Posted on 11/17/2005 11:27:22 AM PST by Nicholas Conradin
The time has come to be blunt. The problem with Intelligent Design is not that it is false; not that the arguments in its favor reduce to smoke and mirrors; and not that it's defenders are disingenuous or even duplicitous. The problem with Intelligent Design is that it is dumb. I would contend that ID is dumb biology; even if it is on to something, what it is on to has no connection and does no meaningful work in biology (or physics). However, and more significantly, ID is dumb philosophy.
First, and despite the claims of its defenders, ID is a position in natural theology. And, despite its name, natural theology is not a branch of theology or of science, but of philosophy.
Natural theology lives on the boundary of natural philosophy (science) and metaphysics. The fundamental question of natural theology is: given what we know about the world from natural science, is the best available metaphysical picture of the universe one according to which the objects of natural science form a closed system or, alternatively, one according to which at least one entity fundamentally different from the objects of natural science is required to explain the structure of the natural world.[1]
Once we recognize that ID is a metaphysical position, we can recognize that ID has two principle competitors: metaphysical naturalism and global non-naturalism. Both of these frameworks compete with ID as fundamental perspectives for understanding the world.
First, let us consider metaphysical naturalism. Roughly, a metaphysical naturalist claims that the world per se is roughly the way that the world is portrayed in the natural sciences. The first, but not principle advantage, of naturalism is its profoundly elegant simplicity; at its heart rests the intuition that the world simply is the way that it seems to be. However, to really understand the power of this intuition pursued to a philosophical conclusion we must be willing to embrace its power to drive David Hume's war against superstition and moral privilege. The power of the tools that naturalism puts at our disposal for understanding who we are and why we are the way we are; for understanding the real place of human beings in the cosmos; and for elevating the dignity of the ordinary, both ordinary human beings and the ordinary world, cannot be overestimated. If you don't feel the pull of naturalism, then even if you ultimately find it inadequate, as I do, you just don't get it.
On the other hand there are a wide variety of non-naturalist cosmologies. General characterizations of non-naturalism fall together much less straightforwardly than do such characterizations of naturalism. This is, at least in part, because of the much greater historical depth of non-naturalism. Although, today, naturalism does feel like the default metaphysical position for those who begin their metaphysics with natural science, that is a quite recent phenomenon. Unfortunately, not being naturalists is about the only thing that the various non-naturalists have in common.
Fortunately, the virtues of non-naturalism can be usefully characterized as just the opposing virtues to those of naturalism. The best non-naturalist cosmologies derive from a very real sense on the part of their defenders of the messiness of the world; a sense that, contrary to naturalist expectations, things don't come together when we look deeper. That is, naturalism seems to require that there be a scientific picture of the world. Instead, claim their opponents, things just get weirder. Whether we are looking at quantum theory; at the strange fact that stars ever manage to light their fusion engines; at the weird and totally unexpected patterns that crop up in the fossil and evolutionary record; how can anyone who really digs down, even if they don't ultimately agree, fail to feel the pull of a metaphysical picture, which, at least, explains how all of this weirdness manages to fit together into a WORLD?
And, what do the ID types want to set against these? Some kind of bastard child of naturalism and non-naturalism. According to ID, the world perked along perfectly fine for several billion years according to the rules of physics. Over most of space-time the naturalists have it basically right, things just sort of go the way they seem they should. Then, a couple of billion years ago, along came The Designer, not itself the product of those processes. It showed up and decided to take a bunch of these otherwise perfectly natural chemicals and put them together to make bacteria and then designed in a replication system. Then it left it alone for another several million years and decided, "Hey, I've got these bacteria around, let's collect them into these other things." And, so forth.
But, this is just dumb! It takes the real virtues of both real alternatives and turns them on their heads. If naturalists value metaphysical simplicity, the simplicity of ID becomes simplemindedness. The ID theorist response to any puzzle is to demand a simple solution, even if the simple solution amounts to deus ex machina. This isn't just lazy philosophy; it's lazy fiction. On the other hand, if non-naturalists have a valuable sensitivity to the messiness of the real world, the ID theorists goal is to make that messiness go away. Pointing at every gap in our understanding and saying, "See there goes God, or whoever." isn't sensitivity to complexity; it's just stupidity.
Consider one of the most fully developed alternative evolutionary cosmologies; that of Teilhard de Chardin.[2] De Chardin, one of the most celebrated paleo-anthropologists of his generation, noticed certain patterns in the evolutionary record available to him. In particular, he noticed what seemed to be patterns in the evolutionary record related to the evolution of central nervous system complexity, i.e. thought, that seemed to be surprising if the only constraints operating on biological evolution were basic physics, the physical boundary conditions and natural selection.
Trying to summarize his conclusions from this is just about as possible -- that is, it's not possible to do fairly -- as would be attempting to summarize, for example Richard Dawkins' attempt at an evolutionary account of vision. However, what follows should at least give the reader a taste.
Teilhard thought that he could "derive" the operative constraints on evolutionary systems necessary to generate the patterns he discerned. He argued that those constraints pointed to a global teleological structure for the entire universe. Roughly, these constraints are equivalent to postulating the evolution of conscious awareness, the noosphere, as a cosmological endpoint for all natural processes.
This is probably wrong, but it is real philosophy; you could spend years struggling with everything you need to really get a handle on in order to see where Teilhard goes wrong.
And this is the first thing to notice; unlike ID, Teilhard's cosmology is not a shortcut to anywhere. Teilhard's cosmology does not close off questions; it opens them up. And, if it is right, it really does help us make metaphysical sense of everything about the universe without having to abandon real science at any point in the process. That is, for Teilhard, as much as for any naturalist, we understand the universe by looking at the universe; not outside of it. In Teilhard's universe there are no dei ex machina; things happen in the universe because that's the way they happen in this universe. The difference is that this universe is not quite as straightforwardly self-subsistent as the naturalists would have it be.
And instead of attempts to really work through these problems, we are offered ID.
Consider the following example. Imagine yourself as a visiting alien; when surveying "Africa" you discover large termite mounds. Most of the crew gets right down to the business of studying termites and figuring out how they manage to produce their nests. But, a few make a different claim. Given that the termites are clearly not sentient, they decide that the termites could not possibly have built their nests in the absence of an independent sentient nest designer -- The Termite Farmer. Therefore, they take off and go looking for The Termite Farmer instead of studying what termites actually do.
Among what I would call "real" termite biologists there can be both naturalist and non-naturalists. That is, some of them think that what you see is what you get; others think that there is something more subtle going on with the termites. However, unlike the design theorists, they both think that you learn about termites by studying termites. Not, by wandering around looking for hypothetical termite designers. However, it's actually worse than that. It's as if the believers in termite-mound designers didn't just go around being pains in the neck to real biologists by pointing out the places they don't quite understand yet; problems with which the real termite biologists are, of course, already perfectly familiar. Instead of either getting down to work or getting out of the way, they go around crowing that termite biologists get it all wrong because the termite-designers tried to make it look as if they, the designers, didn't exist. That is, ID theorists need to claim that, although life looks like a fundamentally natural process subject to natural explanation, that naturalness is an illusion. But, this isn't just bad science or bad philosophy; it's a conspiracy theory fit for The X-files, and thus, while it may not be religion, it certainly is just dumb!
The author is Senior Lecturer in the Philosophy Department at Loyola University, Chicago.
NOTES
[1] There is another branch of "natural" theology, one that operates from an a priori basis. This family of arguments attempts to prove that possession of certain concepts or the ability to make certain judgments implies the existence of a "divine" being. Anselm's argument, what Kant calls the Ontological Argument, is the quintessential example.
2 Despite the claims of many naturalists, de Chardin does not make an argument from design in the sense at issue here. See Daniel C. Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea : Evolution and the Meanings of Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995).for an example of this mistake. See Stephen Toulmin, The Return to Cosmology for a (roughly) naturalist engagement with Teilhard which avoids this mistake.
I think your understanding of Intelligent Design theory is, um, lacking. If you want to argue against ID, you might want to familiarize yourself with their arguments.
Actually, I was being generous. To the pre-scientific ignorant, creating gods to explain natural phenomenon makes a certain amount of sense in that it is consistent with their knowledge and explains the phenomenon, and, frankly, they cannot be blamed for failing to have the insight, knowledge and technology we have.
IDers and Creationists have no such excuse. They're mired in their ignorance and rejoice in it. Those, like Johnson, Behe, Hovand, Gish, Morris, DI, ICR etc., are like those televangelists and criminals who prey on old people and steal their pension checks. To them, they'll do anything, push any kind of outrageous bullshit in order to keep the cash registers filled, regardless of whether we end up with another generation of science illiterates.
All that to say that you can't come up with one irrefutable piece of evidence?
You've been on these boards long enough and seen enough of PatrickHenry and Ichneumon's postings that if you are willing to keep the blinders on, no amount of proof will be enough to get through your delusions.
The first 22 years of my life was uninterrupted evolutionary dogma. I assumed that evolutionary theory was as much a fact as the rising and setting of the sun. Then I read, "Darwin on Trial," and the whole thing collapsed like a house of cards.
BWWAAHAHA... What a deep thinker you must have been, to fall for that lawyer's manipulative piece of trash. I'll also bet that you had a profound religious experience sometime prior to picking up the lawyer's book. I've yet to find anyone who believes in this crap who hasn't has one.
Of course, you're free to believe whatever you want. Just don't ram it down my kids' throats.
You want to raise another generation of scientific illiterates; that is your business. Put them in some nice, private religious school where they'll prepare to praise God and wash dishes.
Q.E.D.
As post 243 notes, you've been exposed to many, many pieces of evidence, been told many, many times that science doesn't deal in absolutes, and still show no propensity to do anything but wallow in your religious delusions.
For example, to anyone who isn't brain dead or had his mind twisted by religious insanity, the Panda's morphology and lifestyle is a elementary, simple, easy to grasp and strikingly clear piece of evidence, sufficient to convince any rational, thinking, sane, unbrainwashed, truthful person of the truth of evolution.
But, given that religious cranks, like the author of the creationist ID book, Of Pandas and People, are more learned in twisting themselves in argumentative knots than learning actual science or reason, even the clearest, most elementary arguments fall on deaf ears. I'm sure you'll have some brilliant statement about how the Panda's contingent, patchwork morphology is actually... um... a brilliant example of God's work... Yeah, that's the ticket...
Absent some showing by you that it would make any difference, why would I bother with the likes of you?
What do you think of the points I make in posting 223?
What do you think of the points I make in posting 223?
That's a rather thin reed upon which to base an all-encompassing theory, isn't it? Morphology can just as easily be explained in terms of design. Considered by itself, the evidence is ambiguous. But seen in the context of the larger problems with evolutionary theory, the evidence is of very little value.
There are two enormous problems with evolutionary theory. First, if evolution happened by great leaps, then a probable mechanism must be proposed to account for it. I am aware of no probable mechanism.
Secondly, if evolution happened by incremental change, then the fossil record should show this, and show it overwhelmingly. In fact, the fossil record shows overwhelming evidence of stasis in species.
(My source for the following information, and a more exhaustive argument revealing the transitional evidence, can be found here.)
Biologists today know of many skeletal indicators that distinguish mammals from reptiles. Given an unidentified skull of an extant animal, someone with the proper forensics training can unerringly discern between one from a reptile and one from a mammal. One of these important distinguishing factors is that in reptiles, multiple bones comprise the lower jaw. A small bone at the posterior end of the lower jaw, the articular, articulates with the quadrate bone of the skull. In mammals, one large bone, the dentary, comprises the lower jaw. It articulates with the squamosal bone of the skull.
The fossil record shows a detailed chronological transition between these two types of jaws. It shows that the relative proportion of the lower jaw comprised of the dentary bone gradually increased until the entire lower jaw consisted of the dentary. In Pennsylvanian and Lower and basal Upper Permian synapsids, the postero-dorsal edge of the lower jaw rose broadly but only slightly above the level of the tooth row.In succeeding forms, the posterior part of the dentary expanded dorsally and posteriorly as a blade-like process, and progressively became larger, forming the coronoid process to which the mammalian-type jaw musculature is attached. Concomitantly, the post-dentary bones progressively reduced in size.
Granted, this doesn't meet the first part of your demand for a blend of organs/radical skeletal features, but I contend that your inclusion of soft tissue organs is based not on a need for them to be present to make the evidence strong enough, but because of your certainty that they cannot be preserved. This ensures you will never have to worry about your demand being met. Unless you can provide a reason why a demonstrated radical skeletal transition requires this additional corroboration it is obvious you are not genuinely interested in considering any evidence.
There are no animals in the fossil record showing a fish-becoming-a-land-walker, or any other intermediate animal that MUST exist between the major divisions of life forms for this absurd idea to be true.
If evolution explained the different forms of life on the planet, then there would be PLENTY of fish with arms and legs in the fossil record, and that goes for all the other supposed transitions between major life forms as well. The fact that these fossils are utterly lacking by itself makes the evolutionary model impossible.
I present to you the Ichthyostega, a fish with feet.
Regarding the rest of your post, dealing with probabilities, I am sure you have heard the counterarguments before. If not, you can find them here. I am not going to delve into it any deeper because it is an argument against abiogenesis, not the ToE.
No offense, but it could use a lot of work.
As for your first paragraph, there are many fossils showing the transition from sea-based life to land-based life. And, in fact, with the cetaceans, of the reverse, as well. And when the founding species of a higher-level taxon begins to split, it initially would look no more different from the trunk species than subspecies do today. It is only with massive amounts of time do members of separate taxa take on strongly divergent morphology. For example, we wouldn't expect the most recent common ancestor of birds and mammals to look like half-bird, half-mammal, because the defining characteristics of each arose later. It would be something whose morphology is not evolutionarily inconsistent with either birds or mammals.
The second paragraph is based on the common misunderstanding as to the role of random mutation in evolution. In fact, you seem to express the creationist (although I'm not claiming you're a creationist.) obsession/misconception with the notion of randomness in evolution. Evolution through natural selection is not a wholly random thing. And, in fact, to the extent randomness is a factor, it is usually (but not always) randomness of the most mundane kind. It is the randomness that says, "if you measure the heights of all the men in a particular city, they will exhibit a variation around the mean." It is the next step, the natural selection in light of environmental pressure, that is the more interesting aspect.
That's not all I'm basing it on, so your statement makes no sense. If that was it, then perhaps. But multiply this example by the millions of other data points for evolution, then your objections melt away to nothingness.
Morphology can just as easily be explained in terms of design.
Anything can be explained in terms of design, because when you posit an all-powerful God, who can do anything, for any reason, then any evidence, of any kind, regarding anything can be explained by the words: "God wanted it that way." At that point you don't have science, you have religion. And if you want to believe this religious notion, that is your business. But don't try to get the government to force my kids to learn your religion.
And, moreover, some things in nature make so sense as design, if you assume the designer is rational and sane, such as the vagus nerve in a giraffe (hell, or the number of neck vertebrae) or the panda's "thumb" (or the human back or external testicles, etc., etc.,...). There are no good reasons for them (and many problems with them) to be that way someone with unlimited creative power.
Considered by itself, the evidence is ambiguous.
But it should not be considered by itself. It should be considered with the millions of other data points which show evolution occurred.
But seen in the context of the larger problems with evolutionary theory, the evidence is of very little value.
Again, only to someone who, to me, seems willing to wish away all of the evidence because, ultimately, he believes that his religious convictions are more important. As a religious matter, that's your business, of course. But your feelings about your religion don't change the facts on the ground.
There are two enormous problems with evolutionary theory. First, if evolution happened by great leaps, then a probable mechanism must be proposed to account for it. I am aware of no probable mechanism.
Check your premise. The error, no doubt, will be found in your use of, and understand of, the phrase "great leaps." No "leaps" greater than obtainable by the speed achievable by the various forms of speciation is necessary.
Secondly, if evolution happened by incremental change, then the fossil record should show this, and show it overwhelmingly. In fact, the fossil record shows overwhelming evidence of stasis in species.
That is one of the reasons why I think the Eldridge-Gould paper on the effect of morphological stasis and allopatric speciation on the fossil record is fundamentally correct, and why I think the theories pressing continuous gradualism are not.
Punctuated equilibrium - it isn't just for breakfast anymore.
Yes, although I find the phrase "evolution by jerks," to be humorous... Given the fact that too many creationists falsely believe that punctuated equilibrium is the same as the hopeful monster theory, I sometimes choose not to use the term, so as not to get the same canned creationists arguments against hopeful monsters.
I'll also plug Edward T. Oakes' theological takedown of ID Reviewing The Wedge of Truth and follow-up correspondence
Like the millions of fossils in the fossil record which aren't there? The fossil record demonstrates stasis. Period.
And, moreover, some things in nature make so sense as design, if you assume the designer is rational and sane, such as the vagus nerve in a giraffe (hell, or the number of neck vertebrae) or the panda's "thumb" (or the human back or external testicles, etc., etc.,...). There are no good reasons for them (and many problems with them) to be that way someone with unlimited creative power.
And you know how God should have designed the world? Creation is not necessary. God is sufficient unto Himself. Creation, in all its beauty, variety and idiosyncracies, serves to reflect His glory.
No "leaps" greater than obtainable by the speed achievable by the various forms of speciation is necessary.
Circular. Your problem throughout is that you're assuming your conclusion.
That is one of the reasons why I think the Eldridge-Gould paper on the effect of morphological stasis and allopatric speciation on the fossil record is fundamentally correct, and why I think the theories pressing continuous gradualism are not.
So this is the obviously correct evolutionary theory? Are the scientists who advocate gradualism truly scientists, and/or idiots? Or does that label only apply to people who believe what is truly obvious, that God designed the world?
You are either lying knowingly or making a statement for which you don't know the facts, but which you nevertheless stating as a fact. Since it is not true that the fossil record demonstrates only stasis, I don't know whether this is an innocent mistake or whether you are another in the long line of liars for Christ.
And you know how God should have designed the world? Creation is not necessary. God is sufficient unto Himself. Creation, in all its beauty, variety and idiosyncracies, serves to reflect His glory.
No, I am saying that if you believe that this was intended by your God, then your God has the mentality of a slow ten-year old child. The world's biology is filled with mostly ad-hoc solutions, which make no sense to any rational thinker, but which make perfect sense as the contingent result of evolutionary history. (Your god must LOVE evolution, because the world is teeming with evidence for it, and is devoid of any evidence against it...)
Circular. Your problem throughout is that you're assuming your conclusion.
You are a theistic creationist, and you call anyone else's reason circular??? (And, my assertion isn't circular, the conclusion is well supported by the evidence, as the speed evolution can attain and the amount of change necessary for evolutionary change can be determined by science.)
So this is the obviously correct evolutionary theory?
Not necessarily, that's why I said it is "fundamentally" correct. For what it is attempting to show, it is, I believe, fundamentally correct.
Are the scientists who advocate gradualism truly scientists, and/or idiots?
Scientists. Their ideas are just wrong.
Or does that label only apply to people who believe what is truly obvious, that God designed the world?
No, some people who claim this are just brainwashed. Some are ignorant, some stupid, some cultured with the belief and never questioned it, some are insane, and some are so terrified at the reality of death that they'd cling to anything--even in the face of evidence the belief is untrue--so as not to have to contemplate their own nonexistence.
OK, now I see the source of your dogmatism.
whatever. Good day.
I don't suppose you know what the word "codon" means (or its derivation)? Plus I don't suppose you have any idea how proteins are made in the cell? As a further note, you jump from DNA to RNA after asserting that the belief that DNA is encoded information is in error. DNA does not have the base Uracil.
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