Posted on 07/23/2009 9:34:01 AM PDT by GodGunsGuts
In his new book, 40 More Years: How the Democrats Will Rule the Next Generation, Democratic strategist James Carville badly misrepresents intelligent design (ID) as a wholly negative argument against evolution. What’s most incredible is that Carville makes this inaccurate characterization directly after quoting passages from ID proponents making wholly positive arguments for design.
One such passage he quotes is from our Intelligent Design Briefing Packet for Educators, as follows:
Intelligent design “begins with the observation that intelligent agents produce complex and specified information (CSI).…One easily testable form of CSI is irreducible complexity, which can be discovered by experimentally reverse-engineering biological structures to see if they require all of their parts to function. When [intelligent design] researchers find irreducible complexity in biology, they conclude such structures were designed.”Carville then asserts: “Basically, because they don’t understand evolution, and they can’t replicate it, these intelligent design ‘scientists’ have decided it can’t have taken place.” (pg. 89) No, that’s not what this passage says. In fact, this passage says precisely the opposite. It makes a strong positive case for intelligent design that is not based upon the mere refutation of neo-Darwinian evolution.
The same Briefing Packet notes that observation-based experience teaches that intelligent agency is the cause of high CSI systems, such as irreducibly complex machines. This yields a positive argument for design. As Michael Behe explained during the Dover trial, “This argument for design is an entirely positive argument. This is how we recognize design by the purposeful arrangement of parts.” (Michael Behe, October 17 AM Testimony, Page 110)
In the 2006 edition of Darwin’s Black Box, Behe further explains why irreducibly complex features provide positive evidence for design:
“[I]rreducibly complex systems such as mousetraps and flagella serve both as negative arguments against gradualistic explanations like Darwin’s and as positive arguments for design. The negative argument is that such interactive systems resist explanation by the tiny steps that a Darwinian path would be expected to take. The positive argument is that their parts appear arranged to serve a purpose, which is exactly how we detect design.”Scott Minnich and Stephen Meyer put it even more forcefully in a research paper they co-published in the Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Design & Nature in Rhodes, Greece:
(Michael Behe, Darwin’s Black Box, Afterward, pgs. 263-264 (Free Press), emphasis added.)
"In all irreducibly complex systems in which the cause of the system is known by experience or observation, intelligent design or engineering played a role [in] the origin of the system.…Although some may argue this is a merely an argument from ignorance, we regard it as an inference to the best explanation…given what we know about the powers of intelligence as opposed to strictly natural or material causes."Regardless of what Carville thinks, ID proponents have made it clear that their argument is a positive one, based upon what we do know about the information generative powers of intelligent agents, not based upon what we don’t know about Darwinian evolution or any other theory. ID is not based upon a mere refutation of evolution, nor is it based upon our ignorance of how evolution worked.
(Scott A. Minnich & Stephen C. Meyer, “Genetic Analysis of Coordinate Flagellar and Type III Regulatory Circuits in Pathogenic Bacteria”)
It seems clear that Carville has little or no idea of what ID actually is. Moreover, Carville’s book really doesn't offer any serious treatment of this topic. In fact, he has a clear agenda in misrepresenting ID: his purpose to miscast the whole matter as a Democrat vs. Republican issue.
Carville’s chapter on evolution really boils down to a rhetorically outlandish defense of intellectual intolerance a la Richard Dawkins’s infamous line, “It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid, or insane (or wicked, but I’d rather not consider that).” My guess is that Carville would be horrified to learn just how many Democrats disagree with him, and support academic freedom in evolution education.
Ping!
That's pretty much it, yes.
“How James Carville’s New Book, 40 More Years Misrepresents Intelligent Design”
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Ummm..., what is Carville doing commenting on “Intelligent Design”... he is neither intelligent or derived from design, but simply an accidental accumulation of all the worst things you can find in a human being... LOL...
Carville is proof positive of an “evolutionary dead end”
Thanks for posting....
I take it the irony of YECs complaining about Carville's tactics is lost on them.
But with Carville it looks like a "even a broken clock is right 2 times" situation or more likely, he's too stupid to understand the issue but with this creationism nonsense he knows the Republicans have given him a club to bash their heads with.
Carville shows us yet another truism: The more vocifierous the attack on Intelligent Design, the lower the intelligence of the attacker.
I always found it amusing that Dawkins would consider someone ‘wicked’ considering he doesn’t believe in the existence of God.
Basically, because you think you understand evolution, but still can't replicate it, these evolution scientists have decided it must have taken place.
Quite right. What does wicked even mean when humans are nothing more than rearranged pond scum plus lightning?
“40 More Years”? Carville is in for a rude awakening.
Since when do we elect people who “rule”?
That’s nothing, you should see the size of the iron fist he decided to leave out of his comments!
| What is intelligent design? Intelligent design refers to a scientific research program as well as a community of scientists, philosophers and other scholars who seek evidence of design in nature. The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection. Through the study and analysis of a system's components, a design theorist is able to determine whether various natural structures are the product of chance, natural law, intelligent design, or some combination thereof. Such research is conducted by observing the types of information produced when intelligent agents act. Scientists then seek to find objects which have those same types of informational properties which we commonly know come from intelligence. Intelligent design has applied these scientific methods to detect design in irreducibly complex biological structures, the complex and specified information content in DNA, the life-sustaining physical architecture of the universe, and the geologically rapid origin of biological diversity in the fossil record during the Cambrian explosion approximately 530 million years ago. Is intelligent design the same as creationism? No. The theory of intelligent design is simply an effort to empirically detect whether the "apparent design" in nature acknowledged by virtually all biologists is genuine design (the product of an intelligent cause) or is simply the product of an undirected process such as natural selection acting on random variations. Creationism typically starts with a religious text and tries to see how the findings of science can be reconciled to it. Intelligent design starts with the empirical evidence of nature and seeks to ascertain what inferences can be drawn from that evidence. Unlike creationism, the scientific theory of intelligent design does not claim that modern biology can identify whether the intelligent cause detected through science is supernatural. Honest critics of intelligent design acknowledge the difference between intelligent design and creationism. University of Wisconsin historian of science Ronald Numbers is critical of intelligent design, yet according to the Associated Press, he "agrees the creationist label is inaccurate when it comes to the ID [intelligent design] movement." Why, then, do some Darwinists keep trying to conflate intelligent design with creationism? According to Dr. Numbers, it is because they think such claims are "the easiest way to discredit intelligent design." In other words, the charge that intelligent design is "creationism" is a rhetorical strategy on the part of Darwinists who wish to delegitimize design theory without actually addressing the merits of its case. Is intelligent design a scientific theory? Yes. The scientific method is commonly described as a four-step process involving observations, hypothesis, experiments, and conclusion. Intelligent design begins with the observation that intelligent agents produce complex and specified information (CSI). Design theorists hypothesize that if a natural object was designed, it will contain high levels of CSI. Scientists then perform experimental tests upon natural objects to determine if they contain complex and specified information. One easily testable form of CSI is irreducible complexity, which can be discovered by experimentally reverse-engineering biological structures to see if they require all of their parts to function. When ID researchers find irreducible complexity in biology, they conclude that such structures were designed. [LINK] |
So add James Carville to the list of evo-liberal allies along with Chrissy-Fit Matthews, etc.
And some of the evo-loons on here continue to deny and/or ignore they’re indeed liberals.
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