Regarding case law, precedent is a dangerous tool in the hands of a tyrannical judiciary. The Constitution is not that hard to read. Let them refer to it and original intent rather than the opinion of another judge(s) who is likely to be corrupt.

Madison put it this way: "Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government."

Jefferson put it this way: "On every question of construction [of the Constitution], carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed."

BTW, did you know the First and Great Commandment of the legal system is: "Thou shalt fill the halls to the rafters with case law"; and the second: "Thou shalt build more halls". We need to move all this case law from the halls to the landfills.

This issue also came up in the 2000 fiasco. The U.S. Constitution holds a supreme legal position over a state constitution and any state legislation must conform the the U.S. Constitution.

Not the same. However, I agree the corrupt U.S. Supreme Court had the authority to rule against the corrupt Florida Supreme Court in this particular case.

The supremacy clause also may come into play.

No.

If a state constitution or law conflicts with federal law or the Constitution, the Federal must be upheld.

Provided the federal law is made pursuant to the Constitution. Most federal laws are usurpations, conflicting with the Constitution.

[Ophiucus]

Which we can do precisely because we don't restrict "proof" to mean "unassailably true" most of the time. In fact, by "proof", we usually mean "reasonably certain", and it's hard to see how it can be any other way - if we reserve the word "proof" for only those situations deductively demonstrable, we will probably tend to find that the word "proof" has ceased to have much utility for us at all, having no real application to any circumstances beyond the purely hypothetical.

Bingo - a practical usage of proof.

[Ophiucus]

The 14th Amendment did no such thing. The federal judiciary claimed it did when it usurped power from the states and the people.
[snip]
Regarding case law, precedent is a dangerous tool in the hands of a tyrannical judiciary.
[snip] Let them refer to it and original intent rather than the opinion of another judge(s) who is likely to be corrupt.

So your objections are that for over 170 years the judiciary has been corrupt (the cases went back to the 1830s for precedent) and that case law and precedent, the basis of our legal system and a heritage stretching back to Roman law, is dangerous and should be removed - 'move the case law to the landfills.

Re: 2000 decision: Not the same.

Same principle was used - a state can not usurp the Constitution.

"The supremacy clause also may come into play."
No.

And denial isn't just a river in Egypt.

Provided the federal law is made pursuant to the Constitution.

And here we are talking about expressed clauses and amendments of that Constitution. A state can not decide to ignore parts that it doesn't like, nor can individuals.

[qam1]

The cause of the fall of Rome is widely contested. Gibbon blamed it on Christianity, but most modern scholars disagree. According to Weber, Christianity was part of Rome for its last 400 years (where did you get 140?),

The "140" years comes from the time Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Empire in the mid 330's to Rome's fall in 476. I won't solely blame Christianity for Rome's fall but it did play a part, Multiple civil wars between groups of Christians weakened Rome's central authority which made them more vulnerable to the Huns and Vandals. Also because the Visigoth's were willing to convert to Christianity the Romans allowed them to immigrate into their territory, A devastating mistake and one Battle of Adrianople and sack on Rome later the fall was inevitable.

A side note about Constantine: I find it very ironic that Christianity which is supposedly a pacifist religion and a religion of the poor gained prominence because a rich and powerful emperor saw a cloud in the sky and believed it was a sign from God to kill people. I guess he read too much of the Old Testament.

[Ichneumon]

I looked at that site. At no point was the mouse trap made less complex.

Of course it was -- a full-blown mousetrap was reduced to nothing but a spring. All other pieces had been discarded.

But in any case I accidentally posted a link to a much older draft. Please check out this one instead.

[PhilipFreneau]

So your objections are that for over 170 years the judiciary has been corrupt (the cases went back to the 1830s for precedent) and that case law and precedent, the basis of our legal system and a heritage stretching back to Roman law, is dangerous and should be removed - 'move the case law to the landfills.

In a nutshell, yes.

A state can not decide to ignore parts that it doesn't like, nor can individuals.

Your statement is meaningless under todays standards. The federal government can, and does ignore the constitution on a continuous basis, either creating laws via legislative usurpation, or out of thin air via judicial usurpation. The fears of the anti-federalists and George Washinton have come true: all power is consolidated in Washington, and collusion between the three branches essentially has consolidated all power into a single branch. Legal eagles see no problem with this because they cannot see past the "law". But many civil wars have been fought over far less, and many nations have self-destructed over far less.

[Michael_Michaelangelo]

McDonald forgot one thing to make his scenario work:

Keep the faith!

[PhilipFreneau]

The "140" years comes from the time Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Empire in the mid 330's to Rome's fall in 476. I won't solely blame Christianity for Rome's fall but it did play a part, Multiple civil wars between groups of Christians weakened Rome's central authority which made them more vulnerable to the Huns and Vandals. Also because the Visigoth's were willing to convert to Christianity the Romans allowed them to immigrate into their territory, A devastating mistake and one Battle of Adrianople and sack on Rome later the fall was inevitable.

It appears most of your knowledge came from Gibbon. There are a lot of contested theories on this subject, and many contradict your (Gibbon's) theory blaming Christianity. You use Gibbon's date of 476; but the choice of that date was more arbitrary than factual considering the empire lasted another 200 years or so. Of course, some say it never fell since Rome is still there ... LOL.

A side note about Constantine: I find it very ironic that Christianity which is supposedly a pacifist religion and a religion of the poor gained prominence because a rich and powerful emperor saw a cloud in the sky and believed it was a sign from God to kill people. I guess he read too much of the Old Testament.

Christianity is not a pacifist religion. Jesus came not to send peace on earth, but a sword. And Christians resist the devil until he flees from them. I agree that God never intended for nations to be war-like for the sake of being war-like; nor did He intend for the slothful to benefit from the labors of others; nor perversion to become the norm rather than the exception. There is no doubt that many cults have arisen in Christianity that oppressed and suppressed (and no doubt a few in Rome, as in Europe); but there is no doubting the success of our Western Civilization.