Posted on 09/08/2005 1:33:48 PM PDT by snarks_when_bored
Five critiques of Intelligent Design
John Brockman's Edge.org site has published the following five critiques of Intelligent Design (the bracketed comments following each link are mine):
Marcelo Gleiser, "Who Designed the Designer?" [a brief op-ed piece]
Jerry Coyne, "The Case Against Intelligent Design: The Faith That Dare Not Speak Its Name" [a detailed critique of ID and its history, together with a summary defense of Darwinism]
Richard Dawkins & Jerry Coyne, "One Side Can Be Wrong" [why 'teaching both sides' is not reasonable when there's really only one side]
Scott Atran, "Unintelligent Design" [intentional causes were banished from science with good reason]
Daniel C. Dennett, "Show Me the Science" [ID is a hoax]
As Marcelo Gleiser suggests in his op-ed piece, the minds of ID extremists will be changed neither by evidence nor by argument, but IDists (as he calls them) aren't the target audience for critiques such as his. Rather, the target audience is the millions of ordinary citizens who may not know enough about empirical science (and evolution science in particular) to understand that IDists are peddling, not science, but rather something tarted up to look like it.
Let us not be deceived.
Not good enough. There needs to be a wall of separation between government and education.
Not good enough. There needs to be a wall of separation between government and education.
Coyne's article is crushing. Hadn't seen it before. Thanks!
I read Coyne's article a couple of weeks ago and, upon re-reading it, was even more impressed. It should be required reading for all who would like to know more about why evolution is a science and ID isn't.
This is a quote from your web link. This argument is totally bogus, false, and logically invalid (and the heart of his case). What Dumbski is saying is that he is so all-knowing about what is "probable" and what isn't that what he has decided cannot be probable cannot be probable. Period. What a circular argument! (second only to an Intelligent Designer being the only valid explanation for that which the ID advocate cannot understand took place in any other fashion - therefore there must be an Intelligent Designer - [as opposed to an Unintelligent Designer?]).
Notice that what he is really saying is that whatever "events" he claims are so improbable that they could not have taken place is just a dishonest way of saying they are impossible. He knows that if he said this outright he would be utterly rejected. It is either it is improbable to the point of impossibility, or it is possible.
Thus he is merely playing a word game to disguise what he is saying rather than stating what he is saying outright, thus revealing he knows what he is saying is not science. The fact that such events in question are so highly improbable they could not have taken place is refuted by the fact that they have already taken place.
This isn't evidence of Intelligent Design, it is evidence of dishonest argumentation to somehow get Creationism to be considered science under the rubric of ID.
The only problem is it was first published in the New Republic. Someday, maybe, we'll see this kind of article in the Weekly Standard. Not likely though, and in my mind a major GOP problem.
Yes, I read it on the New Republic website originally. And I agree with the rest of what you said.
all life forms and their components are like computers or computer chips and contain vast amounts of information and programming which controls their composition, behaviors, and interactions. sure. this just all came about by chance. uh-huh. like your laptop just sort of happened.
my jewish, formerly-atheist-now-christian pastor said the day he studied enzymes in his multi-discipline science program at the university was the day he realized there HAD to be a God. too many people are content never to question anything or seek for knowledge....they just choose to stay ignorant. problem is at some point you get stuck with your choices whether they are the result of ignorance or not.
it seems logical to me that a god that is involved enough to care about individual humans is likely involved in their and their world's creation.
From ONE SIDE CAN BE WRONG [9.1.05] by Richard Dawkins & Jerry Coyne, [my bolding]
If complex organisms demand an explanation, so does a complex designer. And it's no solution to raise the theologian's plea that God (or the Intelligent Designer) is simply immune to the normal demands of scientific explanation. To do so would be to shoot yourself in the foot. You cannot have it both ways. Either ID belongs in the science classroom, in which case it must submit to the discipline required of a scientific hypothesis. Or it does not, in which case get it out of the science classroom and send it back into the church, where it belongs.
That is excellent.
"Closed-minded gravitists cannot find a way to make Einstein's general relativity match up with the subatomic quantum world," said Dr. Ellen Carson, a leading Intelligent Falling expert known for her work with the Kansan Youth Ministry. "They've been trying to do it for the better part of a century now, and despite all their empirical observation and carefully compiled data, they still don't know how."
"Traditional scientists admit that they cannot explain how gravitation is supposed to work," Carson said. "What the gravity-agenda scientists need to realize is that 'gravity waves' and 'gravitons' are just secular words for 'God can do whatever He wants.'"
IDists seem to think that the biological world contains instances of irreducible complexity and that the existence of these instances attests to the existence of an intelligent (and presumably rational) designer. By contrast, Chaitin points out that the existence of irreducible complexity in mathematics attests to the brute irrationality of certain mathematical facts. Not only is there no reason we've discovered for irreducibly complex mathematical facts (of which there are provably infinitely many), but there can be no reason given for them that isn't just as complex as they are. Since comprehension requires compression (understanding many cases as an instance of one principle), we find that at the heart of the most rational of the sciences, there rests...irrationality! Irreducible complexity in mathematics is the hallmark of randomness, chance.
Delightful.
In post #191, "understanding many cases as an instance of one principle" should read "understanding many cases as instances of one principle".
fun stuff!
I find the IDiot's assumption that, if it is the case that all factors are entirely natural, it must also be the case that we humans *must* be clever enough to be able to explain them.
(for any who are confused by the above, this is the inverse and corollary of the ID claim that, because some factors are as yet not explained by humans, they are "too complex" to be entirely natural)
Wonder how ID will handle this?
grrr...
addenda:
I find the IDiot's assumption that, if it is the case that all factors are entirely natural, it must also be the case that we humans *must* be clever enough to be able to explain them... TO BE SO OBVIOUSLY AN ASSERTION OF UNSCIENTIFIC VANITY THAT I AM TRULY AMAZED IT IS EVER TREATED KINDLY.
Yeah, I just read the article. Not only are the IDists going to be unhappy about it, but so might the political correctness crowd (for reasons that will be apparent to anyone who reads the article).
Good article. I have also noted that (for at least 40 years) no creationist has defined "kind" in an operational manner.
there can be no reason given for them that isn't just as complex as they are.
Complexity can be irreducible. Irreducible complexity is so complex it is irreducibly complex. The Intelligent Designer produces irreducible complexity. The Intelligent Designer is irreducibly complex. What the Intelligent designer designs is an irreducibly complex design. Am I on the right track? I don't want to waste a lot of headaches on this.
I tend to ask, "Was there a deadline for knowing everything? Did we miss it?"
there's that, too, but even that kind-sorta assumes we are clever enough to explain everything, when, really, it is entirely possible that the very smartest possible human might fall short of having such mental capacity.
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.