Posted on 06/23/2007 12:21:46 PM PDT by GodGunsGuts
Pro-Darwin Biology Professor Laments Academia's "Intolerance" and Supports Teaching Intelligent Design
Charles Darwin famously said, "A fair result can be obtained only by fully balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question." According to a recent article by J. Scott Turner, a pro-Darwin biology professor at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, New York, modern Neo-Darwinists are failing to heed Darwin's advice. (We blogged about a similar article by Turner in The Chronicle of Higher Education in January, 2007.) Turner is up front with his skepticism of intelligent design (ID), which will hopefully allow his criticisms to strike a chord with other Darwinists.
Turner starts by observing that the real threat to education today is not ID itself, but the attitude of scientists towards ID: "Unlike most of my colleagues, however, I don't see ID as a threat to biology, public education or the ideals of the republic. To the contrary, what worries me more is the way that many of my colleagues have responded to the challenge." He describes the "modern academy" as "a tedious intellectual monoculture where conformity and not contention is the norm." Turner explains that the "[r]eflexive hostility to ID is largely cut from that cloth: some ID critics are not so much worried about a hurtful climate as they are about a climate in which people are free to disagree with them." He then recounts and laments the hostility faced by Richard Sternberg at the Smithsonian:
It would be comforting if one could dismiss such incidents as the actions of a misguided few. But the intolerance that gave rise to the Sternberg debacle is all too common: you can see it in its unfiltered glory by taking a look at Web sites like pandasthumb.org or recursed.blogspot.com [Jeffry Shallit's blog] and following a few of the threads on ID. The attitudes on display there, which at the extreme verge on antireligious hysteria, can hardly be squared with the relatively innocuous (even if wrong-headed) ideas that sit at ID's core.
(J. Scott Turner, Signs of Design, The Christian Century, June 12, 2007.)
Turner on the Kitzmiller v. Dover Case
Turner sees the Kitzmiller v. Dover case as the dangerous real-world expression of the intolerance common in the academy: "My blood chills ... when these essentially harmless hypocrisies are joined with the all-American tradition of litigiousness, for it is in the hand of courts and lawyers that real damage to cherished academic ideas is likely to be done." He laments the fact that "courts are where many of my colleagues seem determined to go with the ID issue” and predicts, “I believe we will ultimately come to regret this."
Turner justifies his reasonable foresight by explaining that Kitzmiller only provided a pyrrhic victory for the pro-Darwin lobby:
Although there was general jubilation at the ruling, I think the joy will be short-lived, for we have affirmed the principle that a federal judge, not scientists or teachers, can dictate what is and what is not science, and what may or may not be taught in the classroom. Forgive me if I do not feel more free.
(J. Scott Turner, Signs of Design, The Christian Century, June 12, 2007.)
Turner on Education
Turner explains, quite accurately, that ID remains popular not because of some vast conspiracy or religious fanaticism, but because it deals with an evidentiary fact that resonates with many people, and Darwinian scientists do not respond to ID's arguments effectively:
[I]ntelligent design … is one of multiple emerging critiques of materialism in science and evolution. Unfortunately, many scientists fail to see this, preferring the gross caricature that ID is simply "stealth creationism." But this strategy fails to meet the challenge. Rather than simply lament that so many people take ID seriously, scientists would do better to ask why so many take it seriously. The answer would be hard for us to bear: ID is not popular because the stupid or ignorant like it, but because neo-Darwinism's principled banishment of purpose seems less defensible each passing day.
(J. Scott Turner, Signs of Design, The Christian Century, June 12, 2007.)
Turner asks, “What, then, is the harm in allowing teachers to deal with the subject as each sees fit?” ID can't be taught, he explains, because most scientists believe that "normal standards of tolerance and academic freedom should not apply in the case of ID." He says that the mere suggestion that ID could be taught brings out "all manner of evasions and prevarications that are quite out of character for otherwise balanced, intelligent and reasonable people."
As we noted earlier, hopefully Turner’s criticisms will strike a chord with Darwinists who might otherwise close their ears to the argument for academic freedom for ID-proponents. Given the intolerance towards ID-sympathy that Turner describes, let us also hope that the chord is heard but the strummer is not harmed.
Duality is real. However the line between objective and subjective is usually drawn in the wrong place. Kant was right, simple deduction, and Whitehead was right if you want to follow Kant. Schopenhauer was a belligerent curmudgeon and didn’t quite ‘get it’ but his work is useful in pointing out ways various post-Kantians have gone wrong, and continue to get it wrong even now.
So until we have all of that, any time reference is relative, subjective, and ulimately pointless. How useful.
I like it for the simple reason that, like epicycles, it will eventually become unnecessary.
In this discussion, I am presenting mostly all geometric physics - very little metaphysics.
The space/time continuum is a postulate of special relativity.
Nevertheless, I try to keep an open mind wrt physical cosmologies and am particularly fond of Max Tegmark's Level IV parallel universe which sees physical "reality" in space/time as the projection or illusion of the real mathematical structures existing outside of space/time.
The most fundamental question for all of us is: "What is Reality?"
And my response to that question is altogether Christian plain and simple: Reality is God's will and unknowable in its fullness.
But trying to understand is great fun - and we Christians are expected to do exactly that. (Psalms 19:1-3, Romans 1:20)
I didn’t go through a decade of college scrupulously avoiding economics, sociology, psychology and other squishy subjects just to start reading that stuff now! Life is too short!
I’m just stating the obvious point that AI will eventually figure out how to mimic brains. Deep problems can take hundreds of years.
But I doubt if this will take hundreds.
Before we can ask that we have to clear up some fundamental questions.
It's one thing to act like a rocket scientist and another to actually be one. AI will fail, although it will provide a few toys for the amusement of children and other consumers of entertainment product.
I must leave now, but will check back later.
Kant already took care of that. He said it would be easy to extend his results, although he said his insight wasn’t all that deep either. Just the simple (once you see it) method of mathematics, and later physics. Pure dogmatism.
I tend to agree in the short run. Nature tends to solve problems with genetic or evolutionary algorithms, and this is very difficult to emulate in current hardware. Efforts are, however, beginning to be commercially useful, and this will start driving research.
This points out one of the fundamental roadblocks to AI. First, nature doesn't have problems. Second, nature doesn't use mathematics. The AI theorists are trying to build on the Turing machine, but nature doesn't use the Turing machine. We'll make more progress by continuing to work on battery technology for our iPhones and iCars.
*real* physics? Is that like *real* science? What exactly is *real* science?
tacticalogic asked what *real* time is. Doesn't science have an answer? They should considering its critical nature in things like physics.
This charge is thrown at non-evos with such regularity that it's become a joke. Anything that doesn't agree with them and their world view is not *real*. So what is real?
Thanks for the pings everyone. Following this thread has been intriguing.
Interesting. I have friends whose son is working with AI and some interesting progress is being made.
Both mathematics and physics are dogmatic systems. Other sciences try to emulate that but haven’t reduced their fundamental premises sufficiently so they can have a self-contained coherent system. Time is a synthetic a priori concept. So is space.
I have many acquaintances in AI, went to school with some. Have had relatives in AI since 1950. They are doing some amazing things, although they will never produce artificial intelligence. They could put a fly’s nervous system in a robot and get more done, or like Snowcrash put a dog’s nervous system in a robot and get something that barks and moves 300 mph autonomously.
Perhaps the parts that condemn homosexuality don't really mean what they say. Some seem to think that issue is misrepresented. Maybe that whole “thou shalt not steal” statement doesn’t apply – how sure are we that it restricts one from “borrowing permanently”? Or maybe that whole salvation thing is a problem – a lot of people have trouble with that. Would a loving God really condemn someone to hell for not accepting His son’s sacrifice of Himself as payment? If I prefer not to believe that – hey, no big deal, right?
Now please don't misunderstand, I am not giving the same weight of importance to creation and salvation. But if Gods word is accurate and trustworthy for the salvation of my soul why is it not to be believed regarding the origin of humanity?
I readily state that I think ID is an end run around the wrong headed application of the establishment clause. But that is where we are left because of the reaction of so many on both sides of this debate. I am confident God is able to withstand the truth and I am secure enough in my faith that I am pleased to see it brought forward in comprehensive debate. It seems the article’s author is secure enough in his faith as well. It is just a shame that there are so many on both sides who are not secure enough.
Do you think that will stop anyone from arguing one against the other, knowing it's out of context?
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