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.
WELL then CALM DOWN.. I'm not upset at all.. They are just "QUESTIONS"...
Dawkins stands as posterboy for some science masters.. not all..
Dawkins book is agressive and honest about his "Observations"..
How can "WE" determine each others stance on things without engagement with each other..
This(FR) is not a scientific journal but a mostly political website..
Logic must be persued to observe the tactics involved.. like that..
IOW, "the observer problem" is not a stick with which to beat one's opponent; it is a universal human condition. I have it; you have it; we all have it.
I understand. What I don't understand (without attribututing motives) is how it is that asking questions based on the assumption that theologians may suffer from it the same as scientists seems to be taken as an unfair tactic.
OUCH, that is a harsh way of putting it. God's existence would be in non-existence.
I suppose an example near at hand for what you mean would be intelligence. The problem that this is runs into is that intelligence derives its stuff from existing things. As Hume knew, existence cannot be deduced from essence. It must be the other way around. Indeed existing things are the content determinig causes of our thinking and knowing. As Gilson writes, "All real knowledges is by nature both essential and existential. Being does not come first in the sense that what comes next no longer is being. Being comes first and it stays there."
Gilson continues it a fine description of participation:
To know a thing is to be it in an intellectual way. The classical refutation of adequatio rei et intellectus which the concept is supposed to be a passive reflection of reality, entirely misses the point. It may well apply to naive essentialism, but it by no means applies to a noetic in which the knowledge of essence rests upon the vital conjunction of two acts of existing. Even abstract knowledge is not the mere copying of an essence by an intellect; it is the intellectual becoming of an actual essence in an intellectual being.
Wouldn't the distinction "possible" and "actual" be sufficient? The terms of negation work too quick to efface the participatory nature of all things.
Your best friend won't tell you but I will. Matter is pure potential. When combined with form you get stuff, the very stuff that makes up the pile.
This started over what seemed to be a fairly straighforward, logical question. Given that both dogma and observeration may be either true or false, how do we test them to make that determination?
Testing observations doesn't seem to be particularly problematic - we do it all the time.
Testing dogma seems to be a different proposition altogether. So much so that the original comparison seems to be of little no practical consequence.
I don’t mind, but the game isn’t determinism versus free will. There is another, as been known for at least the 2000 years since Jesus’ biographer was taking notes. Longer if you like Plato’s tales.
tacticalogic: It seems to be generally agreed that dogma isn't subject to the "observer problem"
It seems rather that you need to make up your mind and follow through.
Or both.
LoL.. Well thats an observation... also in evidence, the whole summary daily production of a human body is released while sitting.. not standing.. The human spirit's production is not earth bound..
Don’t like Aristotle? Can’t blame someone for that. Even the Church didn’t like Aristotle. Lots of people got in trouble.
Observation is obvious to the observer.. but to an observer with a different vista.. another observation may seem strange or even in error.. i.e. the Observer problem..
Whos correct?, or even more correct?, or has blind spots?..
All three could be possible with all observers(us)..
I put the question to you earlier with regards to whether dogma was immune to the problem and you seemed to think that was an accurate assesment. The ubiquity of the "observer problem" with regards to observation doesn't seem to be in question.
So far all I've done is try and clarify exactly what the terms being used mean and how they're being applied.
I'd like to get the ducks more or less in a row before I make up my mind if that's alright with you.
Went over my head.. ZOOOOM..
It would seem that if your scientific credibility is being criticized, it is being done because the final arbiter for you seems to be not logic or reason, but of faith and divine; two things that are unknowable and unprovable through empirical scientific means.
It is therefore justified that people wouldn't bother using reason or logic to convince you, since you've admitted that those two things aren't the primary decision makers for you.
Why bother using scientific evidence if "God did it" can be used to prove anything?
Darwin’s House: A Religious Shrine?
“An article quoted Darwin scholar James Moore saying, ‘Muslims go to Mecca, Christians go to Jerusalem, Darwinians go to Downe.’ This seems to equate Darwinians with believers in a religion, but Nature quoted this proudly.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/^http://creationsafaris.com/crev200706.htm#20070628a
And let’s not forget Richard Dawkins, a scientists who speaks for millions of the Darwinist faithful:
“In 2005 online magazine ‘Edge The World Question Centre’ posed the following question to a number of scientific intellectuals: ‘What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?’ Dawkins revealingly answered: ‘I believe that all life, all intelligence, all creativity and all ‘design’ anywhere in the universe, is the direct or indirect product of Darwinian natural selection.’”
http://www.iscid.org/papers/Williams_GodDelusionReview_02012007.pdf
Sounds like religion to me-—GGG
That’s okay. Most of the Aristotelians fled to England. Or Russia. Those who remained in France began to doubt their own existence, and that trend continues.
Dawkins has no standing here. Fortunately, Jesus loves him anyway.
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