Posted on 04/15/2006 11:44:16 AM PDT by SirLinksalot
Posted: April 15, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
I suggested here last week that the established authorities of every age act consistently. They become vigilantly militant against non-conforming dissidents who challenge their assumptions.
Thus when the dissident Galileo challenged the assumptions of the 17th century papacy, it shut him up. Now when the advocates of "intelligent design" challenge the scientific establishment's assumptions about "natural selection," it moves aggressively to shut them up. So the I.D. people have this in common with Galileo.
I received a dozen letters on this, three in mild agreement, the rest in scorn and outrage. This calls for a response.
Where, one reader demanded, did I get the information that 10 percent of scientists accept intelligent design? I got it from a National Post (newspaper) article published two years ago, which said that 90 percent of the members of the National Academy of Science "consider themselves atheists." Since if you're not an atheist, you allow for the possibility of a Mind or Intelligence behind nature, this puts 10 percent in the I.D. camp.
I could have gone further. A survey last year by Rice University, financed by the Templeton Foundation, found that about two-thirds of scientists believed in God. A poll published by Gallup in 1997 asked: Do you believe that "man has developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process, including man's creation?" essentially the I.D. position. Just under 40 percent of scientists said yes. So perhaps my 10 percent was far too low.
Two readers called my attention to a discovery last week on an Arctic island of something which may be the fossil remains of the mysteriously missing "transitional species." Or then maybe it isn't transitional. Maybe it's a hitherto undetected species on its own.
But the very exuberance with which such a discovery is announced argues the I.D. case. If Darwin was right, and the change from one species to another through natural selection occurred constantly in millions of instances over millions of years, then the fossil record should be teaming with transitional species. It isn't. That's why even one possibility, after many years of searching, becomes front-page news.
Another letter complains that I.D. cannot be advanced as even a theory unless evidence of the nature of this "Divine" element is presented. But the evidence is in nature itself. The single cell shows such extraordinary complexity that to suggest it came about by sheer accident taxes credulity. If you see a footprint in the sand, that surely evidences human activity. The demand "Yes, but whose footprint is it?" does not disqualify the contention that somebody was there. "Nope," says the establishment, "not until you can tell us who it was will we let you raise this question in schools."
Another reader argues that Galileo stood for freedom of inquiry, whereas I.D. advocates want to suppress inquiry. This writer apparently did not notice what caused me to write the column. It was the rejection by a government agency for a $40,000 grant to a McGill University anti-I.D. lobby to suppress the presentation and discussion of I.D. theory in the Canadian schools. Suppressing discussion is an odd way of encouraging "freedom of inquiry." Anyway, the I.D. movement doesn't want to suppress evolution. It merely wants it presented as a theory, alongside the I.D. theory.
Why, asked another reader, did I not identify the gutsy woman who stated the reason for the rejection, bringing upon herself the scorn of scientific authority. That's fair. Her name is Janet Halliwell, a chemist and executive vice president of the Social Science and Humanities Research Council. She said that evolution is a theory, not a fact, and the McGill application offered no evidence to support it.
The McGill applicant was furious. Evolution, he said, needs no evidence. It's fact. Apparently Harvard University doesn't quite agree with him. The Boston Globe reports that Harvard has begun an expensive project to discover how life emerged from the chemical soup of early earth. In the 150 years since Darwin, says the Globe, "scientists cannot explain how the process began."
The most sensible letter came from a research scientist. "I think that the current paradigm of evolution by natural selection acting on random variation will change," he writes. "I think that evidence will accumulate to suggest that much of the genetic variation leading to the evolution of life on earth was not random, but was generated by biochemical processes that exhibit intelligent behavior."
Then he urges me not to disclose his identity. Saying this publicly would threaten his getting tenure, he fears. Galileo would understand.
"When the bulk of the proponents of a scientific theory are not likely to fully understand what they are promoting, it sounds like a fad religion to me."
That works out well for evolution, because it's proponents understand what they are saying.
ID/creationism... not so much.
Propose an alternative theory and we'll entertain it.
Most people, whether they think evolution is correct or not, are not sufficiently educated to judge its validity. That doesn't mean it's not accurate. Probably more people have a decent grip on the theory of evolution than the theory of relativity. Do you think that's a religion as well?
You would eliminate practically any line of inquiry from the realm of science just based on the fact it takes several years to get a good basis in it. That's unwarranted.
Based on my studies of human races (many years ago), I distrust your "three possibilities in terms of natural selection: beneficial, detrimental, or benign."
I think there is a much larger range than that.
Look at skin color; it appears to be controlled by several genes.Within a (prehistoric) population there is usually a range of variation within that population. The same is true of most other traits as well.
With different populations in different environments the bell curve shifts to one direction or the other, usually keeping a considerable range. Going from Africa to northern Europe there is a cline of skin color.
These are all adaptations to the environment, particularly to ultraviolet radiation; too much and you get skin cancer, to little and you get vitamin D deficiencies.
Many of the mutations are probably benign or only slightly beneficial or detrimental. The extremes would probably be more rare, and detrimental extremes most likely fatal (albinos in desert climes would not fare well).
And what does it sound like to you when the bulk of the proponents of a religion don't fully understand what they're promoting? For evidence that this happens, just visit any religion thread here at FR.
Actually, no, IDers believe God went in to "tweak" and "perfect" his creation by supernatural means and left "fingerprints" somewhere along the line. I don't believe that happened. Evolutionary theory does not preclude God starting the whole ball rolling.
I think if God were really all-powerful, he would design systems that don't need "tweaking". Which I believe he did.
Are you suggesting I do not understand evolution?
(You must be smarter than my Doctoral committee; I fooled them somehow.)
I alread said I am not the best person to argue this. There are lots of books on population genetics. I would take a graduate course or two before going down this road. It's well traveled.
You won't find qualified critics of evolution like Behe making this argment. That should be a clue.
The evidence for evolution is overwhelming. One has only to visit the natural history museum in any major city to see the fossil record in person.
The fossil record for horses is particularly good. Lots of specimens available to show the transition to today's modern horse.
It's impressive how it worked out. Whether or not one believes in a God who put the systems in place for evolution to achieve these outcomes, you have to have your head in the sand to deny that the systems are in place.
It's way past time to abandon the idea that all the fossils were the result of Noah's Flood and that all the extinct animals somehow didn't get a ticket on the Ark.
Buzzzzz, utterly wrong. That's the entire point of a large population - multiple, if not a maximum, of loci of diversion/mutation and intermixing for positive reinforcement and selection.
I don't see where a three-part limit is justified.
In just one trait, skin color, I discussed a cline (range of variation) from extremely dark to extremely light, to albino. This reflects a real-world condition.
There are many other traits involved in evolution.
These traits can be expected to vary, co-vary, and counter-vary in all sorts of ways. Some mutations will have both beneficial and detrimental results (sickle-cell anemia being one example).
I simply do not see a need to restrict the possibilities to only beneficial, detrimental, or benign. There will be "little bit beneficial-somewhat detrimental"; "mostly benign here, detrimental 2000 miles farther north"; "mostly benign here, advantageous 2000 miles farther south"; and so on and on and on.
That is why, when the climate changes, the range of variation within a population allows some to adapt better than others--they are already carrying the mutation from hundreds, thousands, or millions of years ago; it was benign but now (look at those darn glaciers!) its beneficial.
That's the way evolution works, and why simplistic mathematical models often come up with screwy results.
If you were truely interested you would be asking for books and resourses to study. Your line of argument has been studied since before the 20th century. You really have to ask yourself why folks like Behe have abandoned it.
I am not the expert on this, but I can tell from your questions that you have only examined the tip of the problem. I wish you luck if you choose to examine it in detail.
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