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.
> Does this mean that any new theory automatically supercedes any precedent theory on the same subject?
No. Do not change the subject: someone cannot form a rational and informed view on a topic if that topic has not been presented to him. What was Aristotle's views on, say, Christianity? He didn't have any, because it didn't exist yet. Thus Aristotle is not a good authority to go to regarding opinions on Christianity, quantum mechanics, Windows vs. Linux, Toyota vs. Honda, Glock vs. Beretta, Kirk vs. Picard, the Many Worlds Hypothesis or evolution. He had heard of none of these.
> 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?
Indeed it is. That's why Darwinian evolution took decades of work and study before the scientific community accepted it. Any new hypothesis that attempts to supercede evolutionary theory has that same uphill battle... except harder in this case. Evolution was attempting to explain a process for which there was no real existing theory with attendant evidence. Evolution has now amassed a vast mountain of evidence in it's favor. Any new hypothesis will have to explain that evidence away. So far, nothing has even come close.
While certainly not possessed with Godlike intelligence, automakers produce the occasional lemon among the thousands of perfectly fine vehicles also produced. The design was the same as the others, but things do go wrong on the production line.
A wonderful statement! Natural Teleology and Biblical reference at the same time!
But it's questionable whether you can say that in a public school.
No, but I am point out that at least one religion already has logical answers of why an intelligence might design us subobtimally.
Suboptimal intelligent design is all around us.
The Honda Civic isn't as fast as the Corvette. Therefore the Honda must have unintelligently evolved? No, the Civic accomplishes a different set of criteria than the Corvette namely less cost and gas mileage.
The Kia doesn't last as long as the Nissan. Therefore the Kia must have unintelligently evolved? Again, No the Kia meets different objectives.
Toilet paper is weak and dissolves in water. It was intentionally designed that way for a purpose. But it might appear unintelligent to someone who's not aware of septic and sewer systems.
Software has been intelligently designed that was program to fail after a length of time. That appears unintelligent to someone who didn't realize that the designer desired the software to fail.
The Ford Pinto exploded when hit from the rear. Unintelligent design? No. Intelligent design but less than "perfect" intelligent design. Which is what opponents using this argument are really arguing. "Anything less than PERFECT design isn't intelligent design, because we are really talking about God aren't we."
I wasn't trying to change the subject, and I appreciate your direct answer to my question. I'm not sure you see my point, however.
Aristotle came to a conclusion on the matter, admittedly before the darwinist evolutional theory came to be. The fact that evolution became a theory afterward does not automatically invalidate a previous conclusion (I'm avoiding the word "theory" because of its strictly interpreted connotations). This "trial" is the opportunity to present, from the evolutionist's side, the evidence that is supposed to convincingly propose evolution over the intelligent design conclusion previously reached.
The plate tectonics example was quite interesting. However, I doubt there exists an inventory of naturalistic alternative theories to substitute and be testable for every potential falsification. The term “potential” would require both absolute ontological knowledge and precognition – neither of which can be achieved “in” space/time due to the observer problem.
A simple example is space/time which is geometry. On another thread we were discussing this causal relationship: but not for A, C would not be. If A is removed, C does not exist. If time is removed, events do not occur. If space is removed, corporeals do not exist.
The discussion at hand was physics not biology. But the same concept applies to biological systems. The following all have a non-corporeal causal component to a naturalistic effect.
Information (successful communication) is the reduction of uncertainty (Shannon entropy) in the receiver or molecular machine as it goes from a before state to an after state. Information is non-corporeal. It is the action of communicating, not the message itself. In biological systems, the message is the DNA or tRNA.
Likewise, complexity is non-corporeal and is generally described by a mathematical structure. The two major types are least description and least time. The many alternative models for complexity including Kolmogorov, self-organizing complexity, cellular automata, functional complexity, time complexity.
To the extent a complexity model (say for instance self organizing complexity) accurately describes a phenomenon in nature, it may be used to predict increasing order or complexity in the system. Whereas self organizing complexity is not standardized for all applications, the meaning in biological systems is well established. There the emphasis goes to the “self” – the complexity arises without external influence. Intelligence is among the properties which emerge in the model. The accumulative properties lead to new language to describe the higher levels of complexity, etc. In this example, the non-corporeal choice of a mate thus has a naturalistic effect expressed in the offspring.
Other examples of non-corporeals which are causal to biological systems include autonomy (form) and semiosis (encoding/decoding).
Everything on the “phenomenon” side is within the reach of science and is indeed being investigated even now by mathematicians and physicists. For the most part, they do not call their work “intelligent design” – nevertheless, if they succeed then the intelligent design hypothesis is vindicated.
On the agent side, NASA and others are pursuing exobiology and astrobiology which panspermiasts also support. And some scientists, particularly in the international community (Asia, former Russian countries, etc.) continue to search for an overarching principle or collective consciousness.
IMHO, beyond that is theology, philosophy or metaphysics - because the question then turns to why the universe exist at all - and why does it exist this way and not some other way.
"The Wedge Stategy" ? So what?
There's a million and one stategies out there by a million and one different "groups".
Point being...why are you concerned with The Wedge Stategy in this topic?
The "Center for the Renewal of Science & Culture" is not affiliated with Behe, from what I can see, and Behe is not making this argument.
What we have in the Dover case is clearly evolutionists trying to censor a paragraph that alludes to alternate opinions in an otherwise unaltered book . Evolutionists are clearly the only ones you can point a censoring finger at in this topic.
> This "trial" is the opportunity to present, from the evolutionist's side, the evidence that is supposed to convincingly propose evolution over the intelligent design conclusion previously reached.
That is as valid as expecting astronomers to keep having to explain why astrology is bunk. Or expecting rocket engineers (ahem: such as m'self) to have to explain why the "Apollo was a hoax" stories are crap. Yes, we'll do it. But it grows tiresome after a while.
And the problem evolution has vs. ID is that evolution is slow, subtle and not obvious within a lifetime, and the evidence, while vast, is sometimes hard to explain. While ID only has to say "It's too complex for a blob of goo to evolve into a human. You can see that, can't you?"
Face it: people are on the whole lazy. And as a result, easy answers tend to be popular ones. But science isn't about providing easy answers... just correct ones.
I get tired of explaining to aerospace software/systems engineers that they6 have to perform certain steps in order to certify their software, but that's part of the job (I'm an aerospace software certification expert).
If evolution is the "right" answer, then perhaps the lazy folks need to be "led to water" , so to speak.
Nice reply. At this point in time, I don't have the time to pursue the higher-level scientific philosophy required to sustain a discussion. Perhaps on my next vacation...
I will believe in evolution when evolutionists tell me how the universe was created, and the name of the person who created it.
1. The Big Bang
2. Nobody created it.
Darwin Central will take care of your initiation; please send $1,000 by cashier's check to our Swiss account; your 50 extra IQ points will arrive in 5 - 7 business days. Full installation instructions are included, but bear in mind, once installed, they are not returnable.
And welcome to the club!
A book so unutterably stupid that one of its authors disowned it in court, under oath.
Actually, that's not the argument at all. Rather, the plaintiffs -- who are not teachers, but a group of parents -- are arguing that the ID disclaimer represents a violation of the Establishment Clause. IOW, they're not protecting "science" at all, but merely singing another verse of the same old "remove religion from the public square" hymn.
Say what you will about ID, but the pretext for this case is no different from any other ACLU anti-religion case.
>>>1. The Big Bang<<<
The Big Bang? A big bang from what?
>>>2. Nobody created it.<<<
I get it. It magically appeared out of thin air. Wait, there was no air in those days...
Okay, it magically appeared out of thin nothing.
>>>Darwin Central will take care of your initiation; please send $1,000 by cashier's check...<<<
... to the alchemist of your choice.
Sort of off-topic, but it appears that the engine for these processes is in part driven by behavior -- not only must the physical change take place, but for it to be successful, the organism with the mutation (if we can call it that) often has to behave in a certain manner in order for the change to actually confer an advantage that can be passed on through breeding.
IOW, my fuzzy understanding of genomic processes is that they seem to track series of individual changes. Genetic changes in and of themselves, though, seems to require the organism to experience some sort of system-level adjustment before any given change has beneficial effects.
Are those considerations included in the genomic models to which you refer?
I will submit that you are wrong: humans to intelligent design all the time. It explains, for example, the means by which my son's insulin is produced by genetically engineered bacteria and yeast. The processes of genetic engineering constitute the sort of "mechanism" to which you refer.
> it magically appeared out of thin nothing.
Now do research on "quantum foam" and "virtual particle pairs." Things appearing out of nowhere and nothing are not exactly forbidden by natural physical laws.
> (I'm an aerospace software certification expert).
My condolensces.
> If evolution is the "right" answer, then perhaps the lazy folks need to be "led to water"
Indeed. But having the raving rally monkeys of the ID movement trying to distract that quest for water in the science classroom is *not* helpful. I mean, come on... science education in the country is already pathetic enough without intentionally adding in superstition and callign it science.
Oh? E=mc2 is no longer valid in those cases?
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