Posted on 01/28/2005 4:28:41 PM PST by metacognative
Panicked Evolutionists: The Stephen Meyer Controversy
The theory of evolution is a tottering house of ideological cards that is more about cherished mythology than honest intellectual endeavor. Evolutionists treat their cherished theory like a fragile object of veneration and worship--and so it is. Panic is a sure sign of intellectual insecurity, and evolutionists have every reason to be insecure, for their theory is falling apart.
The latest evidence of this panic comes in a controversy that followed a highly specialized article published in an even more specialized scientific journal. Stephen C. Meyer, Director of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, wrote an article accepted for publication in Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. The article, entitled "The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories," was published after three independent judges deemed it worthy and ready for publication. The use of such judges is standard operating procedure among "peer-reviewed" academic journals, and is considered the gold standard for academic publication.
The readership for such a journal is incredibly small, and the Biological Society of Washington does not commonly come to the attention of the nation's journalists and the general public. Nevertheless, soon after Dr. Meyer's article appeared, the self-appointed protectors of Darwinism went into full apoplexy. Internet websites and scientific newsletters came alive with outrage and embarrassment, for Dr. Meyer's article suggested that evolution just might not be the best explanation for the development of life forms. The ensuing controversy was greater than might be expected if Dr. Meyer had argued that the world is flat or that hot is cold.
Eugenie C. Scott, Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education, told The Scientist that Dr. Meyer's article came to her attention when members of the Biological Society of Washington contacted her office. "Many members of the society were stunned about the article," she told The Scientist, and she described the article as "recycled material quite common in the intelligent design community." Dr. Scott, a well known and ardent defender of evolutionary theory, called Dr. Meyer's article "substandard science" and argued that the article should never have been published in any scientific journal.
Within days, the Biological Society of Washington, intimidated by the response of the evolutionary defenders, released a statement apologizing for the publication of the article. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the society's governing council claimed that the article "was published without the prior knowledge of the council." The statement went on to declare: "We have met and determined that all of us would have deemed this paper inappropriate for the pages of the Proceedings." The society's president, Roy W. McDiarmid, a scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey, blamed the article's publication on the journal's previous editor, Richard Sternberg, who now serves as a fellow at the National Center for Biotechnology Information at the National Institute of Health. "My conclusion on this," McDiarmid said, "was that it was a really bad judgment call on the editor's part."
What is it about Dr. Stephen Meyer's paper that has caused such an uproar? Meyer, who holds a Ph.D. from Cambridge University, argued in his paper that the contemporary form of evolutionary theory now dominant in the academy, known as "Neo-Darwinism," fails to account for the development of higher life forms and the complexity of living organisms. Pointing to what evolutionists identify as the "Cambrian explosion," Meyer argued that "the geologically sudden appearance of many new animal body plans" cannot be accounted for by Darwinian theory, "neo" or otherwise.
Accepting the scientific claim that the Cambrian explosion took place "about 530 million years ago," Meyer went on to explain that the "remarkable jump in the specified complexity or 'complex specified information' [CSI] of the biological world" cannot be explained by evolutionary theory.
The heart of Dr. Meyer's argument is found in this scientifically-loaded passage: "Neo-Darwinism seeks to explain the origin of new information, form, and structure as a result of selection acting on randomly arising variation at a very low level within the biological hierarchy, mainly, within the genetic text. Yet the major morphological innovations depend on a specificity of arrangement at a much higher level of the organizational hierarchy, a level that DNA alone does not determine. Yet if DNA is not wholly responsible for body plan morphogenesis, then DNA sequences can mutate indefinitely, without regard to realistic probabilistic limits, and still not produce a new body plan. Thus, the mechanism of natural selection acting on random mutations in DNA cannot in principle generate novel body plans, including those that first arose in the Cambrian explosion."
In simpler terms, the mechanism of natural selection, central to evolutionary theory, cannot possibly account for the development of so many varied and complex life forms simply by mutations in DNA. Rather, some conscious design--thus requiring a Designer--is necessary to explain the emergence of these life forms.
In the remainder of his paper, Meyer attacks the intellectual inadequacies of evolutionary theory and argues for what is now known as the "design Hypothesis." As he argued, "Conscious and rational agents have, as a part of their powers of purposive intelligence, the capacity to design information-rich parts and to organize those parts into functional information-rich systems and hierarchies." As he went on to assert, "We know of no other causal entity or process that has this capacity." In other words, the development of the multitude of higher life forms found on the planet can be explained only by the guidance of a rational agent--a Designer--whose plan is evident in the design.
Meyer's article was enough to cause hysteria in the evolutionists' camp. Knowing that their theory lacks intellectual credibility, the evolutionists respond by raising the volume, offering the equivalent of scientific shrieks and screams whenever their cherished theory is criticized--much less in one of their own cherished journals. As Dr. John West, Associate Director of the Discovery Institute explained, "Instead of addressing the paper's argument or inviting counterarguments or rebuttal, the society has resorted to affirming what amounts to a doctrinal statement in an effort to stifle scientific debate. They're trying to stop scientific discussion before it even starts."
When the Biological Society of Washington issued its embarrassing apology for publishing the paper, the organization pledged that arguments for Intelligent Design "will not be addressed in future issues of the Proceedings," regardless of whether the paper passes peer review.
From the perspective of panicked evolutionists, the Intelligent Design movement represents a formidable adversary and a constant irritant. The defenders of Intelligent Design are undermining evolutionary theory at multiple levels, and they refuse to go away. The panicked evolutionists respond with name-calling, labeling Intelligent Design proponents as "creationists," thereby hoping to prevent any scientific debate before it starts.
Intelligent Design is not tantamount to the biblical doctrine of creation. Theologically, Intelligent Design falls far short of requiring any affirmation of the doctrine of creation as revealed in the Bible. Nevertheless, it is a useful and important intellectual tool, and a scientific movement with great promise. The real significance of Intelligent Design theory and its related movement is the success with which it undermines the materialistic and naturalistic worldview central to the theory of evolution.
For the Christian believer, the Bible presents the compelling and authoritative case for God's creation of the cosmos. Specifically, the Bible provides us with the ultimate truth concerning human origins and the special creation of human beings as the creatures made in God's own image. Thus, though we believe in more than Intelligent Design, we certainly do not believe in less. We should celebrate the confusion and consternation now so evident among the evolutionists. Dr. Stephen Meyer's article--and the controversy it has spawned--has caught evolutionary scientists with their intellectual pants down.
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R. Albert Mohler, Jr
I, Mr. Intelligent Designer, can construct an army of photosynthesizing alchohol-burning armed robots that unleashed will eradicate all animalia. Or at least more than hold their own. (I'll call them zylons.) Why hasn't evolution? The evo hypothesis is that designer-free evolution can produce organizational entities as complex as me, as complex as mammalia -- why not plants that complex, when I -- with my intelligence -- can?
I don't even know where you are coming from, much less where you are going!
I think I hear your mother calling ...
Becasue there's only a limited number of ways to make a living. The same was true in the past. The players change, the game remains the same.
Yet plants never seem to have evolved into any niche that required independently directed motion.
Because they have evolved superb adaptations to fill the niches they fill. As have animals. Any open niche requiring independent movement would be first filled by an animal because it has a head start in the game. If you were to pose the question, "why don't animals fill niches that require photosynthesis?" the answer is the same, but reversed. Because plants are highly evolved organisms especially adapted to fill that niche.
And sexless organisims never seem to have evovled much at all -- yet they have avoided erradication by animals or plants competeing for their niche.
I am not sure what "sexless organisms" you refer. If you mean asexual organisms, such as bacteria, you are mistaken. They have clearly evolved. Futher, they are some of the most successful organisms on earth. Except for human bias and the accident of our lineage, we would instinctively know that the history of life on earth is the history of bacteria.
There seems to be a general favoring of sexual reproduction among multi-cellular organisms above a certain size. However, whether that is the result of competative pressure, a relic of history, or some combination of the two is still open to debate.
There is one HYPOTHESIS -- hard to raise it to the level of theory -- that the random mix of natural physical processes operating under strict darwinistic evolution would for complex and subtle reasons unknown at this time result in such a current state. That is a HOPE, a FAITH, a BELIEF SYSTEM.
This statement does not make sense to me. Perhaps you could restate it. Religion is about hope, faith and belief. Science is not. Evolution is about science.
It is unproven. It is not a reasonable projection of more proven and evidenced theory either -- not reasonable, that is, if it is asserted as the ONLY reasonable projection.
Not really. The science of biology and especially evolutionary biology is often the study of why certain organisms fit certain ecological niches in the manner that they do.
This does not follow. All algorithmically finite systems (like our universe) have this property, and there are an infinite number of possible universes with this property. Anyone expecting isotropic probability distributions is naive.
I don't know how to embed audio in a post, or I would probably get banned.
I don't think you can here, but you can put a .wav file on the web and link ....
Is there something about home schooling that produces selective math aphasia? I see lots of cutting and pasting of sums from creationist sites, but not a whit of understanding.
Left unattended, these post make Freepers look like the yahoos charactured on DU.
The probability for getting 50 heads in a row is the same as the probability of getting any predefined sequence. For example the following sequences have the same probability:
HHHHH HHHHH HHHHH HHHHH HHHHH HHHHH HHHHH HHHHH HHHHH HHHHH
HTHTH HTHTH HTHTH HTHTH HTHTH HTHTH HTHTH HTHTH HTHTH HTHTH
There used to be freepers who posted embedded audio. It was very annoying after the third encounter.
They are not orthogonal sets. Science ALSO employs -- esepcially in biology and paleontology -- considerable amounts of hope, faith and belief. Likewise "religion" employs far less of them than you might thing. Both are about organizing things, how best to organize things. Nor need they be competitive.
I think it started when he slept through his HS classes.
You must make an overly strong assumption about the coin and toss to say that. Here we don't see the toss, nor are we able to subject to coin to any scrunity -- just the result of the toss. Fifty heads in a row means the coin or toss is rigged -- almost a complete certainty.
Probability estimates applied to evolution are invalid, because evolutionary outcomes are not predefined. The outcomes of change are not predicted or known in advance. There is no bet, therefore no relevant odds.
An isotropic probability distribution means that the probability of all possible outcomes is identical. For example, games of chance often use a device that has an isotropic probability distribution, at least in theory. A six-sided dice has six possible outcomes, all of which are supposed to be equally probable and with no discernable statistical variation even after accumulating statistics over a trillion rolls. Note that this is also the definition of "random".
The problem with this assumption is that even good "random" number generators have subtle anisotropies that we get better at detecting every year, and just about every real system has gross anisotropies in outcome probability that are quite evident. The cumulative odds change dramatically when playing with a loaded dice.
Why should it have done so? I mean, I was just outside on my lunch break, and I don't know if you've noticed, but those plants are literally everywhere. You can't swing your arms without hitting a plant, so they sure look pretty successful to me - they already appear to be holding their own fairly well, despite the fact that they don't walk or talk or shoot lasers from their slimy man-killing tentacles...
The only assumption is that the tosses are random in result and not biased or controlled by ID!
Assuming randomness, what is the probability of obtaining the following sequence?
HTHTH HTHTH HTHTH HTHTH HTHTH HTHTH HTHTH HTHTH HTHTH HTHTH
A little language lesson. Often what the "a" in front of terms is derived from latin -- many times it means "absense", less frequently it means "to". (Ad infinitum). In "asexual" it means "absent of sex", or "sexless".
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