Chris
I don't, as long as they don't call it *science*, and claim it should be
taught as such. As long as it stays in philosophy or religion, where such
stuff belongs, I have no complaint. But Stephen, et al, are pretending that
it's science, even though they are steadfastly refusing to offer even a
*vague* causal principle that might be empirically tested.
Bertvan
> If some scientists see purpose in
> nature, why is it important to you to argue them out of it? You claim to
be
> an atheist. I don't see anyone trying to change your belief. Why do you
get
> so worked up over other people's religious and philosophical beliefs?
Chris
First, I tend to get worked up over *any* blatantly *anti-*scientific views
passed off as science. Non-naturalistic *philosophy* is stupid enough, but I
don't mind it as long as no one's trying to force it on the rest of us
(which non-naturalists are won't to do because they don't share a common
reality with people who actually *live* in reality, or, often, even with
other non-naturalists (so faith, and it's social correlate, force, tend to
become popular means of "persuading" people (as in the Spanish Inquisition,
Nazi Germany, etc.)).
Secondly, I tend to get worked up over dishonesty (or do you think Stephen's
incredibly frequent and always one-sided misrepresentations of opposing
views and arguments are mere momentary slips of the mind (in one post, he
did it in the very process of denying that he did it. *Most* amazing)?
Bertvan
> Do you
> believe only those people with a materialistic philosophy should be
allowed
> to be scientists?
Chris
No. Stephen Jay Gould is not a materialist, and yet he is a good scientific
thinker. Non-naturalism and science are incompatible at the level of
epistemology (non-naturalism has to be justified by faith, not reason), but
some people are able to compartmentalize their minds, accepting things on
faith in one area but behaving quite rationally in others.
Bertvan
> That is how it appears to uncommitted witnesses of this
> debate. I visited an evolutionist/creationist site, which I hadn't read
for
> some time. No creationists there any more. Just a bunch of Darwinists
> sitting around ranting to each other about how stupid creationists are.
As
> Design is accepted as a possibility by more and more scientists, I suspect
> materialists will find themselves ignored. Unless they can come to terms
> with such genuine differences of opinion. Let's wait and see which
> philosophy produces the most results.
Chris
I have some news for you. Perhaps you weren't around when it broke: The
results are in. Science produces useful and valuable knowledge of the way
the world works (even if not Truth with a capital "T"). Non-naturalism
produces nothing. It is destructive of human life, knowledge, science,
freedom, peace, justice, education, prosperity, morality, and virtually
every other real value of human life.
To be fair, this is not merely because it *is* non-naturalism, but because
it can only be supported on the basis of *faith*, the willingness to accept
as true and *act* on ideas that have rationally inadequate objective basis.
The result is thus more the fault of faith than of non-naturalism as such,
but non-naturalistic philosophies reinforce the adherence to faith as a
substitute for cognition.
*If* non-naturalism had a rational basis, it would not require that
non-naturalists subvert or stunt their ability to think rationally about
philosophical abstractions, so it would not have the negative effects that
it now does. Instead, people would in fact be able to adopt non-naturalistic
beliefs on a rational basis and thus avoid subverting or stunting their
minds. But, the fact is that there is no rational basis for non-naturalistic
philosophies (if there *was* a rational basis for non-naturalistic beliefs,
you can bet your bippy and everything else that the non-naturalists would
have made damn sure the rest of us knew about it.).
The entire history of the battle between reason and science on one hand and
faith and pseudo-science on the other hand *is* results. Reason and science
gave us the Renaissance. Faith and pseudo-science gave us the Dark Ages.
Reason and science gave us the computers and the technology that you are now
using to enable you to participate on this list. Faith and pseudo-science
gave us phrenology, numerology, astrology, Lamarckism, "creation science,"
and Stephen's belief in God. Reason gave us freedom (relatively), and faith
gave us slavery, oppression, and mass slaughters.
Design theory, as such, has yet to produce *any* positive result in science
(or in any other area, for that matter). That's because it is, as Stephen
and the rest are using it, *anti-*science. Mere design theory, as *merely*
an out-of-context philosophical idea is unfounded, but harmless in itself.
Design theory pretending to be science is quite another. Stephen (and you,
and Johnson, etc.) have been unable to provide even *one* scientific aspect
of design theory, for the good reason that it's not science but a
philosophical theory. There is no testable causal principle in design
theory.
Stephen's (and Phillip Johnson's, and Behe's, etc.) "program" is not a mere
innocent philosophical claim. It is an *attack* on science, on the idea of
actually making observations and proposing empirically *testable* causal
principles. This is why Behe dismisses alternative *naturalistic*
explanations for what he calls "irreducible complexity" *without* bothering
to test for them empirically. He has *already* made up his mind that such
facts are irrelevant (presumably because they might invalidate his claims).
Why bother checking to see if the building's side and back doors are locked
or wide open, if what you want to do is claim that the building is locked,
period? You'd run the risk that they might in fact be open, and then it
would be more difficult to (pseudo-)honestly say, "I checked the building,
and it was looked."
===
I have no objection to design theory itself, even in *science*, if there is
evidence for it and if there is offered at least *some* idea of a scientific
hypothesis concerning it. If ten million digits of pi were blatantly and
openly encoded in the human genome (perhaps "packaged" in such a way as to
replicate with almost absolutely perfect reliability and even
self-correction), I'd be very impressed, and I'd begin suspecting that there
was indeed a designer. I'd want to know who it/they were, and I'd want to
have more of such evidence, and I'd want to propose actual predictive,
testable hypotheses as to what it/they might have had in mind. I'd suggest,
for example, that this might be a means of establishing communication with
us from the past, so I'd look for further evidence of such communication,
including evidence of some sort of genetic "Rosetta Stone," by means of
which we might translate other strings of genetically coded information into
human terms. Basically, I'd look up the work done by Sagan and the SETI
people, and use it as best I could to search out further encoded messages of
the same general type. I'd also suggest that whoever inserted this
information was not at all sure it/they would be around when we reached the
level of scientific development necessary to discover the encoded
information, etc. I'd suggest that it/they wanted us to know what it/they
had done, and that it/they wanted us to know that there *was* other
intelligent life in the Universe besides us.
Do I *believe* any of this? No. I *truly* wish I could, just as I *truly*
wish I could read minds, move matter external to myself by merely willing it
to move, and so on. If someone came up with *real* evidence of design, I'd
be one of the *first* to be dancing in the streets and calling everyone I
know and so on. Even if I thought I'd never ever see it/them, the scientific
(and possibly technological) implications would be Earthshaking.
But, do we see any evidence at all from the likes of Phillip Johnson? No. Do
we see any scientific principles at all from them? No. Do we see any
proposals for empirical tests of their views? No.
Why?
Simple: They are lying or ignorant (or possibly both, of course). I vote for
lying, because it's obvious that Johnson (Stephen is a different matter) is
too bright to be honestly ignorant (except in a broader sense), and he's had
*way* too much opportunity to learn the facts about what evolutionary theory
claims (so has Stephen, for that matter). They are *well* aware that they
have no evidence. They are *well* aware that they have no scientific
principle. They are *well* aware that they have no scientific theory to
test. They are *well* aware, in short, that designer theory is *not*
science. It's not even just a philosophical theory. They know very well that
they are pushing *religion*. They accept it on faith. They *don't* have a
rational basis for it.
Why else would they both systematically misrepresent evolutionary theory
(sometimes immediately after quoting a passage from an evolutionist that
actually contradicts what they say the author is saying)? Why would they
attack macroevolution without offering an alternative principle to explain
why new organisms appear in the history of life at the times they do rather
than, say, *before* the organisms that we evolutionists take to be their
ancestors? Why did man appear only recently, *after* other primates, rather
than three hundred million years ago? Surely, if there was a designer of the
type that Stephen and Johnson believe in, He could have done it that way if
he chose to. Why is the development of life on Earth laid out as if to
convince people that macroevolution (by any relevant definition) occurs
*naturally*?
===
But, despite its religious basis, despite the lack of a causal *principle*,
despite the lack of evidence, they want their theory treated like *science*.
Of course, they are perfectly free to treat it like science on their own,
and, if it *was* science, they could get all the funding and respect they
could ever want. The Republican Congress and Bill Clinton would push through
a bill to get it heavily funded and taught in the public school system
almost immediately, and millions upon millions of their fellow believers
would also be willing to donate to the cause. But, they know it's not
science.
And, non-science treated as science is anti-science. It devalues real
science by equating it with mumbo-jumbo and empty assertion. It seeks to
*displace* science, and to teach people to accept beliefs on faith just as
if they really *were* scientifically validated.
The ultimate *goal* is the *destruction* of science and the obliteration of
reason. The ultimate goal is: The Dark Ages.
If you doubt this, I suggest you re-read Stephen's posts for the past
several months, or just a couple of Phillip Johnson's books. Try to look
below the obvious surface of his verbiage. Look for the underlying theme,
the theme that runs through all (or very nearly all) of Stephens posts or
Johnson's arguments. If this means backing up and re-reading a paragraph or
post or a chapter, so be it; you will gain an insight into demagoguery and
propaganda that'll be worth every minute spent on it.