Interesting article from about 1o months ago
http://ydr.com/story/reader/53566/
ACLU won’t put Darwin on trial
DAVE DENTEL
Sunday, December 26, 2004
So the Dover Area school board’s decision to challenge evolution by requiring the teaching of intelligent design has — as many people warned — provoked a lawsuit, one that the district is not likely to win.
By ruling in other cases that theories contrary to Darwin’s theory of how life developed “lacks a clear secular purpose” in regards to public education, the Supreme Court has established a legal doctrine that American Civil Liberties Union lawyers are sure to seize upon in the Dover case.
It’s a pity, really, because instead of addressing the facts about science, all the ACLU has to do is show how Darwinism conforms to the prevailing secular dogma — and argue that intelligent design is likely to stir up trouble in public schools by invoking the divine and the miraculous.
The irony is that some of the parents who sued the Dover Area School District said they were worried that under the proposed curriculum students would not be taught “sound science.” And yet, in a trial focusing on science and which theory best fit the facts, it’s the Darwinists who would be put on the defensive.
Indeed, for some scientists (albeit what Time magazine characterizes as “tiny pockets” within the scientific community), the basic arguments supporting the theory that life arose by a happy accident in a cosmos ruled by chaos simply don’t stand up. What’s more, when building a case for intelligent design, its supporters draw from discoveries across a range of scientific disciplines.
These scientists point to cosmology and the Big Bang theory, which holds that the universe suddenly burst forth, in the beginning, from what can only be described as some unfathomable source of creative energy. They point to physics, which declare that the basic forces that hold the universe together (and make it suitable for life) are fine-tuned with a mathematical precision that defies belief. They gape at the massive amounts of genetic information filed away inside every single living cell, then take a closer look and ask how anything so complex and perfectly ordered could be formed by a gradual, random process.
Now, it’s not as though Darwinists are unaware of these grand enigmas or that they fail to feel a sense of awe when confronted with the mysteries of the universe. In fact, many people who believe in evolution have found a way to reconcile the theory with their own religious faith.
But when it comes down to it, the usual response of present-day science to extraordinary phenomena that some would say point to God, is either to relegate it to the “soft” disciplines of philosophy and theology, or simply to ignore it.
After all, science as it is currently defined deals only with material things and processes. Anything that smacks of the miraculous, then, is of no scientific consequence. It doesn’t exist.
So denial serves as a useful tool for many Darwinists. When confronted with the reality of human consciousness, for instance, they vaguely assert that it must be something that emerges when brains reach a certain size, or they pretend it isn’t there.
One school of thought among Darwinists holds that what we perceive as consciousness, that yearning to understand why we are here and how we should live, is just an illusion, a byproduct of an organ whose only function is to make sure our physical bodies survive long enough to reproduce. As MIT’s Marvin Minsky famously put it, the human mind is nothing more than “a computer made of meat.”
Other glaring flaws in Darwinism follow a similar strain. Its adherents can’t produce all the facts they need to bolster their case, so they trot out absurd assertions that they trust can’t really be disproved. So in the end Darwinism draws its strength not from rigid scientific truth, but by offering a rather vague philosophical catch-all.
This may seem a rather blatant accusation, but it is echoed even by Darwinists themselves.
Consider the late Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. A popular champion of modern Darwinism and a pop-culture icon (he was depicted on an episode of “The Simpsons”), he also came to criticize some of the orthodoxies of the theory.
This is not to suggest that he rejected evolution. His reflections are more like those of an aging bishop who candidly confesses to problems within the faith.
But in an article published this year by Scientific American, Gould seems to be stating that he believes in Darwinism despite what he knows about the facts.
Gould’s criticisms are actually quite damaging. He can offer no explanation of how life first emerged, other than to say that geology seems to hint at its “inevitability.” He declares the fossil record woefully inadequate for showing how various species developed, and that fossils for higher life forms “do not even constitute an evolutionary series.” He suggests that evolution is not a constant, gradual process but instead occurs in “quick and quirky episodes.” He argues that there is no reason to believe that evolution moves automatically toward more complex life forms, and that natural selection often is overrated and misused as an explanation for how or why evolution occurs. He says the truth is that evolution is so random that there is no way to predict how life forms ultimately will develop.
Gould feels free to make these statements and then insist that Darwinism holds true. And yet he knew full well, as various York College instructors pointed out in denouncing Dover’s proposed intelligent design curriculum, that science is supposed to concern itself with facts that are “testable, reproducible and observable.”
But if life is nothing more than a cosmic lottery, it’s hard to see how it can be studied as science. And how does one conduct a controlled experiment for randomness?
Gould ended his article by calling for a rethinking of what he labeled the icons of evolution. Prominent intelligent design advocate Jonathan Wells of the Discovery Institute in Seattle uses similar language in his criticism of Darwinism.
Does that mean there’s common ground here? Not really, because what’s at issue isn’t the scientific method, or even fossils, field studies and ancient rocks. No, the debate in Dover (and in some 40 other states around the country where Darwinism is being challenged) ultimately has to do with picking an official philosophy of origins.
The science of life, it seems, can’t be taught without making some references to design and purpose — or the lack thereof. And if it’s one particular philosophy that earns teachers their paychecks and gets scientists grant renewal, then there really isn’t much incentive to explore the others — no matter how much religious dissenters might complain. Scientific materialism wins.
Still, it’s worthwhile to consider what law professor Phillip Johnson had to say on the subject. Johnson wrote: “Any true metaphysical theory must account for two essential truths which materialism cannot accommodate: first, that mind is more than matter; and second, that such things as truth, beauty and goodness really do exist even if most people do not know how to recognize them.”
Just don’t expect these essentials to be addressed in science class.
Dave Dentel is a copy editor for the York Daily Record/Sunday News,
Only if you're an idiot. Stochastic processes are easily "studied as science".
Just once, I'd like to read an essay stumping for ID which wasn't clearly written by someone with absolutely no familiarity with any kind of real science or research.
And how does one conduct a controlled experiment for randomness?
I guess the author never heard of statistical analysis, which does that sort of thing all the time, and has been for hundreds of years. Moron.
Dave Dentel is a disgusting pig for twisting the words of a dead man who he knows can't defend himself.