Posted on 11/23/2004 9:53:55 PM PST by nickcarraway
Uncommon Dissent: Intellectuals Who Find Darwinism Unconvincing
Edited by William A. Dembski
(ISI Books, 366 pages, $28; $18 paper)
WACO, Texas -- At one time, the debate over Darwin's theory existed as a cartoon in the modern imagination. Thanks to popular portrayals of the Scopes Trial, secularists regularly reviewed the happy image of Clarence Darrow goading William Jennings Bryan into agreeing to be examined as an expert witness on the Bible and then taking him apart on the stand. Because of the legal nature of the proceedings that made evolution such a permanent part of the tapestry of American pop culture, it is fitting that this same section of the tapestry began to unravel due to the sharp tugs of another prominent legal mind, Phillip Johnson.
The publication of his book, Darwin on Trial, now appears to have marked a new milestone in the debate over origins. Prior to Johnson's book, the critics of evolution tended to occupy marginalized sectarian positions and focused largely on contrasting Darwin's ideas with literalist readings of the Genesis account. Johnson's work was different. Here we had a doubter of Darwin willing to come out of the closet, even though his credentials were solid gold establishment in nature. He had attended the finest schools, clerked for Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, taught law as a professor at highly ranked Berkeley, and authored widely-used texts on criminal law. Just as Darrow cross-examined the Bible and Bryan's understanding of it, Johnson cross-examined Darwin and got noticed in the process. He spent much of the last decade debating the issue with various Darwinian bulldogs and holding up his end pretty well.
PHILLIP JOHNSON, AND a number of others, raised enough doubts about the dominant theory to cause a number of intellectuals to take a hard look, particularly at the gap between what can be proven and what is simply asserted to be true. Since that time, authors with more technical backgrounds, like mathematician/philosopher William Dembski and biochemist Michael Behe, have published books providing even more powerful critiques of the neo-Darwinian synthesis based on intelligent design theory. Behe's work has been particularly disturbing to evolution advocates because he seems to have proven that organic machines at the molecular level are irreducibly complex and therefore could not have been the products of natural selection because there never would have been any intermediate working mechanism to select. Now, the two team up as Dembski edits and Behe contributes to a bracing collection of controversial writings titled Uncommon Dissent: Intellectuals Who Find Darwinism Unconvincing.
Dembski displays the intellectual doggedness of the group of contributors when he uses his introductory essay to ruthlessly track down and scrutinize the footnotes offered by those who would refute Behe's case. Reference after reference claiming to have decisively defeated Behe turns out to be inadequate to the task. What passes for refutation is instead a collection of question-begging and "just-so stories." Right away, Dembski sets the tone for the book. Nothing will be uncontested. The pro-evolution community will be made to fight for every inch of intellectual real estate without relying on the aura of prestige or the lack of competent critics to bolster their case.
The best way to read the book is by beginning at the end and perusing the profiles of the contributors. There, the reader will be able to select essays from representatives of a variety of disciplines, including mathematics, philosophy, biochemistry, biophysics, chemistry, genetics, law, and medicine. The most enjoyable in terms of sheer brio are the essays by Dembski, Behe, Frank Tipler, Cornelius Hunter, and David Berlinski. Tipler's essay on the process of getting published in a peer-reviewed journal is particularly relevant and rewarding because it deals with one of the biggest strikes against Intelligent Design. ID theorists have had a notoriously difficult time getting their work published in professional journals. Tipler, a professor of mathematical physics at Tulane, crankily and enjoyably explains why.
TOP HONORS, HOWEVER, go to David Berlinski's essay, "The Deniable Darwin," which originally appeared in Commentary. The essay is rhetorically devastating. Berlinski is particularly strong in taking apart Richard Dawkins' celebrated computer simulation of monkeys re-creating a Shakespearean sentence and thereby "proving" the ability of natural selection to generate complex information. The mathematician and logician skillfully points out that Dawkins rigged the game by including the very intelligence in his simulation he disavows as a cause of ordered biological complexity. It's clear that Berlinski hits a sore spot when one reads the letters Commentary received in response to the article. Esteemed Darwinists like Dawkins and Daniel Dennett respond with a mixture of near-hysterical outrage and ridicule. Berlinski's responses are also included. At no point does he seem the slightest bit cowed or overwhelmed by the personalities arrayed against him.
For the reader, the result is simply one of the most rewarding reading experiences available. Berlinski and his critics engage in a tremendous intellectual bloodletting, with Berlinski returning fire magnificently. In a particularly amusing segment, Berlinski, constantly accused of misperception, writes, "For reasons that are obscure to me, both [Mr. Gross] and Daniel Dennett carelessly assume that they are in a position to instruct me on a point of usage in German, my first language." Though his foes repeatedly accuse Berlinski of being a "creationist," the tag has little chance of sticking to a man arguing for little more than agnosticism on the question of origins and who disavows any religious principles aside from the possible exception of hoping to "have a good time all the time." One suspects that the portion of the book occupied by the Berlinski essay and subsequent exchanges will gain wide currency.
For far too long, the apologists for Darwin have relied on a strategy of portraying challengers as simple-minded religious zealots. The publication of Uncommon Dissent and many more books like it, will severely undermine the success of such portrayals. During the past decade, it has become far too obvious that there are such things as intellectuals who doubt Darwin and that their ranks are growing. The dull repetition of polemical charges in place of open inquiry, debate, and exchange may continue, but with fewer and fewer honest souls ready to listen.
Hunter Baker is a Ph.D. student at Baylor University and contributes to the Reform Club.
The wise man does not waste time trying to make sense of that which is senseless."
You may quote me.
I listen to rock of all variations at my job for hours. You have no idea how wonderful it is to come home and listen to classical. Sometimes it seems like a highly spiritual experience. What Haydn music do you enjoy the most?
Just something to throw into this thread. Evolution has a sort of bait and switch attached to it in my experience. People defend a version of evolution as a very narrow mutation of genes and defend it by noting the research and observation that has happened about different animals/plants/bacteria. Then once you say that you believe that version of evolution, you're suddenly saddled with the idea that evolution is a blanket explanation for life coming into existence in the first place (abiogenesis), extreme speciation, and that all life came from one or a few unicellular creatures a billion years ago. The evidence for this is questionable, but the questioners are shot down, and before anyone posts a link to talkorigins, I have read most of the site, and find it unconvincing. Evidence that is millions of years old is sparse, and theories spinning that "new" attributes arose from the natural selection of a set of random mutations gives rise to dozens of unanswered questions about genetics.
Given that there have been so many times when scientists thought they knew everything and then were given whiplash when the universe suddenly became a whole different story (classical physics->relativity->modern/quantum physics->string theory?) I don't want to rest my mind on a philosophy that assumes that scientists understand everything. When life itself can be described and we aren't poking around in the dark about genetics, then you can talk to me about the origin of life. Before then, study genetics, abiogenesis, or whatever, but don't prosthelatize evolution unless you're willing to admit it's mainly philosophy with some science mixed in. Don't try and tell me evolution is science, because I have seen science, I. I know about research and that research can be credible and can be chasing after a popular fad.
Think logically or philosophically about evolution. Each stage must be directed by something that supercedes it. To just have random mutation without some selecting criteria to direct it, then you get nothing. To have the selectors also not have a criteria, you get chaos. Without a system ripe to perform the selection, you get nothing. The last point refers to the chemistry itself being capable of sustaining life. Such a chemistry isn't necessary, it simply exists that way. Scientists are prepared to just accept that chemistry is just the way it is, but not that biology is just the way it is. To not accept a science in this way is to push philosophy in science, and a weak philosophy at that. To impute that life existing at one time necessarily caused life at another point is a historical question, not a biological one. Maybe it is fit for archaeology or palentology, but these are simply descriptive sciences, with less weight than physics, chemistry and biology. Biology itself was a mere descriptive science before genetics, and now we may be coming to the point of an explanation with a set of rules as neatly placed as a periodic table. However, I am afraid that evolutionary philosophy is so entrenched in biology that a finding that revolutionizes biology that contradicts evolution will be stalled in the annals of the published research racket. Many scientific discoveries are made long before they are allowed to be published, and scientific progress tends to be made on the deaths of the adherents to discarded theories. This doesn't mean that there aren't a lot of crackpot creationist theories, but creationists don't have a monopoly on crackpots, and evolutionists don't have a monopoly on intellectuals or scientists.
So while evolution might be supported by reams of research in published journals, remember this is the science evolution, and not the philosophy evolution. Don't think that it explains all life, don't believe for a moment that the diversity of life will necessarily or even likely be explained within the general framework of the dozen or so theories under the name evolution. For random mutations to put forth the multiple on multiple precise mechanisms to make a multicellular organism work without the mutations destroying the creature and then to have multiple organisms work together requires an exhaustive understanding of life down to its last atom.
As a matter of fact I have read it, and more. I would gladly state the mechanism of evolution for you, if I believed such a mechanism existed.
I believe that the Bible is a key to understanding how things come into existence, but not in the sense of a hoary thunderer creating the earth and its creatures in seven literal days. I believe that the key is the text of the Bible itself. Opening the book of Genesis to the first line: "Bereshit bara elohim ET", ET is an acronym (as are many words in the Hebrew language) that is a marker meaning "a definite and direct object comes next". It has however, a deeper meaning. The word ET is spelled Aleph-Tav, the first and last letters in the Hebrew alphabet, and is also an acronym for the alphabet. The first line literally says "In a beginning, God created the alphabet."
Exploring further one finds that the whole of the Torah is a coded explanation of hyperdimensional physics in base 3. (Trinity) I could go on for hours and pages explaning the "missing link" that is there for all to see between consiousness, language and creation, but being the inveterate capitalist that I am, you're going to have to wait 'till the book is published. Suffice it to say that John was being quite literal when he said "...and the WORD was God. He was with God in the Beginning. Through HIM all things came into being..." (The "word " used by John in the Vulgate is "LOGOS", which means not only the word, but the spirit that causes the word to be.)
Consiousnes preceeds the form we take. It is not the result of it.
(By the way, didn't Archaeopteryx have its own distinct DNA?)
Best wishes to all seekers of truth, whatever their persuasion.
Mice.
Small differences among mice within a species are declared sufficient to declare a new species.
(well, if mouse "B" can still reproduce mouse "A", its still mouse "A")
This corruption of science is also used by envrio's to declare "endangered species" to make land off limits for development.
College students in various biology classes are instructed (sometimes paid) to go into open areas and find a "unique" species in each acre over a large grid. This is mapped and inventoried for future use.
(Quoting from your link) "So that the number of intermediate and transitional links, between all living and extinct species must be inconceivably great. But assuredly if this theory be true, such have lived upon this earth."
Please understand that I am not attempting to characterize all people who ascribe to this theory in a particular manner, nor am I saying that the theory was fabricated from whole cloth. I am simply applying the principle "plurality should not be posited without necessity" in light of what we know today concerning the distinctness of DNA, the spontaneous appearance (and disappearance) of species and the nature of consiousness, non-locality, subjectivity of time and the non-substantial nature of matter. (Please refer to post #149.)
The best to you in all things capitalist and the ongoing search for truth.
Bump for future reading
Thank you! It's good to see that people can have different opinions and still remain cordial.
The link you posted is the same one I read as a refresher prior to responding to your last post. I seem to recall that it mentions several characteristics of avians and reptilians that are common, particularly the rear-facing toes. My mention of DNA and its distinctiveness to a particular species is made to suggest that it is an essential marker, as opposed to accidental adaptations. (I tend to have a very broad definition of what is "scientific" when it comes to postulating theories that are unconventional rather than slavishly trying to defend ones that have scant proof.)
Have a great holiday!
mark to read later
Our creator realizes that there can be no love without the possibility of hate. There is no reward to be gained by a choice that is coerced. There is no growth without trials and tribulations.
IMHO, the Earth is a crucible for the manufacture of the kind of "souls" who have chosen to love through faith alone. God was not looking for robots, he could have them anytime he wanted. He wanted soulmates in his image, who exist because they had chosen to exist.
Check out the preables(sp?) mouse in Colorado.
They just acknowledged earlier this year that its NOT a separate species.
No time to do the rest of your homework for you.
Regarding the bio assignments, I've personally know people who've done this work.
FWIW: Between 1984 and 1994 about 400 papers concerning molecular evolution were published in the Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences. NOT ONE "proposed [any] detailed routes by which complex biochemical structures might have developed" -- NOR have any been offered in any other biological journal. (perhaps you or someone else can track JUST ONE down which has been done in the last ten years?)
It's at this basic level of life that Darwinism must be defended, but evolutionist "scholars" avoid the subject because they know it CAN'T BE DONE.
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