Posted on 02/12/2005 4:24:09 PM PST by snarks_when_bored
Nick Matzke has also commented on this, but the op-ed is so bad I can't resist piling on. From the very first sentence, Michael Behe's op-ed in today's NY Times is an exercise in unwarranted hubris.
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.
And it's all downhill from there.
Intelligent Design creationism is not a "rival theory." It is an ad hoc pile of mush, and once again we catch a creationist using the term "theory" as if it means "wild-ass guess." I think a theory is an idea that integrates and explains a large body of observation, and is well supported by the evidence, not a random idea about untestable mechanisms which have not been seen. I suspect Behe knows this, too, and what he is doing is a conscious bait-and-switch. See here, where he asserts that there is evidence for ID:
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.
This is where he first pulls the rug over the reader's eyes. He claims the Intelligent Design guess is based on physical evidence, and that he has four lines of argument; you'd expect him to then succinctly list the evidence, as was done in the 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution FAQ on the talkorigins site. He doesn't. Not once in the entire op-ed does he give a single piece of this "physical evidence." Instead, we get four bald assertions, every one false.
The first claim is uncontroversial: we can often recognize the effects of design in nature.
He then tells us that Mt Rushmore is designed, and the Rocky Mountains aren't. How is this an argument for anything? Nobody is denying that human beings design things, and that Mt Rushmore was carved with intelligent planning. Saying that Rushmore was designed does not help us resolve whether the frond of a fern is 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.
No, this is controversial, in the sense that Behe is claiming it while most biologists are denying it. Again, he does not present any evidence to back up his contention, but instead invokes two words: "Paley" and "machine."
The Reverend Paley, of course, is long dead and his argument equally deceased, thoroughly scuttled. I will give Behe credit that he only wants to turn the clock of science back to about 1850, rather than 1350, as his fellow creationists at the Discovery Institute seem to desire, but resurrecting Paley won't help him.
The rest of his argument consists of citing a number of instances of biologists using the word "machine" to refer to the workings of a cell. This is ludicrous; he's playing a game with words, assuming that everyone will automatically link the word "machine" to "design." But of course, Crick and Alberts and the other scientists who compared the mechanism of the cell to an intricate machine were making no presumption of design.
There is another sneaky bit of dishonesty here; Behe is trying to use the good names of Crick and Alberts to endorse his crackpot theory, when the creationists know full well that Crick did not believe in ID, and that Alberts has been vocal in his opposition.
So far, Behe's argument has been that "it's obvious!", accompanied by a little sleight of hand. It doesn't get any better.
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.
Oh, so many creationists tropes in such a short paragraph.
Remember, this is supposed to be an outline of the evidence for Intelligent Design creationism. Declaring that evolutionary biology is "no good" is not evidence for his pet guess.
Similarly, declaring that some small minority of scientists, most of whom seem to be employed by creationist organizations like the Discovery Institute or the Creation Research Society or Answers in Genesis, does not make their ideas correct. Some small minority of historians also believe the Holocaust never happened; does that validate their denial? There are also people who call themselves physicists and engineers who promote perpetual motion machines. Credible historians, physicists, and engineers repudiate all of these people, just as credible biologists repudiate the fringe elements that babble about intelligent design.
The last bit of his claim is simply Behe's standard misrepresentation. For years, he's been going around telling people that he has analyzed the content of the Journal of Molecular Evolution and that they have never published anything on "detailed models for intermediates in the development of complex biomolecular structures", and that the textbooks similarly lack any credible evidence for such processes. Both claims are false. A list of research studies that show exactly what he claims doesn't exist is easily found.
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.
How does Behe get away with this?
How does this crap get published in the NY Times?
Look at what he is doing: he is simply declaring that there is no convincing explanation in biology that doesn't require intelligent design, therefore Intelligent Design creationism is true. But thousands of biologists think the large body of evidence in the scientific literature is convincing! Behe doesn't get to just wave his hands and have all the evidence for evolutionary biology magically disappear; he is trusting that his audience, lacking any knowledge of biology, will simply believe him.
After this resoundingly vacant series of non-explanations, Behe tops it all off with a cliche.
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.
Behe began this op-ed by telling us that he was going to give us the contemporary argument for Intelligent Design creationism, consisting of four linked claims. Here's a shorter Behe for you:
The evidence for Intelligent Design.
That's it.
That's pathetic.
And it's in the New York Times? Journalism has fallen on very hard times.
This article was first published on Pharyngula and appears here by permission.
Most scientists have a lot of knowledge in other areas. However, IDer types just think they know something. They don't really know that much about science.
What is truly deceptive is that Behe, being a chemist probably knows that IC is hogswallop. He just saw a way to make some money from some rubes.
What scientific evidence do you have to demonstrate ID's validity?
Evolution through natural selection is a valid design mechanism itself.
You must show that the design is "intelligent" rather than formed through necessity to survive. The human body is not all that well designed. The designer you assume must not be too intelligent. Who do you think it is?
Ah, the DH is the result of an evolutionary arms race between baseball, basketball, & football. I don't know much about basketball & football history, but wasn't there some change done to professional basketball several years ago to make it more TV-friendly, which many basketball purists say has destroyed the game?
Well, the DH rule appeared in the early '70s, so maybe it wasn't in response to that. But I do remember the flavor of the debate back then: Baseball was seen as boring & stodgy, what with all those pitchers coming up to bat & killing their team's rallies, or else having to pull the pitcher (who may be doing great on the mound) for a pinch-hitter in order to try to keep the rally going. Too many 1-0 games for TV when viewers can turn to basketball. Etc. etc.
P.S. Having grown up in Detroit & now a Seattleite, I say the DH is a sign of evolutionary progress. Creationists will say "it figures - you're biased". :-)
This is one of the things that creationists and IDers simply cannot see. "Matter" takes on entirely new characteristics at higher levels of organisation, and must be analyzed at these higher levels.Now that is an interesting insight!Evolutionists are accused of reductionism, but it is the creationists that incompetenty attempt to reduce biology to physics. The laws of physics are not broken by living things, but the laws of physics are not adequate or appropriate for the analysis of evolution.
thanks so much, the whole point of id is that info theory measures order..off top of my head:
wnd article 39733 tells how to find a lot of the published 'cdk' stuff (lightspeed decay)..
counterpane.com is by the author of 'applied cryptography' which documents much of the diff bw random & pseudo..
Having lived all my life in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, I'd say, I can't wait for the NL (Neanderthal League??) to evolve in that direction, myself...
ultimately evo and id are both not falsifiable, that's why we test which models better..
when you say only knowledge of design is evidence of design i could say only observation of evolution is its evidence..
a house or more could always (vanishingly) potentially arise spontaneously undesigned. not the proof but the preponderance is the question..
since a house contains much order (mathematical macrostructure, multicomponent functions like hvac, etc) we conclude that design is likely wo fearing disagreement..
but evo can't do the same for biology!!
Are you aware that the face of the Old Man on the Mountain in New Hampshire fell off last year. NH will have to find a new landmark.
Nature 1 Man 0
Evidence, ok. When you gain memories, does the mind get "heavier."
Just as when you add Windows to a new computer, the computer has not increased in size nor weight, when you add to your own human "operating system" you do not add to your own size nor weight. Nor can consciousness be measured or explained by todays science.
One other note. Windows or Mac os or ISPF or Unix are more than one thing. That is, when your computer is off or on, windows resides on your hard drive. When it is on, it also resides in memory and is "running." Same with your human operating system, except when you turn your human being off, it is called "dead." A reboot will not work.
Research suggests that only your brain needs sleep. And dreaming is a byproduct of the process happening during sleep. That process,in PC's is called "Defragging."
Actually, evolution is falsifiable. For instance, if paleontologists uncovered a mammal-bird transitional, evolution would go right out the window. ID, on the other hand, is not falsifiable because everything can simply be explained as "that's the way the designer did it."
The three-point shot?
NBA players get away with crap that would have resulted in ref calls in my junior high school basketball games. I've seen players travel and double dribble, just to name to of the most common and egregious violations. This is one of the two big reasons I do not watch NBA games any more -- that and the fact that nearly every team goes to the playoffs.
crystals arise from orderly laws in favorably ordered sites.
you make my point that there is no objective procedure for testing design..or evolution..we only weigh historical evidence..
then we reasonably conclude that the book or crystal or house is likelier designed than evolved..that's recognizing design without knowing history as we all do every day..except evolutionists
the essay points out that darwin snuck in ways to explain around anything that might falsify..please let's hear why mammalbird would destroy evolution and what evos would do other than invent another epicycle..mammalbird could be my new superhero!!
id is no more falsifiable than evolution but why do you think design requires a designer?? why do evolution promoters keep dropping science and going philosophy??
You mean that's not a frame from an anime cartoon?
RightWhale, even the strongest correlation does not necessarily give evidence of causation. The question was: Which came first, the brain development that facilitates learning or the learning that facilitates brain development? I asserted that so far, we do not know the answer. Obviously there is a strong correlation between brain development/modification and learning. But that's all we really know. It may be that neither is the cause of the other. Beyond saying it seems clear that living systems demonstrate both, and both always together, what more can we really say?
Credit should go to Ernst Mayr.
LOL, Patrick!!! You think Plato would really have said that to Aristotle??? (Of course, there's no way to tell, unless some ancient parchment or engraving or sumthin' shows up with positive proof, which can be validated as authentic.)
Plato and Aristotle weren't working the same problems, you might say. Plato was interested in understanding the principles underlying the Cosmos as one whole, integrated, "living" system. Aristotle was interested in "the study of creature" -- that is, of "microcosmic entities," you might say. Both understood the epistemological and ontological problems of their respective fields of endeavor; indeed, they are the same problems in both fields; and somehow I think there wasn't much, if any, "disagreement" between them on issues like that. FWIW
The arcane rules for calling a "balk" (which evolved to neutralize an "unfair" advantage that pitchers had developed against the runners on base) is an example of evolution creating a mind-bendingly complex structure that doesn't do anything well. IMO.
I'd love to see a little reductive evolution around the wild pitch/passed ball: Allow the batter to run to 1st base if he wants, regardless of how many strikes he has. So in this sense he's just like another runner while he's at the plate. (I mean, forcing the batter to run toward 1st if the catcher misses the ball - and then only if it's the 3rd strike? What's up with that???)
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