Posted on 02/07/2005 8:16:39 AM PST by metacognative
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Design for Living By MICHAEL J. BEHE
Published: February 7, 2005
ethlehem, Pa. — IN the wake of the recent lawsuits over the teaching of Darwinian evolution, there has been a rush to debate the merits of the rival theory of intelligent design. As one of the scientists who have proposed design as an explanation for biological systems, I have found widespread confusion about what intelligent design is and what it is not. Advertisement
First, what it isn't: the theory of intelligent design is not a religiously based idea, even though devout people opposed to the teaching of evolution cite it in their arguments. For example, a critic recently caricatured intelligent design as the belief that if evolution occurred at all it could never be explained by Darwinian natural selection and could only have been directed at every stage by an omniscient creator. That's misleading. Intelligent design proponents do question whether random mutation and natural selection completely explain the deep structure of life. But they do not doubt that evolution occurred. And intelligent design itself says nothing about the religious concept of a creator.
Rather, the contemporary argument for intelligent design is based on physical evidence and a straightforward application of logic. The argument for it consists of four linked claims. The first claim is uncontroversial: we can often recognize the effects of design in nature. For example, unintelligent physical forces like plate tectonics and erosion seem quite sufficient to account for the origin of the Rocky Mountains. Yet they are not enough to explain Mount Rushmore.
Of course, we know who is responsible for Mount Rushmore, but even someone who had never heard of the monument could recognize it as designed. Which leads to the second claim of the intelligent design argument: the physical marks of design are visible in aspects of biology. This is uncontroversial, too. The 18th-century clergyman William Paley likened living things to a watch, arguing that the workings of both point to intelligent design. Modern Darwinists disagree with Paley that the perceived design is real, but they do agree that life overwhelms us with the appearance of design.
For example, Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, once wrote that biologists must constantly remind themselves that what they see was not designed but evolved. (Imagine a scientist repeating through clenched teeth: "It wasn't really designed. Not really.")
The resemblance of parts of life to engineered mechanisms like a watch is enormously stronger than what Reverend Paley imagined. In the past 50 years modern science has shown that the cell, the very foundation of life, is run by machines made of molecules. There are little molecular trucks in the cell to ferry supplies, little outboard motors to push a cell through liquid.
In 1998 an issue of the journal Cell was devoted to molecular machines, with articles like "The Cell as a Collection of Protein Machines" and "Mechanical Devices of the Spliceosome: Motors, Clocks, Springs and Things." Referring to his student days in the 1960's, Bruce Alberts, president of the National Academy of Sciences, wrote that "the chemistry that makes life possible is much more elaborate and sophisticated than anything we students had ever considered." In fact, Dr. Alberts remarked, the entire cell can be viewed as a factory with an elaborate network of interlocking assembly lines, each of which is composed of a set of large protein machines. He emphasized that the term machine was not some fuzzy analogy; it was meant literally.
The next claim in the argument for design is that we have no good explanation for the foundation of life that doesn't involve intelligence. Here is where thoughtful people part company. Darwinists assert that their theory can explain the appearance of design in life as the result of random mutation and natural selection acting over immense stretches of time. Some scientists, however, think the Darwinists' confidence is unjustified. They note that although natural selection can explain some aspects of biology, there are no research studies indicating that Darwinian processes can make molecular machines of the complexity we find in the cell.
Scientists skeptical of Darwinian claims include many who have no truck with ideas of intelligent design, like those who advocate an idea called complexity theory, which envisions life self-organizing in roughly the same way that a hurricane does, and ones who think organisms in some sense can design themselves.
The fourth claim in the design argument is also controversial: in the absence of any convincing non-design explanation, we are justified in thinking that real intelligent design was involved in life. To evaluate this claim, it's important to keep in mind that it is the profound appearance of design in life that everyone is laboring to explain, not the appearance of natural selection or the appearance of self-organization.
The strong appearance of design allows a disarmingly simple argument: if it looks, walks and quacks like a duck, then, absent compelling evidence to the contrary, we have warrant to conclude it's a duck. Design should not be overlooked simply because it's so obvious.
Still, some critics claim that science by definition can't accept design, while others argue that science should keep looking for another explanation in case one is out there. But we can't settle questions about reality with definitions, nor does it seem useful to search relentlessly for a non-design explanation of Mount Rushmore. Besides, whatever special restrictions scientists adopt for themselves don't bind the public, which polls show, overwhelmingly, and sensibly, thinks that life was designed. And so do many scientists who see roles for both the messiness of evolution and the elegance of design.
Michael J. Behe, a professor of biological sciences at Lehigh University and a senior fellow with the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, is the author of "Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution
...A child builds structures from LEGO blocks (Theory of negative entropy-based structuring of matter), a second child chooses the best designs and throws away other structures (Environment and Natural Selection - Darwin), a third child destroys all structures ([Second] Law of Thermodynamics). Depending on the rate at which each child works different configurations (Biosphere) will be seen in the box with LEGO toys (Earth).
I was waiting for that. Good to see.
Let's see if you're speaking from a real familiarity or just name-dropping.
You cannot determine the veracity of statements by analyzing its adherents.
Analyzing who is saying what can be a decent rule of thumb in many cases. If the argument is about science, it matters what the overwhelming preponderance of people in the relevant area of science thinks.
Virtually all atheists accept evolution, but that tells us nothing about the veracity of the claims entailed in evolutionary theory.
True, but it does mean something that virtually all biologists accept evolution, and virtually no biologists accept ID.
You're also overlooking that vast numbers of Christians and people of other religions accept evolution. Support for ID/creationism lies almost entirely among people outside of science and is concentrated in certain Protestant evangelical and radical Muslim sects.
The protests about this "theory" not being religious in nature and origin are absolute hogwash. If you believe otherwise, you probably think environmentalism and feminism are apolitical.
You're probably right about Claudia's boobs. The other stuff could be natural.
Yes, you can use legos to come up with all sorts of analogies to make a particular point. It should help the reader understand the point you are making.
However, in their analogy they still don't talk about where the legos come from though.
Also, the changes instigated by the children, in the world of evolution, would take infinitely longer to happen then the time the universe has existed.
Also, notice the children are "choosing." That is becuase they are intelligent. Things happen much faster that way.
It seems unfair to blame God for Helen - much better to think that sometimes sh...stuff happens ;)
She's way better than any cold shower ;)
Can crystals form naturally?
She's way better than any cold shower ;)
LOL! It's true... talk about a shock to the system.
You're also overlooking that vast numbers of Christians and people of other religions accept evolution.
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Actually, I'm not overlooking, proposing or accepting that. If that is A) true and B) material in any way, it supports the idea that we need not connect ID and relgiosity. You are the one apparently denying that ID can emerge from non-theistic impulses. Even if there is only one Behe who couldn't care one way or another about religion who finds ID grows out of scientific curiosity, you'd do better to address the issue than to attempt a move to adhominemville.
However, in their analogy they still don't talk about where the legos come from though.
That's a different subject called cosmology. And we're still working on that, just as we're still working on evolution theory. The desire to have a final answer right now is very strong in most people, but in science it has to be resisted. It may be centuries before certain difficulties get worked out of this or that theory.
Also, the changes instigated by the children, in the world of evolution, would take infinitely longer to happen then the time the universe has existed.
You've mis-used the concept of infinity here, but, that aside, you'll need to back up such a strong empirical claim.
Also, notice the children are "choosing." That is becuase they are intelligent. Things happen much faster that way.
As you said earlier regarding your own analogy, it's an analogy, and not a perfect one. And, as I'm sure you know, no educated person would mistake, say, the Second Law of Thermodynamics for an intelligent actor.
>>You've mis-used the concept of infinity here, but, that aside, you'll need to back up such a strong empirical claim.<<
Actually, no. I said it that way on purpose. the number of monkeys and typewriters and years required are, for all intents and perposes, effectively infinity.
>>As you said earlier regarding your own analogy, it's an analogy, and not a perfect one.<<
You are correct. My bad.
Sure we do. The only people who DO support ID are members of classes defined primarily along religious lines.
It isn't that you have to be irreligious or religious in some specific way to believe in evolution, but that you are likely to be one of two very restrictive things if you believe in ID. And you're almost certainly not a biologist.
Again, on questions of biology, it has to matter what biologists think. Behe's had years to make his point. He hasn't made a good one yet.
easily natural...although it's no problem for minds to copy natural formations
do bears shit in the woods
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