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
Nicely put. Full Disclosure, no flame intended: My Oberon! What visions I have seen! Methought I was enamoured of an ass.
This sounds somewhat similar to some themes in C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity.
OTOH, there are evangilicals who have claimed that the concept of "fairness" is more or less diabolically inspired, as an antidote to both justice and mercy.
Go figure...
Right back to "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin." (!!)
One of the difficulties here is, what if God doesn't want to cooperate with the experiments? How can you even tell if the experiments are, well, effective? ;-)
You end up having to make assumptions in advance, one way or the other, with no "sure-fire" way to test them.
"Unfalsifiable" is one adjective used to describe the situation--but "Unverifiable" might apply as well...
Cheers!
"His remedy for this dilemma was to add a new 'antigravity' term to his original equations. It enabled his mathematical universe to appear as permanent and invariable as the real one. This term, usually written as an uppercase Greek lambda, is called the 'cosmological constant'. It has exactly the same value everywhere in the universe, delicately chosen to offset the tendency toward gravitational collapse at every point in space."
"A simple thought experiment may help illustrate the nature of Lambda. Take a cubic meter of space and remove all matter and radiation from it. Most of us would agree that this is a perfect vacuum. But, like a ghost in the night, the cosmological constant would still be there. So, empty space is not really empty at all -- Lambda gives it a peculiar 'latent energy'. In other words, even Nothing is Something!" "Einstein's fudged solution remained unchallenged until 1922 when the Russian mathematician Alexander Friedmann began producing compelling cosmological models based on Einstein's equations but without the extra quantity. Soon thereafter, theorists closely examining Einstein's model discovered that, like a pencil balanced on its point, it was unstable to collapse or expansion. Later the same decade, Mount Wilson astronomer Edwin P. Hubble found direct observational evidence that the universe is not static, but expanding."
"All this meant that the motivation for introducing the cosmological constant seemed contrived. Admitting his blunder, Einstein retracted Lambda in 1932. At first this seemed to end the debate about its existence. Yet decades later, despite the great physicist's disavowal, Lambda keeps turning up in cosmologists' discussions about the origin, evolution, and fate of the universe."
Your nine year old is far wiser than all the intellectually blind evolutionists put together.
As an X-atheist, evolutionist myself, I can tell you the arrogance and hostility you will encounter here is to be expected.
They are some of the most arrogant and bitter people I have ever encountered. Pray for them.
DeSitter's solution is a good fit to the present universe. The constant is zero to something like 55-100 decimal places.
He did not. It's still there and it's zero.
Quite a lot for one little word *not*.
It's been quite awhile since I've used any non-Euclidean geometry, so please be patient with me here.
By *not*, did you mean:
a) postulates NEED NOT be "truths outside the proof-system"
b) postulates are NEVER "truths outside the proof-system"
(they are either meaningless, or non sequiturs)
c) the whole idea of universal truths is valid, but much less common than previously assumed d) the whole idea of universal truths is a misunderstanding based on a limited philosophical system?
Perspiring minds want to know! :-) Full Disclosure: Just stirring the pot, here.
Experimental results are one way of resolving discrepancies between otherwise consistent, but conflicting, models...
Fair enough.
But constants in differentials are dependent on boundry conditions if I remember correctly.
And whether or not a constant is requisite in todays cosmology says nothing about AE's state of mind does it?
Well, I appreciate that, and for the record, I don't think you're a communist or whatever either. The funny part about these threads is that we all almost surely agree on far more than we disagree, but contentiousness must be in the blood or something, because we sure are good at it. ;)
Please recall the following:
1) Antibiotics are not active against viruses but against other microorganisms. Over time, biochemical characteristics of populations of microorganisms have changed in ways which have rendered some antibiotics less potent. This is consistent with "natural selection".
2) Flu shots are administered as a prophylactic against viruses. Referring to them in the tagline is inconsistent with the points raised in 1).
3) Flu shots also work by stimulating your body's immune system to attack the incoming virus (and presumably, some number of close mutations ;-) on its own, not by directly disrupting biochemical processes within the virus particles.
Please consider taking the new tag back to the body shop for further adaptation. ;-)
Full Disclosure: Pauling and Vitamin C!
Cheers!
Almost gave me a Woody, that did! ;-)
Try reading Aristotle's De Caelo.
Lots of people have constructed models without bothering to check them. You'd likely do a better job explaining patiently why empiricism is better than scholasticism.
Cheers!
Are you kidding? Man, I'm a full professor at Condescension U. - just ask the newbies ;)
The constant is always there and must be assigned a value to get an answer. DeSitter's is an initial value problem, not a boundary value problem. Einstein was an honest scientist, he doesn't stick philosophical value in his eqs. Not even his QM calcs and models.
but given your soaring cadences, you should've been a poet!
Cheers!
You ain't bad. LOL
So what?
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