Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera!
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.
How could you do that? If you assume an omnipotent being, you can't predict anything, and have no motive to look for regularities.
Science is the search for regularities, not the search for miracles. There will never be a time when science is looking for miracles.
A river system is something that appears to have a "purposeful arrangement". But we understand that it is merely the result of water flowing downhill.
"Creationism is banished from the schools"
My kids were told about creationism in biology (within the last few years) in public high school. So you are wrong.
"Behold, the fraud of ID, revealed in all it's splendor."
I guess you were so busy with science, you ignored grammar and spelling.
Excellent point. You get it.
And yet, the Theory of Evolution is strengthened by each new discovery. DNA and genetics only provide new support, support that Darwin couldn't have forseen when he originally formulated the theory. Darwin might have been wrong on a couple of the details, but overall he was spot-on.
That is what's meant by "predictions." Many of the gaps in the theory have been filled by subsequent discoveries. And that's what makes it a good scientific theory.
Not exactly. Half of the population is below median intelligence.
Excellent point. You get it.
Right. My point is that Darwin's inability to outline any mechanism for that variation or its inheritance didn't hamper his theory one bit. Similarly, Behe's inability (unwillingness, really) to point to any specific designer or method of design implementation shouldn't itself be viewed as an impediment to any Intelligent Design theory, if someone should formulate one someday.
Pretty good, for someone who didn't know about genetics.
Glad you said that. I've been waiting for someone to assert again about Darwinian evolution not making testable predictions. Genetics, as we have discovered it, fits exactly what Darwin required of his mechanism of variation and inheritance. It was a highly specific and detailed prediction of evolution, which later discoveries bore out.
Rather than cabers? It would be a more exciting sport.
You don't get it. The Supreme Court has decided on that. They get the last word. Creationism is out, per the Establishment Clause of the 1st Amendment. Law of the Land.
Not yet.
Both Russia and Germany were strongly Christian before though. Not to mention Italy.
Let's have a moment's honesty here. The *only* candidate any Christian ID proponent is thinking of is the Christian God. The only candidate any Muslim is thinking of is the Muslim God, etc, etc, etc.
Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera!
Were they taught it as an episode in the history of science, or as a viable model of the origin of species? The former would be OK, the latter would not.
If the latter, don't read anything into it. Just because somebody gets away with something, it doesn't make it legal. Or right.
[Let's have a moment's honesty here. The *only* candidate any Christian ID proponent is thinking of is the Christian God. The only candidate any Muslim is thinking of is the Muslim God, etc, etc, etc.]
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Well, why do you stop at Islam and leave the atheists out? Their candidate would be ET, right? The larger point being that ID, just flat out doesn’t necessitate belief in the Christian GOD or any God, god or gods, for that matter.
In fact, according to ID, the whole of issue identity is irrelevant, as it should be, since such questions come under religion and/or philosophy and not science.
Someone tell me again how ID is necessarily religious.
Omar.
prime?
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