Posted on 10/19/2005 5:10:52 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
One of intelligent design's leading experts could not identify the driving force behind the concept.
In his writings supporting intelligent design, Michael Behe, a Lehigh University biochemistry professor and author of "Darwin's Black Box," said that "intelligent design theory focuses exclusively on proposed mechanisms of how complex biological structures arose."
But during cross examination Tuesday, when plaintiffs' attorney Eric Rothschild asked Behe to identify those mechanisms, he couldn't.
When pressed, Behe said intelligent design does not propose a step-by-step mechanism, but one can still infer intelligent cause was involved by the "purposeful arrangement of parts."
Behe is the leading expert in the Dover Area School District's defense of its biology curriculum, which requires students to be made aware of intelligent design.
The First Amendment trial in U.S. Middle District Court is the first legal challenge to the inclusion of intelligent design in science class. At issue is whether it belongs in public school along with evolutionary theory.
In his work, "On the Origin of Species," Charles Darwin identified natural selection as the force driving evolutionary change in living organisms.
But Behe argued that natural selection alone cannot account for the complexity of life.
After Behe could not identify intelligent design's mechanism for change, Rothschild asked him if intelligent design then isn't just a negative argument against natural selection.
Behe disagreed, reiterating his statement that intelligent design is the purposeful arrangement of parts.
The bulk of Behe's testimony Monday and Tuesday had been on his concept of "irreducible complexity," the idea that in order for many organisms to evolve at the cellular level, multiple systems would have had to arise simultaneously. In many cases, he said, this is a mathematical impossibility.
He compared intelligent design to the Big Bang theory, in that when it was first proposed, some scientists dismissed it for its potential implications that God triggered the explosion.
He also said he is aware that the Big Bang theory was eventually accepted and has been peer-reviewed in scientific journals, and that intelligent design has been panned as revamped creationism by almost every mainstream scientific organization.
Rothschild asked Behe if he was aware that the National Academy of Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science both oppose its teaching in public school science classes, and even that Behe's colleagues have taken a position against it.
Behe knew of the academies' positions and said they misunderstand and mischaracterize intelligent design.
Behe also said he was aware that Lehigh University's Department of Biology faculty has posted a statement on its Web site that says, "While we respect Prof. Behe's right to express his views, they are his alone and are in no way endorsed by the department. It is our collective position that intelligent design has no basis in science, has not been tested experimentally, and should not be regarded as scientific."
Earlier in the day, Behe had said under direct testimony that a creationist doesn't need any physical evidence to understand life's origins.
So creationism is "vastly 180 degrees different from intelligent design," he said.
Still, Behe said he believes that the intelligent designer is God.
In his article, "A Response to Critics of Darwin's Black Box," Behe wrote that intelligent design is "less plausible to those for whom God's existence is in question and is much less plausible for those who deny God's existence."
After referring to the article, Rothschild asked, "That's a God-friendly theory, Mr. Behe. Isn't it?"
Behe argued he was speaking from a philosophical view, much as Oxford University scientist Richard Dawkins was when he said Darwin's theory made it possible to be "an intellectually fulfilled atheist."
"Arguing from the scientific data only takes you so far," Behe said.
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Not exactly. Half of the population is below median intelligence.
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Half below the median! I'm shocked! Something must be done!
"And I'm sure you remember the hero of all atheists, Madelyn Murray O'Hare (God rest her soul - lol). She led the charge to get God out of schools. Perhaps you've heard of her.
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I have heard of her, but she spelled her last name O'Hair, not O'Hare, which is an airport near Chicago.
I suppose the prayers you heard were Christian prayers, not Jewish ones. What about the kids in your classroom who were Jewish. Were those prayers fair to them?
I'm afraid that we live in a country that has citizens who worship every known religion. Their children attend classes in our public schools, too. The Bible is not the scripture of any religions other than Christianity. Even Judaism does not use the Christian Bible as scripture.
The reason the Bible is no longer read in public school classrooms, nor are prayers recited in those classrooms is not because of Mrs. O'Hair. It is because it is inappropriate when all students may not use the same scripture, nor recite the same prayers. Their parents teach them some other religion at home, and do not wish their children to be taught a different religion in the public school.
It's very simple, and fair. Nobody prevents anyone from teaching whatever religion they wish to their children. That's not the job of the school.
"Do you REALLY expect anyone to believe that when the primary opponents of ID is the Anti Christian Lawyers Union?"
I expect nothing at all, quite frankly. I merely observe.
Looser. Open any biology textbook, or chemistry, or physics, or philosophy, or religion, or politics, its all mechanisms, methods, processes.
"Not exactly. Half of the population is below median intelligence."
Well, that's true. Distribution of intelligence, however, pretty much follows a bell curve, so the median and the average are pretty darned close, at least based on the research I've read.
Undoubtedly. But it still does have to conform to the law against teaching someone's religion as (or in lieu of) science. Whether the schools obey or flout it is their choice.
And I wouldn't be surprised if it happens in many high school biology classes across the country.
I share your gutter-low expectations about our public schools. All manner of irrationality is taught there, some of it even legally.
How is one to know what is purposeful without knowing the intent of the designer. How is one to know the intent of the designer without knowing who the designer is or at least what he thinks. As far as I know it is not possible to know an alien's mind well enough to assume intent. In fact the only possible designer that we have any putative knowledge of would be the God of the Bible.
I think this is a big "whoops" from Behe
"This country was founded by Christians whether you like it or not. Knowledge of the Bible should be part of any good curriculum."
Perhaps, but they were very careful to avoid making this nation officially Christian and to guarantee that all citizens, regardless of their religion, would have equal rights.
I doubt that the Bible readings in your school, never mind the prayers, had the intention of merely being an education on what the Bible said.
My point stands. Citizens of this nation are of all faiths, with about 5% or so having no religious beliefs at all. Every single one of those citizens is equal to every other citizen. Religious education belongs in the home and church, not in the public schools.
Wrong. No atheist is proposing or supporting ID. Everyone proposing or supporting it has their pet deity in mind. And if they say otherwise they are telling pork-pies. I may be wrong about the lack of atheists. You can prove me wrong by citing an atheist ID supporter if you wish. I won't be holding my breath for that.
"Well, why do you stop at Islam and leave the atheists out? Their candidate would be ET, right?"
ET? Well, there are those who believe that some extraterrestrial entities seeded our planet with life, but I know of no scientists who believe that any entity dwelling in this universe designed the universe itself. That would be impossible, really, since the universe would have to exist before they did.
You're a little confused here. For any entity to have designed the universe, it would have to exist outside of the universe. That would make it supernatural in nature. Atheists do not believe in supernatural entities.
I would prefer not to be on the same side as the ACLU, but for once they've got it right. When the ACLU harasses Christians for silly items they're over the top. But in this case, they're attacking Christians who are transparently fraudulent in their attempt to subvert the foundations of science.
The focus of ID is a lie. The claim is that some "intelligence" created species, when virtually all ID proponents actually mean "God" created species.
Those ID proponents are bearing false witness, and as such they don't deserve the support of honest Christians.
"If it is true that an influx of doubt and uncertainty actually marks periods of healthy growth in a science, then evolutionary biology is flourishing today as it seldom has flourished in the past. For biologists collectively are less agreed upon the details of evolutionary mechanics than they were a scant decade ago. Superficially, it seems as if we know less about evolution than we did in 1959, the centennial year of Darwin's on the Origin of Species." (Eldredge, Niles [Chairman and Curator of Invertebrates, American Museum of Natural History], "Time Frames: The Rethinking of Darwinian Evolution and the Theory of Punctuated Equilibria," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, 1985, p.14)
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"When discussing organic evolution the only point of agreement seems to be: "It happened." Thereafter, there is little consensus, which at first sight must seem rather odd." (Conway Morris, Simon [palaeontologist, Department of Earth Sciences, Cambridge University, UK], "Evolution: Bringing Molecules into the Fold," Cell, Vol. 100, pp.1-11, January 7, 2000, p.11)
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"Darwin and evolutionism stand astride us, whatever the mutterings of creation scientists. But is the view right? Better, is it adequate? I believe it is not. It is not that Darwin is wrong, but that he got hold of only part of the truth. For Darwin's answer to the sources of the order we see all around us is overwhelmingly an appeal to a single singular force: natural selection. It is this single-force view which I believe to be inadequate, for it fails to notice, fails to stress, fails to incorporate the possibility that simple and complex systems exhibit order spontaneously."
"... "The creationists so animating one another, the lay public, and our contemporary court system today rest uneasy with Darwin's heritage. Natural selection, operating on variations which are random with respect to usefulness, appears a slim force for order in a chaotic world. Yet the creationists' impulse is not merely misplaced religion. Science consists in discovering that point of view under which what did occur is what we have good grounds to expect might have occurred. Our legacy from Darwin, powerful as it is, has fractures as its foundations. We do not understand the sources of order on which natural selection was privileged to work. As long as our deepest theory of living entities is the geneology [sic] of contraptions and as long as biology is the laying bare of the ad hoc, the intellectually honorable motivation to understand partially lying behind the creationist impulse will persist." (Kauffman, Stuart A. [theoretical biologist, Santa Fe Institute, New Mexico, USA], "The Origins of Order: Self-Organization and Selection in Evolution," Oxford University Press: New York NY, 1993)
Cordially,
"And gender differences are not significant.
If this is how your mind draws conclusions from data given it, I can finally understand why you are incapable of understanding the logic behind the evolutionary sciences. It really is an all or nothing thought process.
"And that all life can be explained by random mutations and natural selection.
This is the conclusion that can be logically drawn from the enormous amounts of evidence available.
Wow.
This went on for a while. Every time Rothschild would ask Behe about a statement, some he wrote himself, he'd say he'd have to disagree that it said what it said.
Wow wow. When they make you contradict your previous statements, isn't that called 'impeaching your testimony'? In a case I worked on as an expert, when we managed to make the other guy's expert witness admit some of his past statements were wrong, our lawyer looked like a cat who'd just swallowed a canary. He was visibly purring.
Your opinion is noted. Also noted is the fact you are an atheist.
Google the "incorporation doctrine." Read. Understand.
Wrong. He doesn't know about the incorporation doctrine. (Do you?) That is why he is wrong.
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