Rick Santorum and rest of Intelligent Design Crowd Get Ahead of Themselves.

Washington Times ^ | March 14, 2002 | Rick Santorum

[ThinkPlease]

"I hate your opinions, but I would die to defend your right to express them." This famous quote by the 18th-century philosopher Voltaire applies to the debate currently raging in Ohio. The Board of Education is discussing whether to include alternate theories of evolution in the classroom. Some board members however, are opposed to Voltaire's defense of rational inquiry and intellectual tolerance. They are seeking to prohibit different theories other than Darwinism, from being taught to students. This threatens freedom of thought and academic excellence.

[Physicist]

Do I remember right that you said once you are a Deist?

I am.

[ThinkPlease]

Fossil skeletons of horses or various extinct horse-like creatures are arranged in the desired order by a museum curator (playing the role of "intelligent designer," as it were), so that the finished arrangement appears to show the "development" of the species. The ignorant museum visitor or textbook reader is expected to (and usually does) conclude that the assembled display or chart demonstrates exactly what the authors wish to prove: That the horse evolved from a small primitive ancestor, through various permutations, to the "modern" horse.

Interestingly enough, in the case of the horse, nearly all of the specimens listed in the above link are found in the New World, and they form a tree in time as well as in morphology, according to radiometric dating of a variety of isotopes. I guess you can lead a horse to water, but can't make him drink it, eh?

As Barnum said, there's a sucker born every minute. The creators of horse "evolution" displays do not inform the viewer that the fossils so assembled:

-- Were, in many cases, "reconstructed" from partial skeletons;

From multiple locations.

-- Were found in various locations so distant from one another that inferring lineal descent from one form to another is problematic;

Well, since North America has been a contiguous land mass since before the Cretaceous period, it's not a stretch to assume that species exist across the continent. Especially when you find species with the same morphology across the continent in multple places.

-- In any case are not dated with enough certainty as to match the imaginary chronological "sequence" constructed with fond hindsight by the textbook illustrators and museum curators;

Prove it. Back up your assertions with hard data. Show me that you've read the material.

-- Offer no real proof of Darwin's theory, since the molecular biology of genetics is still irreconcilable with any claim of macroevolution, despite imaginative horse pedigrees and finch-beak charts.

Again, show me other wise. All of the recent research that I've found in Nature has been quite positive.

I am ever amazed that people who claim to be intelligent devotees of science should be so easily deluded by a bit of the old razzle-dazzle. They are skeptics, so they claim, but as soon as "experts" put some color charts in a textbook, they become true believers, for whom a visit to the Field Museum is a pilgrimage to Mecca.

I would say the same thing to those who want Creationism and Intelligent Design taught in schools. Just because someone stood up on a pulpit and says, "Let us make it so!", doesn't mean it is so. Engage your brain.

I suggest you sit down and peruse the links I produced earlier, as well as This one. It is much more informative and detailed, though without the pretty pictures. Maybe you'll be more impressed by hard data.

[PatrickHenry]

You're letting the cat out of the bag. ID is really part of a conspiracy to promote school choice.

You gotta let me in on these conspiracies. Otherwise I'll just blunder around.

[Taliesan]

I am.

Why? Do you perceive design in the cosmos?

[Physicist]

Do you perceive design in the cosmos?

Not in the physical universe, no. It is a machine that would go of itself. The intentional design, I believe, rests at a higher level, one of mathematics. The universe as we see it, and perhaps even the laws of physics themselves as the universe obeys them, are but one instantiation out of an infinitude that would conform to the Divine Will.

It's a question of epistemology vs. metaphysics. From God flows math, from math flows physics, from physics flows the physical universe. God wouldn't be so unsubtle as to reach past math and physics to press his thumbs into the clay, that we might trace his fingerprints. Reason dictates that there are no such seams in Creation.

[jennyp]

A thorough debunking is at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/wells/#moths

OOH! OOH! <raising hand> OOH! Junior, is this in the Big List-O-Links? It is a devastating critique of Icons of Evolution.

(Glad to see TalkOrigins getting updated with new material again.)

[Taliesan]

From God flows math, from math flows physics, from physics flows the physical universe. God wouldn't be so unsubtle as to reach past math and physics to press his thumbs into the clay, that we might trace his fingerprints. Reason dictates that there are no such seams in Creation.

D flows from C, which flows from B, which flows from A. Therefore, D must bear the stigmata of A. Since we don't directly perceive A, how would distinguish, in D, what is from A and what is not from A? From whence would we derive the algorithm?

[Taliesan]

The intentional design, I believe, rests at a higher level, one of mathematics.

Why is mathematical order designed ? Isn't this just the ID position regressed a couple levels? Why is it not just "what is", so that the felt resonance between the mind and the elegance of an equation is simply the affinity between "what is" and "what is"? In other words, an identity?

[Doctor Stochastic]

From God flows math,...

Kroneker was a bit more niggardly: "The integers were created by God; all else is the work of man."

And Einstein even more so: "the series of integers is obviously an invention of the human mind, a self-created tool which simplifies the ordering of certain sensory experiences."

[Junior]

It'll be in there now.

[Taliesan]

God wouldn't be so unsubtle as to reach past math and physics to press his thumbs into the clay, that we might trace his fingerprints. Reason dictates that there are no such seams in Creation.

But if He exists, what substantiates the argument that He would not reach past math and physics, unless it would be an argument derived from this side of the God/math interface? Unless you believe in revelation, which I presume you don't.

If we, from this side of the god/math interface, form an argument about the probable or necessary behavior of god who is on the other side of the interface, are we not assuming that we are perceiving his signs and extrapolating into an un-perceived realm -- in other words, we percieve the marks of design. We are not formally distinct from the Psalmist, who saw in the heavens the grandeur of God.

It's the problem of god-talk. What makes language about God different from gibberish, unless it is some kind of extrapolation from here to There, or prior communication from There to here? If we extrapolate one level, like the simple peasant does, or we extrapolate three levels, like you do, we are not formally different.

And if He did "reach past" math and physics, what would He reach with ?.

If he reached past math and physics and thus left an imprint on "clay", would he not have to use an instrument susceptible to math and physical measurement to even make an imprint on matter? So how would we distinguish between an imprint made by god and an imprint made by....what? Parts of the machine which "run by themselves"?

I don't mean that it is not possible to conceive of a God who could reach past math (obviously, we both just did it) but it isn't possible to conceive of knowing the specific reaching act, unless you simultaneously posit an organ of knowledge in addition to our sense organs, or posit a physical instrument in God's hand, the epistemological question infinitely regresses from there.

BTW, I loved your response.

[Taliesan]

the series of integers is obviously an invention of the human mind, a self-created tool which simplifies the ordering of certain sensory experiences."

If the sensorium responds to integers, does it not have to, in some sense, contain integers as well?

Is there no order before we perceive it? How do we know?

[longshadow]

Kroneker was a bit more niggardly: "The integers were created by God; all else is the work of man."

And Einstein even more so: "the series of integers is obviously an invention of the human mind, a self-created tool which simplifies the ordering of certain sensory experiences."

=========================================================

Great quotes, especially Kronecker.

Perhaps Laplace was right after all: "I had no need for that hypothesis."

[Junior]

It is up to you to prove your own assertions

No problem, as there are literally thousands of PEER-REVIEWED papers discussing evolution, but NOT A SINGLE PEER-REVIEWED paper discussing ID or creationism. I wonder why? Could it be that evolution is SCIENCE and creationism and ID are RELIGIONS?

In other words, my dear, put your money where your mouth is. Real scientists have done so.

[Twodees]

Should it make sense? Is the existence of a small animal with three toes, now extinct, to be said to be the forerunner of even the next animal in the fossil record because there are similarities? There are similarities between a burro and a zebra as well. Is one supposed to have evolved from the other?

Back to my point if you will; where did the review of Darwin's SWAG take place before it was presented to the first school district? Darwin's musings were adopted based on legal cases, not on academic presentations.

The "theory" of evolution is a political tool and not the basis for any scientific discipline. There is a reason for teaching impressionable young people to accept a rigid dogma such as the evolutionary twaddle introduced to students in biology classes in jr.high school. That reason is to get young people used to the idea of being told what to think instead of leading them into learning how to think.

That's the difference between education and indoctrination. Indoctrination is telling a student what to think. Education is helping him discover how to think for himself.

[Taliesan]

Why is it not just "what is", so that the felt resonance between the mind and the elegance of an equation is simply the affinity between "what is" and "what is"? In other words, an identity?

But, gosh, Tim, that doesn't work...we've just transposed the question. Why does the mind feel an affinity between some things and not others? There is order, and the mind is order. But that begs the question. So maybe the question is...out of order. But, then, why does the mind ask it? If the question of order is a tautology, then those minds which don't ask it are superior (more functional in the natural order).

Is this what we observe?

[Taliesan]

Perhaps Laplace was right after all: "I had no need for that hypothesis."

But the other guy just said "God made the integers." Why did he say that? Is there a difference in the two data sets the two are needing explained, or is there a contradiction between their respective hypotheses -- was Laplace trying to explain the mathematical order (it's an honest question; I'm not trained in science)?.

[Taliesan]

The "theory" of evolution is a political tool and not the basis for any scientific discipline. There is a reason for teaching impressionable young people to accept a rigid dogma such as the evolutionary twaddle introduced to students in biology classes in jr.high school. That reason is to get young people used to the idea of being told what to think instead of leading them into learning how to think.

This is not true. The people who teach evolution really believe it. It doesn't help your case to overstate it, or impugn the motives of your opponents.