Posted on 10/19/2005 11:23:30 PM PDT by nickcarraway
No sooner had the Darwinists ended their 80th anniversary celebrations of the Scopes trial than they turned their attention to conducting censorship trials of their own. The ACLU has gone from defending teachers to prosecuting them. In a federal courtroom this week, the ACLU argued that science teachers in the school district of Dover, Pennyslvania, are not free under the Constitution to question evolutionary theory. That the Dover school board has to defend the constitutionality of its science curriculum before a federal judge is one more illustration of the insane First Amendment jurisprudence of the last 50 years.
The elite, sensing a chance to score a victory against critics of Darwinism, are watching the trial breathlessly. Slate has assigned famed correspondent Hanna Rosin to cover the trial; the New York Times dispatched Laurie Goodstein -- note that she is a religion not science reporter for the paper -- to cover it. There is an all-hands-on-deck feel to the reporting, which has been made even more critical by the presence of the Dover school board's star witness, Lehigh university biochemist Michael Behe. A dreaded scientist who perversely refuses to accept the overwhelming and obvious "consensus" in favor of Darwinism.
While neither Rosin nor Goodstein are up to the task of explaining evolutionary theory convincingly, they do realize the sacred duty of stopping this scientist. He's wandered much too far on to the Darwinists' turf.
Garbling the elite's dogmatic schema, Goodstein, in the Wednesday edition of the Times, had Behe challenging the "Darwinian theory of random natural selection." Random natural selection? No, no, Ms. Goodstein, nature selects not randomly but necessarily, choosing random mutations that happen to prove useful, under Darwin's theory. What is nature? And how does it choose with such incredible precision and marvelous efficiency? Well, that's not important and certainly not within the province of science, even if Aristotle, who probably believed in Gods and went to temple, did consider these questions in The Physics and concluded that nature requires an intelligent cause.
Goodstein doesn't have the Darwinian terminology down, but she is keenly aware of the elite's favorite argument for evolutionary theory: the scientific establishment says it is so and no reasonable person would question these omniscient scientists. Here's how she presents that point: "Scientific critics of intelligent design -- and there are many -- have said for years that its proponents never propose any positive arguments or proofs of their theory, but rest entirely on finding flaws in evolution." What delightful casualness.
Never mind that through history scientists -- and there are many -- have considered it "science" to examine a theory and find it inadequate if it couldn't explain the facts they did know, such as that beings in nature contain awe-inspiring intricacy, beings they couldn't replicate with their own intelligence. But then what do they know next to the scientific experts at the ACLU?
Aristotle was one of those creationists in a cheap toga who concluded that the abundant design in nature points to an intelligent cause even if that cause isn't visible. "For teeth and all other natural things either invariably or normally come about in a given way; but of not one of the results of chance or spontaneity is this true," he wrote in The Physics, a book that the ACLU would argue violates the separation between church and state.
Though Darwinism resembles an astonishing fable of chance -- the Greek mythmaker Empedocles, not Darwin, deserves credit for launching the idea that nature is undesigned and the product of genetic happenstance -- Goodstein feels confident enough to lampoon Intelligent Design as no more scientific than "astrology." She provides no proof in her story, but leads with the claim that Behe "acknowledged that under his definition of a scientific theory, astrology would fit as neatly as intelligent design." Doesn't Goodstein know that astrology is one of her secularist audience's favorite hobbies?
The problem with Behe's testimony for Hanna Rosin was not too little scientific explanation but too much. She found it all very taxing.
"The courtroom, it turns out, is a poor place to conduct a science class. Behe runs through specific examples of 'irreducible complexity' -- his idea that certain biochemical structures are too complex to have evolved in parts: blood clotting cascades, the immune system, cells," she writes. "He claims his critics have misread crucial bits of data. To a nonscientist such as myself (and presumably the judge), this is like Chinese: I recognize the language, but I have no idea whether the speaker is faking it. I have no context, no deeper knowledge of the relevant literature. The reporter seated next to me has written only four lines of notes for three hours of testimony. The mere fact that the trial is being conducted in such highly technical language means, for the moment, ID is winning."
Nevertheless, she is sure Behe's wrong, and adduces herself as evidence that intelligent design is impossible, "I need look no further than myself for counter-evidence: weak ankles, diabetes, high probability of future death. If there is a designer, she doesn't seem so intelligent."
Scientists who stood alone used to inspire a little more deference in the left. But Michael Behe is one nonconformist they won't defend. The silencers of unpopular science once feared ACLU lawyers. Now they retain them.
George Neumayr is executive editor of The American Spectator.
When and if such an event takes place, the theoretical framework is disabled. A new theory would be required under such conditions and would be rapidly proposed. One of the best case histories in science is plate tectonics. The falsification of continental stasis was built up through continuing observation and data collection. The falsification "event" was the discovery of mirrored alternating magnetic patterns on either side of the mid-ocean ridges. When this occurred, the theory of plate tectonics, though nascent, was rapidly assembled and shown to adequately explain the existing data (much of which had been indicating increasing weakness of continental stasis theory, i.e. there was an accumulation of inadequately explained observations).
I aver that it cannot be an alternative, since (a) it only refers to "certain features" not "all features" and, (b) it refers to both the universe and living things and, (c) it does not dispute that mutations and natural selection occur.
That's well and good. However, if there is a mechanism by which "intelligent design" is manifested in nature, the mechanism of action should be investigable within nature. If such a mechanism is demonstrated to operated or to have operated, this would consitute a falsification of evolutionary theory and require a complete alternative theory.
I will submit that there is no proposed mechanistic action by which "intelligent design" becomes an organizing principle. Until a mechanism of action is described and demonstrated, ID completely lacks a foundational element for its theoretical framework.
From what I understand, Behe does accept that mutation and natural selection occurs. His criticism is leveled at the inability of natural selection to account for the complexity of parts in working wholes in the time that is available.
His proposal is that an intelligence has influenced the designfo those parts. He does not name the intelligence. It can be any organizing principle, whether phenomenonological or personal.
To underscore the point(s) I was making to Alamo-Girl, Behe does not, nor do any other ID proponents that I have been aware of, propose how a "guiding intelligence" could manifest a material influence on natural processes. Until such is available, ID proponents cannot explain how observations which might support ID (to the detriment of evolutionary theory) were caused.
Diabetes and the probability of future death is not evidence of unintelligence. For we have been told clearly that our original design was modified to allow death and disease when we sinned.
Angels? Death and disease caused by sin? What does this have to do with intelligent design? Remember, intelligent design is supposed to be science, not religion, which is the whole thrust of the defense position in the Dover case.
Are you suggesting that it's all a sham -- that the school board is actually committing fraud by claiming that intelligent design has nothing to do with religion?
If you will see "natural selection" as an organizing principle (an "intelligence"), then you will see that "mutation and survival advantage" was the explanatory key.
As I've pointed out about Behe's criticism, it says that the complexity is too great to be overcome by that slow, slow process in the time available since the theorized birth of the earth.
Some other organizing principle or an adaptation of this one (natural selection) must be found.
How about something to do with the "awareness" of life? We could hypothesize "awareness selection" instead of "natural selection."
Exactly
So what's wrong with the current one? Specifics would be appreciated.
I would hope that he is aware that there is generally accepted theory that asserts that mutation is a bit player in the evolution of biology. Much smoother and faster variation occurs through genomic processes, and the idea that mutation is responsible for speciation is a throwback to the era when we did not know much about genomics.
In that sense, insisting that mutation is not a fast enough variation mechanism (something which I would agree with, incidentally) is a strawman and irrelevant to the discussion. We know that genomic processes are fast enough and are observed and modelable.
Does this mean that any new theory automatically supercedes any precedent theory on the same subject? Or is it encumbent on the postulant to provide evidence that opposing theories, previously stated, are obsoleted based on an objective and honest appraisal of all evidence?
Now how did the "Creationists" enter this discussion?
The ID movement is not affiliated with the Bible believing fundamentalists.
Behe is a biochemist.
It's easy to forget that, listening to him.
From "The Wedge Strategy" of the Center for the Renewal of Science & Culture:
The social consequences of materialism have been devastating. As symptoms, those consequences are certainly worth treating. However, we are convinced that in order to defeat materialism, we must cut it off at its source. That source is scientific materialism. This is precisely our strategy. If we view the predominant materialistic science as a giant tree, our strategy is intended to function as a "wedge" that, while relatively small, can split the trunk when applied at its weakest points. The very beginning of this strategy, the "thin edge of the wedge," was Phillip ]ohnson's critique of Darwinism begun in 1991 in Darwinism on Trial, and continued in Reason in the Balance and Defeatng Darwinism by Opening Minds. Michael Behe's highly successful Darwin's Black Box followed Johnson's work. We are building on this momentum, broadening the wedge with a positive scientific alternative to materialistic scientific theories, which has come to be called the theory of intelligent design (ID). Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions [emphasis added].
So, to answer your question, yes I do think that this is censorship by Creationists. They are attempting to defeat or overthrow (in other words, censor) the scientific method as used by science in general and evolution in particular in favor of a "Christian" and "theistic" and "non-materialist" worldview (i.e., the Christian religion).
You don't really think this is about advancing science, do you? Or about advancing the creation stories found in the world's approximately 4,200 other religions?
With a PhD....in a university (LeHigh) position.
It would seem to follow that he'd have to know the ideas in contest with his own in order to address them.
You'd think so. When is he going to exhibit this knowledge?
I mean, this is a guy who peer reviewed his own writing.
Michael Behe and his theory of Intelligent Design is the topic under discussion coyoteman.
Because Behe's work is referenced by someone who doesn't believe in scientific materialism does not make Behe responsible for their ideas or him a "Creationist".
That's a broad brushed "straw man" argument for sure.
So? How is that relevant?
Being a biochemist would actually make it highly likely that Behe is pretty clueless about the computation theoretic properties of chemical systems (or systems in general). Ignorance of such things is in evidence on both sides of the discussion actually.
This writer should check his facts before spewing out his uninformed opinions.
The case is in fact about a statement about intelligent design written by a school board and read out by an administrator. The teachers oppose ID and support the teaching of evolution. Several of the plaintiffs are in fact teachers.
=========
Now how did the "Creationists" enter this discussion? The ID movement is not affiliated with the Bible believing fundamentalists.
The Wedge Document again. It spelled out the strategy: http://www.antievolution.org/features/wedge.html
A few exerpts (see the document for the full context):
The proposition that human beings are created in the image of God is one of the bedrock principles on which Western civilization was built.
Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture seeks nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its cultural legacies.
...explores how new developments in biology, physics and cognitive science raise serious doubts about scientific materialism and have re-opened the case for a broadly theistic understanding of nature.
However, we are convinced that in order to defeat materialism, we must cut it off at its source. That source is scientific materialism.
We are building on this momentum, broadening the wedge with a positive scientific alternative to materialistic scientific theories, which has come to be called the theory of intelligent design (ID). Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions.
...we also seek to build up a popular base of support among our natural constituency, namely, Chnstians.
Once our research and writing have had time to mature, and the public prepared for the reception of design theory, we will move toward direct confrontation with the advocates of materialist science through challenge conferences in significant academic settings.
Governing Goals ... To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and hurnan beings are created by God.
I think you get the idea. (As noted, these quotations are out of context; follow the link for the full article.)
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.