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But Is It Science?
NRODT via John Derbyshire's official website ^ | February 14 2005 | John Derbyshire

Posted on 08/18/2005 5:16:50 PM PDT by RightWingAtheist

This year contains two notable scientific anniversaries. The one most widely mentioned is the centenary of Albert Einstein’s three trailblazing papers in the German scientific journal Annalen der Physik on the nature of matter, energy, and motion. Those papers opened up broad new territories for exploration by physicists. The discoveries that followed, and the technology that flowed from those discoveries, helped shape the whole 20th century. Radiation therapy and nuclear weapons, the laser and the personal computer, global positioning satellites and fiber-optic cables — all trace at least part of their lineage to Einstein’s papers. The 20th century was the Age of Physics. The first quarter of that century — when dramatic discoveries in the field were coming thick and fast, with theory racing to keep up — was a wonderfully exciting time to be a young physicist.

It seems to me that we are passing from the Age of Physics to the Age of Biology. It is not quite the case that nothing is happening in physics, but certainly there is nothing like the excitement of the early 20th century. Physics seems, in fact, to have got itself into a cul-de-sac, obsessing over theories so mathematically abstruse that nobody even knows how to test them.

The life sciences, by contrast, are blooming, with major new results coming in all the time from genetics, zoology, demography, biochemistry, neuroscience, psychometrics, and other “hot” disciplines. The physics building may be hushed and dark while its inhabitants mentally wrestle with 26-dimensional manifolds, but over at biology the joint is jumpin’. A gifted and ambitious young person of scientific inclination would be well advised to try for a career researching in the life sciences. There is, as one such youngster said to me recently, a lot of low-hanging fruit to be picked. Charles Murray, in his elegant New York Times op-ed piece on the Larry Summers flap (for more on which, see Christina Hoff Sommers elsewhere in this issue), wrote of the “vibrancy and excitement” of scholarship about innate male-female differences, in contrast to the stale, repetitive nature of research seeking environmental sources for those differences. Sell sociology, buy biology.

This fizzing vitality in the life sciences is, as Larry Summers learned, very unsettling to the guardians of political correctness. It is at least as disturbing to some Biblical fundamentalists, which brings me to this year’s second scientific anniversary. The famous “monkey trial” in Dayton, Tenn., happened 80 years ago this summer. John Scopes, a young schoolteacher, was found guilty of violating a state statute forbidding the teaching of evolution theory. Well, well, the wheel turns, and the other day I found myself looking at a newspaper headline that read: “Pa. School Board at the Center of Evolution Debate.” The story concerned the town of Dover, Pa., which was sued by the ACLU in federal court at the end of last year over its incorporation of “intelligent design” (I.D.) arguments in the public-school biology curriculum.

It is odd to be reminded that I.D. is still around. I had written it off as a 1990s fad infecting religious and metaphysical circles, not really touching on science at all, since it framed no hypotheses that could be tested experimentally. The greater part of I.D. is just negative, a critique of the standard model of evolution by natural selection, in which random mutations that add to an organism’s chances of survival and reproduction lead to divergences of form and function and eventually to new species. This theory, said I.D. proponents such as Phillip E. Johnson (Darwin on Trial, 1991), Michael J. Behe (Darwin’s Black Box, 1996), and William A. Dembski (The Design Inference, 1998), is full of conundrums and unexplained gaps — the mechanisms of mutation, for instance, are poorly understood.

Biologists are not much impressed with this critique, since conundrums and gaps are normal features of scientific theories. Atomic theory was in considerably worse shape in this regard when Einstein published his three great papers. A few decades of research clarified matters to the point where the theory’s practical applicability and predictive value could revolutionize human existence. Nor are scientists much impressed by the facts of Behe’s being a biochemist and Dembski’s having done postgraduate work in math and physics. (Johnson is a lawyer.) This just recalls Newton’s fascination with alchemy and Kepler’s work on the Music of the Spheres. Scientists have all sorts of quirky off-duty obsessions.

And I.D. was always off-duty. Scientifically credentialed I.D.-ers have been reluctant to submit their theories to peer review. Kenneth R. Miller, a professor of biology at Brown University and a critic of I.D., wonders why Behe has never presented his ideas to the annual conference of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, as is his right as a member. As Miller explained, “If I thought I had an idea that would completely revolutionize cell biology in the same way that Professor Behe thinks he has an idea that would revolutionize biochemistry, I would be talking about that idea at every single meeting of my peers I could possibly get to.” Dembski likewise declines to publicize his research through peer-review conferences and journals. His explanation: “I find I can actually get the turnaround faster by writing a book and getting the ideas expressed there. My books sell well. I get a royalty. And the material gets read more.” Ah.

It is not surprising that most working scientists turn away from I.D. with a smile and a shrug. Phillip Johnson, in a 1992 lecture, predicted that Darwinism would “soon” be thoroughly discredited, leading to a “paradigm shift” and a whole new view of biology. Thirteen years later there is not the faintest trace of a sign that anything like this is going to happen. To the contrary, the fired-up young biologists who will revolutionize our lives in these coming decades take the standard evolutionary model for granted, not only because it is an elegant and parsimonious theory, but because I.D. promises them nothing — no reproducible results, no research leads, no fortune-making discoveries in genomics or neuroscience.

If the science of I.D. is a joke, the theology is little better. Its principal characteristic is a flat-footed poverty of imagination. “Don’t eff the Ineffable,” went the sergeant-major’s injunction against blasphemy. With a different reading having nothing to do with blasphemy, effing the Ineffable — what A. N. Whitehead called “misplaced concreteness” — is exactly what the I.D.-ers are up to. Their God is a science-fiction God, a high-I.Q. space alien plodding along a decade or two ahead of our understanding. The God of Judaism and Christianity is infinitely vaster and stranger than that, and far above our poking, groping inquiries into the furniture of our rocky little daytime cosmos. His nature and deeds are as remote from our comprehension as, to quote Darwin himself on this precise point, Newton’s laws are from a dog’s. The prophet Isaiah held the same opinion: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

I.D. had its little hour in the spotlight of public curiosity, and will linger on for a while among those who cannot bear the thought that living tissue might be a part of the natural universe, under natural laws. Neither science nor religion ever had much use for I.D. Both will proceed happily on their ways without it


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: biology; churchofdarwin; crevolist; evolution; johnderbyshire; science; thederb
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To: silverleaf
Isn't that what used to be called "quibbling"?

No, it isn't.

The concept both schools of thought share is....that there is/was an intelligent Creator and we are living in a universe of His/Her design.

Yeah, I know, but I was discussing the concepts they don't share. In particular, the first harmonizes with science and the other rejects science. That is no trivial distinction, and that is why the distinction is not even remotely "quibbling"..

41 posted on 08/19/2005 6:07:28 AM PDT by AntiGuv ("Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." Philip K. Dick)
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To: DaveTesla
Actually I think Einstein invented ID.

Nonsense.

PS. When you wish to argue a point, it is usually much more effective not to post a quote that totally refutes the point you're attempting to argue..

42 posted on 08/19/2005 6:08:39 AM PDT by AntiGuv ("Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." Philip K. Dick)
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To: Right Wing Professor
Go quote-mine somewhere else, and leave a great man alone.

I agree that Einstein was an atheist and a great scientist. I disagree that Einstein was anything near a great man. Any man who would prefer death to bearing arms and in the same breath defame the soldiers with the balls to do same is far from great. Especially a man who lived during the holocaust.

43 posted on 08/19/2005 6:12:56 AM PDT by jwalsh07
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To: DaveTesla
God does not play dice. Albert Einstein

Out of context quote. This was said with respoect to Einsteins view's of quantum mechanics at the time. He did not like the idea of a physical phenomenon being described in a probabilistic sense, nor did he like the Hiesenberg Uncertainty Principle. This had nothing to do with debates about evolution.

44 posted on 08/19/2005 6:25:29 AM PDT by doc30 (Democrats are to morals what and Etch-A-Sketch is to Art.)
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To: jwalsh07
Any man who would prefer death to bearing arms and in the same breath defame the soldiers with the balls to do same is far from great.

This would be the man who wrote to Roosevelt to inform him of the potential of atomic weapons, and to urge him to begin construction of one to use against Hitler?

Einstein was philosophically a pacifist, true, but when faced with real evil, he chose to fight it using the most powerful weapons available.

45 posted on 08/19/2005 6:26:44 AM PDT by Right Wing Professor (Intelligent Design is not a scientific theory - John Marburger, science advisor to George W. Bush)
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To: RightWingAtheist
but because I.D. promises them nothing — no reproducible results, no research leads, no fortune-making discoveries in genomics or neuroscience.

It's rather interesting that Mr. Derbyshire can start off the sentence saying that ID promises them nothing, and finishes up by saying that if "they" do ID themselves, they can make a fortune.

It's absolutely correct to say that if the ID folks want to be included in "science," they have to do a lot better job of being scientific. At the same time, this particular sentence shows the difficulty with honestly dismissing ID out of hand: it's an inherently plausible explanation.

At some point, there will be a need for biologists to be able to find and identify the handiwork of other biologists in various life forms (think, e.g., bioweapons, if nothing else). I suspect that this will finally put to bed the oft-repeated claim that ID us "untestable."

46 posted on 08/19/2005 6:40:38 AM PDT by r9etb
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To: Right Wing Professor
"To his friend Linus Pauling, another famous scientist, Einstein said: “I made one mistake in my life when I signed that letter to President Roosevelt advocating that the atomic bomb should be built. But perhaps I can be forgiven because we all felt that there was a high probability that the Germans were working on this problem and would use the atomic bomb to become the master race.”"

He also opposed its use in Japan. But that is neither here nor there, there are two sides to that discussion.

Would you like to defend his execrable remarks about the men who bare arms in defense of themselves and their country or do you think such remarks are not characteristic of "great men"?

47 posted on 08/19/2005 6:43:29 AM PDT by jwalsh07
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To: jwalsh07
...men who bare arms...

Not to be confused with men who arm bears. ;)


48 posted on 08/19/2005 6:50:44 AM PDT by general_re ("Frantic orthodoxy is never rooted in faith, but in doubt." - Reinhold Niebuhr)
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To: jwalsh07
Would you like to defend his execrable remarks about the men who bare arms in defense of themselves and their country or do you think such remarks are not characteristic of "great men"?

I'd first have to be familiar with those remarks.

49 posted on 08/19/2005 8:13:15 AM PDT by Right Wing Professor (Intelligent Design is not a scientific theory - John Marburger, science advisor to George W. Bush)
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To: Right Wing Professor
Einstein used the metaphor of 'god' to express his feeling that the Universe obeyed a set of meaningful and consitent laws.

Nice try prof, but...who "wrote" the laws?

Einstein (and others before him and since) express awareness that the existence of natural laws with their extraordinary complexity, is not logically attributable to chance. Therefore more logically, there is intention...authorship...design...creation....a singularity...call it what they will, and do. It is a bit amusing to read the works of those scientists who eschew the theory of God. They make heavy use of small caps (god), quote marks ("god", and their own metaphors...."cosmic intelligence"

I believe it was Einstein who once compared scientists to small children entering a great library containing all the great books and spending their lives trying to absorb the knowledge...without ever contemplating or even being intellectually capable of considering who wrote the books or why.. I believe this metaphor came as part of his discussion where he said " Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind..."

Authorship (design/creation/et al) .... is where science stops. As uncomfortable as that thought may be to some. Lack of certainty, and Discomfort on the part of some, about what came before science...should not be a reason to exclude an encompassing dialogue from the science classroom.
50 posted on 08/19/2005 9:58:24 AM PDT by silverleaf (Fasten your seat belts- it's going to be a BUMPY ride.)
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To: silverleaf
Nice try prof, but...who "wrote" the laws?

You think someone 'wrote' the law of universal gravitation. Why?

Einstein (and others before him and since) express awareness that the existence of natural laws with their extraordinary complexity, is not logically attributable to chance.

Actually, Einstein hoped the laws were simple, not complex. He spent a long time trying to unify gravitation with electromagnetism, for that reason. And why is it more logical to attribute the regularities of the universe to a sentient entity than it is to chance?

They make heavy use of small caps (god), quote marks ("god", and their own metaphors...."cosmic intelligence"

Time for an English lesson. We use upper case only to identify particular individuals. Since Einstein's god was certainly not the Christian god and in fact not a personal god at all, normal usage would not capitalize it.

The scare quotes around 'god' are there to denote that Einstein himself denied he was really referring to a personal god.

And 'cosmic intelligence' is not my metaphor. I resent having words attributed to me that are not mine.

Lack of certainty, and Discomfort on the part of some, about what came before science...should not be a reason to exclude an encompassing dialogue from the science classroom.

The science classroom is no place for a 'Dialogue' (why upper case?) about pre-scientific creation myths, regardless of how prevalent they are in the culture.

51 posted on 08/19/2005 10:24:14 AM PDT by Right Wing Professor (Intelligent Design is not a scientific theory - John Marburger, science advisor to George W. Bush)
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To: silverleaf
" Nice try prof, but...who "wrote" the laws? "

Apparently it was by consensus if you want to take Einsteins quotes literally.

"Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods" -- Albert Einstein
52 posted on 08/19/2005 11:31:25 AM PDT by ndt
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To: r9etb
At the same time, this particular sentence shows the difficulty with honestly dismissing ID out of hand: it's an inherently plausible explanation.

Are you saying space aliens are plausible?

Because Behe says ID is not about religion.

53 posted on 08/19/2005 11:34:08 AM PDT by <1/1,000,000th%
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To: <1/1,000,000th%
Are you saying space aliens are plausible?

No .... the space aliens are your idea.

The reason I say ID is "inherently plausible" is because we humans have an innate understanding of the concept of design -- we practice it all the time, and so it's not that hard to extend the idea to the origin or development of life. (And on the latter, it's all the more plausible because we've been using ID to influence the development of life for thousands of years.)

Whether or not ID is a true explanation of things, it is nevertheless true that we can think about how we would go about the process of creating life.

I'm guessing that with about 10 seconds of thought you, personally, could sketch out at a top level the steps needed to do it, and within a minute you'd probably be diving into one or another of the vexing questions (e.g., how would you store and retrieve information....?)

See what I'm getting at?

54 posted on 08/19/2005 11:46:16 AM PDT by r9etb
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To: RightWingAtheist

How many non-fundamentalist Christians or Jews believe in ID? ID is a "scientific theory" based on religious beliefs. Can anybody point to Hindu, Buddist, or Atheist scientists who support ID?


55 posted on 08/19/2005 11:58:21 AM PDT by GreenOgre (mohammed is the false prophet of a false god.)
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To: r9etb
No .... the space aliens are your idea.

No. Space aliens are Behe's and other Intelligent Designers' idea.

The Designer in Intelligent Design is not God according to Behe, because Intelligent Design is not about religion. That only leaves unknown extra-terrestrial intelligences that were here before any life existed on the planet.

In Behe's own words from his "Molecular Machines":

There is an elephant in the roomful of scientists who are trying to explain the development of life. The elephant is labeled "intelligent design." To a person who does not feel obliged to restrict his search to unintelligent causes, the straightforward conclusion is that many biochemical systems were designed. They were designed not by the laws of nature, not by chance and necessity. Rather, they were planned. The designer knew what the systems would look like when they were completed; the designer took steps to bring the systems about. Life on earth at its most fundamental level, in its most critical components, is the product of intelligent activity.

56 posted on 08/19/2005 12:29:49 PM PDT by <1/1,000,000th%
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To: GreenOgre
Can anybody point to Hindu, Buddist, or Atheist scientists who support ID?

No, but it's hot stuff with the Muslims:
Harun Yahya International. Islamic creationism
Why Muslims Should Support Intelligent Design, By Mustafa Akyol.

57 posted on 08/19/2005 12:31:35 PM PDT by PatrickHenry (Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas. The List-O-Links is at my homepage.)
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To: <1/1,000,000th%
No. Space aliens are Behe's and other Intelligent Designers' idea.

But I didn't bring them up.

I'm not particularly interested in your interpretation of who Behe was talking about in the passage you quoted. It could be aliens, or it could be God, but it's not particularly relevant to the basic question of whether something was designed, vs. occurred through an accumulation of random mutations.

Again, all I'm saying is that the idea of design is inherently plausible, because we're so very familiar with it.

58 posted on 08/19/2005 12:40:54 PM PDT by r9etb
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To: b_sharp

Self referent reference place marker.


59 posted on 08/19/2005 1:04:58 PM PDT by b_sharp (Science adjusts theories to fit evidence, creationism distorts evidence to fit the Bible.)
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To: Right Wing Professor
'cosmic intelligence' is not my metaphor. I resent having words attributed to me that are not mine.

Stow your resentment, "Prof", in my example I said "cosmic intelligence" was a metaphor used by some scientists. Are you a scientist? I had no idea...seemingly you are an English teacher...and one who cannot grasp nuance, at that. Time for a lesson in religion. Some people capitalize God as a sign of respect for a sacred figure or term in several of the world's major religions. People who are not Christian seldom render this respect because they reject the figure. Jews (as Einstein was born but did not observe) use G_d. "Islam" ...whose name is that?

If I had to guess a metaphor for "god" used by you...it would be "natural law"

If you believe it is logical that "natural law" always was and always will be without beginning or end, good luck with that.

I have never read anything about Einstein that suggested he hoped the laws he sought were simple. I have read that Einstein thought that the creator/old one/god (or whatever) was so intellectually superior and/or aloof that the creator/old one/god (or whatever) did not care how simple or how difficult his design was to decipher, and that therefore, the burden of discovery was on mankind.

Assuming you do interact with young minds in a science classroom...and you reject the pre-science "creation myth".... what pre-science myth do you teach? Or do you refer inquiring minds to the steady state cosmos theory from Fred Hoyle's very early work?
60 posted on 08/19/2005 1:42:19 PM PDT by silverleaf (Fasten your seat belts- it's going to be a BUMPY ride.)
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