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.
Let's see. The ID curriculum according to Behe:
1. We evolved from little squishy things.
2. The earth is millions of years old.
3. The Intelligent Designer may be little green men from Jupiter.
4. The Intelligent Designer may be dead.
This sounds more like evolution than creation, if fact it looks like blasphemy to me ...
Nice of you to snip the context of my reply. Behe said 'purposeful'. How do you determine purpose without knowing intent?
"Do you think it is possible to infer a general purpose without knowing the specific intent? In the movie, Contact, a signal representing a long sequence of prime numbers is received. Do the characters in the movie know anything about the intelligence's purposes or motives for sending the prime numbers?
Yes they do. They know that it is intended to be a communication. This is a movie remember, without recognizable signals there would be no plot. We assume that counting systems will be universal so primes will be recognizable by any intelligence that uses math. Is this necessarily the case? Are there counting systems which have different primes? Is it possible that there are aliens that ignore primes?
However the entire thrust of ID as presented by DI is based on biology. Where are the easily recognized universal signs in biology?
"Do they know anything about the technology employed or about the intelligence's physical makeup? No. Yet, the signals exhibit hallmarks of intelligence. How so, since the intelligence's intent is not known?
What are the hallmarks of intelligence? The only model we have for intelligence is ourselves, the only products of intelligence we have for comparison purposes are ours.
IDists claim we identify design by assuming that certain levels of complexity cannot occur naturally.
"If by 'naturally' you mean by operation of 1) a law, or 2) chance, as opposed to 3) the action of intelligent agency, then yes, I agree. There are three possible causes for things: chance, law or design.
Are the three mutually exclusive? If not, how does Dembski's filter identify fusions of one or more.
We assume complexity as an attribute of design because humans can and do create complex objects, however that complexity is not how we normally identify a designed object. When we examine an artifact we ask ourselves 'how does it resemble other objects we know are designed (by humans)', 'does it have any attributes that result from its manufacture method(tool marks)', 'what can it be used for, why was it made'. All questions we ask about the object centre around what we already know about human design, not about design that non-human intelligences could possibly make.
"Why should one except in the first place this Humean inductive framework of all our knowledge of the world as an extrapolation from past experience, much less for how design is recognized in the first place? If we purport to attribute design on the basis of induction, we have already presupposed the ability to identify design independently of induction because as Hume says, unless you know it by experience, you know nothing of it. And if that were the case you could never know it at all.
I'm not Hume.
"We do not perceive intelligence directly, but by its signs. And though signs of intelligence can be learned and confirmed by experience, our ability to recognize them cannot originate in experience. The same goes for recognizing "intent".
Ok, then how do we recognize design? Give me an example.
ID, by its very nature, will produce false positives and false negatives as often as it will be correct.
"If that proved to be true then the theory would turn out to be useless. I think the jury is still out on whether there is a reliable criterion for detecting (not eliminating) design. False negatives, though an inherent problem with eliminating intelligent causes (because of their innovatioan and unpredictabilty, etc) are not much of a problem for science in general right now, which doesn't presume anything as being designed anyway. If there is a rigourous mathematical method of applying the probability criterion to cases then false positives will be minimized. Either way, nothing in ID theory stops anyone from looking for causes of chance or necessity
And rather than answer my questions you still try to play your little "gotcha" game. I knew you never would, of course.
Darwinism is going to fall like a house of cards.
And be replaced by what?
Whatever, I find it amazing that you believe in teaching children that God the Intelligent Designer may be dead ...
And he dismisses my questions witha "whatever" because he has no answers. Only nasty little gotchas.
Correct. It is a moot point. Both sides agree that we evolved from little squishy things.
However, Behe is the only testifying that God the Intelligent Designer may be dead. Do you agree with Behe?
Of course, you omitted the rest of my post so you could commit false witness. Nice Christian, you are.
Of course you ignored my question of how you could support a 'theory' that puts forward that we all evolved from little squishy things over millions of years and allows that God the Intelligent Designer is dead.
I tire of your petty and childish games.
I suspect the creationists don't agree. That makes three sides.
But actually its worse than that. A lot worse.
I am not sure what the estimated 4,200 other extant world religions feel about the subject, but I think many, if not most, would have opinions.
What do we do, take a poll?
Behe is testifying that he believes that students should also be told that the Intelligent Designer may be dead.
LOL. That's the funniest thing I've read in a couple of weeks. It sounds like he's completely lost his mind.
A game? How you support a person that believes in evolution and that your tax dollars should be used to teach children that God the intelligent designer may dead just totally amazes me! Correction. He testified that it was a "terrific thing to do"!
-------------------------------------------------------
Rothschild asked if it was true that the intelligent designer might not actually exist any longer.
Behe agreed that was true.
Rothschild paused.
"Is that what you want to teach school students, Mr. Behe?" he asked.
As part of a curriculum making students aware of intelligent design, Behe said, "Yes, I think that's a terrific thing to point out."
It's not necessarily easy to describe sans math. Think of it this way: a radioactive atom has a certain probability of decaying in a given interval of time. That probability does not depend in the beginning of the interval, only the length. It's like playing dice with Big Jule; the dice have no spots.
The above model allows us to predict how many atoms of a group will decay within a given interval, but not which ones. (With some statistical error.) It's similar to computing how many people will die in a given municipality, actuaries can give you the number but not the names and addresses.
Actually, mafia actuaries can give you the names and addresses. Quantum mechanics has no mafie actuaries.
Forrest seemed to remember who said what better than the lawyers.
Thanks for the ping. Read the transcript.
As I noted a while ago, Darwinism is a dead corpse, just flapping for a while.
It's just one belief among many.
If Darwinism is dead, it will be interesting to see what replaces it in the scientific arena. I think we can safely say it won't be intelligent design, since ID isn't science.
The best part about that article is that it was posted in 1997! Heh.
Coming up ...
500
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.