Posted on 11/29/2004 6:52:41 AM PST by PatrickHenry
In a poll released last week, two-thirds of Americans said they wanted to see creationism taught to public-school science pupils alongside evolution. Thirty-seven percent said they wanted to see creationism taught instead of evolution.
So why shouldn't majority rule? That's democracy, right?
Wrong. Science isn't a matter of votes -- or beliefs. It's a system of verifiable facts, an approach that must be preserved and fought for if American pupils are going to get the kind of education they need to complete in an increasingly global techno-economy.
Unfortunately, the debate over evolution and creationism is back, with a spiffy new look and a mass of plausible-sounding talking points, traveling under the seemingly secular name of "intelligent design."
This "theory" doesn't spend much time pondering which intelligence did the designing. Instead, it backwards-engineers its way into a complicated rationale, capitalizing on a few biological oddities to "prove" life could not have evolved by natural selection.
On the strength of this redesigned premise -- what Wired Magazine dubbed "creationism in a lab coat" -- school districts across the country are being bombarded by activists seeking to have their version given equal footing with established evolutionary theory in biology textbooks. School boards in Ohio, Georgia and most recently Dover, Pa., have all succumbed.
There's no problem with letting pupils know that debate exists over the origin of man, along with other animal and plant life. But peddling junk science in the name of "furthering the discussion" won't help their search for knowledge. Instead, pupils should be given a framework for understanding the gaps in evidence and credibility between the two camps.
A lot of the confusion springs from use of the word "theory" itself. Used in science, it signifies a maxim that is believed to be true, but has not been directly observed. Since evolution takes place over millions of years, it would be inaccurate to say that man has directly observed it -- but it is reasonable to say that evolution is thoroughly supported by a vast weight of scientific evidence and research.
That's not to say it's irrefutable. Some day, scientists may find enough evidence to mount a credible challenge to evolutionary theory -- in fact, some of Charles Darwin's original suppositions have been successfully challenged.
But that day has not come. As a theory, intelligent design is not ready to steal, or even share, the spotlight, and it's unfair to burden children with pseudoscience to further an agenda that is more political than academic.
The fallacy of this is that you've made an unfounded assumption that this is an either/or problem -- that intelligent intervention and natural processes are mutually exclusive possibilities. However, we already know for an absolute fact that they are NOT mutually exclusive possibilities.
If there's no data to show that interventions occurred, then, by Occam's Razor, it makes sense for scientists to assume that it didn't.
Given that we have practical experience in doing intelligent intervention, it makes an equal amount of sense to assume that it did occur. Indeed, given our human propensity for doing design, Occam's Razor might in fact suggest that design is the better assumption.
The fact that scientists nevertheless invariably assume "no intervention" is evidence of their underlying materialist assumptions.
If there were to be found observational data that showed that intelligent interventions were necessary, then honest scientists would have to accept this idea.
There's an underlying bias there, too, about what constitutes acceptable evidence for design. Based on the way that humans practice intelligent intervention (or design of almost any sort), the proper context for a discussion of design is not "necessary," but rather "desired results." Moreover, there are often a variety of ways to achieve desired results, so "necessity" is not determinative of how a design might turn out -- we would therefore not even expect to find a design to be full of "necessities."
I acknowledge the difficulties inherent in detecting "desired results," but it does not invalidate the underlying truth that they are the driving force behind the process of design. It's worth noting, though, that the "nature's ingenious adaptation" explanation, tacitly relies on "desired results," rather than any argument from necessity.
I am not arguing natural process vs. intelligent intervention as an either/or proposition. I am arguing natural processes without intelligent intervention vs. natural processes with intelligent intervention as an either/or proposition (which it must be via the law of excluded middle.) When I refer to intelligent intervention being necessary, I mean necessary to explain observation, not necessary for life to develop as it has. It is entirely possible that life could develop by natural processes alone, but in actuality it had help from intelligent intervention. For science to accept this, there must be evidence that intelligent intervention did indeed occur. Occam's razor certainly points to the assumption that intelligent intervention did not occur. There is no scientific evidence showing that any other intelligence other than human intelligence exists or has existed in the past. (Not saying it hasn't, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. But in the absence of evidence, science will assume that there hasn't been) Since intelligent intervention in the development of pre-human life would require a non-human intelligence and there's no evidence that any such intelligence exists (or did exist in the past), Occam's razor points to the simplest explanation, namely that the development of life occurred via natural processes without the help of any intelligence. As I have stated before, if evidence is presented that shows the likely existence of such a non-human intelligence, science should (and I believe) will take it seriously. If the evidence points to the likelihood that such an intelligence interfered with the development of pre-human life on earth, then again, I think science should take this seriously. (I have my doubts about some scientists doing so, but that's a flaw in the nature of these scientists, not in the current theory of evolution.)
Hey, shubi, you're missing all the "fun" over here.
#####So if a dog breeder can't do something, it is impossible in principle? I never knew of an omnipotent dog breeder.#####
I never knew of an omnipotent random chance! :-)
Evolutionists seem to have reversed to logical order of things. Normally, if a barrier is encountered in science that can't be crossed, it's assumed to be a pretty rock solid barrier. Does that mean it can literally NEVER be crossed? Not necessarily. Perhaps there are ways to cross it that have yet to be discovered.
But until that occurs, you at least respect the barrier and don't arrogantly put forth a theory that requires breaching of that barrier in order for the theory to be viable. You might perhaps propose such a theory but you would concede that the inability thus far to break the barrier in question makes your theory problematic. It would seem rather presumptuous to put forth such a theory, then to cavalierly assert that we must all assume that the barrier we've never seen broken was frequently broken in the past but no one was around to see it.
In other words, you seem to be putting the burden of proof on the wrong people. If no one has been able to breed dogs, or anything else, beyond their natural species barrier, then the burden of proof falls on those who insist such barriers can not only be breached, but have been breached countless millions of times when no one was around to see it. The burden of proof isn't on those who claim these barriers can't be breached, it's on those who claim they can.
This is my problem with the arrogance with which the theory of evolution is put forth. Even though no one has ever observed life coming from its absence, we're told that it must have happened and we're to assume it happened unless we can prove it didn't. We're told that even though no one has breached the species barrier, that we're to assume it's happened millions of times because evolution requires it, and the burden is then placed on opponents to "prove" that it can never happen.
As I said before, I have no problem with evolution being offered as a theory, but given the scarcity of evidence for it and the list of seemingly impossible barriers to it, it should be offered up humbly rather than with certitude.
Ah, I think I misunderstood your previous post. You're basically asking why a designer didn't toss fish genes into a mammal, to make a swimmer.
The obvious counter question: if a designer wanted to make a swimming mammal, why would he start with a fish, instead of a mammal?
Note, BTW, that there is no reason for us to rule out the possibility that natural selection is operational at the same time as, and in between instances of, intelligent intervention.
Which is exactly my point; if they do the same things, why aren't they made of the same stuff?
There's no requirement for them to be made of the same stuff. All this objection does is tie the hands of our putative designer, thereby arbitrarily disallowing certain areas of the design space.
The differences between fish and whales are typically 5 - 10 times as large as the difference between hoofed animals and whales.
Again, this not an argument against design. Indeed, if for the sake of argument we granted the existence of a designer, we would not be at all surprised to see him working gradually from some fixed starting point. After all, that's exactly how selective breeding works.
A homely example: if you wanted a Big Dog, would you create same by splicing horse genes into his DNA? Or if you wanted a Small Dog, would you splice in mouse genes? Although you probably could do it that way, you probably wouldn't, because you also want the result to remain a dog.
Direct genetic modification works that way, too. Scientists desire corn with some new trait, and they stick in a slice of genetic material that confers the trait. The basic genetic structure is still far more similar to corn than it is to whatever donated the genetic structure.
As you've pointed out, these days the inserted genetic material is obviously non-corn -- but that is primarily a function of the current state of technology: it's easier to borrow than to build from scratch. In future, though, is it not likely that a more advanced geneticist would want to massage the corn genome directly, and thereby bypass the difficulties associated with inserting foreign genetic material? (Your own posts suggest the distinct possibility that this will in fact occur.)
What all of this has left out, of course, is that with design comes "reasons to design." We know that with humans, intelligent intervention is often motivated by some practical result, such as more grain per wheat stalk, or miniature horses for use in coal mines. Other times, as with teacup poodles, the motivation is basically impractical. (As the psalmist put it of leviathan: "which you formed to play in [the sea]." Psalm 104.)
The "barrier" that you seem to hang your hat on is a completely arbitrary one. If a dog breeder tommorrow produces a dog that weighs 1 pound, you will move the goalposts and say that this is the new barrier. Up until now, no dog breeder has bred a dog smaller than a chihuahua, but there is no reason inherent in the genome of dogs that a smaller dog can't be produced. What mechanism exists to stop a 1 pound dog from being born? What evidence do you have for this mechanism (other than the observed size of dogs as that would give a circular argument). Another example: how many people in the eighteenth century were 7.5 feet tall? Remember, at 6 feet, George Washington was considered to be an exceptionally tall man. An eighteenth century person might well have stated that humans had a height barrier of say 6.5 feet. All you have to do is watch an NBA game to show that this statement is nonsense.
The problem is that we know for a fact that, at the very least, there is no excluded middle when we consider things on a grand scale, because we know that both intelligent intervention and natural processes can occur at the same time.
You can make a slightly better case for applying the law of the excluded middle to individual cases, but it is irrelevant to the overarching fact that intelligent intervention can and does occur even as natural processes are on-going.
When I refer to intelligent intervention being necessary, I mean necessary to explain observation, not necessary for life to develop as it has. It is entirely possible that life could develop by natural processes alone, but in actuality it had help from intelligent intervention. For science to accept this, there must be evidence that intelligent intervention did indeed occur.
Let's consider human-induced dog, horse, or food-plant breeds. If you were confronted with this profusion of breed characteristics, would you deem human intervention to be "necessary?" No -- you could also think up some "natural" process by which the breeds formed ("nature's ingenious adaptation...."). Thus the argument from necessity ends up missing the true fact of human intervention.
There is no scientific evidence showing that any other intelligence other than human intelligence exists or has existed in the past. (Not saying it hasn't, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Which is to say: you're excluding direct evidence that intelligence can allegedly evolve, and at the same time you're claiming lack of evidence. And yet if intelligence evolved once, and is so obviously advantageous, then one can easily theorize that it has evolved in some manner before. It's a very reasonable hypothesis. Note that you can't even legitimately argue lack of evidence for prior intelligence, but merely "lack of evidence that we recognize as such." Moreover, we can spot signs of intelligence in non-human species -- octopuses, or raccoons, for example. So this is not a very convincing argument.
Occam's razor points to the simplest explanation, namely that the development of life occurred via natural processes without the help of any intelligence.
That relies on the unfounded assumption that "natural processes" is in fact a simpler explanation for design, always and everywhere. In the case of dog breeds, we know that the true explanation is that humans guided the process. It's also the simplest explanation.
I have my doubts about some scientists doing so, but that's a flaw in the nature of these scientists, not in the current theory of evolution.)
Precisely. The question is: are they engaged in that evasion even now? Note, BTW, that if the theory of evolution is based on the concept of "no intelligent intervention," then it is indeed flawed, because we can (and have) falsified the claim by creating a myriad of "domestic breeds."
The law of excluded middle does apply. Either some intelligence played a role in the development of life on earth or it did not. This is independent of the natural processes. Sure, natural processes can coexist with intelligent intervention, but it cannot be true that an intelligence did intervene and at the same time be true that an intelligence did not intervene. The question is then, "Did an intelligence actually intervene?". Your example of dog breeding is an example where science might come up with the wrong answer. We know that humans did interfere. If a scientist somewhere down the road looked at this process, however, without knowing that humans played a role, it would still be a simpler explanation that dog breeds arose without human help. This scientist would have two options: either the breeds arose from natural processes alone or from the combination of human intervention with the natural processes. It is simpler to assume that only natural processes played a role. This hypothetical scientist would need evidence of human intervention before he would conclude that humans played a role. In this case, he would not get it right, but who says science always is right? It is simply the best way we have to test ideas skeptically without allowing beliefs or wishful thinking (at least theoretically) to affect the results. Nobody has ever claimed that science is perfect. Without evidence that a pre-human intelligence in fact evolved we should not assume that such an intelligence was involved with the development of life on earth. It is not reasonable to assume that such an intelligence evolved based on the fact of human evolution. Human evolution might be an exceptional case. It might be unique in the universe. We simply don't have any evidence to conclude one way or another. Again, the simplest idea is the one that life evolved on earth without outside interference. I grant that this might not be correct, but until there is evidence to the contrary, this is the position that science will hold. There may be individual scientists who believe that there is evidence for such a claim. It will be up to them to present this evidence and demonstrate that it shows what they claim it shows. If this is done, and scientists in general are practicing science honestly, then this claim would be accepted by science in general.
Because fish, like marine mammals, are adapted to life in the water. Physiological adaptations that enable them to live in the water are not needed by land animals. For example, whales have adaptations that allow them to go without breathing for far longer periods than land animals are capable of, but not for infinite periods. Why not give them gills?
A homely example: if you wanted a Big Dog, would you create same by splicing horse genes into his DNA? Or if you wanted a Small Dog, would you splice in mouse genes? Although you probably could do it that way, you probably wouldn't, because you also want the result to remain a dog. Direct genetic modification works that way, too. Scientists desire corn with some new trait, and they stick in a slice of genetic material that confers the trait. The basic genetic structure is still far more similar to corn than it is to whatever donated the genetic structure.
Actually, most of the time that's exactly what you do. When you want a roundup-resistant corn variety, you splice in a gene from a soil bacterium. A single gene does not make the corn into a bacterium. Much of your argument is that we already know that intelligent design is used - by humans - to modify organisms: why assume it never happened before we came along? Well, the answer is, we don't see the idetifiable foreign genes in native species, that we see in genetically engineered crops.
This link has a decent synposis of how we make transgenic corn.
This link has a list of transgenic organisms. Note that we've put pig and human genes into fish, cow genes into bacteria, and so on. We don't put dog genes into dogs, because generally the dog wouldn't change much.
In future, though, is it not likely that a more advanced geneticist would want to massage the corn genome directly, and thereby bypass the difficulties associated with inserting foreign genetic material?
DNA is DNA. If you want to insert a working enzyme, you'd find one in nature that you know works, and slice out the thousands or so base pairs needed to code it. It's 'foreign' in that it came from another organism, but the host organism won't know it's foreign. You wouldn't try to invent one de novo. In fact, even new enzymes in nature are found in general to have been modifications of pre-existing enzymes, not new creations.
Forgot to mention: agreed that there is a degree of intelligence in non-human species. However, there is no evidence that there has ever been a non-human species on earth with enough intelligence to understand the natural processes that led to the development of the different species. It would require more intelligence than appears to be present in an octopus to intentionally modify the course of evolution to suit the purposes of the octopus, or at least so it would seem. I am not ruling out completely any of what you say. I just think that there needs to be evidence presented for it in order to cause scientists to modify existing theories. (BTW: Thank you for an intelligent debate free from insults and name calling. It's sad, but that's a rare thing to find on these threads.)
You may well be correct that someday a dog smaller than a Chihuahua will be produced. You may even be correct (those this one would seem less likely) that someday they'll turn dogs into something else through selective breeding. But it isn't the job of evolution's critics to prove that this latter event will never happen. It's the job of evolution's backers to prove that it will happen, and in fact has happened even without human intervention. Not only once, but the millions upon millions of times it would have to have occurred to arrive at the number of species we have on earth today. If evolution's proponents cannot prove that, they can still offer their theory, but they should be willing to admit the problems with it and stop shouting down anyone who questions it.
Simply asserting that accumulated random mutations must have caused species X to evolve into species Y several hundred million times because the theory of evolution collapses if that failed to occur doesn't seem to me to be adequate. It's the equivalent of a physicist coming up with a theory that requires light to behave in a way it's never been observed to behave, and demanding that everyone accept the theory if they can't prove that light could never behave that way.
The human height issue you discussed is merely a shift in average height in the population. It's the result of better nutrition, people being more selective about mates than they once were, etc. It's not a change in the genetic code. I'm sure the average person weighs more today, too, since we eat better. It's not a sign that we're genetically evolving as a species.
You have the whole idea of how science works backwards. Scientists have made observations and have come up with an explanation for those observations. Their explanation may or may not be correct. It is possible that someone will come up with an alternative explanation, and science is open to such alternatives. The burden of proof is not on the established theory, however. It is on the ones who are trying to find an alternative. Nobody's demanding that you accept evolution. Provide evidence that evolution is wrong and provide evidence that some other scientific theory is better.
Definitely my pleasure. It's a fun discussion, and can be so because my own religious beliefs are not dependent on the truth or falsity of the theory of evolution. (IMHO, much of the antipathy on either side of the debate stems from fears on one or the other side that God may actually, or may not actually, exist, which explains the often strident either/or tone.)
I freely admit that I do have a strong religious perspective, and that does, of course, cause me to look with less skepticism on the possibility of intelligent intervention. Still, I try not to "prove" God (a hopeless task), but find it more worthwhile to dig into the underlying assumptions of "the other side."
Well, actually, teacup size poodles have been around for about 40 years. Think it could mate with a Great Dane in the wild, unassisted by pippettes and microscopes? You guys are a tough audience--what, exactly, does a mammal need to do to be considered a separate species?
I've heard this claim a lot, but it appears to be a false claim. The theory of evolution assumes that life originated from "natural processes," and continued to evolve from that "natural" start. If the theory did not make such an assumption, then evolutionary theorists would not be so dead-set against the possibility of intelligent intervention within the evolutionary flow.
and their woeful lack of understanding of basic scientific terminology.
Lamentably true in some cases. However, it is also true that those on the "evolution" side of the fence tend to be ignorant of their own assumptions, and the weaknesses thereof. Same crime, albeit with different symptoms.
They don't want to learn. They already "know" what is true, and little things like "reality" aren't going to stop them.
A rather broad brush condemnation, don't you think? And it is clearly true that willful ignorance of "reality" is not limited to those on the "ID" side of the fence.
Nonsense! Name another theory in science that is treated as dogmatically as evolution with such paltry evidence to back it up. Evolution is the politically favored child, given a free ride because of the ideological stakes involved. Intelligent design and even religious faith fit the available evidence as well as evolution does. What's the difference?
I even doubt that evolution would even still be around as a theory today if it hadn't piggybacked on a couple of 19th century political movements that helped enshrine it. On the right, you had the Social Darwinists, who liked the survival of the fittest part, even though that aspect can easily exist without the accumulated random mutation nonsense. On the left, the Socialists loved the evolutionary progress idea, the randomness, and above all the godlessness. Leftist intellectuals saw the theory as a way to bludgeon religious faith and conservatism and they leapt at the chance. They've protected evolution like a mama bear protects her cubs ever since.
The left has used its control of the educational system, the media, and the courts to beat the theory of evolution into us for well over a century. They've made into "that which we shall never question".
Directly, or through several generations? I.e., could the cross-breed great-grandson of a Great Dane successfully mate with a teacup poodle? Undoubtedly Yes -- which suggests (to me) that they're still the same species.
Also, Chihuahuas can still mate with other small dog breeds, can't they?
Also, what would become of Chihuahuas and Great Danes if we stopped selective breeding? Wouldn't the extremes of dogkind fade over time?
BTW, I want to add my voice to those who have praised these posts for being free of name calling! And Stremba, if you read this, please don't take my occasional stubbornness for disrespect! :-)
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