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What is wrong with intelligent design?
EurekAlert! ^ | 22-Feb-2007 | Suzanne Wu

Posted on 02/22/2007 6:22:34 PM PST by Boxen

In a thought-provoking paper from the March issue of The Quarterly Review of Biology , Elliott Sober (University of Wisconsin) clearly discusses the problems with two standard criticisms of intelligent design: that it is unfalsifiable and that the many imperfect adaptations found in nature refute the hypothesis of intelligent design.

Biologists from Charles Darwin to Stephen Jay Gould have advanced this second type of argument. Stephen Jay Gould's well-known example of a trait of this type is the panda's thumb. If a truly intelligent designer were responsible for the panda, Gould argues, it would have provided a more useful tool than the stubby proto-thumb that pandas use to laboriously strip bamboo in order to eat it.

ID proponents have a ready reply to this objection. We do not know whether an intelligent designer intended for pandas to be able to efficiently strip bamboo. The "no designer worth his salt" argument assumes the designer would want pandas to have better eating implements, but the objection has no justification for this assumption. In addition, Sober points out, this criticism of ID also concedes that creationism is testable.

A second common criticism of ID is that it is untestable. To develop this point, scientists often turn to the philosopher Karl Popper's idea of falsifiability. According to Popper, a scientific statement must allow the possibility of an observation that would disprove it. For example, the statement "all swans are white" is falsifiable, since observing even one swan that isn't white would disprove it. Sober points out that this criterion entails that many ID statements are falsifiable; for example, the statement that an intelligent designer created the vertebrate eye entails that vertebrates have eyes, which is an observation.

This leads Sober to jettison the concept of falsifiability and to provide a different account of testability. "If ID is to be tested," he says, "it must be tested against one or more competing hypotheses." If the ID claim about the vertebrate eye is to be tested against the hypothesis that the vertebrate eye evolved by Darwinian processes, the question is whether there is an observation that can discriminate between the two. The observation that vertebrates have eyes cannot do this.

Sober also points out that criticism of a competing theory, such as evolution, is not in-and-of-itself a test of ID. Proponents of ID must construct a theory that makes its own predictions in order for the theory to be testable. To contend that evolutionary processes cannot produce "irreducibly complex" adaptations merely changes the subject, Sober argues.

"When scientific theories compete with each other, the usual pattern is that independently attested auxiliary propositions allow the theories to make predictions that disagree with each other," Sober writes. "No such auxiliary propositions allow … ID to do this." In developing this idea, Sober makes use of ideas that the French philosopher Pierre Duhem developed in connection with physical theories – theories usually do not, all by themselves, make testable predictions. Rather, they do so only when supplemented with auxiliary information. For example, the laws of optics do not, by themselves, predict when eclipses will occur; they do so when independently justified claims about the positions of the earth, moon, and sun are taken into account.

Similarly, ID claims make predictions when they are supplemented by auxiliary claims. The problem is that these auxiliary assumptions about the putative designer's goals and abilities are not independently justified. Surprisingly, this is a point that several ID proponents concede.

###

Sober, Elliott. "What is Wrong with Intelligent Design," The Quarterly Review of Biology: March 2007.

Since 1926, The Quarterly Review of Biology has been dedicated to providing insightful historical, philosophical, and technical treatments of important biological topics.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: creationisminadress; crevo; crevolist; evolution; fsmdidit; goddidit; id; idjunkscience; intelligentdesign; itsapologetics
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To: Wakeup Sleeper

>>The knownfossil record fails to document a SINGLE example of phyltic evolution accomplishing a major morphologic transition and hence offers no evidence that the gradulistic model can be valid. ( Steven M. Stanley,1979<<


You do know that Dr. Stanley is an evolutionist, don't you, albeit a controversial one? He's a proponent of punctuated equilibrium evolution instead of the more accepted gradualistic evolution. i.e. he thinks evolution has happens in tiny bursts instead of continuous gradual change.


161 posted on 02/24/2007 4:22:07 AM PST by gondramB (It wasn't raining when Noah built the ark.)
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To: Wakeup Sleeper

>>Irreducible complexity simply put is that one or more entities is required symotaneously, therefor they had to be in existence at all times, not over a happenstance chance of one thing developing and then the other, And this {apparent} irreducible complexity is everywhere.<<

I added the word "apparent" in bold as a suggestion, not a correction. If the scientific method in biology works like it does in physics then we would view some situations like that as a signal that there might be another mechanism that we have not discovered yet. There are so many questions and problems in science that once appeared impossible to solve that in retrospect become clear.

God, and faith in God are very important. But I would hope humanity would continue to to work on tough problems for hundreds of years before giving up and saying we cannot understand the natural method - because so far, in every instance we find the world to be working on consistent scientific laws. I know that when I had a personal encounter with God, He did not give me any proof to take with me - He wants us to make that "leap of faith".

It may seem to hard to be a creationist in this day and time but in a way its really the easier way out - and the less exciting way - we miss all the exploration and learning about the way the universe works and what was were designed to guide the world. And of course the other way we will fail. Over and over until some generation that comes after us produces a bright kid who sees something we all missed.

For example it was 1900 years after Aristotle found it self evident that heavier objects fall proportionally faster than light one and it was so ingrained that it became church doctrine. Then in 1597 when a kid named Jacopo Mazzonihad got the (now obvious) idea to test the theory instead of just accepting it. BTW, nobody believed him - he didn't have that flair for the dramatic to do for a crowd at the Tower of Pisa like Galileo did 15 years later.


162 posted on 02/24/2007 5:05:05 AM PST by gondramB (It wasn't raining when Noah built the ark.)
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To: Coyoteman

> the proponents have to discredit the method because they
> cannot abide by the results!

This correctly characterizes my impression of Evolutionists.

> I have found far more open minded folks among scientists
> than creationists.

I venture that depends upon what facts their world view predisposes their minds to be open to.

Neither party can say that ALL the visible, measureable evidence weighs on their side.

Neither party can say that their methodologies are the only ones capable of revealing the Truth about Origins.

At that point, the conjectures become based on Faith in the World View of the Faithful.

Just because you and your professors call Evolutionism Science does not mean that it is.

The first apology I ever heard about Evolutionism was, "That's religion, but this is science."

That seems to be their best apology, because, when confronted with scientific facts, observed, measured, and categorized by the five senses, at debates and in technical forums, they resort to the above statement followed by the schoolyard bully act.

.


163 posted on 02/24/2007 6:18:44 AM PST by Westbrook (Having more children does not divide your love, it multiplies it!)
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To: Wakeup Sleeper
Name one imperfect design!

Are you sure you intended to direct your post to me?

I am not an evolution proponent even though I think the theory contains many factual elements, i.e. observations, and has some interpretive power, many assumptions are made by the current flavor of it (as always has been the case) which contradict my axiomatic beliefs (e.g. the truth of the Bible). I realize science is not required to comply with articles of faith, but it is also not required to contradict them. Look at Pasteur's work. He was a great biologist, even more than Darwin, but his more practical discoveries were the result of his hypotheses conforming to his Biblical faith.

My point was about ID (a view which I am not committed to defending as science, but perhaps could be scientific rather than philosophical, if it is postulated correctly.) Evolution proponents attack ID as not falsifiable on the one hand, and as falsified on the other. Sorry, you can't have it both ways. These contradictory attacks demonstrate that the evolution proponents are indeed agenda driven whether they admit it to themselves or not.

I pointed out before that one of the best arguments of evolution proponents against ID has been greatly diminished. They argued for years that genetic "errors" could be identified that were common between man, apes, and other animals, demonstrating that we had common ancestors. Recent developments in genetic research have shown that it is likely that many genetic "errors" were propagated through viruses rather than inheritance. Score one for ID.
164 posted on 02/24/2007 8:29:35 AM PST by unlearner (You will never come to know that which you do not know until you first know that you do not know it.)
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To: Westbrook
Westbrook, you make the following complaint about "evolutionists:"

"Rather than entertain the idea that the other side has any valid points to consider and address, the most common response of the Evolutionist-Environmentalist-Leftist zealot is to deny that their opponents have any valid points to consider. Instead, they dismiss their opponents as brainless morons, shouting them down with silly slogans, schoolyard name-calling..."

But in the same post you also say the following:

I do not consider Evolution as a valid point of view.

My personal observation is that a large part of the Evolutionist community, at least a large part of the VISIBLE Evolutionist communty, is Bolshevik in nature and tact.

Neither Evolutionism, nor Environmentalism, nor Communism provide a milieu conducive to the fair exchange of ideas that exist outside predetermined sets of beliefs pertinent to their respective ideologies.

I think you practice a fine example of the very intolerance and close-mindednes you complain about in others.

165 posted on 02/24/2007 8:47:27 AM PST by Wolfstar ("A nation that hates its Horatios is already in grave danger of losing its soul." Dr. Jack Wheeler)
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To: Coyoteman
Any thing that is older than historical documented time is inaccurate. It is assumed that it works that far back. You believe it works that far back because of dates it spits out. But you think that it is the same then as it is now, well my friend that does not allow for the fossils to form is the processes move along that slow.

http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/5/5/7

Carbon clock could show wrong time.

At least they admit it here.

But you will still deny the asumptions that are taken to give the appearance of the age expected.



http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/information/biography/klmno/libby_willard.html

Libby was able to determine the age of oganic artifacts by measuring the amount of remaining C14. He tested his process on objects of known age, such as timbers from Egyptian tombsThe tests proved reliable and it was assumed that this technique was accurate for objects up to 50,000 years of age. Later, this was extended to 70,000 years.

You will notice that he had test subject of known age, and that the word assumed which you like to take as fact it then used.

Sorry to let you down but any that is any dated object from a presupposed time frame with out historical documentation is an assumed date, speculative to fit the needed time of ones study to create a hypothetical old earth.

166 posted on 02/24/2007 9:00:20 AM PST by Creationist ( Evolution=alternative to believing in God to justify their moral shortfalls and animal behavior)
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To: Wakeup Sleeper

> Just so many more quotes I could post its not even funny!

Yes, quote mining IS fun, especially when you're too ignorant to understand what was being said.


167 posted on 02/24/2007 9:22:26 AM PST by voltaires_zit
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To: Wakeup Sleeper

> Blind spot? what does that got to do with anything that
> shows evidence to a bad design,

Are you one of those people who marches through the weddings and baptisms in your life with one thumb firmly placed over the lens of your camera?

Are you arguing that it is "good" practice to do so, since taking out large chunks of an image doesn't degrade its quality?


168 posted on 02/24/2007 9:26:16 AM PST by voltaires_zit
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To: Wakeup Sleeper

> How come in the 60s evolutionists said the universe was
> only millions of years old now its billions?

Your "points" would be better made if they weren't obviously ridiculous.

1644: Hebrew scholar Dr. John Lightfoot (1602-1675), Vice-Chancellor of the Cambridge University constructed a chronology of history from Biblical genealogies. He calculated that the world was created at the equinox in September of 3298 B.C., at the third hour of the day (9 A.M.). He didn't specify the particular earth longitude for which this time applied.

1650: James Ussher (1581-1656), Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, painstakingly correlated Middle Eastern and Mediterranean histories and Holy writ, arriving at the date of creation: Sunday 23 October 4004 B.C. No error bars are needed when this date is plotted on the graph, for Ussher considered it exact to the day.

For several centuries thereafter one sees little scientific discussion of the age of the universe, partly because of lack of evidence and theory. But people were pondering the question of the age of the earth, and of course, the universe is very likely older than the earth.

1760: Buffon (1707-88) estimated the earth's age to be 75,000 years by calculating its time of cooling from the molten state.

1831: Charles Lyell (1797-1875) arrived at an age of 240 million years based on fossils of marine mollusks.

1897: William Thomson (1824-1907) used improved knowledge of heat conduction and radiation to improve the calculation of the earth's cooling rate, concluding the earth was between 20 and 400 million years old.

1901: John Joly (1857-1933) calculated the rate of delivery of salt from rivers to oceans, determining the earth's age to be 90 to 100 million years.

1905-1907: Rutherford and Boltwood determined the age of rocks and minerals from measurements of radioactive decay. They found ages of 500 million years to 1.64 billion years. Subsequent work found rock samples as old as 4.3 billion years.

In the 20th century attention turns from dating the earth, to dating the formation of the solar system, and the universe itself.

1929: Edwin Hubble (1889-1953) interprets the redward shift of distant stars and galaxies as due to the general expansion of the universe. The rate of this expansion is called the Hubble constant, and if the universe were expanding uniformly since its beginning, would tell us how old the universe is. Extrapolating backward would bring the galaxies together about 2 billion years ago, using Hubble's original figures.

1947: George Gamow (1904-68) uses Hubble's original data on luminosity of Cepheid variables to conclude that the universe's "expansion must have started about two or three billion years ago." In a footnote he says "More recent information leads, however to an estimate of somewhat longer time periods."

1952: Bart Jan Bok (1906-83) estimates that galactic clusters must be between 1 and 10 billion years old.

1999: Astronomers working on a special NASA team announced that the universe is about 12 billion years old, based on measurements of the Hubble constant for very distant stars.

http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/cutting/ageuniv.htm

Science, btw, thrives on being "wrong" and continuously refining its estimates.

Myth, otoh, doesn't take correction so well.


169 posted on 02/24/2007 9:40:54 AM PST by voltaires_zit
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To: Boxen
What is wrong with intelligent design?

Very poor marketing and some creepy spokespeople, primarily.

170 posted on 02/24/2007 9:42:17 AM PST by HitmanLV ("If at first you don't succeed, keep on sucking until you do suck seed." - Jerry 'Curly' Howard)
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To: dread78645
About 15% are capable of, and maybe 1% are interested in.

We're talking chocolate, not fudge.

171 posted on 02/24/2007 9:45:44 AM PST by Fester Chugabrew
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To: Creationist
http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/5/5/7

Carbon clock could show wrong time.

At least they admit it here.

But you will still deny the asumptions that are taken to give the appearance of the age expected.

I am familiar with the article.

Are you familiar with subsequent articles dealing with the calibration curve, which is continually updated as new information becomes available?

Are you aware that the calibration curve takes atmospheric variation into account and corrects for it?

Are you aware that this has been standard practice since de Vries published in 1958, just a few years after Libby invented the method?

172 posted on 02/24/2007 11:03:48 AM PST by Coyoteman (Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.)
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To: Central Scrutiniser; Boxen; Alamo-Girl; hosepipe; js1138; ndt; metmom; xzins; ahayes
What is wrong with Intelligent Design?

Its based on a fable, relies on blind faith, is untestable and non verifiable, and there is no body of evidence in existence to prove it.

Regarding your allegation that ID is an untestable exercise in blind faith that is based on a fable: This tells me more about you than it tells me about ID.

No body of evidence in existence to prove it? The evidence is all around you -- you have to be blind not to see it. Here we have one universe that hangs together "just so," and needs to hang together in just that precise fashion in order to "keep on ticking." Change one tiny little parameter, and the whole thing would come crashing down.

And you think this sort of thing can be the result of an evolutionary process? For one thing, an evolutionary process is temporally linear and sequential. But the totality of all conditions required for the emergence of life had to be "just so" and "all at once" for life to arise in the first place. Only then can we begin to speak of the evolution of species.

I don't dispute the fact that the universe and life itself "evolve" in time, only that ID may well be correct in its conjecture that the universe and life evolve as a guided process. That is, there is a "guide to the system."

ID doesn't insist that this guide be God the Creator. (You could be an agnostic or an atheist and not disqualify yourself as an intelligent design researcher.) The sought-for guide to the system might be space aliens ("panspermia theory"), an informative agent of unknown/unspecified type possibly of natural origin, an algorithm, etc.

ID conjectures only that there is such a guide -- which seems eminently reasonable to me, given the evidence of one single, dynamic, integrated universe that appears to have been "primed" and "fine-tuned" for the eventual emergence and sustenance of life.

My two cents, FWIW.

173 posted on 02/24/2007 11:24:03 AM PST by betty boop (Nature shows us only the tail of the lion. But I do not doubt that the [whole] lion belongs to it...)
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To: voltaires_zit

Your post proves my point! Because its filled with IFs and no evidence extrapolations! it isnt that its refining its self, it is just trying to cover its back from the previous ridiculous proponents it previous and absurdly embarrased itself with. This is seen through out the entire argument from evolutionist all the way from Darwin and itis even more blatantly seen today.


174 posted on 02/24/2007 1:20:50 PM PST by Wakeup Sleeper
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To: Wolfstar

> I think you practice a fine example of the very
> intolerance and close-mindednes you complain about in
> others.

I said it was MY OBSERVATION, having been the object of such attacks myself and having watched the hystrionics of Evolutionists hard-pressed to defend their faith when confronted with contrary facts.

I have been on the other side. I have been an Evolutionist. It is because I was an Evolutionist with an open mind that I am now a Creationist.

The closed minds are the ones who WILL NOT admit, "We just don't have an answer for that right now, so our persistence in believing what we believe is based on our FAITH that this is true."

At least I can say that when confronted with evidence I cannot explain with my model.

In the debates I have seen, the Creationist always admits his bias UP FRONT, that there are things left unexplained by his model and that he persists in his adherence to the model because of his FAITH.

I have never seen anything of the kind from the "open-minded" Evolutionists, whose only answer, when confronted with the irrefutable is, "Well that's religion, but this is Science," often followed by a barrage of schoolyard epithets more worthy of a drunken sailor than a cultured scientist.

.


175 posted on 02/24/2007 1:24:26 PM PST by Westbrook (Having more children does not divide your love, it multiplies it!)
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To: gondramB

Punctuated equilibrium is just as adhock as the other! Nothing more than more embarrasment for evolutionist, so they resort to more story telling to try and cover their backs!


176 posted on 02/24/2007 1:26:48 PM PST by Wakeup Sleeper
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To: ashtanga

Ashtanga, what you are describing is natural selection, that has nothing to do with what is called macro evolution! There is no adding to the genetic code! All things remain in their KIND regardless of the overwhelming possibilities within its KIND, example there are many diferrent kinds of birds but they are always birds, different kinds of horses, zebras, donkeys, but they are still of the same KIND etc...etc... This is not evolution!


177 posted on 02/24/2007 1:31:13 PM PST by Wakeup Sleeper
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To: unlearner

Actualy science does not contradict the bible whatsoever, it compliments it!


178 posted on 02/24/2007 1:32:55 PM PST by Wakeup Sleeper
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To: gondramB

The problem is that the evidence does show us a direction and point to a more reasonable reason to things, we dont have to keep searching for hundreds of years, the evidence is already overwhelmingly profound against evolution or even suggesting it to be a real theory to even remotely considered.


179 posted on 02/24/2007 1:37:33 PM PST by Wakeup Sleeper
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To: voltaires_zit

I understand what youve said and it is pure bunk!


180 posted on 02/24/2007 1:40:24 PM PST by Wakeup Sleeper
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