Posted on 01/28/2005 4:28:41 PM PST by metacognative
Panicked Evolutionists: The Stephen Meyer Controversy
The theory of evolution is a tottering house of ideological cards that is more about cherished mythology than honest intellectual endeavor. Evolutionists treat their cherished theory like a fragile object of veneration and worship--and so it is. Panic is a sure sign of intellectual insecurity, and evolutionists have every reason to be insecure, for their theory is falling apart.
The latest evidence of this panic comes in a controversy that followed a highly specialized article published in an even more specialized scientific journal. Stephen C. Meyer, Director of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, wrote an article accepted for publication in Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. The article, entitled "The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories," was published after three independent judges deemed it worthy and ready for publication. The use of such judges is standard operating procedure among "peer-reviewed" academic journals, and is considered the gold standard for academic publication.
The readership for such a journal is incredibly small, and the Biological Society of Washington does not commonly come to the attention of the nation's journalists and the general public. Nevertheless, soon after Dr. Meyer's article appeared, the self-appointed protectors of Darwinism went into full apoplexy. Internet websites and scientific newsletters came alive with outrage and embarrassment, for Dr. Meyer's article suggested that evolution just might not be the best explanation for the development of life forms. The ensuing controversy was greater than might be expected if Dr. Meyer had argued that the world is flat or that hot is cold.
Eugenie C. Scott, Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education, told The Scientist that Dr. Meyer's article came to her attention when members of the Biological Society of Washington contacted her office. "Many members of the society were stunned about the article," she told The Scientist, and she described the article as "recycled material quite common in the intelligent design community." Dr. Scott, a well known and ardent defender of evolutionary theory, called Dr. Meyer's article "substandard science" and argued that the article should never have been published in any scientific journal.
Within days, the Biological Society of Washington, intimidated by the response of the evolutionary defenders, released a statement apologizing for the publication of the article. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the society's governing council claimed that the article "was published without the prior knowledge of the council." The statement went on to declare: "We have met and determined that all of us would have deemed this paper inappropriate for the pages of the Proceedings." The society's president, Roy W. McDiarmid, a scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey, blamed the article's publication on the journal's previous editor, Richard Sternberg, who now serves as a fellow at the National Center for Biotechnology Information at the National Institute of Health. "My conclusion on this," McDiarmid said, "was that it was a really bad judgment call on the editor's part."
What is it about Dr. Stephen Meyer's paper that has caused such an uproar? Meyer, who holds a Ph.D. from Cambridge University, argued in his paper that the contemporary form of evolutionary theory now dominant in the academy, known as "Neo-Darwinism," fails to account for the development of higher life forms and the complexity of living organisms. Pointing to what evolutionists identify as the "Cambrian explosion," Meyer argued that "the geologically sudden appearance of many new animal body plans" cannot be accounted for by Darwinian theory, "neo" or otherwise.
Accepting the scientific claim that the Cambrian explosion took place "about 530 million years ago," Meyer went on to explain that the "remarkable jump in the specified complexity or 'complex specified information' [CSI] of the biological world" cannot be explained by evolutionary theory.
The heart of Dr. Meyer's argument is found in this scientifically-loaded passage: "Neo-Darwinism seeks to explain the origin of new information, form, and structure as a result of selection acting on randomly arising variation at a very low level within the biological hierarchy, mainly, within the genetic text. Yet the major morphological innovations depend on a specificity of arrangement at a much higher level of the organizational hierarchy, a level that DNA alone does not determine. Yet if DNA is not wholly responsible for body plan morphogenesis, then DNA sequences can mutate indefinitely, without regard to realistic probabilistic limits, and still not produce a new body plan. Thus, the mechanism of natural selection acting on random mutations in DNA cannot in principle generate novel body plans, including those that first arose in the Cambrian explosion."
In simpler terms, the mechanism of natural selection, central to evolutionary theory, cannot possibly account for the development of so many varied and complex life forms simply by mutations in DNA. Rather, some conscious design--thus requiring a Designer--is necessary to explain the emergence of these life forms.
In the remainder of his paper, Meyer attacks the intellectual inadequacies of evolutionary theory and argues for what is now known as the "design Hypothesis." As he argued, "Conscious and rational agents have, as a part of their powers of purposive intelligence, the capacity to design information-rich parts and to organize those parts into functional information-rich systems and hierarchies." As he went on to assert, "We know of no other causal entity or process that has this capacity." In other words, the development of the multitude of higher life forms found on the planet can be explained only by the guidance of a rational agent--a Designer--whose plan is evident in the design.
Meyer's article was enough to cause hysteria in the evolutionists' camp. Knowing that their theory lacks intellectual credibility, the evolutionists respond by raising the volume, offering the equivalent of scientific shrieks and screams whenever their cherished theory is criticized--much less in one of their own cherished journals. As Dr. John West, Associate Director of the Discovery Institute explained, "Instead of addressing the paper's argument or inviting counterarguments or rebuttal, the society has resorted to affirming what amounts to a doctrinal statement in an effort to stifle scientific debate. They're trying to stop scientific discussion before it even starts."
When the Biological Society of Washington issued its embarrassing apology for publishing the paper, the organization pledged that arguments for Intelligent Design "will not be addressed in future issues of the Proceedings," regardless of whether the paper passes peer review.
From the perspective of panicked evolutionists, the Intelligent Design movement represents a formidable adversary and a constant irritant. The defenders of Intelligent Design are undermining evolutionary theory at multiple levels, and they refuse to go away. The panicked evolutionists respond with name-calling, labeling Intelligent Design proponents as "creationists," thereby hoping to prevent any scientific debate before it starts.
Intelligent Design is not tantamount to the biblical doctrine of creation. Theologically, Intelligent Design falls far short of requiring any affirmation of the doctrine of creation as revealed in the Bible. Nevertheless, it is a useful and important intellectual tool, and a scientific movement with great promise. The real significance of Intelligent Design theory and its related movement is the success with which it undermines the materialistic and naturalistic worldview central to the theory of evolution.
For the Christian believer, the Bible presents the compelling and authoritative case for God's creation of the cosmos. Specifically, the Bible provides us with the ultimate truth concerning human origins and the special creation of human beings as the creatures made in God's own image. Thus, though we believe in more than Intelligent Design, we certainly do not believe in less. We should celebrate the confusion and consternation now so evident among the evolutionists. Dr. Stephen Meyer's article--and the controversy it has spawned--has caught evolutionary scientists with their intellectual pants down.
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R. Albert Mohler, Jr
You have again confused the second law with one of Newton's laws, in this case the law of universal gravitation. The second law says nothing about the direction of motion of the albatross.
Showing "elements of design" is not design. A regular pattern occuring in random processes is not design. It is a regular -- symetric or spiral, and such -- pattern. It is a pattern.
What makes it "design" to you?
Fine, it is a pattern. Define the difference between a pattern and a design.
What makes it "design" to you?
You're the one pressing the "intelligent design" idea. You tell me, how do you define "design"? What part of the universe exhibits signs of design? What are the designs? How have you eliminated the possibility that they were created without an intelligence's participation?
That is analogous to the fact that it is exceedingly improbable that you and I are here in this world today by random processes, and the observed fossil evidence, chemistry and known physics says that too. Of course, one may "believe" (btw "belief" is something I avoid) that mere possibility, not matter how exceeedingly unlikely is preferable to acceptance of an Intelligent Designer, but to accept such an exceedingly exceeedingly low probability chance I find, well, irrational.
The probability of 2 ounces of sodium chloride forming a three dimensional crystal with exact alternation of sodium and chloride ions is 1 in 2(6.022*1023), which is overwhelmingly more improbable than your 50 heads (1 in 250)
Further, it is a false choice to say that the choice is between blind chance and a God pulling the strings. There are many shades of possibility, not only between these poles, but outside of them, as well.
Finally, while the "fossil evidence, chemestry and known physics" make it improbable that we are here by random processes, no one, to my knowledge, is proposing that strictly random processes are responsible for use being here.
Lastly, you claim that "belief" is something that you avoid, yet you profess belief in an entity you cannot see, test or know and for which there is no objective evidence. Indeed, you do not use the entire word "God", presumably to avoid the defacement of the name of this entity. That's beyond belief. That's faith, and I don't think there is anything wrong it, but don't kid yourself that you are a rationalist, and your belief in the supernatural theory of ID is based on logic and reason.
But you have admitted that the 50-head toss is just as probable as anyother sequence so it is no more improbable than any other sequence.
I was talking coins -- individually coins are both observed and designed to fall on either side in equal probability.
Yet here we are alive in this world and the summing product of all the probabilites of that being so from all the individual physical, chemical and biological systems we closely observe is effectively zilch. Only the fact that we are, it all is about us just so allows us to even entertain the notion that it ever could be so.
No 'if' about it. It's the probability we use to calculate the entropy. Clearly, according to your logic, every single salt crystal in the world has been individually designed.
If it is cold enough to solidfy the Cl, and you make a dust of the solid phase Cl and Na so fine it is one atom grains and then mixed the Na and Cl together and magically came up with a salt cube of 1 gram, gee willikers your probability would be correct. That's ignoring van der walls and non-ionic bondings which I'm not running over to a chemistry book to look up. Is there a single atom Cl, or single atom Na in a solid dust form? That sounds strange. Maybe in a mass spectrometer, "vapor" deposition or something like that. But then the "intelligent designer" is very much in play -- that being the physical chemist and his toys.
As to the relation to entropy, you'll have to explain that more carefully in a bit more detail, I don't quite catch it.
What a beautiful design!
The relationship between entropy and probability is S=k ln W (Boltzmann's equation). W is the number of possibilities; in the case of your coin, W = 250
Much of science is inference of stuff you can not see or test directly. We infer from observations, for example using probability analysis. You have a "belief" that G-d is impossible to even logically infer from observation. That belief has NO support.
The chemisty -- the ionic attraction -- reduces the number of available states, or rather makes some states more likely then others. The effect is to greatly reduce W or what would simply in some entropy model to W. Again, I'm assuming you are talking about the crystal being formed out of aqueous solution.
simply -> simplify
But when you don't understand what you are talking about, your "indirect" testing is worthless. And when there is a non-zero chance of something naturally occurring, that result does not require a supernatural explanation, by definition.
But what I find interesting is that you can not only "infer" the existence of this God, but his identity as well. Or else why the coy "G-d" stuff. Does Hercules care if you deface his name? Would Shiva give a damn if his name were erased? Or is it only Yahweh who can make a coin land on heads fifty times. So, you clearly believe that you know about not only God's existence, but his nature, as well. Tell me, exactly what is the scientific basis for your ideas about the nature and identity of God?
You have a "belief" that G-d is impossible to even logically infer from observation. That belief has NO support.
I believe that you cannot prove God's existence. You can infer whatever you want. That doesn't necessarily mean that it is correct, though.
Of course, that misses a predicate. The predicate is "Why bother?" -- to state in its Eeyore form.
Why do people even care what is proved or not? Why bother?
The answer is we do care. And where does that sense of caring come from? What does man's very being infer?
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