We might have to end up looking like this. =)
Posted on 05/25/2005 3:41:22 AM PDT by billorites
Science feeds on mystery. As my colleague Matt Ridley has put it: “Most scientists are bored by what they have already discovered. It is ignorance that drives them on.” Science mines ignorance. Mystery — that which we don’t yet know; that which we don’t yet understand — is the mother lode that scientists seek out. Mystics exult in mystery and want it to stay mysterious. Scientists exult in mystery for a very different reason: it gives them something to do.
Admissions of ignorance and mystification are vital to good science. It is therefore galling, to say the least, when enemies of science turn those constructive admissions around and abuse them for political advantage. Worse, it threatens the enterprise of science itself. This is exactly the effect that creationism or “intelligent design theory” (ID) is having, especially because its propagandists are slick, superficially plausible and, above all, well financed. ID, by the way, is not a new form of creationism. It simply is creationism disguised, for political reasons, under a new name.
It isn’t even safe for a scientist to express temporary doubt as a rhetorical device before going on to dispel it.
“To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.” You will find this sentence of Charles Darwin quoted again and again by creationists. They never quote what follows. Darwin immediately went on to confound his initial incredulity. Others have built on his foundation, and the eye is today a showpiece of the gradual, cumulative evolution of an almost perfect illusion of design. The relevant chapter of my Climbing Mount Improbable is called “The fortyfold Path to Enlightenment” in honour of the fact that, far from being difficult to evolve, the eye has evolved at least 40 times independently around the animal kingdom.
The distinguished Harvard geneticist Richard Lewontin is widely quoted as saying that organisms “appear to have been carefully and artfully designed”. Again, this was a rhetorical preliminary to explaining how the powerful illusion of design actually comes about by natural selection. The isolated quotation strips out the implied emphasis on “appear to”, leaving exactly what a simple-mindedly pious audience — in Kansas, for instance — wants to hear.
The deceitful misquoting of scientists to suit an anti-scientific agenda ranks among the many unchristian habits of fundamentalist authors. But such Telling Lies for God (the book title of the splendidly pugnacious Australian geologist Ian Plimer) is not the most serious problem. There is a more important point to be made, and it goes right to the philosophical heart of creationism.
The standard methodology of creationists is to find some phenomenon in nature which Darwinism cannot readily explain. Darwin said: “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.” Creationists mine ignorance and uncertainty in order to abuse his challenge. “Bet you can’t tell me how the elbow joint of the lesser spotted weasel frog evolved by slow gradual degrees?” If the scientist fails to give an immediate and comprehensive answer, a default conclusion is drawn: “Right, then, the alternative theory; ‘intelligent design’ wins by default.”
Notice the biased logic: if theory A fails in some particular, theory B must be right! Notice, too, how the creationist ploy undermines the scientist’s rejoicing in uncertainty. Today’s scientist in America dare not say: “Hm, interesting point. I wonder how the weasel frog’s ancestors did evolve their elbow joint. I’ll have to go to the university library and take a look.” No, the moment a scientist said something like that the default conclusion would become a headline in a creationist pamphlet: “Weasel frog could only have been designed by God.”
I once introduced a chapter on the so-called Cambrian Explosion with the words: “It is as though the fossils were planted there without any evolutionary history.” Again, this was a rhetorical overture, intended to whet the reader’s appetite for the explanation. Inevitably, my remark was gleefully quoted out of context. Creationists adore “gaps” in the fossil record.
Many evolutionary transitions are elegantly documented by more or less continuous series of changing intermediate fossils. Some are not, and these are the famous “gaps”. Michael Shermer has wittily pointed out that if a new fossil discovery neatly bisects a “gap”, the creationist will declare that there are now two gaps! Note yet again the use of a default. If there are no fossils to document a postulated evolutionary transition, the assumption is that there was no evolutionary transition: God must have intervened.
The creationists’ fondness for “gaps” in the fossil record is a metaphor for their love of gaps in knowledge generally. Gaps, by default, are filled by God. You don’t know how the nerve impulse works? Good! You don’t understand how memories are laid down in the brain? Excellent! Is photosynthesis a bafflingly complex process? Wonderful! Please don’t go to work on the problem, just give up, and appeal to God. Dear scientist, don’t work on your mysteries. Bring us your mysteries for we can use them. Don’t squander precious ignorance by researching it away. Ignorance is God’s gift to Kansas.
Richard Dawkins, FRS, is the Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science, at Oxford University. His latest book is The Ancestor’s Tale
Your first rephrasing: Intelligent Design: A hypothesis wherein speciation is explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.
My rephrasing: Intelligent Design: An hypothesis wherein certain features of life v non-life/death in nature are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process.
PatrickHenry's rephrasing: Intelligent Design: A hypothesis that certain biological features or processes that are otherwise inexplicable are explained by an intelligent cause, rather than by an undirected process such as natural selection.
Indeed, in conversation I believe the term "intelligent design" would be understood on the face of it to mean exactly what you say: "underlying, grand patterns brought about by intentional, reasoned manipulation of the environment"
I also agree that it is troubling when a word of the term is used in the definition of it - and for that reason have suggested we will need to define "intelligence". I assert three properties of intelligence for the discussion: decision-making, awareness and purpose.
The project at hand however is focused on a formal definition of the intelligent design hypothesis against which a variety of hypotheses can be tested to see if they are ID. The two in question are ones which I raised in the beginning: panspermia/cosmic ancestry and collective consciousness.
But perhaps we should define the "self-organizing complexity" hypothesis as well - as I strongly suspect it is an ID hypothesis also.
AntiGuv: I didn't notice this posted earlier. Not looking to debate, but for the record, I consider all three premises as quite false. In fact, the first two should be well on their way to achievement within the next century (a couple centuries at most) and the third as well within this next millennium.
Based on your sources and definitions it would be difficult, if not impossible, to separate intelligent design from a personal agent. Personhood seems to be more than intimated in definitions using the word "one" (as referring to a personal entity) and "think."
For a dogmatic evolutionist it is more comfortable to assert the presence of intelligent design apart from an intelligent agent that to accept the possibility that any person might be involved in the production of, for example, DNA. The presence of an ordered universe that behaves according to laws appears to tweak their comfort zone big time, given the bitter reaction to the suggestion their thoughts better qualify as faith.
When dogmatic evolutionists hear the word "faith," it seems they are inclined to insert the baggage of mystic blindness, which faith does not necessarily entail. Faith without facts and evidence to spawn and support it may be regarded as little more than the product of a fertile imagination. Well, it happens to be one of the better things designed into the human mind that it is capable of imagining things. There can, however, be facts without faith, because facts remain the object of human science.
As it stands, a good many professional scientists admit without reservation that the universe as we know it points to an intelligent designer. They do not say so for lack of evidence. Inasmuch as judges and legistlatures have been brought to bear on the issue, it appears certain among dogmatic evolutionists would rather not grant them a place in the sacred halls of empirical science or public education.
She said it was "Extremely detrimental to human life".
You really must like to argue trying to split hairs over this.
Is it your opinion that Ayn Rand, based on your readings of her work, would stamp out religion if she were King?
And a single coin may roll under a dresser, fall in a drain, be flattened by a train. This makes little difference in the difficulty of computation.
I don't think it's a very good example as it doesn't generalize well. For example, it's nearly impossible to predict the weather for next July 7, but the weather averaged over all July is fairly accurate. Likewise, I cannot predict a single roll of a roulette wheel; but I can predict the outcome of many throws.
Science cannot defeat mortality.
I reject this premise because the end of aging is already in sight. If you're interested, I would recommend Ben Bova's Immortality: How Science Is Extending Your Life Span and Changing the World or Michael Fumento's BioEvolution: How Biotechnology Is Changing Our World or Michael West's The Immortal Cell: One Scientist's Quest to Solve the Mystery of Human Aging or Stephen Hall's Merchants of Immortality: Chasing the Dream of Human Life Extension or Jay Olshansky's The Quest for Immortality: Science at the Frontiers of Aging or last but not least The Scientific Conquest Of Death from the Immortality Institute. While you're at it, that last link to their website is a good place to surf over to, and check out the Foresight Institute or the Extropy Institute as well.
As Ben Bova opens his text: "The first immortal human beings are probably living among us today. You might be one of them." In any case, the end of aging is already in sight, and progress in that direction will inexorably accelerate (notwithstanding interference from Luddites such as the president's 'bioethics czar' - the contemptible Leon Kass). Even if science does not defeat mortality, it will not be because it cannot do so, because the means are already well in sight, even if we lack the expertise to implement them.
It cannot "cure" death.
Science can already "cure" death; it happens in hospitals every day across America and around the world. And with every passing year science is getting better and better able to "cure" more advanced or complex stages of death. In fact, many deaths that go 'uncured' these days are not because they cannot be 'cured' but rather because the underlying reasons for the death cannot (yet) be repaired.
And it cannot make man "good."
This depends on whatever it is that one defines as "good" or "evil" (presumably, by contrast). But, whatever it is, there is little doubt that it can be controlled by genetic manipulation (whether one should do so is another matter altogether). If science were to seek to "make man 'good'" it would only be a matter of identifying precisely what neural structures permit the enactment of a given 'evil'; what genes control the given structure; and then its genetic modification.
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So, that is why I reject all three alleged "facts" as framed above. Oh, and one thing I can tell you for certain is that religion has achieved none of those.
We might have to end up looking like this. =)
The point in the original post is that the process of solving a problem is easier with fewer factors to consider:
We've seen longer threads than this one pulled.
Moreover, on personal knowledge I aver that God not only can but has accomplished all of these - albeit, not for everyone.
The snafu in the extension of the length and quality of life argument is (as always) the geometry of space/time and the physical laws:
Immortality cannot be achieved as a corporeal "in" space/time because space/time is finite (at least in most cosmologies). The second law of thermodynamics will eventually bring about complete physical entropy in this universe, a ripping or a big crunch. To avoid this end, science would have to stop physical entropy throughout the cosmos.
Also, objective truth such as "what is good?" cannot be determined "in" space/time because (a) man's vision and mind are limited by four dimensions, (b) man does not possess retrocognition, precognition or remote sensing, (c) man cannot share another man's being - physical senses, qualia and intelligence. Such objective truth can only be received as a revelation from God who is "beyond" space/time and also transcends space/time.
As a last point, it is curious that science is seeking "immortality" when it has yet to embrace a rigorous definition for "what is life v non-life/death in nature".
It is my opinion that you should pay me 1 million dollars.
What makes you think that, with indefinite life to work on the impediment, mankind need forever remain corporeal, or "in" space/time?
The second law of thermodynamics will eventually bring about complete physical entropy in this universe, a ripping or a big crunch.
Yeap, that certainly appears the case.
To avoid this end, science would have to stop physical entropy throughout the cosmos.
Yeap. But will it ultimately matter to us if science doesn't?
As a last point, it is curious that science is seeking "immortality" when it has yet to embrace a rigorous definition for "what is life v non-life/death in nature".
Not really. The latter is a 'meta' question with no real practical bearing. It serves to pass the time of philosophes and mystics, but achieves little more.
LOL, very funny. Or perhaps pathetic is a more apt description.
This will seem rude, but needs saying: Your thinking, although typical, is very 'small'.. Mankind has had in the most charitable regard but a few thousand years to work on these problems, and almost all of the progress in resolving them has taken place (along an exponential curve) in the past few decades (though building upon some momentous achievements from the previous several centuries). Even considering entropy, indefinite life would give mankind millions, if not billions, and probably trillions of years to work these things out.
Before all that, what we have now is but an ephemeral twinkle of a star.
Free your mind, and the rest will follow!
BTW, what should be most revealing about all this is that here is why I have such great disdain for religion. Science is the ultimate pro-life endeavor. The quality of life after death is zero, and science is the only route toward defeating it.
Religion revels in death. The world is littered with its monuments to death. It is an escape from life, due to the presumed inevitability of death, and the tremendous fear of it. Religion as we know it is next to nothing without this alleged "stark fact" of death.
My expectation is that religion will not survive the coming of longevity, except perhaps in the fringes. Some other mysticism will likely replace it, mainly dealing with the question: what is the true meaning of life.
The sad thing is that we are almost certainly on the losing side of this pivot in history. We're on the very cusp, which is why it's much preferable not to dwell on it. I hope to live to see it, but I'm increasingly skeptical that I will. Oh well.
C'est la vie!
Pathetic would be you, beating this dead horse to a pulp.
Ill play along though: It is my opinion that if Ayn Rand was Queen, she would ban religion.
"1 + 1 = 2", as has been pointed out to you before in this thread, is a matter of arbitrary choice of fundamental assumptions of a number system. Most of my working day, I assume that "1 + 1 = 10".
are made and accepted by many in this forum as if they were to be granted equal certitude; as if they were both a "matter of fact."
If you want to examine what science thinks, you must ask what scientists think, and critique science's vocabulary--not what civilians think, using sloppy civilian word usage. If you wish to use the word "fact" interchangably with "proved", I can't stop you, but I also don't need to defend science over this shortcoming. Scienctists only assign levels of confidence to theories, and any scientist who is still breathing air in this century knows that that number has been pretty heavily subject to revision and tuning over the last 2 centuries. As is common with scientific theories.
Some, including me, would argue that "1 + 1 = 2" isn't as reliable a "fact", as, say, your perception that the table in your living room exists when you are touching it. "1 + 1 = 2" is only as reliable as the proof system in which you proved it, and only assuming that you have made an appropriate mapping between the math and the field of discourse to which you wish to apply it, and, as I've pointed out, Russell and Whitehead's proof stood up for 50 years before anyone noticed it was a false proof. Can you show me the proof upon which rests your assurance that the proof system that proved 1 + 1 = 2 is itself reliable beyond question? You take proof systems as reliable, based on confidence in their repeated success, I aver that your confidence in 1 + 1 = 2 is high because of repeated observation confirmation, not because there is some magic barrier between "proof", or "fact" and "highly reliable conjecture". The scientific theory, likewise, that the earth is 4.5 billion years old is based on repeated observational confirmation of a somewhat more sophisticated, and therefore, somewhat less reliable nature. However, scientists regard that level of confidence as highly likely, and the level of reliability one assigns to a conjecture in order to be willing to call it a "fact" in casual conversation is not established by government or by AAAS committee.
If you want to say science has no business dealing in matters of fact or proof; no business seeking out, knowing, and teaching truths, then you and your hearers are subject to universe of fantasy no more grounded in science than any other source of presumed knowledge. Anything goes where fact and conjecture have an equal footing.
At bottom, conjecture is all you have. Proof is just a mathematical game. Contrary to your absurd conjecture, this does not paralyze our brains, we go right on ahead making distinctions and getting useful work done without any need of absolute certainty in order to do so. Blovating on, into paragraph after paragraph with an increasingly patronizing air toward scientists, does not improve your argument, it just makes you annoying.
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