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
Well, think about it. How do you think PH keeps these threads going so long.
I don't doubt that you are "really sure of that".
When I was a kid, I was "really sure" that Santa Claus delievered the presents I found under the tree.
Be that as it may, there are a large number of self-admitted creationists who would strongly disagree with you. So I don't know why you're bothering to split hairs and play definitional games or play the No True Scotsman dodge.
Intelligent design, though, doesn't answer who or what is the intelligence behind the design. Nor does that intelligence have to be a god.
I didn't say that it did. Nonetheless, you'd have to be remarkably naive to deny that the vast majority of "ID supporters" believe that the "unnamed designer" is actually the Christian God as described in the Bible.
It really is a mathematical model speaking to the improbability of such a complex thing as living systems coming about accidentally,
Again, no, it is not. That is one of the tools the ID'ers try to use to argue their case, but (as I've already said), it's quite simply false to claim that ID "is" just a "mathematical model". It most certainly isn't.
and therefore having had to have been designed.
One. More. Time....
I know this is a difficult concept to creationists/IDers/whatever (it's not a difficult *concept*, just difficult for "certain people"), but even if you could disprove evolution entirely (by "probability" or any other means), it would *NOT* be the case that, as you say, "therefore having had to have been designed".
It just doesn't work that way. Evidence *against* one possible explanation does *NOT* count as evidence *for* any other possible explanation. Creationism is *not* the "default" explanation. It doesn't "win" by eliminating one possible explanation, just as evolution would not "win" if by some means it could be proven that God(s) don't exist. Even if you could somehow bring evolution crashing down as an explanation (and good luck with *that* one), the conclusion would not be "so God must have done it, QED", since it could still be the case that any number of other possible "natural" explanations that we haven't yet thought (as well as any number of other possible "unnatural" explanations that do not involve a "maker") might be responsible for life on Earth and we just haven't discovered it yet.
Evidence *against* one explanation is not evidence *for* another one that happens to be on the table, since *it* might be wrong as well. Only *positive* evidence *for* an explanation counts *for* that particular explanation. Period. End of story.
Probability arguments "against" evolution (and the ones I've actually seen have been bogus) is in no way -- repeat, *no* *way* -- repeat, *NO* *WAY* -- evidence *for* "ID" or "creationism" or whatever you want to call it. The same goes for evidence against any particular flavor of creationism -- that itself does not count as evidence *for* evolution. Nor should it.
Are we clear now, or are you still going to be confused about this straightforward concept?
Often a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other parts of the world, about the motions and orbits of the stars and even their sizes and distances,... and this knowledge he holds with certainty from reason and experience. It is thus offensive and disgraceful for an unbeliever to hear a Christian talk nonsense about such things, claiming that what he is saying is based in Scripture. We should do all that we can to avoid such an embarrassing situation, lest the unbeliever see only ignorance in the Christian and laugh to scorn.
St Augustine of Hippo
Then what are they? Further results of natural selection and random mutation?
Let's try that on a test case, shall we? "The Hawiaan Islands are so complex that we can't build them, and therefore, that is evidence that they had to be built".
Nice try, but your reasoning is obviously faulty since it leads to a false conclusion.
Go take a logic course and then get back to us.
Intuitively, yes.
Logically, no.
It makes much more sense than "We can't build them, and therefore, that is evidence that they accidentally (mechanistically) came about."
If anyone actually *did* use that line of argument, I'd help you point out their fallacy to them.
But since no one does, you are quite welcome to take your Straw Man Fallacy and sit on it, hard. I'm getting tired of your falsehoods. If you dont' understand science, and clearly you don't, please do not attempt to put words in anyone's mouth, because you've made a number of insultingly false accusations here. Stop your misrepresentations.
The mathematical model supports the intuition.
No, actually, it doesn't. If you feel that it does, show me the math. Go for it. This should be a *lot* of fun.
It does not support the fallacious reasoning that they accidentally came about.
The evidence does, and the currently feasible mathematical analyses of the evidence indicates that it's hardly out of the question.
Go learn some science before you spread more lies about it. Seriously. A "Retired Army Chaplain" should not be proud of spouting frequent falsehoods.
Then what are they? Further results of natural selection and random mutation?
No, they are the results of creationists making simplistic and faulty calculations based on their poor knowledge (and in many cases, completely misunderstanding) of evolutionary biology.
Yes indeed, and they are evidence the Builder exceeds man to a great degree in many capacities.
We know about that glass.
Magrathian placemarker
I don't think you realize the awesome powers you are trifling with. Entire armies couldn't foreclose on Darwin Central. You'd never make it ashore. Fortress Galapagos is impregnable!
Are you saying mathematic calculations and probabilities are inappropriate tools for giving evidence of intelligence or design? Can you provide a brief example of their "simplistic and faulty calculations" in your own words?
Such an argument would be very weak indeed.
Indeed it is, which is why I wish our resident creationists would stop employing it so often.
As a biblical creationist I have not stated that my belief is "irrefutably true because it's something I happen to believe."
I didn't say that you did. Nor did I say that anyone else had.
I was referring mostly to the frequent habit of creationists of posting as fact their fantasies about how science is actually done, or what evidence does or does not exist in support of evolution, or how evolutionary postulates have been arrived at and verified, etc.
The creationists frequently just make up, based on nothing but their ignorant presumptions, fantasies about how evolutionary biology "might" be performed by its practitioners, and then the creationists become convinced that these fantasies are how science is *actually* done. They'll post them over and over again, with perfect certainty, and not a shred of realization that their fairy-tales about biology are based on nothing but their own ignorance, and not a bit of real familiarity with the topic they're spouting off about.
It's so common it's practically pathological. It's so common that I suspect that whatever the bizarre mental flaw might be which causes some people to mistake their presumptions for facts, it's also what causes them to *be* anti-evolution creationists in the first place, rather like how other people seem to have particular mental quirks which predispose them to become unshakable conspiracy nuts.
It is a set up no human intelligence has been able to duplicate, so it is not unreasonable for me to accept this as evidence of an Intelligent Designer.
Yet again, we see the "we can't build it, so it must have been built, QED" fallacy in action. Amazing.
We had a thread reach about 6000 posts or so if I remember right.
Sitting next to my Air Force One glass. :-)
It's rain elves! New "theory". :-)
1,000.
1,000.
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