Intelligent design on trial

Washington Times ^ | 9/28/05

[Crackingham]

It's unfortunate that intelligent design is standing trial in Pennsylvania. Scientific theories require decades, sometimes centuries, to develop, to withstand scrutiny before they are accepted as legitimate. Trying to force acceptance -- or denial -- quickly is an end-run around the scientific method and the spirit of free inquiry. Whatever the lower courts decide about whether intelligent design can be mentioned in public schools, the controversy will probably reach the Supreme Court, which will be asked to determine what is scientific and what is not.

Clearly, the Dover Area School District, by forcing the issue with its requirement that teachers read a four-paragraph "statement" identifying intelligent design as an alternative theory to Darwinian evolution, has done neither science nor students any favors. Intelligent design is a proposition in a state of infancy, and has not earned a place in public school curriculums. A wide range of alternative propositions are never taught precisely because there is no structure to challenge prevailing opinion. That doesn't mean the alternatives are wrong; but students should learn first the best explanation, given what is known. Despite its many flaws, Darwinian evolution remains the standard.

It's no surprise that 11 Dover parents, with the assistance of the American Civil Liberties Union, which is ever eager to advance atheism as secular theology, sued the school district on the grounds that intelligent design is "a 21st century version of creationism." In 1987, the Supreme Court ruled that teaching creationism in public schools violates the Constitution's establishment clause, separating church and state. Both critics and proponents with no advanced scientific degree, who have so eagerly judged the supernatural premises of intelligent design, only demonstrate their political or religious biases.

[bvw]

A philosophical system has no grounding in ignorance. I use "philosophical" in its root sense, it's ancient sense. A rational system of examining the world, the known, the knowable and the mystical. Mystical meaning those things which are unknowable beyond some level.

What was philosophy in that sense is now in various facets called science, called religion, called meta-physics, called law.

In any case the ignorant by choice or by limitation cannot speak to any extent, nor do their ideas deserve much inspection or review, for that ignorance.

That said, it must be noted, and is the meat of this reply, that there are many who have their views and words and thoughts settled in ignorance. For example a person who says the plain-jane reading of Genesis -- Adam, Eve, the Garden, the Tree, the naked serpent is absolutely the last word, and has never delved into the matter, nor studied upon it because of ignorance from circumstance or ignorance from sloth -- that person is a burden to us all. And those burdensome people were at times intolerably tedious and drone religious teachers of too many. When their students leave them and grow onward they either rebel or box-off that floor of knowledge. Either way it becomes a settled matter to them. Bunkum or gospel truth. Settled.

In one case, "the gospel truth" case the ignorant become trapped on that floor of knowledge. They may grow in other aspects secularly and spirirually but that one floor walled off is a limitation to them.

The other case -- those who rebel against that dull teaching -- often find themselves entering another garden of knowledge. That rebellion motivates many into learning other forms of knowledge, of philosophy -- sceince, religion, etc. Especially modern science. And in that garden those individuals do grow, do flower, do bloom. Yet they too have left a floor walled off -- not trapped in it, but locked out of it.

So, even in science we are burdered with the ignorant, who make no attempt to find any system of true knowledge in any way associated with those old detested stories of Genesis, they scorn possible linkages, potential ways of looking at it. They lock up that floor exactly as it was so pitifully taught to them. A floor full of obvious mistruths.

And in that ignorance they do have a honest vanity -- they ARE smarter and wiser than the first group, those trapped on that floor as it was too simply taught them.

[WildHorseCrash]

I appreciated reading your post, although I confess it was not very clear to me. It appears, though, that the point you appear to be making (at least in part) is that it is a mistake not to consider the religious teachings when doing science, and that science loses something when the religious or "metaphysical" or mystical are not taken into account or permitted to shed light on the subject.

This, I would reject. The philosophical underpinnings of science has everything to do with attempting, as well as can be realistically expected, to uncover the objective facts of the way things are. Someone said that facts are those things that exist, whether you believe in them or not. I think that religion, metaphysics, the mystical are the opposite. They are subjective in nature, and can do nothing but cloud the inquiry by imposing a set of a priori assumptions and preferences which makes an objective search for truth impossible. Take evolution, for instance. Anyone who doesn't believe the theory after examining the evidence for evolution (assuming he's actually looked at it) is, I would be tempted to say, quite daft.

I would be tempted to say that, but I won't make it a universal statement, because I understand that, often times, it is not the person's intellect or education that is to blame, but is a case of someone already having a preference when he came to the inquiry. He wants there to be a God, he may have a psychological need for his preferred religion to be true. (Given the ubiquity of religious expression throughout humanity, past and present, and the inconsistency of the beliefs, rights, and practices, it appears that there is a common psychological need, expressed by the creation of religions by humans.) But coming into the question with a preferred answer (not "expected" answer, but "preferred" answer), adds a layer of subjectivity that cannot help but retard or destroy the objective search for what is. In fact, many scientists suffer from this same affliction when it comes to doing their work. They become too enamored with their theories that they become blind to evidence that disprove them.

Some on these boards accuse people who believe in evolution of treating it as a religion and of rejecting the evidence against it. Frankly, I can't speak to anyone else's feelings on the question, but as for me, if someone disproved evolution tomorrow, I would be surprised, but I would also be very excited to discover what, in fact, really is the real deal. I don't have a preferred outcome, I just follow where, objectively, the evidence leads me. I don't think I'm going out on a limb to say that the same can't be said of religious beliefs.

The fact is, however, that nothing that has been presented which even comes close to putting a dent in the theory of evolution nor the fact that evolution has occurred. There are literally millions of data points which bear this out. There are still questions to be answered, and details to be figured out, but the vast structure is sound. (One cannot say that the Empire State Building is teetering on the edge of collapse because the drywall on the 12 floor needs to be repaired and there is a sink clogged on the 7th floor. That's the equivalence to the type of details which the science of evolution is attempting to clear up now.)

But I appreciate an honest discussion of this matters and appreciate your post.

[bvw]

Well thanks for the thoughtful answer. There was a major point I attemped to make, and in that making introduced some other points -- one of which "the mystical" you took to be the major, or a major point.

The opponents of Providence (to give ID a more realistic name, and also to seperate from the term "The Creator", and all the initial conditions, staring discussion) caricature the Book of Genesis, holding it to the same toddlerish interpretation as some "believers" do. That is and was my main point.

The opponents are smarter by some levels of intelligence than those who hoe to the simplistic view and never challenge it or attempt to understand it deeply.

[tufail]

For most people, both evolutionists and creationists, intelligent design means Christian creationism. However, there are other views of creation among Americans. An example is the Islamic Intelligent design described in a recently published book, Creation AND/OR Evolution An Islamic Perspective, by a Muslim theist evolutionist, T.O.Shanavas. The author is very critical about Muslim anti-evolutionist. However, he claims that Theory of evolution has an Islamic root and, in fact, according to him, Muslims proposed theory of evolution centuries before Charles Darwin.

This book is a challenge to those who want to teach Christian creationism or Intelligent design in science class in American public school. America being a secular country, there is a separation of church and state. Government cannot promote any purticular religion.

I want to ask those who want to teach Christian intelligent design and creationism in science classes: Do you want Shanavas' Muslim Intelligent design also included in science curriculum or only Christian intelligent design in any of the states such as Kansas, Pennsylvania, etc?

Shanavas is a creationist but strongly opposes the teaching of any form of creationism in public schools in America. In a news paper (The Daily Telegram) interview Shanavas states that there is no place for intelligent design in science class rooms. (http://www.antievolution.org/cgi-bin/ikonboard/ikonboard.cgi?act=Post;CODE=00;f=2)[I][B]

[NVD]

Point 1:
You do not understand the case nor ID. The specific ID case in the Dover SD is simply to read a disclaimer that says that many do not believe that the source of our complex nature is due to evolution. I don't disagree with all evolutionary concepts but I question the beginning (that was my shot at 'Big Bang')......simply b/c it has never been rationally explained. I tend to believe that their is a higher power, a creator simply because of the irreducible complexity argument as well as the anthropic principle (as ID outlines). When I look at the complexity of our universe, I can only come to one conclusion.....there had to be a creator. I believe it takes more faith to believe otherwise.
Like you, I do not want religion taught in schools but ID, and more specifically the Dover case is not about religion.
Point 2: There is not "wall of separation" as you indicated above. Our Constitution has two religious clauses: the establishment clause and the free exercise clause (in neither do you see a separation of church and state). The whole notion is a fallacy based upon a faulty case in the 1940's (Everson v Board of Ed.) based upon a personal letter that Jefferson had written the Danbury Baptists. Check out wallbuilders.com for more info.

[RogueIsland]

You do know that Darwinian evolution has nothing to do with cosmology?

Shhh! Posts like his do far more to undermine the credibility of ID supporters than any rational recapitulation of scientific research by the science-literate here.

[RogueIsland]

The specific ID case in the Dover SD is simply to read a disclaimer that says that many do not believe that the source of our complex nature is due to evolution

And also to proactively recommend a throroughly scientifically discretited "alternative" text called "Of Pandas and People", I believe. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong on that score.

[RogueIsland]

Sigh. "discredited", not "discretited". An edit feature would be so sweet.

[NVD]

The school board is defending an October 2004 decision to require students to hear a statement about intelligent design before ninth-grade biology lessons on evolution. Teachers were opposed to the statement, which says Charles Darwin's theory is "not a fact," has inexplicable "gaps," and refers students to the textbook "Of Pandas and People" for more information.
Excerpt taken from PhillyBurbs

The textbook will be used as reference material, not part of the curriculum. Darwin's theory, is just that, a theory......with no possible way to check all of his notions.

[found_one]

<> Is Micahel Behe one of those ignorant folks you're talking about?

[found_one]

<> So if teaching the healing arts may be inspired by a Christian desire to help others, we perhaps should scrap this discipline as being too religiously inspired.

[Junior]

The same Michael Behe who just admitted on the stand that evolution was science and ID was not?

[13Sisters76]

For the science room, no free speech
By Bill Murchison

Dec 28, 2005


Will the federal courts, and the people who rely on the federal courts to enforce secular ideals, ever get it? The anti-school-prayer decisions of the past 40 years -- not unlike the pro-choice-in-abortion decisions, starting with Roe vs. Wade -- haven't driven pro-school-prayer, anti-choice Americans from the marketplace of ideas and activity.

Neither will U.S. Dist. Judge John Jones' anti-intelligent-design ruling in Dover, Pa., just before Christmas choke off challenges to the public schools' Darwinian monopoly.

Jones' contempt for the "breathtaking inanity" of school-board members who wanted ninth-grade biology students to hear a brief statement regarding Darwinism's "gaps/problems" is unlikely to intimidate the millions who find evolution only partly persuasive -- at best.

Millions? Scores of millions might be more like it. A 2004 Gallup Poll found that just 13 percent of Americans believe in evolution unaided by God. A Kansas newspaper poll last summer found 55 percent support for exposing public-school students to critiques of Darwinism.

This accounts for the widespread desire that children be able to factor in some alternatives to the notion that "natural selection" has brought us, humanly speaking, where we are. Well, maybe it has. But what if it hasn't? The science classroom can't take cognizance of such a possibility? Under the Jones ruling, it can't. Jones discerns a plot to establish a religious view of the question, though the religion he worries about exists only in the possibility that God, per Genesis 1, might intrude celestially into the discussion. (Intelligent-designers, for the record, say the power of a Creator God is just one of various possible counter-explanations.)

Not that Darwinism, as Jones acknowledges, is perfect. Still, "the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent scientific propositions."

Ah. We see now: Federal judges are the final word on good science. Who gave them the power to exclude even whispers of divinity from the classroom? Supposedly, the First Amendment to the Constitution: the odd part here being the assumption that the "free speech" amendment shuts down discussion of alternatives to an establishment-approved concept of Truth.

With energy and undisguised contempt for the critics of Darwinism, Jones thrusts out the back door of his courthouse the very possibility that any sustained critique of Darwinism should be admitted to public classrooms.

However, the writ of almighty federal judges runs only so far, as witness their ongoing failure to convince Americans that the Constitution requires almost unobstructed access to abortion. Pro-life voters and activists, who number in the millions, clearly aren't buying it. We're to suppose efforts to smother intelligent design will bear larger, lusher fruit?

The meeting place of faith and reason is proverbially darkish and unstable -- a place to which the discussants bring sometimes violently different assumptions about truth and where to find it. Yet, the recent remarks of the philosopher-theologian Michael Novak make great sense: "I don't understand why in the public schools we cannot have a day or two of discussion about the relative roles of science and religion." A discussion isn't a sermon or an altar call, is it?

Equally to the point, what does secular intolerance achieve in terms of revitalizing public schools, rendering them intellectually catalytic? As many religious folk see it, witch-hunts for Christian influences are an engrained part of present public-school curricula. Is this where they want the kids? Might private schools -- not necessarily religious ones -- offer a better alternative? Might home schooling?

Alienating bright, energized, intellectually alert customers is normally accounted bad business, but that's the direction in which Darwinian dogmatists point. Thanks to them and other such foes of free speech in the science classroom -- federal judges included -- we seem likely to hear less and less about survival of the fittest and more and more about survival of the least curious, the least motivated, the most gullible.

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Find this story at: http://townhall.com/opinion/columns/billmurchison/2005/12/28/180478.html

[13Sisters76]

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Phillip Johnson Archives

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Darwinists Squirm Under Spotlight
Interview with Phillip E. Johnson

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This article is reprinted from an interview with Citizen Magazine, January 1992.

Phillip Johnson has been a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley for more than 20 years. As an academic lawyer, one of Johnson's specialties is "analyzing the logic of arguments and identifying the assumptions that lie behind those arguments." A few years ago he began to suspect that Darwinism, far from being an objective fact, was little more than a philosophical position dressed up as science--and poor science at that. Wanting to see whether his initial impression was correct, Johnson decided to take a closer look at the arguments, evidence and assumptions underlying contemporary Darwinism. The result of his investigation is Darwin on Trial, a controversial new book that challenges not only Darwinism but the philosophical mindset that sustains it.

When did you first become aware that Darwinism was in trouble as a scientific theory?

I had been vaguely aware that there were problems, but I'd never had any intention of taking up the subject seriously or in detail until the 1987-88 academic year, when I was a visiting professor in London. Every day on the way to my office I happened to go by a large bookstore devoted to science. I picked up one book after another and became increasingly fascinated with the obvious difficulties in the Darwinist case--difficulties that were being evaded by tricky rhetoric and emphatic repetition. I then began delving into the professional literature, especially in scientific journals such as Nature and Science. At every step, what I found was a failure of the evidence to be in accord with the theory.

What was it that initially made you suspect that Darwinism was more philosophy than hard science?

It was the way my scientific colleagues responded when I asked the hard questions. Instead of taking the intellectual questions seriously and responding to them, they would answer with all sorts of evasions and vague language, making it impossible to discuss the real objections to Darwinism. This is the way people talk when they're trying very hard not to understand something.

Another tip-off was the sharp contrast I noticed between the extremely dogmatic tone that Darwinists use when addressing the general public and the occasional frank acknowledgments, in scientific circles, of serious problems with the theory. For example, I would read Stephen Jay Gould telling the scientific world that Darwinism was effectively dead as a theory. And then in the popular literature, I would read Gould and other scientific writers saying that Darwinism was fundamentally healthy, and that scientists had the remaining problems well under control. There was a contradiction here, and it looked as though there was an effort to keep the outside world from becoming aware of the serious intellectual difficulties.

What are some of the intellectual difficulties? Can you give an example?

The most important is the fossil problem, because this is a direct record of the history of life on earth. If Darwinism were true, you would expect the fossil evidence to contain many examples of Darwinian evolution. You would expect to see fossils that really couldn't be understood except as transitions between one kind of organism and another. You would also expect to see some of the common ancestors that gave birth to different groups like fish and reptiles. You wouldn't expect to find them in every case, of course. It's perfectly reasonable to say that a great deal of the fossil evidence has been lost. But you would continually be finding examples of things that fit well with the theory.

In reality, the fossil record is something that Darwinists have had to explain away, because what it shows is the sudden appearance of organisms that exhibit no trace of step-by-step development from earlier forms. And it shows that once these organisms exist, they remain fundamentally unchanged, despite the passage of millions of years-and despite climatic and environmental changes that should have produced enormous Darwinian evolution if the theory were true. In short, if evolution is the gradual, step-by-step transformation of one kind of thing into another, the outstanding feature of the fossil record is the absence of evidence for evolution.

But isn't it possible, as many Darwinists say, that the fossil evidence is just too scanty to show evidence of Darwinian evolution?

The question is whether or not Darwinism is a scientific theory that can be tested with scientific evidence. If you assume that the theory is true, you can deal with conflicting evidence by saying that the evidence has disappeared. But then the question arises, how do you know it's true if it isn't recorded in the fossils? Where is the proof? It's not in genetics. And it's not in the molecular evidence, which shows similarities between organisms but doesn't tell you how those similarities came about. So the proof isn't anywhere, and it's illegitimate to approach the fossil record with the conclusive assumption that the theory is true so that you can read into the fossil record whatever you need to support the theory.

If Darwinism has been so thoroughly disconfirmed, why do so many scientists say it's a fact?

There are several factors that explain this. One is that Darwinism is fundamentally a religious position, not a scientific position. The project of Darwinism is to explain the world and all its life forms in a way that excludes any role for a creator. And that project is sacred to the scientific naturalist-to the person who denies that God can in any way influence natural events.

It's also an unfortunate fact in the history of science that scientists will stick to a theory which is untrue until they get an acceptable alternative theory-which to a Darwinist means a strictly naturalistic theory. So for them, the question is not whether Darwinism is true. The question is whether there is a better theory that's philosophically acceptable. Any suggestion that Darwinism is false, and that we should admit our ignorance about the origin of complex life-forms, is simply unacceptable. In their eyes, Darwinism is the best naturalistic theory, and therefore effectively true. The argument that it's false can't even be heard.

Surely there are some skeptics in the scientific world. What of them?

Well, there are several, and we can see what happened to them. You have paleontologist Colin Patterson, who's quoted in my first chapter. He made a very bold statement, received a lot of vicious criticism, and then pulled back. This is a typical pattern.

Another pattern is that of Stephen Jay Gould, who said that Darwinism is effectively dead as a general theory-and then realized that he had given a powerful weapon to the creationists, whose existence cannot be tolerated. So now Gould says that he's really a good Darwinist, and that all he really meant was that Darwinism could be improved by developing a larger theory that included Darwinism. What we have here is politics, not science. Darwinism is politically correct for the scientific community, because it enables them to fight off any rivals for cultural authority.

Darwinists often accuse creationists of intolerance. But you're suggesting that the Darwinists are intolerant?

If you want to know what Darwinist science is really like, read what the Darwinists say about the creationists, because those things-regardless of whether they're true about the creationists-are true about the Darwinists. I've found that people often say things about their enemies that are true of themselves. And I think Darwinist science has many of the defects that the Darwinists are so indignant about when they describe the creationists.

Across the country, there has been a growing trend toward teaching evolution as a fact-especially in California, your own state. What does this say about science education in America?

This is an attempt to establish a religious position as orthodox throughout the educational establishment, and thus throughout the society. It's gone very far. The position is what I call "scientific naturalism." The scientific organizations, for example, tell us that if we wish to maintain our country's economic status and cope with environmental problems, we must give everyone a scientific outlook. But the "scientific outlook" they have in mind is one which, by definition, excludes God from any role in the world, from the Big Bang to the present. So this is fundamentally a religious position-a fundamentalist position, if you like--and it's being taught in the schools as a fact when it isn't even a good theory.

Why should Christians be concerned about a scientific theory? Why does it matter?

Well, not only Christians should care about it. Everyone should. It is religion in the name of science, and that means that it is misleading people about both religion and science.

Copyright © 1997 Phillip E. Johnson. All rights reserved. International copyright secured.
File Date:2.22.97

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[CodeToad]

The one question I would have as a student is, "Can you PROVE evolution? No? Then why are you trying to cram it down our throats as an alternative to religious views that God created all things? Why do you fear religion and God? People are religious and that is fact so why not also include that fact? What are you afraid of?"

[Malygris]

We aren't cramming anything down anyone's throat, we are simply saying that ID is not science and therefore does not belong in science class.

Does your church teach science in it's services?

Evolution of life explain how life changes, it has nothing to do with it's origin. There can't be an evolution of life without life afterall.

Science is about facts such as : Fossil records showing different stages of humanity's evolution. If you want to discredit evolution then attack it scientifically.

If evolution is proven wrong then it will be removed from school. It has not been proven wrong yet and there isn't a better Scientific theory to replace it.

You cannot argue science without using logical arguments. Religion, Public Opinnion, Personnal Opinions and Conscience are logically flawed arguments.

Religion because no one knows if their beliefs are any more right then anyone else's. If everyone's equally right then whose' beliefs should we follow ?
This comes down to personnal opinion in the end.

Public Opinion because opinions can be right or wrong. A million worthless personnal opinions aren't worth any more then one. 1 000 000 X 0 = 0 afterall.

Personnal Opinion because you can justify anything with it.
I like killing people so it's right to commit murder.

Conscience because some people have done horrible things while keeping a clear conscience. If they justified those and you accept Conscience as a logical argument then you must accept those horrible things as right.

[CodeToad]

"Does your church teach science in it's services? "

The purpose of schools is to educate and extend ideas. The purpose of a church is to do the same within the confines of their beliefs. They are two totally different institutions with different purposes.

Evolution is also a faith as it is not a fact of science but a theory of science.

Religion is also a theory that requires faith but to say it is a "logically flawed argument" is to not know religion.

"Science is about facts such as : Fossil records showing different stages of humanity's evolution.

There is no fact to prove evolution. There are only some fossiles to suggest evolution, but they provide no proof.

[Malygris]

The purpose of school is to teach appropriate subject in the right classes as well. ID is a prostitution of science and does not belong in a science class. It does however belong in a philosophical or religious one.

Really then maybe you should enlighten me as to how religious arguments are not logically flawed.

I'm open to counter arguments. Claiming something does not make it true. Everyone believing the earth flat didn't make it flatter. This is a valid argument because no sane person can refute the fact that beliefs don't make things happen.

I'm not saying Evolution is a fact. I'm saying it's got facts to back it up.
Big difference.

If you do not want to have a rational discussion then we will simply have none.

[CodeToad]

"I'm open to counter arguments. Claiming something does not make it true."


YOU are the one who claimed religious thoughts are logically flawd, not me., sweetie. Prove your own point first.

[CodeToad]

"I'm saying it's got facts to back it up. "


It has no facts to back it up. None. The presence of a fossil has brought about a theory of evolution, but the presence of the fossil is not a fact that supports evolution.