Posted on 10/07/2005 4:03:19 AM PDT by gobucks
It doesn't matter if you like it or not. It doesn't matter if you think it's true or not. Intelligent Design theory is destined to supplant Darwinism as the primary scientific explanation for the origin of human life. ID will be taught in public schools as a matter of course. It will happen in our lifetime. It's happening right now, actually.
Here's why:
1) ID will win because it's a religion-friendly, conservative-friendly, red-state kind of theory, and no one will lose money betting on the success of red-state theories in the next fifty to one hundred years.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: families that reproduce people tend to reproduce ideas, as well. The most vocal non-scientist proponents of ID are those delightfully fertile Catholics, Evangelicals, and similarly right-leaning middle-class college-educated folk -- the kind whose children will inherit the country. Eventually, the social right will have the sheer manpower to teach ID wherever they please.
Despite what angry ID opponents may tell you, the advent of ID won't hurt American productivity a bit. Belief in ID does nothing to make believers less capable in science or engineering. No geek in the world will find his computer mojo diminished because of his opinions on irreducible complexity. To the contrary: ID might make biology and the natural sciences more appealing to believers who might otherwise find science to be too far removed from God's presence. As ID appeals to the conservative mindset without hurting anyone's skills, why wouldn't the social right embrace it?
To be sure, believers don't need ID to accept modern science. The Catholic Church, for example, made peace with traditional Darwinist theory long ago. Many scientists see no contradiction between Darwinism and their own religious beliefs. Rightly understood, Darwinist theory doesn't diminish God's glory any more than any other set of rules governing the world. An omnipotent God can act through scientific media as well as miraculous interventions.
But if ID is correct, then the intelligent designer of life must have lavished astonishing care and attention upon the human race to give it unique dignity and value -- as well as handicaps and temptations that only virtue can overcome. The God of Moses and Jesus didn't leave fingerprints at this scene, but it's His MO all the way. And as believers are detectives of the Almighty's presence, they're naturally more inclined to follow the clues revealing that familiar pattern.
2) ID will win because the pro-Darwin crowd is acting like a bunch of losers.
"Ewww…intelligent design people! They're just buck-toothed Bible-pushing nincompoops with community-college degrees who're trying to sell a gussied-up creationism to a cretinous public! No need to address their concerns or respond to their arguments. They are Not Science. They are poopy-heads."
There. I just saved you the trouble of reading 90% of the responses to the ID position. Vitriol, condescension, and endless accusations of bad faith all characterize far too much of the standard pro-Darwinian response to criticism. A reasonable observer might note that many ID advocates appear exceptionally well-educated, reasonable, and articulate; they might also note that ID advocates have pointed out many problems with the Darwinist catechism that even pro-Darwin scientists have been known to concede, when they think the Jesus-kissing crowd isn't listening. And yet, even in the face of a sober, thoughtful ID position, the pro-Darwin crowd insists on the same phooey-to-the-boobgeois shtick that was tiresome in Mencken's day. This is how losers act just before they lose: arrogant, self-satisfied, too important to be bothered with substantive refutation, and disdainful of their own faults. Pride goeth before a fall.
3) ID will win because it can be reconciled with any advance that takes place in biology, whereas Darwinism cannot yield even an inch of ground to ID.
So you've discovered the missing link? Proven that viruses distribute super-complex DNA proteins? Shown that fractals can produce evolution-friendly three-dimensional shapes? It doesn't matter. To the ID mind, you're just pushing the question further down the road. How was the missing link designed? What is the origin of the viruses? Who designed the fractals? ID has already made its peace with natural selection and the irrefutable aspects of Darwinism. By contrast, Darwinism cannot accept even the slightest possibility that it has failed to explain any significant dimension of evolution. It must dogmatically insist that it will resolve all of its ambiguities and shortcomings -- even the ones that have lingered since the beginning of Darwinism. The entire edifice of Darwinian theory comes crashing down with even a single credible demonstration of design in any living thing. Can science really plug a finger into every hole in the Darwinian dyke for the next fifty years?
4) ID will win because it can piggyback on the growth of information theory, which will attract the best minds in the world over the next fifty years.
ID is a proposition about information. It contends that the processes of life are so specific and carefully ordered that they must reflect deliberate action. Put simply: a complex message implies an even more complex sender. Separating ordered but random data from relevant, purposeful data -- that is, separating noise from messages -- is one of the key undertakings of the 21st century. In nearly every field, from statistics to quantum physics to cryptology to computer science, the smartest people on the planet are struggling to understand and apply the unfathomable power of information that modern technology has bequeathed to them. We have only scratched the surface of the problem-solving power that the Internet and cheap computing power open to us. As superior intellects strive to understand the metaphysics of information, they will find the information-oriented arguments of ID increasingly sensible and appealing. ID will fit nicely into the emerging worldview of tomorrow's intellectual elite.
This emerging worldview will take a more expansive view of science than does the current elite. Consider the "meme" meme. We all know what a meme is: a thought pattern that spreads from person to person and group to group like a viral infection spreading through a population. Yet memes cannot be bisected, or examined under a microscope, or "falsified" via the scientific method. Even so, we can make statements about memes with varying degrees of objective truthfulness. Is it possible to speak of a "science" of concepts? Right now, the scientific establishment says no. This unhelpful understanding of science will soon be discarded in favor of something more useful in the information age.
5) ID will win because ID assumes that man will find design in life -- and, as the mind of man is hard-wired to detect design, man will likely find what he seeks.
The human mind seeks order in everything. The entire body of knowledge available to mankind reflects our incorrigible desire to analyze, systemize, hypothesize, and theorize. It may well be that our brains are physically configured in such a way that we can't help but find order and design in the world. Don't look so surprised, evolutionists -- a brain attuned to order and design is a brain more likely to survive. The ability to detect design is essentially the ability to detect patterns, and the ability to detect patterns is the key to most applications of human intelligence. Hammers tend to find nails, screwdrivers tend to find screws, and the human mind tends to find design. Of course, the propensity to see designs doesn't mean that the designs aren't actually there. But the quintessential human perception is one of design -- and, to the extent that perceptions define reality, a theory built on the perception of design has a huge advantage over its competitors.
The only remaining question is whether Darwinism will exit gracefully, or whether it will go down biting, screaming, censoring, and denouncing to the bitter end. Rightly or wrongly, the future belongs to ID. There's nothing irreducibly complex about it.
Douglas Kern is a lawyer and TCS contributor. To see another view of the debate over ID, read "Descent of Man in Dover" by Sallie Baliunas on TCS today.
Intelligence to me means thought, planning, execution. But you could use any definition you feel appropriate.
"The absolute last thing I want is the schools interfering the the religious education of my kids. And no, teaching science does not do that unless ones' faith is very, very, superficial."
So although evolution posits that God was not involved in creation and that we are not separately created beings, we just evolved along with all other sorts of animals and God had nothing to do with it is NOT interfering with religious education? I respectfully disagree.
"Please explain what the Big Bang theory has to do with the TOE?"
- Both try to explain reality by perceiving only the eventuality and ignoring the fundamental questions related to causality.
We know the Big Bang happened, science has shown the evidence, but nobody can explain rationally how it happened. An explosion of such monumental proportions as to form the entire universe and all the quadrillions of tons of matter in it had to consist of something to explode. Where did that something come from if there was nothing there before? Nobody can answer that question scientifically.
The same can be said of Evolution. We know that species can change into different species over time, it has be shown to happen in birds isolated by geographic constraints, but what evolution hasn't shown is that same bird evolving into an animal of some different Order. Evo breaks down completely at the Order level. It can't show how a dog evolved into an ape for instance.
The bottom line is that as we do and become increasingly more able to do ourselves as a species, like expand into space, modify genetics, create new materials with science that have never existed naturally and to mold our surroundings to better suit ourselves, we must also take into consideration the possibility that some being (corporeal or ethereal) before us was able to do the same as well as the currently unexplainable. In fact, spreading life is the modus operendi for life and its sole fundamental purpose. And while Evo can be incorporated into Design theory, it cannot be said the other way around.
ID is destined to whimper and fade.
"I have a feeling this isn't really about how concerned everyone is with our children's science education as it is about removing God from every aspect of public life in this country"
I think your right & I think that this is the real reason, and it is not just "God" but the christain persepctive of God which is the freedom to worship or not.
"We do not know how to define intelligence because the Darwinian choke-hold on scientific thought has not allowed us to develop a scientific model that even asks the question. Darwinianism has become an antiquated dogma preventing science from moving into areas that it denies, such as intelligence theory."
Intelligence theory? Ok, what is the definition of intelligence in this field? I am pretty familiar with information theory by the way and though this would be the most plausible track to pursue this question it is ultimately a dead end. Why? Becuase it is mathematically provable that there exist no computable test that can differentiate between a random sequence and a highly complex sequence. This means that even if God is encoding "messages" into the seemingly random perturbations of nature that drive the various biological processes it is impossible to test for them, because arbitrarily complex sequences cannot be distinguised from random sequences.
No. I have noticed I have been born into a time and place where words, definitions, and 'reality' were already twisted before I got here. For example, I have a copy of the 1828 Webster's dictionary. I have compared many common words to the current collegiate dictionaries using the name Webster. It is flat out one of the most eye opening 'scientific' exercises I have ever conducted.
So, what I am really asking is: who owns the definition of 'science'? Who decides what 'science' means? Did the word 'science' mean the same thing in 1810 as it did in 1610? If not, why not? Why is its meaning today so dearly protected by the vested interests in that community? Why do they fear so intensely much the 'competition' of I.D.?? It is the fearful reaction, not to mention everything else, that lends so much credibility to I.D. for many. You'd think they'd understand that. But no ... the fear is palpable.
I notice, over and over and over, is that how science itself is defined seems to be a profoundly upsetting question. Just why is that? What is the fear behind all the upsetness. And above all, if 'science' were so robust as is (esp T.o.E), why is it (another question that gets little attention) that I.D., a 'non scientific' idea, gets so much traction?
At the very minimum logic itself would dictate something must be really wrong w/ 'science' that so many find it so unacceptable.
But no.... that conclusion is 'not logical', or such is the case being implied in your post.
I wrote: "One reason Islamic countries are such backwaters today is that they let religion trump science"
You provided the response:
"So if we teach ID, we will all become Muslims? Quite a stretch but I guess you have to continually think of new arguments against ID."
Non-responsive answer.
And you know it.
Bt I'm glad you gave me a chance to repeat my statement in order to clarify for the lurkers:
In many fundamentalist Islamic countries evolution is not taught because someone there seems to think that it somehow detracts from Allah. You will note how many brilliant scientists are not coming out of those countries today.
A great majority of Christians can accept both Creation and evolution.
A noisy minority can't and want to replace the science in science classes with religion.
Guess what the effect will be if we let them succeed.
"I do not believe you read the article. "
I think this will be the case repeatedly in this thread. Especially the point made in #4 about falsifying 'concepts'.
I haven't heard any Christians say to not teach the theory of evolution - no one wants to replace science with religion and for you to suggest that just tells me you aren't really interested in a debate.
This response of yours is an insult to the faith of most Christians who understand both evolution and their own religion.
You said: "So although evolution posits that God was not involved in creation..."
It posits no such thing. It is dishonest to claim it does.
Ding, ding, ding! Correct!
Nice!
"Intelligence to me means thought, planning, execution."
What is the definition of thought? Do you think a computer chess program is capable of "planning" and "execution?"
"But you could use any definition you feel appropriate."
I can't think of any definition that is scienficially appropriate. Can you?
I can see where this is going - a circular argument with no "correct" answer. Sorry - don't have time today. If you want to argue something concrete, let me know.
BINGO
You know, this post is a good reason why I really like this forum ... being confronted w/ folks who write expressively, cogently, and at the same time are pithy regarding the point. I try to imitate ... but it just doesn't have the same ring. What a great post, and thanks.
It's pretty dumb, but not the dumbest I've seen. When will this terribly narrow vision stop getting attention.
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