Posted on 10/01/2005 5:09:16 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
Professor focused on intelligent design as theology, not science, at Dover trial Friday.
HARRISBURG — If there is a God, then he could have made the monkey and the human with similar genetic material.
In the fifth day of Dover Area School District’s trial over intelligent design, John Haught, a Georgetown University theology professor, agreed that was true.
So, the idea that “we came from some monkey or ape is conjecture at this point?” Dover’s lead attorney Richard Thompson asked Haught under cross-examination.
Haught disagreed.
In a First Amendment battle in U.S. Middle District Court in Harrisburg, the Dover district is defending its decision last year to include intelligent design in its biology curriculum. Eleven parents filed suit against the district arguing the concept is a veiled attempt to force religion into science class.
On Friday, Thompson, in trying to cast doubt over the theory of evolution — referred to as the unifying concept of modern biology — raised the issue of common descent.
But Haught said that in the world of science, there is little debate that humans share a common ancestor.
The professor, who spoke deliberately and extensively on the philosophical differences between religion and science, was the day’s sole witness.
Questioned by plaintiffs’ attorney Alfred Wilcox, he said intelligent design’s basic premise — that the complexity of life defies all explanation but the existence of a designer — is essentially an old religious argument based on the 13th-century writings of St. Thomas Aquinas and the “watchmaker” analogy put forth in 1802 by British philosopher William Paley.
A person walking through a field stumbles upon a watch. It is carefully assembled and wouldn’t function without all its parts working together. The person’s inevitable conclusion? The watch must have a maker.
Under cross-examination, Thompson asked if there was a controversy in the scientific community over the idea of irreducible complexity — essentially, the watchmaker’s observation that if a single working part of an organism were to be removed, the entire system would cease to function.
Haught told him that there exists a controversy between Lehigh University biochemistry professor Michael Behe, who coined the term, and most of the scientific community.
“So, you agree there is a controversy?” Thompson asked.
While most of plaintiffs’ expert testimony this week focused on establishing that intelligent design is not science, Haught’s focused on why it’s theology.
Science asks, “How?” he said. Religion asks, “Why?”
As an example, Haught compared the differences to water boiling on the stove.
What causes it to boil?
Well, one could answer it’s because of rapidly vibrating water molecules.
Another answer could be because “I want a cup of tea,” Haught suggested.
Both are correct answers, but one doesn’t discount the other.
One doesn’t bring the subject of desiring tea into the study of molecular movement.
It’s also a mistake to say, Haught said, “It’s the molecular movement rather than I want tea.”
You need to add a time dimension.
At T(1), X and Y share attributes Z and Q doesn't exist.
At T(0), Q has attributes Z but X and Y don't exist.
Further, it had been observed that there are thousands (or more) of cases like this.
Exactly. A world beyond the scope of science. That's why science cannot and should not address it in a science classroom.
Only one problem - there is no evidence that any Q existed at T(0). That is a speculative fantasy - a darwinistic presupposition that has nothing to do with science.
Only one problem - there is no evidence that any Q existed at T(0).
I'll leave it with the experts here to debate that with you.
Assuming 'X' is humans, 'Y' is chimpanzees, 'Z' is gene sequences, and 'Q' is a common ancestor, then I am curious as to your evidence that the conclusion of 'X' and 'Y' must come from 'Z' does not follow the predicted premise.
But this is the entire problem. If the patterns are initiated by some material thing (i.e. impulse from natural environment, then thought as a response), then neither you nor I have any reason to trust our reasoning, because they are merely the result of naturalistic causation and are not independent. If the naturalistic environment causes me to arrive at an abstract conclusion (like the ones we are discussing now), then what faith can I have in that conclusion? I have no ability to believe my thoughts are true unless I trust the causal pattern perfectly. But I have no reason to trust the causal pattern unless I can first independently decide it is a good pattern.
But you and I both must assume that our abstract thoughts or reasonings can stand on their own two feet (i.e. they are objective). Because if they are merely the result of causation, then we can never have a conversation about anything, and we might as well never have discussions such as these.
So here we are: We both assume reason is valid (or at least, I assume it is and I assume you assume it is). Naturalism has difficulty finding an outside force that allows abstract thoughts to be objective, because, if naturalism is true, there can be no force outside the universe that is independent of it and thus not the result of a string of causations or material interrelations or some sort. Our thoughts are merely the movements of electrons and atoms, began by some other material force with no particular purpose at all. But if I can, of sheer will, independently force these electrons to behave in such a way as to form a mental picture, then I have just done something that is outside of nature itself. Of course, I'm sure you'll agree we have both been guilty of poor reasoning in our lives, but at least with this model we can trust the art of reasoning itself.
What force, according to naturalism, could do such a thing and still be independent of causality so that you or I could trust reasoning to be rational and not merely be the result of causality?
It could be that the random movements of subatomic particles manifest themselves as the thoughts I think, but if that is it, if I have no control over these particles, then I can have no faith in my thoughts. It could be that biological needs or outside environmental stimulus initiates my thoughts, but again I cannot trust my conclusions until I can trust that they are arrived at independent of the cause itself.
But if, as Christianity and other theistic thought systems suppose, man is partly supernatural, or has some supernatural component, than he may be able to, of mere will, force particles in certain instances to form certain mental pictures, and he thus has the choice to think one way or another, which means that he doesn't come as close to violating his initial assumption of independent thought.
Now, we could both agree that just because some outside force stimulated the thought doesn't imply that said thought is incorrect. This is true. But if all thoughts are merely the result of some material thing, and have no independence from the material world, then we cannot know beforehand or afterward whether we can trust the stimulating forces to create proper conclusions.
It is still possible that I have the ability to direct matter in a supernatural way, but I am myself a slave to an outside force and have no free will. But neither you nor I want to consider ourselves deterministic slaves, because if we have no free will, we are still at the same problem as before: We have no reason to trust reason and must therefore end this conversation here and now. Instead, we must assume from the outset that we have free will and our reasoning is itself free from outside coercion.
Again, theism can allow for some supernatural process that allows me to spontaneously, and of my own free will, force electrons in my brain to move in certain ways so as to form mental pictures, and it can allow that I have the free will to do so. I have not been shown that naturalism can do the same.
Now let us move to consciousness. How come, if all there is to me is matter and energy, I realize that I exist, and I can ponder not only my existence, but how my experiences influence that existence? I am no different, really, from a tree or a desk, or my computer, when it all comes down to it. Sure, I am more complex than those things, but I am still just a large meat popsicle.
One could argue that somehow it has to do with the size of the brain, but there are computers that are much faster than I at doing certain things, and are in a lot of ways more powerful, but they don't think about the fact that they exist. They don't consider their own emotional needs. They may be programmed to learn, but they don't stop and think, "What do I mean by learning (we have entire fields of thought on this subject)? What is it in my core that allows me to improve my computing processes? What is it about the constructs of the universe that allow me to even have these considerations?"
I am very interested in hearing a naturalistic response to these questions.
It doesn't follow because the conclusion has absolutely no relationship to the premise. Q isn't even involved in the premise. There not only is no logical reason, but no hint whatsoever in the premise that X and Y evolved from Q. Q just appears out of nowhere. Can you see that?
Here is another fallacy I didnt' mention: The attributes of a part cannot be applied to the whole.
Notice the first part of the logical premise by evolutionistis: X is SIMILAR to Y in Z. Similar is not the same as IDENTICAL, so the fallacy of equovication also applies. Humans and giraffes have the same number of neck vertabrae - should we assume we share a common ancestor with them?
Here's another important point: The evolutionist is assuming that the existence of similarity in designs or processes is evidence AGAINST design, when in fact this type of evidence is perfectly consistent with a designer.
Good post. To distill it down: "Why should I trust the evolutionist's mental atoms over my own mental atoms?"
Math was just as reliable then as it is now. The problem with neodarwinism is that it says NOTHING about origins at all. It only speaks of CHANGE to existing organisms and cannot explain origins at all except to take wild guesses or spew another "just so" story.
Say we have a one celled bacteria (laying aside problem of origins for a moment), I have yet to have an evolutionist explain to me precisely by what mechanism that information is added to the genome in order to "evolve" into the different phyla. Information MUST be a added. Where does it come from? How is it added?
The attributes of a part cannot be applied to the whole.
The attributes of a part that is part of the whole are attributes of the whole.
"...no account of the universe can be true unless that account leaves it possible for our thinking to be a real insight. A theory which eplained evertything else in the whole universe but which made it impossible to believe that our thinking was valid wold be utterly out of court. For that theory wold itself have been reached by thinking, and if thinking is not valid, that theory would, of course, be itself demolished. It would have proved that no argument was sound..."
That is pretty much the end of materialism, empiricism and positivism as valid theories...
That's about the same as the odds of a shuffled deck of cards coming up in the exact order they do. How many times can you shuffle a deck of cards in an hour?
The argument for common descent is not as simplistic as this. It is not made simply by noting two species look similar or have similar features.
Sorry, it's a logical fallacy. Have you ever heard it said that "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts"?
Sorry, it's a logical fallacy. Have you ever heard it said that "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts"?
You need to contact Oracle, Microsoft, and IBM and inform them that Relational Database technology is based on a logical fallacy. Contact all their customers too, and destroy your credit cards.
Here is the specifics of the fallacy of Composition for your edification:
Definition:
Because the parts of a whole have a certain property, it is argued that the whole has that property. That whole may be either an object composed of different parts, or it may be a collection or set of individual members.
Examples:
(i) The brick wall is six feet tall. Thus, the bricks in the wall are six feet tall.
(ii) Germany is a militant country. Thus, each German is militant.
(iii) Conventional bombs did more damage in W.W. II than nuclear bombs. Thus, a conventional bomb is more dangerous than a nuclear bomb. (From Copi, p. 118)
Proof: Show that the properties in question are the properties of the whole, and not of each part or member or the whole. If necessary, describe the parts to show that they could not have the properties of the whole.
References
(Barker: 164, Copi and Cohen: 117)
That's the only way that creationism makes any sense whatsoever - if you believe that God likes to play such tricks on His children, to give Man powers of observation and reason and then create a lie to fool us when we use them.
It's good to see that you're actually acknowledging the wealth of evidence to back up evolution, though.
You can confirm the fallacy of composition that I listed in any good book on logic or logical fallacies. Oh, it's real.
No, the argument is based on similarities in DNA - just as bad.
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