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.
This sad little lizard told me that he was a brontosaurus on his mother's side. I did not laugh; people who boast of ancestry often have little else to sustain them.Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love, 1973
; )
In fact, the point is that a non-supernatural designer for life is more rational than ToE sans designer.
Bow down before the 9 Men in Black and pay your obiescance.
It's the ID'ers that want to eliminate science, so they can replace it with ID. And if you think they only want to eliminate evolution, why do they attack cosmology, atomic theory, geology, chemistry, etc?
Science =natural philosophy.
"And what is a good deity?"
Whatever one fits your particular cultural needs. Whichever one or group of them that offers easy to digest answers to the difficult questions like:
What the heck is this place?
How the heck did it get here?
How did all these plants and animals get here?
More importantly, how the heck did I get here?
How am I supposed to act around all these other folks?
Hey! I see other folks dying all the time. What's that about?
What happens to me, the most important thing on the planet, when I die?
Is this all there is?
Why is the sky blue?
What's this wet stuff?
What are those lights in the sky?
What's that big hot ball in the sky? What's burning?
What happens if I kill that guy I hate so much and steal his pretty wife?
Stuff like that. A good deity is one that answers all those questions. Guess what? Every culture comes up with a deity or a dozen of them to answer them.
There are fewer of them these days. It's easier to deal with just one or three than dozens of different once. But, the religions with lots of deities work OK, too. Some of them have been around for a couple of millenia or more. It's just a lot more involved to make offerings to dozens of deities, especially in today's modern, busy world. Lots easier to just tithe to the church and pray once in awhile. Then you can get on with business and not think about that stuff, except once in a while.
Me? I have the answers to lots of those questions. Some are harder to answer than others. But, there it is. I'm just not smart enough to figure them out. I do get new answers all the time, though. I know why the sky is blue now, and why the sun is hot. Heck, I even know, within close tolerance, how far away it is. Isn't science amazing? Who knows what they'll explain next.
To me it's no different than evolution. And if you don't want to hear something, don't listen, unless you are in the privileged "offended class".
So your spirit drives you to explore the universe around you. You're looking to engage the unknown. Hmm...
;)
Actually, it was a significant number of scientists, and yes, their primary concern was that it posited a beginning to the universe, which would require a creator. It was a major objection to the theory on the same grounds that people are objecting to ID. They felt that a "loophole" that would allow God to be the creator made the theory unscientific because you could just then say "well God did it." (sound familiar?)
It wasn't until a completely naturalistic explanation for how the Big Bang occurred was developed that the objections of scientists began to fade.
Even more interesting is the rapid acceptance of quantum theory. I can't think of anything -- even relativity -- that is more foreign to our intuitive sense of what the world is about. You can make images that describe the geometry of relativity, but its tough to make an image of some quantum effects.
And see what happened? After you grew up, you became a person who constantly makes a fool of herself on public internet forums. I'd prefer my children get a realistic science education free of the superstitious brainwash.
"So your spirit drives you to explore the universe around you. You're looking to engage the unknown. Hmm..."
So Baal or Quetzalcoatl would be good deities?
"Origin of man now proved. -- Metaphysics must flourish. - He who understands baboon would do more toward Metaphysics than Locke." --- Darwin, Notebook M, August 16, 1838
"Wait a minute!" called the moderator, trying to take back the podium from the speaker at the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Still looking at the audience, the speaker, Professor Michael Ruse, wryly commented, "Before you start applauding, she's going to cut off all of my buttons, and drum me out of the society."
Indeed, this renowned philosopher of science had stunned his listeners at the 1993 annual AAAS meeting in Boston by announcing that he had recently come to view evolution as ultimately based on several unproven philosophical assumptions.
Ruse, a professor of zoology and philosophy of science at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, was a key speaker at a seminar convened to debunk "The New Creationism." Ruse had specifically been asked to "refute Phillip Johnson's book, Darwin on Trial." (Intervarsity Press, 1991.) Instead, he shocked his colleagues by endorsing one of its key points: that Darwinian doctrines are ultimately based as much on "philosophical assumptions" as on scientific evidence.
Dr. Michael Ruse (left) and Dr. Phillip Johnson (right) presented the two primary positions for the Dallas symposium in 1992.
Assuring his audience, "I'm no less of an evolutionist now than I ever was," Ruse nevertheless explained that he had given fresh consideration to Johnson's thesis that Ruse himself, as "an evolutionist, is metaphysically based at some level just as much as . . . some creationist. . . . I must confess, in the ten years since I . . . appeared in the Creationism Trial in Arkansas . . . I've been coming to this kind of position myself."
Ruse was referring to McLean v. Arkansas, in which Federal Judge William Overton ruled that Arkansas' "Balanced Treatment Act" was unconstitutional. At the trial, Ruse had testified that creation-science is not science at all. Invoking the fact/faith dichotomy, Ruse claimed that Darwinism was scientific because establishing its validity required no philosophical assumptions. All other views, he claimed, required such assumptions and were therefore unscientific. His testimony became the centerpiece of Judge Overton's ruling."
No
I went to public schools so I can't help it. And look in the mirror before you call others fools.
You aren't making a whole lot of sense.
"So Baal or Quetzalcoatl would be good deities?
"
Sure. Why not? They seemed to satisfy the needs of the cultures that created them. It's all the same.
Baal was kind of a perpetually pi$$ed off deity. Demanded human sacrifices and the like. But, there you go. There have been a number of cultures that created nasty sorts of deities. But, I'm sure those deities had simple answers for it all.
Imagine, though...a religion that executes non-believers. What a thought! A deity with the power to justify wiping out whole cities...except for the wimmens, of course...they might come in handy.
Sorry, Tribune, but they're all the same. Sometimes they're nice (especially to their followers). Sometimes they tell their followers that it's OK to slay the outsiders. Cultural imperatives, I suppose, cause cultures to create nasty, vicious deities if it suits their needs.
Right. The idea behind modern atheism is that the universe is a creation of chance. ID breaks that pillar. Technically, you can still be an atheist and believe in ID though.
BTW, we already have a non-supernatural designer for life, Natural Selection.
So, via the designer of natural selection, how did the bacterial flagellum come about?
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