>Dembski:
>Criticism [of Darwinism], however, is never enough. I'm fond of quoting the
>statement by Napoleon III that one never destroys a thing until one
>has replaced it. Although it is not a requirement of logic that
>scientific theories can only be rejected once a better alternative
>has been found, this does seem to be a fact about the sociology of
>science -- to wit, scientific theories give way not to criticism but
>to new, improved theories. Concerted criticism of Darwinism within
>the growing community of design theorists was therefore only the
>first step. To be sure, it was a necessary first step since
>confidence in Darwinism and especially the power of natural selection
>needed first to be undermined before people could take seriously the
>need for an alternative theory (this is entirely in line with Thomas
>Kuhn's stages in a scientific revolution). Once that confidence was
>undermined, the next step was to develop a positive scientific
>research program as an alternative to Darwinism and more generally to
>naturalistic approaches to the origin and subsequent development of
>life.
I read this and I wonder: Was it Einstein's primary object to
"undermine confidence" in Newtonian physics? Was it his primary
objective to destroy Newtonian physics? Was it the primary object of
quantum mechanics to destroy general relativity? Wein and Elsberry
both have pretty good scientific credentials. I wonder how many
scientists refer to their critics as "stalkers"? Talking with people
who don't agree with you can cause you to sharpen your methods or
account for weakness in your hypothesis. Such discussions are usually
welcome--but *only* if you are doing science.
What if Dembski is successful in proving that, at least sometimes,
some things are intelligently designed. (I don't think he will, but
let's suppose). Will that make Lucy's skeleton disappear? Will it
cause all the thousands of observations of mutation and selection
vanish? Nope! It will be come one datum in a very big pot. And it
will be a datum that is inconsistent with all the other data. One
thing that most scientists like to believe about the world is that it
is consistent and it makes sense.
And, still assuming that Dembski is successful, then what? The reason
that medical researchers can use rats and mice to do their
experiments and generalize to humans is because the medical
researchers believe we share common ancestry with mice and rats. So
far they have been enormously successful making that generalization.
What kind of similar knowledge will Dembski's success bring us? All I
can see is a brick wall with "so there!" written on it. But then that
is perhaps all he wishes to achieve. If Dembski and IDists wanted to
undermine confidence in the power of natural selection, they could
design and conduct experiments that show it doesn't have any power.
But they know *that's* a waste of time--there are simply too many
experiments demonstrating that it *does* have power--so actually
doing science must be avoided at all costs. Dembski wants to "destroy
Darwinism" and destroying Darwinism is a different project from
doing science and adding to mankind's knowledge.
Susan
-- ----------I am aware that the conclusions arrived at in this work will be denounced by some as highly irreligious; but he who denounces them is bound to shew why it is more irreligious to explain the origin of man as a distinct species by descent from some lower form, through the laws of variation and natural selection, than to explain the birth of the individual through the laws of ordinary reproduction.
---Charles Darwin
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