The face of evolutionary design / evolution as a religion

RenewAmerica ^ | December 20, 2004 | Robert Meyer

[vpintheak]

Uh-Oh, the athiests got religion!

[Edgerunner]

Science doesn't want to admit the existance of intelligence in the universe. In many ways...looking around...I wonder if intelligence exists on earth! They can only study God, there is nothing else...

[munchtipq]

This article is bunk.

Evolution does not claim to provide a) an origin of life, b) an origin of the universe, c) an origin of anything at all. Evolution describes the process by which thing that ALREADY EXIST change. And it is scientific because it does make specific predictions, not only about what will be found in the fossil record, but how current species will evolve. I agree that the fossil record is far from complete, and that there are plenty of other interpretations of it that deny evolution altogether. However, none of those ideas are scientific (or at least, none that I know of), in that they do not make testable predictions.

Of course evolution could be wrong. Any scientist worth his salt would say so. But it is the best current scientific theory of the origin of species (not the origin of life!), so it is taught in science classrooms and should continue to be.

[Heartlander]

If the ‘mechanisms’ of evolution are mindless, undirected, and without purpose, how can these ‘mechanisms’ not apply to all of creation?

[Safrguns]

Fantastic Post!!! This was a great read!... I really hope this argument makes it's way into our court system to demonstrate the absurdity of removing God from the classrooms. Wouldn't it be great if we could get the judicial branch of our government to recognize atheism as an issue of faith and thus religious in nature? Once that cookie crumbles, then public school won't have much left to teach except basic math and reading... Then, just maybe, the whole issue of what "separation of church and state" will get properly defined.

[plain talk]

The root problem is ego, arrogance and a lack of humility. The things God hates the most about man. (so why did he create us this way?) He created us as independent creatures with free will rather than robots. God delights in natural and authentic love.

[Junior]

They're coming thick and fast, now.

[go_W_go]

Far too many people are denying the science of Inelligent Design. A lot of false statements out there regarding "testable predictions". Well here are a few...

Are Predictions Important?
Yes, they are. Without predictions, there is essentially no way to test if a hypothesis is true. Although there is no definition of science agreed upon by all philosophers of science (Lauden, 1988) many scientists and philosophers have suggested that scientific explanations are:
1. Based upon results obtained through observations and experiments that can be substantiated by other scientists. (NAS, 1998)
2. Subject to testing because scientists can observe the natural world to see if the explanation holds up. (Ayala, 1974; Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, 1963)
3. “Falsifiable,” in the sense that some type of observations could conceivably count against the theory. (Ayala, 1974; Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, 1963)
4. "Tentative," meaning that they are not held absolutely but are held subject to state of the evidence. (NAS, 1998)
The National Academy of Sciences explains that observations (often via experimentation) are fundamental to science:
Anything that can be observed or measured is amenable to scientific investigation. Explanations that cannot be based upon empirical evidence are not a part of science…The statements of science are those that emerge from the application of human intelligence to data obtained from observation and experiment. (NAS, 1998)
According to the National Academy of Sciences, "[s]cience is a particular way of knowing about the world." (NAS, 1998). Additionally, the National Academy of sciences states that a primary goal of science is to understand nature, where "understanding" means "relating one natural phenomena to another and recognizing the causes and effects of phenomena." (NAS, 1998) Progress in science consists of the development of better explanations for the causes of natural phenomena. Intelligent design is one such cause for natural phenomena, and thus would represent progress in science.

At the heart of science is observations, which is what forms the beginning of the scientific method. These observations allow us to make a hypothesis which make testable predictions about what we would expect to find if that hypothesis were true.

Putting Intelligent Design to the Test:
Intelligent design theorist Stephen C. Meyer emphasizes many of the positive predictions of intelligent design:
"Experience teaches that information-rich systems … invariable result from intelligent causes, not naturalistic ones. Yet origin-of-life biology has artificially limited its explanatory search to the naturalistic nodes of causation … chance and necessity. Finding the best explanation, however, requires invoking causes that have the power to produce the effect in question. When it comes to information, we know of only one such cause. For this reason, the biology of the information age now requires a new science of design.
(Stephen C. Meyer, Mere Creation, pg. 140).

"Indeed, in all cases where we know the causal origin of 'high information content,' experience has shown that intelligent design played a causal role."
(Stephen C. Meyer, DNA and Other Designs)

"Intelligent design provides a sufficient causal explanation for the origin of large amounts of information, since we have considerable experience of intelligent agents generating informational configurations of matter."
(Meyer S. C. et. al., "The Cambrian Explosion: Biology's Big Bang," in Darwinism, Design, and Public Education, edited by J. A. Campbell and S. C. Meyer (Michigan State University Press, 2003)
We can observe how intelligent agents act when designing to help understand how to detect design:
Table 1. Ways Designers Act When Designing (Observations):
(1) Take many parts and arrange them in highly specified and complex patterns which perform a specific function.
(2) Rapidly infuse any amounts of genetic information into the biosphere, including large amounts, such that at times rapid morphological or genetic changes could occur in populations.
(3) 'Re-use parts' over-and-over in different types of organisms (design upon a common blueprint).
(4) Be said to typically NOT create completely functionless objects or parts (although we may sometimes think something is functionless, but not realize its true function).

Table 2. Predictions of Design (Hypothesis):
(1) High information content machine-like irreducibly complex structures will be found.
(2) Forms will be found in the fossil record that appear suddenly and without any precursors.
(3) Genes and functional parts will be re-used in different unrelated organisms.
(4) The genetic code will NOT contain much discarded genetic baggage code or functionless "junk DNA".

Table 3. Examining the Evidence (Experiment and Conclusion):
Line of Evidence Data (Experiment) Prediction of Design Met? (Conclusion)
(1) Biochemical complexity / Laws of the Universe. High information content machine-like irreducibly complex structures are commonly found. The bacterial flagellum is a prime example. Specified complexity found in the laws of the universe may be another. Prediction of design MET.
(2) Fossil Record Biological complexity (i.e. new species) tend to appear in the fossil record suddenly and without any similar precursors. The Cambrian explosion is a prime example. Prediction of design MET.
(3) Distribution of Molecular and Morphological Characteristics Similar parts found in different organisms. Many genes and functional parts not distributed in a manner predicted by ancestry, and are often found in clearly unrelated organisms. The "root" of the tree of life is a prime example. Prediction of design MET.
(4) DNA Biochemical and Biological Functionality Increased knowledge of genetics has created a strong trend towards functionality for "junk-DNA." Examples include recently discovered functionality in some pseudogenes, microRNAs, introns, LINE and ALU elements. Examples of DNA of unknown function persist, but discovery of function may be expected (or lack of current function still explainable under a design paradigm). Prediction of design MET.

[munchtipq]

The mechanism of evolution is typically considered to be genetic mutation. It doesn't have to be, though. Evolution is independent of how or why mutations in organisms happen. It only requires that they do happen. Most evolutionists assume that the mutations are, as you say, "mindless, undirected, and without purpose" just because it is simpler (Occam's Razor (sp?)), but that is in no way necessary to the theory of evolution.

[MinstrelBoy]

Natural Selection is the god.
Darwin is the prophet.
"The Origin of the Species" is the scripture.
The classroom is the church 5 days a week.
Get it?

[Fatalis]

Science is supposed to take you where the evidence leads, and must have a patina of skepticism about it. Yet how many evolutionists are rooting for the universe to be a specific way, namely without an ultimate purpose or meaning. I have noted in previous editorials, statements by either Gould, professor Nagel, and Aldous Huxley, that are steeped in this sort of bias. That is religion and not science.

I don't believe ID is necessarily science, in the way science has been defined in this piece. ID simply asks the question of whether the data can be best understood according to the presumption that the universe was generated through spontaneous creation. We ought to conduct an investigation to find out. Both evolution and ID are metaphysical theories.

Exhibit #2.

This is from the theist's side. Science is not communicating well with the rest of society, and science is not blameless for the misunderstandings

[general_re]

"Indeed, in all cases where we know the causal origin of 'high information content,' experience has shown that intelligent design played a causal role."

LOL. IOW, when we already know that something is designed, we discover that it's designed. Nice, but there's no need to test tautologies, since they're content-free.

[newgeezer]

The-Church-of-Evolution ping.

[general_re]

I know of no requirement that everything that comes from a scientist's mouth must be scientific. If you think of Dawkins as a pope speaking ex cathedra, you're bound to be disappointed, but the nice thing about science is, you don't have to - you can always do science yourself and come up with a better theory. No gag-orders required.

[ASA Vet]

Yep, and they continue to be posted in the wrong forum.

[Safrguns]

Of course evolution could be wrong. Any scientist worth his salt would say so. But it is the best current scientific theory of the origin of species (not the origin of life!) How can one scientifically discuss the origin of species and totally ignore the origins of life? Is this normal scientific procedure to build a box around a specific theory and claim that it doesn't relate to anything outside of that box? If evolution "might be wrong", then what makes it so different than "there might be a God"?

[PatrickHenry]

EvolutionPing

(Yet another creationist thread.)

Not a list for the creationism side of the debate. See the list's description in my freeper homepage. Then FReepmail me to be added/dropped.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Suppose I come home one day and find my neighbor's yard full of weeds, chickweed, crabgrass, dandelions, buffalo grass, side-oats gramma, scattered in various places about the yard. The author seems to think my neighbor must have placed each seed individually to get the apparent chaotic effect. The real world actually looks much more like my neighbors yard (or vice verse) than it does manicured sward.

[Heartlander]

Neo-darwinism rejects teleology.