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The Science Community's Myopia over Intelligent Design
(William A. Dembski is an associate research professor in the conceptual foundations of science at B | William Dembski

Posted on 10/24/2005 1:46:30 PM PDT by Invincibly Ignorant

ARTICLE: The Science Community's Myopia Over Intelligent Design by William Dembski

By attacking intelligent design theory, the scientific establishmentcontinues to insulate evolutionary biology from critique and discussion. The challenge of intelligent design for evolutionary biology is real. This is not like someone who claims that ancient technologies could not have built the pyramids, so goblins must have done it. We can show how, with the technological resources at hand, the ancient Egyptians could have produced the pyramids. By contrast, the material mechanisms known to date offer no such insight into biological complexity. Cell biologist Franklin Harold, in his most recent book, The Way of the Cell, remarks that in trying to account for biological complexity, biologists have thus far proposed merely "a variety of wishful speculations." If biologists really understood the emergence of biological complexity in material terms, intelligent design couldn't even get off the ground. The fact that they don't accounts for intelligent design's quick rise in public consciousness. Give us detailed, testable, mechanistic accounts for the origin of life, the origin of the genetic code, the origin of ubiquitous biomacromolecules and assemblages like the ribosome, and the origin of molecular machines like the bacterial flagellum, and intelligent design will die a quick and painless death.

But that hasn't happened and shows no signs of happening. Nor has the "refutation" of intelligent design by scientists and scholars been nearly as successful as attacks--such as last year's "no intelligent design in schools" resolution by the American Association for the Advancement of Science--suggest.

The discussion is ongoing and vigorous. A design-theoretic research program is now taking shape. Moreover, the claim that no evidence supports intelligent design is false — plenty of evidence supports it provided that evidence is not ruled inadmissible on a priori grounds (much as Kepler's elliptical orbits were ruled inadmissible because science "knew in advance" that the orbits had to be circular).

The worst fault of the AAAS resolution is its historical myopia and the ill-effects that portends for biology education. From the start, evolutionary biology has invoked intelligent design as a foil. We don't need to explain the structure of a random chunk of rock. We do need to explain the organized complexity of biological structures like the bacterial flagellum. Why? Because they bear the hallmarks of design. (Why else would cell biologists call them "molecular machines"?). Engineering terminology is not optional here. Evolutionary biology itself makes no sense except in light of intelligent design.

What's at issue is not whether evolution has occurred or the degree to which it has occurred but whether the role of intelligence in the evolutionary process is both indispensable and empirically detectable, thus bringing intelligent design squarely within the fold of science.


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: crevolist; evolution; science
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To: mlc9852
I'll listen to the evos when they can provide a definition of human.

How about--

Faced with the knowledge they're going to die,
Prone to concocting ghost gods in the sky.
41 posted on 10/24/2005 3:44:52 PM PDT by gcruse (http://gcruse.typepad.com/)
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To: jennyp

I think he "mainstream" ID crowd has already retreated to Intellignet Evolution. Denton has written a book on it, and it appears that Behe and Dembski have fallen in line.


42 posted on 10/24/2005 3:47:46 PM PDT by js1138 (Great is the power of steady misrepresentation.)
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To: tortoise

To not be able to define human is ridiculous. Humans can breed. Can humans breed with other species?


43 posted on 10/24/2005 3:49:02 PM PDT by mlc9852
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To: gcruse
Faced with the knowledge they're going to die...

So a nonverbal, profoundly retarded person is not human?

44 posted on 10/24/2005 3:49:15 PM PDT by js1138 (Great is the power of steady misrepresentation.)
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To: gcruse

Everything alive dies - not sure of your point.


45 posted on 10/24/2005 3:50:08 PM PDT by mlc9852
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To: tortoise
I'm still waiting for a rigorous definition of 'intelligence' from the ID proponents. A hypothesis built upon handwaving is still handwaving.

From Behe's statements on the witness stand, see my post #35.

When approached critically and logically, ID as a science appears ridiculous at best. But it does have its adherents. The reason for that is those who support ID want to believe (as in faith) irrespective of facts or science or logical contradictions.

46 posted on 10/24/2005 3:50:20 PM PDT by Rudder
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To: js1138
The designer's name is totally irrelevant.

Irrelevant or unknown? I would like to hear opinions on this.

No answer yet though.

The reason I ask is simple. ID makes a great deal of the fact that they will not ID the IDer. But if anyone suggests it was Old Man Coyote or Kang (the Great Master and Lord of All Life in Bushman stories), or Unkulunkulu (Zulu), there is an immediate outcry along the lines of...

That is not the type of creator I had in mind!

47 posted on 10/24/2005 3:52:33 PM PDT by Coyoteman (I love the sound of beta decay in the morning!)
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To: mlc9852
Everything alive dies - not sure of your point.

The knowledge of such beforehand distinguishes humans, driving them to superstition as a form of relief/denial.
48 posted on 10/24/2005 3:54:38 PM PDT by gcruse (http://gcruse.typepad.com/)
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To: mlc9852
Can humans breed with other species?

Probably.

49 posted on 10/24/2005 3:55:04 PM PDT by js1138 (Great is the power of steady misrepresentation.)
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To: mlc9852
Humans have a haploid chromosome number of 23. We cannot successfully breed with any other species unless they also have a haploid chromosome number of 23. It is a concept called mitotic segregation and recombination, and it is why a mule cannot reproduce.

Do I have to do all your homework for you?
50 posted on 10/24/2005 3:57:07 PM PDT by USConstitutionBuff
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To: USConstitutionBuff

Chromosome count variations are not an absolute barrier to mating.


51 posted on 10/24/2005 3:58:33 PM PDT by js1138 (Great is the power of steady misrepresentation.)
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To: js1138
Not if what you want is a mule. By "successfully reproduce" I mean an animal capable of reproduction. And no, it is not an "absolute barrier"; very little in biology is absolute. Plants do it all the time with no problems. Animals seem to have a problem with mitotic segregation and recombination if mommy was a lion and daddy was a tiger.
52 posted on 10/24/2005 4:00:50 PM PDT by USConstitutionBuff
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To: js1138
So a nonverbal, profoundly retarded person is not human?

You might call a fetus nonverbal and profoundly retarded, too.  But once it gains knowledge of its impending demise, it will be prone look for a way out, which must involve the supernatural in some form, since nothing in the natural world can provide an afterlife.
53 posted on 10/24/2005 4:01:01 PM PDT by gcruse (http://gcruse.typepad.com/)
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To: mlc9852
Can humans breed with other species?

Human beings are a taxonomic group whose members can interbreed. Taxonomic classification is mostly based upon morphology (anatomy), although phsyiology and genotype have been used to clarify taxonomic classifications.

The answer to your question is, "No."

I'll give you a starting point. Human beings are mammalian vertebrates. Veterbrates have a backbone, bilateral symmetry, internal segmentation of organs. Mammals are warm-blooded and have the ability to nourish their young via milk production. Go to a comparative anatomy text and continue in this same vein and you'll put together an operational definition of human being.

54 posted on 10/24/2005 4:02:11 PM PDT by Rudder
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To: gcruse
So you're saying humans aren't as intelligent as so-called lower lifeforms who don't have any ideas of worship?
55 posted on 10/24/2005 4:02:18 PM PDT by mlc9852
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To: js1138

Such as? Should be a fairly easy experiment.


56 posted on 10/24/2005 4:03:09 PM PDT by mlc9852
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To: USConstitutionBuff

I don't remember asking you to do any homework for me. I'm quite capable of looking up information. I was simply looking for a definition for human. I'm getting some interesting replies.


57 posted on 10/24/2005 4:04:42 PM PDT by mlc9852
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To: mlc9852

Oh, they are indeed more intelligent. But are they more rational?


58 posted on 10/24/2005 4:04:44 PM PDT by gcruse (http://gcruse.typepad.com/)
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To: USConstitutionBuff
If chromosome count variations were always a barrier to producing fertile offspring, there would be an impregnable barrier to chromosomal speciation. So to speak.
59 posted on 10/24/2005 4:04:57 PM PDT by js1138 (Great is the power of steady misrepresentation.)
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To: mlc9852

So then you would be "trolling"? Not very good bait on that hook.


60 posted on 10/24/2005 4:05:50 PM PDT by USConstitutionBuff
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