Intelligent Denials: Bush's science adviser defends evolution!

The American Prospect, ^ | 22 February 2005 | Chris Mooney

[PatrickHenry]

When it's your job to serve as the president's in-house expert on science and technology, being constantly in the media spotlight isn't necessarily a mark of distinction. But for President Bush's stoically inclined science adviser John Marburger, immense controversy followed his blanket dismissal last year of allegations (now endorsed by 48 Nobel laureates) that the administration has systematically abused science. So it was more than a little refreshing last Wednesday to hear Marburger take a strong stance against science politicization and abuse on one issue where it really matters: evolution.

Speaking at the annual conference of the National Association of Science Writers, Marburger fielded an audience question about "Intelligent Design" (ID), the latest supposedly scientific alternative to Charles Darwin's theory of descent with modification. The White House's chief scientist stated point blank, "Intelligent Design is not a scientific theory." And that's not all -- as if to ram the point home, Marburger soon continued, "I don't regard Intelligent Design as a scientific topi."

[PH here:]
I'm not sure the whole article can be copied here, so please go to the link to read it all:
Chris Mooney, "Intelligent Denials", The American Prospect Online, Feb 22, 2005.

[js1138]

If anyone could tell you what unknown fact anyone hoped to find, it would not be unknown would it?

As darwin once said, observations are useless unless they are for or against some position. You might as well count pebbles on a beach unless you are supporting or opposing a hypothesis.

So what is the ID research program? What is ID observing, and how does it expect its observations to support or oppose its position?

[RightWingAtheist]

I hope David Allan Bromley is looking down at Marburger and smiling.

[Rudder]

While scientific data may indeed be incorrect, it is always objective.

Well...at least to the best of our ability. (Read: 'The Experimenter Effect' by Jeff Rosenthal)

I teach experimental design from time to time and have concluded that these threads are essentially about a war between inquiry (science) and blind faith (creationists). Creationists may gain acceptance as they strive to undercut threats to their viewpoint, but humankind's unquenchable curiosity will always prevail.

[WindOracle]

Well, I will overlook the fact that you just discounted the contributions which came from intuitive thinking, the viewing of relationships between things which no one sees a clear relationship, and which was done for the exploration of pure knowledge without any particular goal in mind. Instead I will answer the second part.

ID is not proposing to take a position scientifically per se. It is NOT a scientific theory. It is just a thing we believe exists, such as nature exists. We do not debate on whether nature exists, nor try to measure it, we merely observe the interactions of things within it. By viewing it from a perspective of "what is nature trying to accomplish?" when looking at things going on in the animal world, a good deal of insight as to PURPOSE of things is gained. I propose such could also be a profitable exercise when looked at thru the ID perspective. What we could gain may be nothing more than that... insight.

Some people keep saying we are just apes, and in some cases they may be right, which is what scares me. Because we refuse to look at the PURPOSE of everything, and instead focus only on what we are able to DO, we have the power of near gods.. but without any of the wisdom.

[Rudder]

Some people keep saying we are just apes

Actually, we are furry little beasts in human suits.

[WindOracle]

LOL.. a good description.

[WindOracle]

Now that I think of it, some of us, myself included, are just furry little beasts

[js1138]

I do regret that we have developed a society in which it is impossible for teachers to instruct children in morality. But ID isn't science, and it's wrong to pretend it is.

[WindOracle]

[WindOracle]

I agree somewhat, it really is not a science in my view either, it is a philosophy if anything. I wanna know why we do not have Philosophy and Theology courses in schools? I do not think Separation of Church and State would preclude analytical study of these subjects.

[Rudder]

COME TO ME BABY!

[longshadow]

The cosmological constant, which represents the energy density of space, is as precise as throwing a dart from space and hitting a bulls-eye just a trillionth of a trillionth of an inch in diameter on Earth.

If Inflationary BB Cosmology is correct, the energy density has no choice but to be the critical value, regardless of initial conditions. Conservation of Energy demands it. It's not "fine tuning" at all -- no other value is possible.

[curiosity]

There are philosophical and religious implications to Darwinism.

True, but 1) those implications don't conflict with the basic Christian beliefs and 2) evolutionary biologists aren't qualified to pontificate on these implications. Unfortunately, some blowhards, like Dawkins, have egos too big for them to accept the limits of their discipline.

You cannot avoid that in this subject. Intelligent Design draws conclusions from the very same data Darwinism draws conclusions -- just different conclusions.

The conclusions it draws are not empirically testable and therefore not scientific.

The fact that ID has philosophical and religious implications is what bugs the Darwinists so much.

No, what bugs them is that ID cannot be scientifically tested.

But their theory does the same thing.

The theory doesn't "do" anything. People speculate on its theological implications, but these cannot be tested and have no business being in a science class. The theory itself, however, is scientifically testable, and hence the theory belongs in a science class.

They like it BECAUSE it leaves out God.

They like it because it makes empirically testable predictions that have actually been tested and upheld. Many evolutionary biologists are religious find it that the theory neither proves nor disproves the existence of God.

But it also elevates all other animals to our level.

No it does not.

If we share a common ancestor then they are our equals.

Does not follow logically. If God only gave souls to humans, it matters not whether the human body is descended from ape-like creatures. Nothing in the theory of evolution precludes the possibility that God created our souls directly and immediately in a process distinct from evolution.

They may try to say that our greater abilities explains our greater value. But the implication of that is that disabled humans, those with low IQ's or otherwise flawed people have lesser worth than their physically superior counters. You can't escape it.

You can escape it if you believe that God only gives us souls. A soul is not a physical entity, so no scientific test could ever prove or disprove its existence. Therefore, science has absolutely nothing to say about whether animals are our equals or not.

[Heartlander]

First, I thank you for stepping back and finding some common ground and obviously we agree in regard to liberal secularism.

…I am not interested in arguing about anything aside from evolution at this particular time in this particular thread.

Fair enough, though I would rather discuss than argue (I argue at work and get paid ; )

I don't consider science to be at odds with theism.

Again ‘we’ agree but some use science against theism for their own agenda and in fairness, some use theism against science for their agenda (honestly, most everyone has an agenda) Let me state though that Design Theorists' (teleology) have been around for a very long time and some came to the ‘design’ theory absent of theism. It is only recent in scientific history that ‘design’ is absent which should cause one to question why. Why was the (teleological) baby thrown out with the bathwater and did a new world view form due to this?

Let me now try to summarize Darwin’s contributions to the thinking of modern men. He was responsible for the replacement of a world view based on Christian dogma by a strictly secular world view. Fur thermore, his writings led to the rejection of several previously dominant world views such as essentialism, finalism, determinism, and of Newtonian laws for the explanation of evolution. He replaced these refuted concepts with a number of new ones of wide- reaching importance, also outside of biology, such as biopopulation, natural selection, the importance of chance and contingency, the explan atory importance of the time factor (historical narratives), and the importance of the social group for the origin of ethics. Almost every component in modern man’s belief system is somehow affected by one or another of Darwin’s conceptual contributions. His opus as a whole is the foundation of a rapidly developing new philosophy of biology. There can be no doubt that the thinking of every modern Western man has been profoundly affected by Darwin’s philosophical thought.
- Mayr

I quote Mayr only to show the crux of the problem as admittedly, I see it… To put it bluntly, if Darwinism is now assumed as the new paradigm for science it must account for intelligence and morality which is a new stomping ground for science. Hard science has always been a study of nature but now it is assumed that nature accounts for intelligence, morality, and hard science without teleology. This is what causes the conflict between Darwinism as opposed to other scientific theories in regard to theism. This, in my opinion, is the heart of the problem.

Science has not defined intelligence or morality – it has enough problems defining life.

[snarks_when_bored]

It's true that the cosmological constant is way, waaaaaaaaay smaller than current theory predicts. But here's the thing: unless critics can show that the probability is zero that a universe could come to be with the particular values of significant constants shown by our universe, I'm not impressed. As long as the probability is larger than zero that such a universe could occur, it will occur...and, indeed, it will occur infinitely often. The fact that a googlplex of years (or a googlplex raised to the power of a googlplex of years or ... you get the idea) has to pass before such a universe appears matters not at all. Why? No one's waiting around for it to happen!

[PatrickHenry]

The physical constants in the universe cannot be said to be improbable, or finely tuned, or coarsely tuned, or "tuned" at all. They are what they are. We can certainly imagine other values, but such speculation is idle. This is the only universe of which we have any knowledge. We have no others to which we can compare it. Therefore, for all we know -- and it may be all we will ever know -- ours is the only way a universe can possibly be.

[microgood]

I'm thankful you don't represent true conservatives.

But the blatantly transparent and manipulative pile of excrement below does:

The science-literate posters on this forum have been warning for some time that the dems would use the anti-evolution sentiments of a few activists and attempt to brand the whole conservative movement as a bunch of ignorant, unwashed fools, whose religious views would drag us all back into the Dark Ages.

Then you are right. I am not a true conservative.

[WindOracle]

The science-literate posters on this forum have been warning for some time that the dems would use the anti-evolution sentiments of a few activists and attempt to brand the whole conservative movement as a bunch of ignorant, unwashed fools, whose religious views would drag us all back into the Dark Ages.

Then you are right. I am not a true conservative.

I am not certain I understand what you find fault with in that statement, would you elaborate please?

[Aloysius88]

TOE is a theory of small changes. No matter whether you have a hypothesis (the fact that sexual reproduction increases the genetic variance and spread of genes) that is not falsifiable or experimentally verifiable does not change the fact that the chance of two separate "evolved" individuals simultaneously arriving at the point where sexual reproduction can occur is so completely miniscule as to be nonsensical.

I always love coming to one of these crevo parties to get called ignorant by fellows who keep adding and subtracting 1 and insisting that these tiny (mostly negative) changes will change a eukaryote into homo sapiens given enough time and an appropriate environment.

As to the fact that evolution can't get a toehold before life exists this means its not a TOE (Theory of Everything) but a TOFB (Theory of Finch Beaks).

The Earth's age is not the issue. The Time between single celled creatures and the plethora of large bodied creatures is the big problem. Various timelines have eukaryotes between 1.5 billion and 600 million years ago giving the limited time I mentioned for the species (and class and phylum and family and whatever) variation that the (albeit limited) fossil record describes.

[nasamn777]

Do you really believe in God? Hmmm. If you do, then what is the problem with God creating the Universe? Can we honestly say that only natural causes created the Earth and all life?

John Marburger has been under a lot of pressure. He certainly caved on this one. Obviously he does not understand ID or he would not view it as a threat and would embrace it as legitimate science! Shoot, maybe I should apply to be the President's science advisor. I could do a better job than this guy!