Posted on 09/30/2005 2:09:51 PM PDT by truthfinder9
It's amazing that these Darwinian Fundamentalists claim they're for science only to turn around and try to destroy any contrary theories or evidence. They're really getting desperate, the ID movement really has them rattled.
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September 30, 2005
It’s happening again: another scientist, another academic institution, another attempt to stifle freedom of thought. The “Darwinist inquisition,” as a Discovery Institute press release calls it, is as predictable as it is relentless.
This time the setting is Iowa State University. One hundred twenty professors there have signed a statement denouncing the study of intelligent design and calling on all faculty members to reject it. The statement reads, in part, “We, the undersigned faculty members at Iowa State University, reject all attempts to represent Intelligent Design as a scientific endeavor. . . . Whether one believes in a creator or not, views regarding a supernatural creator are, by their very nature, claims of religious faith, and so not within the scope or abilities of science.”
I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that this thing is getting out of control. To begin with, the reasoning of the Iowa State professors is, frankly, some of the weakest I’ve ever seen. They give three reasons for rejecting intelligent design. The first is what they call “the arbitrary selection of features claimed to be engineered by a designer”—which, even if that were true, would prove nothing. If certain features were chosen arbitrarily for study, how does that prove that no other features showed evidence of design? The number two reason given is “unverifiable conclusions about the wishes and desires of that designer.” That is a dubious claim; most serious intelligent design theorists have made very few conclusions about any such “wishes and desires.”
But the third reason is my favorite: They say it is “an abandonment by science of methodological naturalism.” Now this gets to the heart of the matter. The statement goes so far as to claim, “Methodological naturalism, the view that natural phenomena can be explained without reference to supernatural beings or events, is the foundation of the sciences.” I’ll be the first to admit I’m not a scientist, but I thought that the heart of the sciences was the study of natural phenomena to gather knowledge of the universe. I thought we were supposed to start without any foregone conclusions about the supernatural at all, that is, if we wanted to be truly scientific.
It seems to me that the intelligent design theorists aren’t the ones trying to inject religion and philosophy into the debate—the Darwinists are, starting out with predetermined conclusions.
But it gets even better than that. The Iowa State fracas started because one astronomy professor there, Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez, has attracted attention with a book on intelligent design. It’s a little odd to accuse Gonzalez of being unscientific; he’s a widely published scientist whose work has made the cover of Scientific American. But that’s exactly what’s happening. And here’s the kicker: Gonzalez barely mentions intelligent design in the classroom. He wants to wait until the theory has more solid support among scientists. All he’s doing is researching and writing about it.
Now the lesson here for all of us is very clear: Don’t be intimidated when confronting school boards or biology teachers about teaching intelligent design. All we are asking is that science pursue all the evidence. That’s fair enough. But that’s what drives them into a frenzy, as we see in Iowa.
1. This is about conclusions, not assumptions.
2. "Supernatural" is your word. All that's required by ID is intelligence.
3. Even if your use of the word supernatural is appropriate, it would be just as unscientific to conclude that there were no supernatural causes of the origin of species as it would be to conclude that there were.
We also have knowledge of markings being made by natural forces. And we can know, from our knowldege of how natural forces make markings, that the cuneiform tablet I showed you was at least 99.99% unlikely to have been made by nature.
It would also have to do with where we found these tablets; finding them in an obvious human settlement with other tools and such would also give us great reason to think they were man-made.
We'd have come to the same conclusion about it if we found the thing on Mars instead.
I take it you have no idea what a designed organism would look like compared to an evolved organism, which was my question.
I'm not among those actively promoting the theory, but I'd say that a designed organism would be one whose features no fathomable naturalistic explanation could explain, just as with the tablets.
> "Supernatural" is your word. All that's required by ID is intelligence.
Sorry, "supernatural" is inheirant to ID. Either ID posits a supernatrural godlike entity, or aliens. If aliens, they either came about through supernatural means... or they themselves evolved, which makes ID a pointless excercise.
> Even if your use of the word supernatural is appropriate, it would be just as unscientific to conclude that there were no supernatural causes of the origin of species as it would be to conclude that there were.
Wrong. It is not unscientific to reject a priori those things that are themselves naturally unscientific. Rejecting the "unicorns done it" hypothesis for the assassination of Abe Lincoln is not unscientific.
The only way you could reject it a priori is if you were sure that it actually didn't happen. If that's the case, why bother with any research at all? Why did Darwin have to go halfway around the globe to study finches when all he could have done was slap himself on the forehead and say "Duh! Of course it all happened naturally. It's unscientific to think otherwise."
> The only way you could reject it a priori is if you were sure that it actually didn't happen.
And such certainty is certainly possible. Look at any trial that uses forensic science and yet does not posit that OJ was framed by angry ghosts.
> Why did Darwin have to go halfway around the globe to study finches when all he could have done was slap himself on the forehead and say "Duh! Of course it all happened naturally. It's unscientific to think otherwise."
He was raised - and trained - in a culture that was still mired in superstition. These things can take a whiel to climb out of.
Look at the images at #528. At least two of them show markings of a type that humans have been known to generate, but also of a type that nature has been known to generate. Hence, it's not enough merely to know about what humans do. Likewise, follow the links at #520. We know that humans make roads that look more or less like that, but we also, so far, can't completely rule out their being natural formations either.
So what it still comes down to is ruling out natural causes. Once that's done, what's left to conclude?
> So you really do believe that it was actually unnecessary for him to have done any research at all.
That, of course, is a lie, and a rather obvious one. Read again what I wrote... and this time, with thinking.
I notice that no one has had the nerve to weigh in on #528. Surely if you can determine history from structure, these would be a piece of cake.
Surely if something can be done, it can be done without any effort? What kind of logic is that?
How does Intelligent Design explain how bacteria develop antibiotic resistance? How does it explain the existence of the vermiform appendix? How are its explanations more useful than the existing theory of evolution by natural selection?
And if science courses should give "equal time" to a religious theory, then all churches should give half their services over to a biology lecture.
The kind of logic that leads people who know nothing about biology to look at living things and proclaim that they could not be the result of natural causes.
> You said yourself that the alternative explanation is a priori false.
Yes, it is... *now*. Why is this difficult for you?
Yes, it is... *now*.
That's a total contradiction. If it wasn't false at the beginning, then it wasn't false a priori.
So, how many other theories do you think don't need to be reevaluated once they're formulated?
biology is not a just a list of facts. It is also a method of acquiring knowledge, and Behe and Dembski do not understand the methodology. If they did, they would not be repeating 200 year-old mistakes.
The central idea behind all science is that natural causes can be found for any observable phenomenon. This has served well, and has encountered no brick walls or even wet paper bags. Dembski and Behe have no methodology to offer in exchange for one that works.
> If it wasn't false at the beginning, then it wasn't false a priori.
And the scientific understanding of the origin of species was not until Darwin.
> how many other theories do you think don't need to be reevaluated once they're formulated?
Non sequitur. And an especially silly one considering we're talkign about evolution, perhaps the most constantly re-evaluated theory in history.
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