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.
_______________________________________
R. Albert Mohler, Jr
No problem. You were recommending that I should just move on concerning the other guy. I was just saying that I had moved on.
Rekramecalp.
Your 946 was disgustingly well worded. I feel that way partly because I already believed and agree with much of what you said, and partly because you brought up reasonable perspective and conclusions I had not yet thought about. 8^>
I'm also embarrassed that I have not yet read "The Abolition of Man" yet.
>> 200? Bah. Things just start heating up around post 500.<<
Heh, heh. That's how I got in! 8^>
Yikes! I'm still here!
Must...leave...keyboard...
Good deal.
(if this comes up twice I apologize - FR hung and I reloaded the page two times to check)
Do you doubt God's power to create a cosmic light powerful enough to sustain life on earth?
Actually, I am just relaying the premises of Dr. Brown but I do agree, if his premise is correct, it could sustain life on earth.
"what about the warmth of the Sun? Life on this planet cannot exist without the Sun, or are you saying it can? "
---
Noreen Noonan, in charge of NASA's Planetary Advisory Committee, mentions that certain extremophiles, by which she means fringe bacteria, microorganisms and viruses, thrive on highly radioactive environments. One would have thought that radiation in high doses would kill off anything, but just like some extremophiles can survive the high temperatures around deep sea thermal vents, others derive energy from radiation.
This is all relevant to Noonan, who is both aware of organisms that might be brought back to earth and survive in hostile environments but also of Earthly organisms that won't be killed by being exposed to the extremes of space travel- and thus would contaminate other worlds.
It seems all life was previously thought to fall into two categories. Bacteria, and everything else. Now there is a third category into which these weird organisms fall.
Archea are cells that don't have a nucleus. Their DNA are somewhat free floating. The extremophiles fall into this category. (Eukaryotes includes us, plants, algae and bunny rabbits- it's a big category)
You mean the law that states,
"A robot must obey orders given to it by humans unless doing so would contradict the 1st law" ??
Oh, sorry, I've been reading I, Robot again. ;-)
Well, since you bring it up, 3 > 2 except for unusually large values of 2 :-)
I answered you. Some cups can't hold the water poured in them.
Big Bang, Anthropic Principle, the first organism and DNA, consciousness from mindlessness… and I will say again that it is only recently in the history of science that ID has been excluded.
But you are missing the bigger picture here… if “natural” science is now proclaiming itself as the ultimate truth, than what is wrong with what Dawkins’ is saying, “Catholic morality demands the presence of a great gulf between Homo sapiens and the rest of the animal kingdom. Such a gulf is fundamentally anti-evolutionary. The sudden injection of an immortal soul in the timeline is an anti-evolutionary intrusion into the domain of science.” Dawkins goes on to say:
“There is something dishonestly self-serving in the tactic of claiming that all religious beliefs are outside the domain of science. On the one hand, miracle stories and the promise of life after death are used to impress simple people, win converts, and swell congregations. It is precisely their scientific power that gives these stories their popular appeal. But at the same time it is considered below the belt to subject the same stories to the ordinary rigors of scientific criticism: these are religious matters and therefore outside the domain of science. But you cannot have it both ways. At least, religious theorists and apologists should not be allowed to get away with having it both ways. Unfortunately all too many of us, including nonreligious people, are unaccountably ready to let them.”
I suppose it is gratifying to have the pope as an ally in the struggle against fundamentalist creationism. It is certainly amusing to see the rug pulled out from under the feet of Catholic creationists such as Michael Behe. Even so, given a choice between honest-to-goodness fundamentalism on the one hand, and the obscurantist, disingenuous doublethink of the Roman Catholic Church on the other, I know which I prefer.
Religion and science are separate? Really? It seems science has bullied religion into some obscure place in society and now pokes at it for fun. The God gene - memes - The Tower of Babel - etc… How often do we see Bible verses quoted by atheists here to ridicule Christians yet if a Christian quotes Darwin they are immediately labeled dishonest and the atheists interprets the Darwinian scripture as only ‘they’ can do…
The term ˜creationist” is thrown around not as some useful label but as an insult. If you believe you are the result of intelligence rather than mindless mechanisms then you are ‘called’ a creationist. But what does it actually mean for science to proclaim that there is no intelligence behind our existence? It seems current science has created an either/or situation. It seems that you are either a creationist (if you see any intelligent agent acting at any time) or an atheist (if you believe no intelligent force ever acted). You might say, “Ah, but I believe the intelligent force behind our existence will always be invisible to us’. Fine, but evolution states that it never had a target and we are a transitional species just like all life. Or again, as Dawkins states, “Such a gulf is fundamentally anti-evolutionary. The sudden injection of an immortal soul in the timeline is an anti-evolutionary intrusion into the domain of science.” Who are you to intrude into the domain of science? Science tells you who you are – you are a creationist (and all that implies). Dawkins, being the intellectually fulfilled atheist, is being honest in regard to current science. Heaven forbid you actually believe some miracle from the Bible – this goes against the teachings of current science and is blasphemy.
Look, I love science but we all know it is wrong about many things just look at history but I see intelligence behind our existence. So now the big question: “What do we do and how do we find common ground?”
The flaws and poisons -- those are harder to recifity. Especillay when you make demands that have no reality in them -- that poison is something YOU have to work through. What demands? For one that your understanding of Genesis is so perfect that anything contrary to IT -- your understanding, not the Genesis text itself -- is untruthful.
There are those who want Truth's head on a silver platter, apple in mouth served up neat and clean. Or served up certified and hygienic in refereed scientific journals, reciped repeatedly by cookbook experiment, preserved in aether-like systems of logic, model and formulae, held in dark complex secret lingua dear to a priestly elite in some haven of high clerics, catalogued into well-researched taxonomies, or argued politely according to Hoyle on forums of the intellect. Truth defies all that. These are tools, man as toolmaker and baker, fine and dandy. but the tools oft get the best of man's intent and make very job that a nail before the hammer held, whether a nail and beam is or is not -- the hammer will be used, damn the plaster.
Big Bang, Anthropic Principle, the first organism and DNA, consciousness from mindlessness…
I didn't express myself clearly. I meant can you point to any important discoveries in physics, biology, astronomy, geology, or chemistry that isn't the result of assuming that phenomena are regular?
The Big Bang theory is absolutely the result of following natural phenomena to their conclusion. The theory has nothing to say about the earliest moments.
The anthropic principle is not a scientific theory, nor does it explain anything. Why are your legs exactly long enough to reach the ground?
Science has not explained first life, nor consciousness.
Now tell me what ID is contributing to science. What discoveries or useful products are the result of assuming that living things are designed? What data does ID have that isn't the product of mainstream research?
Oh, I do agree with you there gobucks!
At bottom, "all morality is," is a specification of what is the best way to reconcile the apparent "conflicts" that obtain between God and man, society, and the world -- "world" here being understood, not only as planet Terra or the solar system, but of the entire physical universe altogether. This would be the "material picture." But the animating principle of the universe, it seems to me, comes from God and man, and tends to get externalized in societies. This principle is immaterial in nature. So are Life and consciousness — and all the works derived by humans from same, in the sciences, in literature, in the arts; not to mention the great religions, my own confession being Christian.
Now folks will say, I'm sure, that to make such a sweeping statement is to endue humanity with a significance which it does not deserve. All I can say in reply to that is: The Holy Scriptures advise us otherwise.
And this "fame thing" is a pernicious influence on society, if you were to ask me. I won't say it is necessarily "immoral" in principle; but I would suggest that it is thorough-goingly amoral. And not only that, but a complete waste of time to the extent that it refuses to engage the really serious things of life and the world, from the standpoint both of "the performer," and (worse) the audience.
Thus, to me, it represents a lack of seriousness wherever it may be found, exemplified and amplified by our wonderful "Mainstream Media." And may I also take a moment to thank Academe while I'm at it?
Not!!!
Oh, well. For what it's worth, gobucks. Thanks so much for writing!
You missed the big picture. Again, ID has been part of science as a given – it is only in recent scientific history that it has been excluded (and without sufficient cause IMHO) Biology currently looks at organisms as designed and this is productive.
That's a pretty sweeping statement, WildTurkey. Could you help me narrow it down a little bit? Just give me an example or two, and I'll go chase it (them) down. Then we can compare notes. If there's evil to be found there, why, we can just root it out together.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.