Reflectorites
Date: 28 Aug 00 15:00:05 +0000
[...]
CH>I don't think that I did a good job of getting my point across in my last post
>so let me try again. I don't have anything against the idea of ID.
If that is the case, then Cliff sure does gives a good imitation of it! The fact is
that if Cliff is truly a Darwinist, then he would *have* to have *everything*
"against the idea of ID" because if ID were true, then Darwinism, as a
general theory, would be false.
CH>In fact, I
>can't help but believe that the universe was created by some supernatural
>deity.
Cliff was introduced to this List by Susan as a Christian. In fact Cliff, in his
Metaviews response to Dembksi implied that he was "a good Christian":
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[...]
Finally, I would like to state that as an instructor in the Biology department
at Baylor University, I teach that all living things evolve, that Darwin's
Theory of Natural Selection is our best explanation for how things evolve,
that there are flaws in his theory that need to be addressed, and that it is
possible to be a good Christian and a good scientist, despite the Intelligent
Design Creationists' attempts to polarize the two ways of living.
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So I presume that this "some supernatural deity" that Cliff believes "the
universe was created by" is in fact the Christian God?
CH>But, that is my belief based upon faith with no scientific data to
>support it.
It is a tautology to speak of a "belief based upon faith". If Cliff has a
"belief" it must be based on *evidence*.
And if Cliff has a belief in creation by "some supernatural deity", based on
the evidence of nature, then Cliff has made a design inference.
And it is a "scientific" inference, even if not formulated rigorously. It is the
task of the ID movement to give scientific rigour to such design inferences.
CH>I would be thrilled if the basic hypothesis of ID was shown to
>be scientifically valid.
Not if Cliff wants to be a consistent Darwinist he wouldn't be. Darwinism is
the claim that a "mindless procedure could produce design without a
designer":
"Darwin did not have the benefit of our modern concept of an
algorithm, nor our tendency to look at everything from fundamental
physical presses to life itself in terms of information ... Yet he saw
how this mindless procedure could produce design without a
designer. It was the American philosopher Daniel Dennett who
dubbed the process "the evolutionary algorithm".(Blackmore S.,
"Meme, Myself, I," New Scientist, Vol. 161, No. 2177, 13 March
1999, p.40)
"All this apparent design has come about without a designer. No
purpose, no goals, no blueprints. Natural selection is simply about
genes replicating themselves down the generations. Genes that build
bodies that do what's needed-seeing, running, digesting, mating-get
replicated; and those that don't, don't." (Cronin H., "The Evolution
of Evolution," TIME, Summer 1997/98, p.80).
CH>However, that is not what the leaders of the ID movement are engaged in.
>They call ID science, but refuse to hold to the standards of science.
What does Cliff think Mike Behe's irreducible complexity hypothesis
is? He has proposed it as a testable, falsifiable hypothesis, and
his scientific critics have in fact subjected it to scientific
criticism:
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http://www.discovery.org/embeddedRecentArticles.php3?id=445
Philosophical Objections to Intelligent Design: Response to Critics
Michael J. Behe Discovery Institute July 31, 2000
[...]
In fact, my argument for intelligent design is open to direct experimental
rebuttal. Here is a thought experiment that makes the point clear. In
Darwin's Black Box (Behe 1996) I claimed that the bacterial flagellum was
irreducibly complex and so required deliberate intelligent design. The flip
side of this claim is that the flagellum can't be produced by natural
selection acting on random mutation, or any other unintelligent process. To
falsify such a claim, a scientist could go into the laboratory, place a
bacterial species lacking a flagellum under some selective pressure (for
mobility, say), grow it for ten thousand generations, and see if a flagellum-
or any equally complex system--was produced. If that happened, my claims
would be neatly disproven.(1)
How about Professor Coyne's concern that, if one system were shown to
be the result of natural selection, proponents of ID could just claim that
some other system was designed? I think the objection has little force. If
natural selection were shown to be capable of producing a system of a
certain degree of complexity, then the assumption would be that it could
produce any other system of an equal or lesser degree of complexity. If
Coyne demonstrated that the flagellum (which requires approximately forty
gene products) could be produced by selection, I would be rather foolish to
then assert that the blood clotting system (which consists of about twenty
proteins) required intelligent design.
Let's turn the tables and ask, how could one falsify the claim that, say, the
bacterial flagellum was produced by Darwinian processes? (Professor
Coyne's remarks about a Precambrian fossil hominid are irrelevant since I
dispute the mechanism of natural selection, not common descent. I would
no more expect to find a fossil hominid out of sequence than he would.) If
a scientist went into the laboratory and grew a flagellumless bacterial
species under selective pressure for many generations and nothing much
happened, would Darwinists be convinced that natural selection is
incapable of producing a flagellum? I doubt it. It could always be claimed
that the selective pressure wasn't the right one, or that we started with the
wrong bacterial species, and so on. Even if the experiment were repeated
many times under different conditions and always gave a negative result, I
suspect many Darwinists would not conclude that the claim of its
Darwinian evolution was falsified. Of complex biochemical systems Coyne
himself writes "we may forever be unable to envisage the first proto-
pathways. It is not valid, however, to assume that, because one man cannot
imagine such pathways, they could not have existed." (Coyne 1996) If a
person accepts Darwinian paths which are not only unseen, but which we
may be forever unable to envisage, then it is effectively impossible to make
him think he is wrong.
[...]
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CH>Basically, the purpose of the movement is to get rid of naturalistic science.
No. "the purpose of the movement is to" separate "naturalistic"
*philosophy* from "science".
Cliff probably thinks that "science" *is* just applied "naturalistic"
philosophy" or maybe he doesn't even realise that modern science is based
on a philosophy that is itself outside of science?
CH>I would say that they are trying to prevent others from speaking out in
>opposition.
How exactly are they doing that (even if they wanted to-which they don't)?
It is the *Darwinists* who are in power and have the full support of the
government, the law, the educational authorities, the scientific journals and
the mainstream media.
CH>The leaders will say that ID is a scientific enterprise, but then
>have a meeting with congressmen to get ID taught in the classroom. This
>is not how scientists operate.
Is Cliff trying to claim that mainstream science does not give briefings
to Congressmen? And what exactly is wrong, in a democracy, with briefing
Congressmen?
CH>There is nothing 'McCarthyistic' about my views. This is the first time that
>I am aware of that people are being opposed not for what they have done,
>but for what they won't do.
Berthajane later acknowledged that this was a poor choice of words,
but what she meant by 'McCarthyistic' is Cliff's `guilt by association'
argument that because "Johnson, Dembski, Meyer, Pearce...are
... evangelical Christians" that "should give it away", i.e. that the
ID movement is just a creationist front.
CH>IDers say that they have empirical data to back
>up their claims, but have refused to make it public (I know because we've
>asked for it).
What does Cliff think Darwin's Black Box is and Behe's irreducible
complexity claims on his ARN web pages are - chopped liver? Other
scientists like Jerry Coyne have no problem finding it and critiquing
it.
CH>IDers say what they are doing is science, but refuse to pass
>simple scientific experiments that would test the detection of design (I
>know because I've posed them before).
There is no requirement in science that researchers need to pass other
people's tests, especially if it is testing claims they are not making.
ID researchers like Behe have proposed tests of irreducible complexity for
several molecular biological systems. If Cliff wants to falsify them, he can
try.
CH>You should go to the ARN website. It is not opponents to ID that have
>brought up the space alien scenario, it is the IDers that use it to respond to
>the notion of God as the designer.
I have explained the context of that in Behe's Darwin's Black Box. There
Behe was pointing out that the detection of design would not compel belief
that the design was caused by a supernatural Designer. He says that
"persons with philosophical commitments against the supernatural" (p.248)
would be able to posit a number of alternatives, including Directed
Panspermia and time-travel. Behe was not saying that any IDers would
claim this, although they could.
CH>Behe, Meyer, and Dembski have all said
>that ID doesn't make any claims on the nature of the designer and that ID
>is not all about God.
That is correct. ID is about detecting *design* not about making claims
about "the nature of the designer", e.g. that it was "God".
There is simply *no way* that ID can, by its methods, like the Explanatory
Filter, or Irreducible Complexity, do any more than detect *design*.
It is up to philosophy and theology to take it further and make "claims on
the nature of the designer" e.g. that it was "God".
CH>There are others on the website that use the same
>claim. However, Behe, Meyer, and Dembski have all made statements
>(Dembski even gave a summer seminar) that shows that they believe the
>designer is the Christian God.
Cliff seems unable to grasp this quite simple point. Those IDers who are
Christians *believe* that "the designer is the Christian God". But they
cannot *prove* that "the designer is the Christian God". All that they can
do as IDers is try to prove that there is *design*.
CH>I would love to see some real scientific research on intelligent design
>being conducted without the huge sociopolitical agenda of the Discovery
>Institute.
Well, "the Discovery Institute" don't have a monopoly on "scientific
research on intelligent design."
If Cliff would *really* "love to see some real scientific research on
intelligent design being conducted" and if he "would be thrilled if the basic
hypothesis of ID was shown to be scientifically valid" then Cliff himself
could start his own ID research.
CH>But, until the agenda is dropped, I cannot (will not) accept the ID
>movement.
Cliff is perfectly free to "not ...accept the ID movement" I am sure with
the ID movement's blessing. I have said before that the ID movement
does not need to convince committed Darwinists of design (that
probably cannot be done), but they only need to convince a large
part of the majority of the general public who already believe in
design.
CH>I just don't like being lied to (and yes, they have lied to me).
I have commented before on this List how easily evolutionists assume
that their creationist / IDer opponents are not merely intellectually in
error (i.e. wrong) but are also *morally* in error (i.e. "lied").
A system of thought that was secure in the truth of its case would
not need to do this. What other mainstream scientific discipline needs
to label its opponents as "gnorant, stupid or insane ... or wicked":
"It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims
not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane
(or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that)." (Dawkins R., "Put
Your Money on Evolution," Review of Johanson D. & Edey M.A.,
"Blueprints: Solving the Mystery of Evolution," in New York
Times, April 9, 1989, sec. 7, p.34)
[...]
Steve
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"Gradualists and saltationists alike are completely incapable of giving a
convincing explanation of the quasi-simultaneous emergence of a number
of biological systems that distinguish human beings from the higher
primates: bipedalism, with the concomitant modification of the pelvis, and,
without a doubt, the cerebellum, a much more dexterous hand, with
fingerprints conferring an especially fine tactile sense; the modifications of
the pharynx which permits phonation; the modification of the central
nervous system, notably at the level of the temporal lobes, permitting the
specific recognition of speech. From the point of view of embryogenesis,
these anatomical systems are completely different from one another. Each
modification constitutes a gift, a bequest from a primate family to its
descendants. It is astonishing that these gifts should have developed
simultaneously. Some biologists speak of a predisposition of the genome.
Can anyone actually recover the predisposition, supposing that it actually
existed? Was it present in the first of the fish? The reality is that we are
confronted with total conceptual bankruptcy." (Schutzenberger M-P, "The
Miracles of Darwinism: Interview with Marcel-Paul Schutzenberger,"
Origins & Design, Vol. 17, No. 2, Spring 1996, pp.10-15.
http://www.arn.org/docs/odesign/od172/schutz172.htm)
Stephen E. Jones | sejones@iinet.net.au | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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