Intelligent design is not creationism (Stephen Meyer)

London Telegraph ^ | 01/28/2006 | Stephen Meyer

[SirLinksalot]

Intelligent design is not creationism

By Stephen C Meyer (Filed: 28/01/2006)

In 2004, the distinguished philosopher Antony Flew of the University of Reading made worldwide news when he repudiated a lifelong commitment to atheism and affirmed the reality of some kind of a creator. Flew cited evidence of intelligent design in DNA and the arguments of "American [intelligent] design theorists" as important reasons for this shift.

Since then, British readers have learnt about the theory of intelligent design (ID) mainly from media reports about United States court battles over the legality of teaching students about it. According to most reports, ID is a "faith-based" alternative to evolution based solely on religion.

But is this accurate? As one of the architects of the theory, I know it isn't.

Contrary to media reports, ID is not a religious-based idea, but an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins. According to Darwinian biologists such as Oxford University's Richard Dawkins, living systems "give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose".

But, for modern Darwinists, that appearance of design is illusory, because the purely undirected process of natural selection acting on random mutations is entirely sufficient to produce the intricate designed-like structures found in living organisms.

By contrast, ID holds that there are tell-tale features of living systems and the universe that are best explained by a designing intelligence. The theory does not challenge the idea of evolution defined as change over time, or even common ancestry, but it disputes Darwin's idea that the cause of biological change is wholly blind and undirected.

What signs of intelligence do design advocates see?

In recent years, biologists have discovered an exquisite world of nanotechnology within living cells - complex circuits, sliding clamps, energy-generating turbines and miniature machines. For example, bacterial cells are propelled by rotary engines called flagellar motors that rotate at 100,000rpm. These engines look like they were designed by engineers, with many distinct mechanical parts (made of proteins), including rotors, stators, O-rings, bushings, U-joints and drive shafts.

The biochemist Michael Behe points out that the flagellar motor depends on the co-ordinated function of 30 protein parts. Remove one of these proteins and the rotary motor doesn't work. The motor is, in Behe's words, "irreducibly complex".

This creates a problem for the Darwinian mechanism. Natural selection preserves or "selects" functional advantages as they arise by random mutation. Yet the flagellar motor does not function unless all its 30 parts are present. Thus, natural selection can "select" the motor once it has arisen as a functioning whole, but it cannot produce the motor in a step-by-step Darwinian fashion.

Natural selection purportedly builds complex systems from simpler structures by preserving a series of intermediates, each of which must perform some function. With the flagellar motor, most of the critical intermediate structures perform no function for selection to preserve. This leaves the origin of the flagellar motor unexplained by the mechanism - natural selection - that Darwin specifically proposed to replace the design hypothesis.

Is there a better explanation? Based on our uniform experience, we know of only one type of cause that produces irreducibly complex systems: intelligence. Whenever we encounter complex systems - whether integrated circuits or internal combustion engines - and we know how they arose, invariably a designing intelligence played a role.

Consider an even more fundamental argument for design. In 1953, when Watson and Crick elucidated the structure of the DNA molecule, they made a startling discovery. Strings of precisely sequenced chemicals called nucleotides in DNA store and transmit the assembly instructions - the information - in a four-character digital code for building the protein molecules the cell needs to survive. Crick then developed his "sequence hypothesis", in which the chemical bases in DNA function like letters in a written language or symbols in a computer code. As Dawkins has noted, "the machine code of the genes is uncannily computer-like".

The informational features of the cell at least appear designed. Yet, to date, no theory of undirected chemical evolution has explained the origin of the digital information needed to build the first living cell. Why? There is simply too much information in the cell to be explained by chance alone.

The information in DNA (and RNA) has also been shown to defy explanation by forces of chemical necessity. Saying otherwise would be like saying a headline arose as the result of chemical attraction between ink and paper. Clearly, something else is at work.

DNA functions like a software program. We know from experience that software comes from programmers. We know that information - whether, say, in hieroglyphics or radio signals - always arises from an intelligent source. As the pioneering information theorist Henry Quastler observed: "Information habitually arises from conscious activity." So the discovery of digital information in DNA provides strong grounds for inferring that intelligence played a causal role in its origin.

Thus, ID is not based on religion, but on scientific discoveries and our experience of cause and effect, the basis of all scientific reasoning about the past. Unlike creationism, ID is an inference from biological data.

Even so, ID may provide support for theistic belief. But that is not grounds for dismissing it. Those who do confuse the evidence for the theory with its possible implications. Many astrophysicists initially rejected the Big Bang theory because it seemed to point to the need for a transcendent cause of matter, space and time. But science eventually accepted it because the evidence strongly supported it.

Today, a similar prejudice confronts ID. Nevertheless, this new theory must also be evaluated on the basis of the evidence, not philosophical preferences. As Professor Flew advises: "We must follow the evidence, wherever it leads."

Stephen C Meyer edited 'Darwinism, Design and Public Education' (Michigan State University Press). He has a PhD in philosophy of science from Cambridge University and is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute in Seattle

[mlc9852]

Israeli scientists have devised a computer that can perform 330 trillion operations per second, more than 100,000 times the speed of the fastest PC. The secret: It runs on DNA.

A year ago, researchers from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, unveiled a programmable molecular computing machine composed of enzymes and DNA molecules instead of silicon microchips. Now the team has gone one step further. In the new device, the single DNA molecule that provides the computer with the input data also provides all the necessary fuel.

The design is considered a giant step in DNA computing. The Guinness World Records last week recognized the computer as "the smallest biological computing device" ever constructed. DNA computing is in its infancy, and its implications are only beginning to be explored. But it could transform the future of computers, especially in pharmaceutical and biomedical applications.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/02/0224_030224_DNAcomputer.html


Some could argue otherwise.

[mlc9852]

So all scientists agree with Darwin's TOE? I'm quite sure you don't believe that. Why not allow teaching of the "problems" of TOE? Would you be ok with that?

[Drammach]

Don't get me wrong..

I sincerely believe what I said..
Intelligent Design is not Intelligent..
It lacks faith in God..

Let me further explain..
I believe in God, and God's creation of the Universe..
I also believe in God's use of evolution to create all life...

What I reject is the denial of scientific endeavor, meant to help mankind explain the workings of our universe and the life that exists within it..
No science has ever proven, nor to my knowledge, attempted to prove that God does not exist, or to deny the existence of God..
( Philosophical argument and opinion is not science, don't count that as an example. )

[orionblamblam]

Here's a simpler solution: how about reserving science class for the teaching of *science?*

I know, it's a revolutionary thought.

[PatrickHenry]

Archive?

[Drammach]

At least they should be teaching the controversies related to TOE. That would be a good start.

Controversies? Why?
Controversies are disagreements not necessarilly based on fact..

If you were to say " At least it should be mentioned (taught) what science doesn't know about evolution" I would agree..
But there is a preponderence of evidence that points to a logical conclusion, and many theories have been proven to be correct..
Denial of fact, empirical evidence, is not Intelligent..

[SuziQ]

Here's an interesting article from one of the 'founders' of the ID theory.

[dyed_in_the_wool]

You might teach it in a "Philosophy of Science" class though.

No. You wouldn't.

[dyed_in_the_wool]

( Philosophical argument and opinion is not science, don't count that as an example. )

Philosophical argument IS science, however, many folks use faulty logic and/or invalid arguments.
Don't bash philosophy due to uninformed speculation.

[Coyoteman]

===> Placemarker <===

[Drammach]

The Wilcox-McCandlish law of online discourse evolution, developed by Bryce Wilcox and Stanton McCandlish on USENET, is:

The chance of success of any attempt to change the topic or direction of a thread of discussion in a networked forum is directly proportional to the quality of the current content.

There are numerous corollaries:

1. McCandlish's first corollary to the Wilcox-McCandlish law
* The chance of any change to the topic or direction of a thread being a change for the better is inversely proportional to the quality of the content before the change.

2. The exception to McCandlish's first corollary
* When a thread reaches the flame war stage, all changes in thread topic or direction will be changes for the worse.

3. McCandlish's second corollary to the Wilcox-McCandlish law
* Thread bandwidth consumption increases in inverse proportion to thread content quality.

4. Wilcox's corollary to the Wilcox-McCandlish law
* The more involved one is in a flame war, the less likely one is to recognize it as such.

5. McCandlish's third corollary to the Wilcox-McCandlish law
* Any attempt at recourse to formal logic or identification of classic fallacies will simply increase the irrationality of the discussion.

(It is likely that this is so because the use of formal logic immediately raises the quality of the discussion to unity, thus guaranteeing the next followup will be a non sequitur.)

* The Wilcox-McCandlish paradox Thread degeneration can (theoretically) be forestalled or even reversed by citation to the Wilcox-McCandlish Law.

Wikipedia

[mlc9852]

What "facts" do you assume others are denying?

[mlc9852]

"Today 95% of the biologists in the National Academy of Science are either atheist or agnostic (Nature, Vol. 394, No. 6691, p. 313)."

http://www.nwcreation.net/abiogenesis.html

[Coyoteman]

So all scientists agree with Darwin's TOE? I'm quite sure you don't believe that. Why not allow teaching of the "problems" of TOE? Would you be ok with that?

I had a couple of seminars in grad school titled "Problems in Evolution."

We discussed different interpretations of various fossils and possible lines of descent based on the extant fossil record.

Is this the kind of course you would like?

[mlc9852]

Yep.

[Drammach]

Philosophical argument IS science, however, many folks use faulty logic and/or invalid arguments.

I would consider Logic as science..
But not Philosophy as a whole.. It covers other topics of a non-scientific nature.. logic, ethics, aesthetics, metaphysics, and epistemology..

And that's just one definition..

[Drammach]

What "facts" do you assume others are denying?

I ask the same to you..
How about it?

I don't feel I have a "need" to defend Evolution...

What "facts" do you assume others are denying about ID ???

[Filo]

So all scientists agree with Darwin's TOE? I'm quite sure you don't believe that. Why not allow teaching of the "problems" of TOE? Would you be ok with that?

I would say that the vast majority of scientists support Darwin's theory. There may be minor problems with details but the theory has yet to be disproven and, in fact, it has huge volumes of support.

Would I support teaching some of these problems? Of course! They are, however, taught all of the time. The problems don't damage the theory - they just prove that we have more to discover in support of it.

Almost all of the nonsense about an "evolutionary controversy" is fabricated by ID proponents and has no real basis in fact.

No offense, but IDers are a lot like democrats. They don't have anything of their own so they tear down what others have built in an attempt to elevate themselves; and they aren't particularly honest in doing so.

[Virginia-American]

As I posted when the Dover case was decided, I think it would be better to sue the school board in state court on fraud charges, and impeach and convict in the state legislature.

Consider Afrocentrism. This is another form of affirmative action, but unlike ID/creationism, there is no First Amend. problem.

But it's still fraudulent, and has no place in school.

IMO, not teaching history (or biology) at all is preferable to lying about it.

Impeachment and conviction are also appropriate, because school board members who engage in such conduct are also guilty of the high crime of mal (or is it mis-) feasance.

Conviction of impeachment carries the penalty of never being allowed on the gov't payroll again.

[mlc9852]

I think they should discuss whether or not habilis, rudolfensis, etc. are erectus or not and why hominid fossils of different species overlap. That would do for starters.