Posted on 08/18/2005 5:17:34 PM PDT by curiosity
The appeal of "intelligent design" to the American right is obvious. For religious conservatives, the theory promises to uncover God's fingerprints on the building blocks of life. For conservative intellectuals in general, it offers hope that Darwinism will yet join Marxism and Freudianism in the dustbin of pseudoscience. And for politicians like George W. Bush, there's little to be lost in expressing a skepticism about evolution that's shared by millions.
In the long run, though, intelligent design will probably prove a political boon to liberals, and a poisoned chalice for conservatives. Like the evolution wars in the early part of the last century, the design debate offers liberals the opportunity to portray every scientific battle--today, stem-cell research, "therapeutic" cloning, and end-of-life issues; tomorrow, perhaps, large-scale genetic engineering--as a face-off between scientific rigor and religious fundamentalism. There's already a public perception, nurtured by the media and by scientists themselves, that conservatives oppose the "scientific" position on most bioethical issues. Once intelligent design runs out of steam, leaving its conservative defenders marooned in a dinner-theater version of Inherit the Wind, this liberal advantage is likely to swell considerably.
And intelligent design will run out of steam--a victim of its own grand ambitions. What began as a critique of Darwinian theory, pointing out aspects of biological life that modification-through-natural-selection has difficulty explaining, is now foolishly proposed as an alternative to Darwinism. On this front, intelligent design fails conspicuously--as even defenders like Rick Santorum are beginning to realize--because it can't offer a consistent, coherent, and testable story of how life developed. The "design inference" is a philosophical point, not a scientific theory: Even if the existence of a designer is a reasonable inference to draw from the complexity of, say, a bacterial flagellum, one would still need to explain how the flagellum moved from design to actuality.
And unless George W. Bush imposes intelligent design on American schools by fiat and orders the scientific establishment to recant its support for Darwin, intelligent design will eventually collapse--like other assaults on evolution that failed to offer an alternative--under the weight of its own overreaching.
If liberals play their cards right, this collapse could provide them with a powerful rhetorical bludgeon. Take the stem-cell debate, where the great questions are moral, not scientific--whether embryonic human life should be created and destroyed to prolong adult human life. Liberals might win that argument on the merits, but it's by no means a sure thing. The conservative embrace of intelligent design, however, reshapes the ideological battlefield. It helps liberals cast the debate as an argument about science, rather than morality, and paint their enemies as a collection of book-burning, Galileo-silencing fanatics.
This would be the liberal line of argument anyway, even without the controversy surrounding intelligent design. "The president is trapped between religion and science over stem cells," declared a Newsweek cover story last year; "Religion shouldn't undercut new science," the San Francisco Chronicle insisted; "Leadership in 'therapeutic cloning' has shifted abroad," the New York Times warned, because American scientists have been "hamstrung" by "religious opposition"--and so on and so forth. But liberalism's science-versus-religion rhetoric is only likely to grow more effective if conservatives continue to play into the stereotype by lining up to take potshots at Darwin.
Already, savvy liberal pundits are linking bioethics to the intelligent design debate. "In a world where Koreans are cloning dogs," Slate's Jacob Weisberg wrote last week, "can the U.S. afford--ethically or economically--to raise our children on fraudulent biology?" (Message: If you're for Darwin, you're automatically for unfettered cloning research.) Or again, this week's TNR makes the pretty-much-airtight "case against intelligent design"; last week, the magazine called opponents of embryo-destroying stem cell research "flat-earthers." The suggested parallel is obvious: "Science" is on the side of evolution and on the side of embryo-killing.
Maureen Dowd, in her inimitable way, summed up the liberal argument earlier this year:
Exploiting God for political ends has set off powerful, scary forces in America: a retreat on teaching evolution, most recently in Kansas; fights over sex education . . . a demonizing of gays; and a fear of stem cell research, which could lead to more of a "culture of life" than keeping one vegetative woman hooked up to a feeding tube.
Terri Schiavo, sex education, stem cell research--on any issue that remotely touches on science, a GOP that's obsessed with downing Darwin will be easily tagged as medieval, reactionary, theocratic. And this formula can be applied to every new bioethical dilemma that comes down the pike. Earlier this year, for instance, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) issued ethical guidelines for research cloning, which blessed the creation of human-animal "chimeras"--animals seeded with human cells. New York Times reporter Nicholas Wade, writing on the guidelines, declared that popular repugnance at the idea of such creatures is based on "the pre-Darwinian notion that species are fixed and penalties [for cross-breeding] are severe." In other words, if you're opposed to creating pig-men--carefully, of course, with safeguards in place (the NAS guidelines suggested that chimeric animals be forbidden from mating)--you're probably stuck back in the pre-Darwinian ooze with Bishop Wilberforce and William Jennings Bryan.
There's an odd reversal-of-roles at work here. In the past, it was often the right that tried to draw societal implications from Darwinism, and the left that stood against them. And for understandable reasons: When people draw political conclusions from Darwin's theory, they're nearly always inegalitarian conclusions. Hence social Darwinism, hence scientific racism, hence eugenics.
Which is why however useful intelligent design may be as a rhetorical ploy, liberals eager to claim the mantle of science in the bioethics battle should beware. The left often thinks of modern science as a child of liberalism, but if anything, the reverse is true. And what scientific thought helped to forge--the belief that all human beings are equal--scientific thought can undermine as well. Conservatives may be wrong about evolution, but they aren't necessarily wrong about the dangers of using Darwin, or the National Academy of Sciences, as a guide to political and moral order.
Of coarse you disagree.
And the idea of complexity is not a faulty presumption. It's quite logical. A space shuttle is a complex piece of machinery. But an individual cell is more complex than that.
Nobody would look at the shuttle and think it is part of some grand biological scheme. It is a construct and an obvious one. And men instinctively know that. The thing has legs and a nose; but, nobody in their right mind would try to feed it like a horse.
This very capacity among humans to discern when things don't quite belong is played upon in early learning. Whether on purpose or not, it is used. Kids can instinctively look at groupings of things and tell you which in a group doesn't belong even if they can't tell you why. It's a basic sort of instinctive logic/reasoning. And I remember it being used when I was in school as early as Kindergarten. ID expands upon that and attempts to explain it scientifically as a starting point. And it is right. It's so right that it was relied upon for teaching long before they approached the problem. But since it threatens evolution, suddenly it makes no sense and must be wrong. Of course you disagree.
You also can't explain a paraconformity when it's inconvenient.
The ID crowd isn't afraid of being wrong. Nor are they afraid of what you think. And they understand that answers to questions are about more than what you can roughly postulate - however absurd. There were many approaches to flight before someone, namely the Wright brothers, came up with the right one. How did we know it was right - we saw it work. We observed it. Just as we observed the theories and ideas of every crackpot on the planet who tried unsuccessfully. Evolutionists have been designing cardboard wings for years and telling us 'this is how flight will work'. The problem is, people kinda know better. Just as they have learned better on the cancer front. Today, eggs cause cancer. Tomorrow they won't. And two years from now, they'll not only cause cancer again; but, will cause some new as yet unheard of condition which will later be found wanting and be rejected.. because science has lost it's way.
People have learned they cannot trust it because the people doing science barely know themselves what they are doing. They can't explain systems in front of them that they can observe with any amount of reliability, yet they can explain things they can't observe that happened before any of us were born with absolute factual capacity such that they set it in stone and pretend it is reality... it begs comprehension and it instinctively sets off alarms with people. In other words, people aren't as dumb as these high IQ priests of their own religion would like to think.
Fortunately, ID approaches people more openly, more directly and with a sense and understanding that doesn't offend or assume people to be stupid and gullible. They approach with a common sense that rather considers people to be quite bright. And in truth, people are quite bright as a rule. Many just don't apply themselves.
Joined the club?
I've never seen anything either personally or in print to lead me to think that I overestimate the public's concern over science and religion. In fact, your statement strikes me as utterly absurd. I am hardly saying that "the public" sits around and obsesses constantly on the matter, but that people find both matters (and their intersection) of cardinal importance is not even remotely in doubt so far as I'm concerned.
As someone with no dog in this fight, I will tell you that the stridency and seemingly mortification of you evos becomes you little in the public square.
It strikes me as rather amusing that "someone with no dog in this fight" can carry on at such length, and with such stridency and seeming mortification regarding the matter, and yet still claim to have "no dog in this fight." Here's a tip, next time you wish to argue that you have no dog in a given fight try hiding the dog out of plain view....
If the Pope came out for ID then it would surely induce a debate parallel to the one that the President's statement has induced, and for much the same reasons. The questions at hand are central to the whole enterprise of human civilization, and normal people recognize them as such even if they don't sit around and obsess over them all day long. I'm not even sure what your motivation is to suggest otherwise, except perhaps that in my experience when someone dismisses an obviously important debate that even they themselves obviously find important, it's typically because they don't like the way it's going and can't think of a way to address the actual topic at hand.
But, I don't really know, maybe you actually believe what you're saying. I won't presume to fantasize a whole imaginary sequence like the one you've made up in the vapors of your own mind and attributed to me. My actual view on the political side of it is that it will only have an impact if the electorate concludes that religious interference will impede national progress, and I don't think we're anywhere close to that yet. Up to this point, the relevant debates are but one of several proxies for the overall culture war raging in this nation, and that would continue much the same regardless, since its fundamental underpinnings are other spheres of contention.
When you construct something with the knowledge that it will do evil, you are responsible. God created man knowing he would do evil; he is responsible.
What an infantile rational.
According to this warped logic someone could go out and commit murder and then tell God it is REALLY His fault because He created them in the first place.
Only a totally wicked ingrate would abuse the gift of life God gives them to commit evil and then turn around and blame God for it.
Well a Hell it must be believing your Creator is an evil sadist. I'll pray for you.
I hope you will come to realize the Lord is merciful and loves you and wants to forgive you.
There are no great Dodges and their sure the hell ain't any data supporting your 'cry wolf' assertions. I'm a patient man though. There have been scores of polls leading up to and after the last election. It should be a simple matter for a man or woman of your obvious talents to locate ONE with ID or Evolution listed as an issue concerning Americans.
I await the data in my Ford.
Archeology, a field that I have immense respect for, strikes me as a sort of "applied historical study" which is richly informed by Science, and in general, the "hard sciences."
Anthropology, a field that I have some real problems with almost seems to me to be a form of literature, a form of literary conjecture, or perhaps a "preliterate philology" of illiterate cultures (an awkward phrase and concept, I know.) One could say that is is a "Social Science" which is, of course, to say that it is not a science at all, at least from my point of view.
I have a lot of trouble with anthropology, but occasionally these people put out some interesting stuff. I am just not sure that we need a "science" called "anthropology to get these writings.
Been there, doing that. Archaeology can be a hard science. In the US degrees are issued in Anthropology, with specialization in archaeology, physical anthropology, cultural anthropology, linguistics, etc. Archaeology and physical anthropology can produce people with good training in the hard sciences--or not. The other branches generally do not. But none of the branches of anthropology are as bad as sociology! Anthropology seems to attract those who are interested in people, sociology attracts those who are more interested in politics and social engineering.
[My opinion]
This is not substantive response, nor does it address my points. It is just blathering informed by little else that egoism. That ego is the driver is amply demostrated by that fact that you somehow think that i was merely addressing you and what you said when it was quite clear who I was talking about ansd where my focus was directed.
Prior postings of your is rather off point. There is nothing to respond too as there is nothing in this response but personal attacks and psychobabble.
But drop me a note when you have something meaningful to say, just spare me the hectoring, please. It does not have the effect on of me that you evidently are looking for.
The dirty little secret is that some are better able to separate the facts from their agenda than others, with the others sometimes just making them up as they go along. That simply doesn't work as well with the invention of search engines, not to mention on a site with a cohort of political junkies who find polls more stimulating that curvacious nubile women.
Wow, are you saying WildTurkey is the Devil?
The probabiliites being calculated aren't a priori. Amino acids exist. What are the odds of them forming a protein at random? Dembski wrote a long paper addressing your concern. You can find bits and pieces of it here
More to the point, if the idea that life is designed is a bad one, why is the alternative -- that it occurred by chance -- a good one?
Why do you bother debating this subject or posting to FR at all? Think about it.
Why do you think Christians should be the source of evil in this world?
No one claims they formed a protein at random.
Dembski wrote a long paper addressing your concern.
Dembski's a charlatan.
What are the odds that all the water molecules could line themselves up exactly in the right direction to form an ice crystal?
More to the point, if the idea that life is designed is a bad one, why is the alternative -- that it occurred by chance -- a good one?
No one argues life formed by chance.
It is easy to strike a nerve. Just be an annoying jerk and you will strike a nerve - I know how to do that perfectly well myself. But, that doesn't mean that your points struck a nerve, merely that your presentation struck a nerve. There's a difference.
This is not substantive response, nor does it address my points.
Sure it did. Most of your points were a fantasy concocted in your own mind. I stated that quite clearly. There is nothing further to say about them because I wasn't arguing any of that to begin with. You are battling the demons of your own imagination, and you don't need me for that.
It is just blathering informed by little else that egoism. That ego is the driver is amply demostrated by that fact that you somehow think that i was merely addressing you and what you said when it was quite clear who I was talking about ansd where my focus was directed.
Whatever. I quote from your post post #164:
Really, you evos and IDers...
Besides, you make it sound...
On one have you seem...
...and on the other you seem to be saying...
You cannot have it both ways...
...and you evos do not help your cause...
Do you really think...
Do you really think...
I think that you are falling...
...I will tell you that the stridency and seemingly mortification of you evos becomes you little ...
Prior postings of your is rather off point. There is nothing to respond too as there is nothing in this response but personal attacks and psychobabble.
Your silly posturings and inane protestations mean nothing to me. I could care less if you wish to address me directly or obliquely, but I do think it's pathetic for you to retreat into claims that you are not addressing me when you are. As for the material that was indirectly attributed to me by association, there is nothing to say to that except that it's not my position, and I have clearly stated so.
Moreover, I have not personally attacked you until now. If you thought anything I wrote before was a personal attack, then you are clearly too delicate to safely participate in an online political forum, much less in these evolution/creationism threads. I would recommend crocheting. Furthermore, the only "psychobabble" I've seen has come from you and no one else, at least so far as our discussion. Your post linked above is nothing but psychobabble.
He stated his case and signed his name to it. Check out his site and shoot him down.
What are the odds that all the water molecules could line themselves up exactly in the right direction to form an ice crystal?
Break a crystal and what do you get? Smaller crystals. Do you get smaller proteins if you break a protein?
No one argues life formed by chance.
Except Richard Dawkins, Carl Sagan, a few of the teachers I've had (at least).
Man, you seem annoyed. But I don't think the issue has much political traction myself, in part because it is confined to places where the majority are in tune with their elected officials trying to maneuver under the Constitutional wire SCOTUS has set on this one. Stem cells have more, not because of an attack on science issue thingie, but rather because folks want to live forever, and want to perceive that the Ponce de Leon Fountain of Youth seems to be just over the embryonic stem cell horizon.
Well by golly, that pretty much settles it for me.
Why do you think Christians should be the source of evil in this world?
Well, everybody knows that.
Now you've got it.
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