Reflectorites
I apologise for this being late.
On Mon, 27 Nov 2000 16:56:43 -0600, Susan Cogan wrote:
>SC>Dembski:
>SJ>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.
SC>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?
I don't know about physics. But in the area of evolution, it was Darwin's
"primary object to `undermine confidence' in" creation and he actually said
so:
"...in the earlier editions of my 'Origin of Species' I perhaps
attributed too much to the action of natural selection or the survival
of the fittest. ... I may be permitted to say, as some excuse, that I
had two distinct objects in view; firstly, to shew that species had
not been separately created, and secondly, that natural selection had
been the chief agent of change, though largely aided by the
inherited effects of habit, and slightly by the direct action of the
surrounding conditions. ... Some of those who admit the principle
of evolution, but reject natural selection, seem to forget, when
criticising my book, that I had the above two objects in view; hence
if I have erred in giving to natural selection great power, which I
am very far from admitting, or in having exaggerated its power,
which is in itself probable, I have at least as I hope, done good
service in aiding to overthrow the dogma of separate creations."
(Darwin C.R, "The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to
Sex," [1871], bound in one volume with "The Origin of Species",
nd., pp.441-442)
Note that Darwin says his *primary* goal was religious (i.e. anti-creation)
and his secondary goal was scientific (i.e. natural selection).
SC>Wein and Elsberry
>both have pretty good scientific credentials.
Wesley AFAIK has a BSc in Zoology, which is just a basic scientific
credential. But Richard hasn't any scientific credentials at all, since AFAIK
he only has a BSc in Statistics and Operations Research.
SC>I wonder how many
>scientists refer to their critics as "stalkers"?
Actually evolutionist Robert Wright was described by as Gould's "stalker":
-------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.newyorkmag.com/page.cfm?page_id=1931
New York Magazine
February 14, 2000
[...]
Look Who's Stalking
The ugly feud between pop paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould and science
writer Robert Wright has been simmering for ten years now -- except
somebody forgot to tell Gould.
BY ETHAN SMITH
In a 25-year career as a successful public intellectual, Stephen Jay Gould
has accrued nearly all the trappings of celebrity: a new loft in SoHo, tenure
at Harvard, a gig at NYU, book sales totaling in the millions (his twentieth
title, The Living Stones of Marrakech, comes out next month), not to
mention a schedule that takes him to London, Paris, or L.A. almost weekly.
Not bad for a college professor. But recently, he's picked up one of the less
desirable accoutrements of fame. The graying, 58-year-old Queens native
has become the first paleontologist in history with his own stalker -- albeit
an intellectual one.
Last December, The New Yorker printed a 5,000-word essay, "The
Accidental Creationist," with the subtitle "Why Stephen Jay Gould Is Bad
for Evolution." The writer, Robert Wright, openly mocked Gould's
credibility as a scientist and spokesman for evolution. In fact, Wright, a
well-connected D.C. journalist, called his subject an unwitting accomplice
in the fundamentalist crusade against science. The piece accused Gould of
the ultimate heresy among evolutionists: offering succor to religious zealots
who want to remove Darwin from the schools. It was a foolish and
outrageous claim, and even Gould's enemies were taken aback.
[...]
-------------------------------------------------------------
I gather that Wesley and particularly Richard, have made it their mission to
follow Dembski around (as it were) and criticise him at every opportunity.
In the case of real-world stalking I presume a major part of the criteria is if
the person on the receiving end feels he/she is being stalked. In this case
Dembski clearly feels he is being stalked by Wesley and Richard and so he
has a right to point this out.
SC>Talking with people
>who don't agree with you can cause you to sharpen your methods or
>account for weakness in your hypothesis.
In the case of Wesley this may be the case. But I doubt if this is the case
with Richard, unless the "where is the calculation?" argument is original
with Richard.
SC>Such discussions are usually
>welcome--but *only* if you are doing science.
Dembski is not objecting to "discussions". He is objecting to being
`stalked'!
SC>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).
At least Susan is considering the possibility!
SC>Will that make Lucy's skeleton disappear?
No. The hard facts, including "Lucy's skeleton" are accepted by
*everyone* even the YECs.
SC>Will it
>cause all the thousands of observations of mutation and selection
>vanish?
If they are actually "*observations* of mutation and selection", then no.
But AFAIK there has never been even *one* "observation ... of mutation
and selection". Mutations are AFAIK *never* actually observed. They are
inferred when a phenotypical change is observed.
SC>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.
I've got news for Susan. Science is open-ended. If new "data" is
established, then all the other "data" must give way to make room for it.
If "Dembski is successful in proving that, at least sometimes, some things
are intelligently designed" then science will have to accommodate that new
fact, and those scientific theories (e.g. Darwinism) which assumed that
nothing in nature was really intelligently designed, will have to be replaced
or modified.
Susan clearly does not realise what a paradigm shift it will be if it is
discovered there is real design in nature after all. It will be bigger than
making contact with an extraterrestrial civilisation.
SC>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.
Agreed. I accept common ancestry. But ID has nothing against common
ancestry. Mike Behe is one of the leaders if the ID Movement and he
accepts common ancestry:
"Further, I find the idea of common descent (that all organisms
share a common ancestor) fairly convincing, and have no particular
reason to doubt it." (Behe M.J., "Darwin's Black Box," 1996, p.5)
SC>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.
One could say that about any origins event. The Big Bang is the ultimate "
brick wall with `so there!' written on it":
"Consider the enormity of the problem. Science has proven that the
Universe exploded into being at a certain moment. It asks, What
cause produced this effect? Who or what put the matter and energy
into the Universe? Was the Universe created out of nothing, or was
it gathered together out of preexisting materials? And science
cannot answer these questions because, according to the
astronomers, in the first moments of its existence the Universe was
compressed to an extraordinary degree, and consumed by the heat
of a fire beyond human imagination. The shock of that instant must
have destroyed every particle of evidence that could have yielded a
clue to the cause of the great explosion. An entire world, rich in
structure and history, may have existed before our Universe
appeared; but if it did, science cannot tell what kind of world it was.
A sound explanation may exist for the explosive birth of our
Universe; but if it does, science cannot find out what the
explanation is. The scientist's pursuit of the past ends in the moment
of creation. This is an exceedingly strange development,
unexpected by all but the theologians. They have always accepted
the word of the Bible: In the beginning God created heaven and
earth. ... The development is unexpected because science has had
such extraordinary success in tracing the chain of cause and effect
backward in time. We have been able to connect the appearance of
man on this planet to the crossing of the threshold of life on the
earth, the manufacture of the chemical ingredients of life within
stars that have long since expired, the formation of those stars out
of the primal mists, and the expansion and cooling of the parent
cloud of gases out of the cosmic fireball. Now we would like to
pursue that inquiry farther back in time, but the barrier to further
progress seems insurmountable. It is not a matter of another year,
another decade of work, another measurement, or another theory;
at this moment it seems as though science will never be able to raise
the curtain on the mystery of creation. For the scientist who has
lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad
dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to
conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he
is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for
centuries." (Jastrow R., "God and the Astronomers," pp.106-107).
The overriding question is not: "What kind of ... knowledge will Dembski's
success bring us?" but whether it is *true*.
Personally I think the empirical detection of real design in nature will be the
greatest shot in the arm for science imaginable. Thinkers like John Horgan
are already forecasting the end of science under the current materialist-
naturalist paradigm:
"Given these troubling issues, it is no wonder that many scientists
whom I interviewed for this book seemed gripped by a profound
unease. But their malaise, I will argue, has another, much more
immediate cause. *If one believes in science*, one must accept the
possibility-even the probability-that the great era of scientific
discovery is over. By science I mean not applied science, but
science at its purest and grandest, the primordial human quest to
understand the universe and our place in it. Further research may
yield no more great revelations or revolutions, but only incremental,
diminishing returns." (Horgan J., "The End of Science: Facing the
Limits of Knowledge in the Twilight of the Scientific Age," 1997,
p.6. Emphasis in original.)
SC>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.
Dembski and IDists don't want so much "to undermine confidence in the
power of natural selection" but to demonstrate Darwinist *over*-
"confidence in the power of natural selection"! The reason for this is that
Darwinism claims to be the *only* naturalistic solution, even in principle,
to the problem of design:
"More, I want to persuade the reader, not just that the Darwinian
world-view happens to be true, but that it is the only known theory
that could, in principle, solve the mystery of our existence. ... A
good case can be made that Darwinism is true, not just on this
planet but all over the universe wherever life may be found."
(Dawkins R., "The Blind Watchmaker," 1991, p.xiv)
"The Darwinian theory is in principle capable of explaining life. No
other theory that has ever been suggested is in principle capable of
explaining life." (Dawkins, 1991, p288).
"In short, divine creation, whether instantaneous or in the form of
guided evolution, joins the list of other theories we have considered
in this chapter. All give some superficial appearance of being
alternatives to Darwinism, whose merits might be tested by an
appeal to evidence. All turn out, on closer inspection, not to be
rivals of Darwinism at all. The theory of evolution by cumulative
natural selection is the only theory we know of that is in principle
capable of explaining the existence of organized complexity. Even if
the evidence did not favour it, it would still be the best theory
available! ... Cumulative selection, by slow and gradual degrees, is
the explanation, the only workable explanation that has ever been
proposed, for the existence of life's complex design." (Dawkins,
1991, p.317)
So a necessary part of the ID program is to show that random mutation
and natural selection do not have the "power" that Darwinists ascribe to it.
SC>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.
No one doubts that so-called "natural selection", which is really just
differential survival and reproduction:
"Natural selection ... is no more than a statistical measure of the
difference in survival or reproduction among entities that differ in
one or more characteristics, Selection is not caused by differential
survival and reproduction; it *is* differential survival and
reproduction, and no more." (Futuyma D.J., "Evolutionary
Biology," 1986, p.7. Emphasis in original.)
"*does* have power-". Even YECs will admit that:
"Take the famous example of "Darwin's finches". On the Galapagos
Islands about 600 miles west of Ecuador, Darwin observed a
variety of finches, some with small beaks for catching insects,
others with large beaks for crushing seeds, and one with the ability
to use spines to pry insects from their burrows. How did Darwin
explain the "origin" of these various finches? Exactly the same way
a creationist would. He saw finches with variation in beak type on
the South American mainland and presumed these finches may have
reached the islands on a vegetation mat or something similar. The
ones with seed-crushing beaks survived where seeds were the major
food source, and those with insect-catching beaks out-reproduced
others where insects were the major source of food. Given finches
with a variety of beak types, then, natural selection helps us to
explain how and where different varieties survive as they multiply
and fill the earth. That, of course, is just what a creationist would
say. Natural selection works great-it helps us explain how and
where traits survive-if you have adapted or adaptable traits to start
with." (Parker G.E., "Creation: the Facts of Life," 1980, pp.55-57)
What ID / creationists (and secular anti-Darwinians too) claim is that
Darwinists have greatly overestimated that "power".
Indeed, the way some Darwinists talk about "natural selection", it sounds
like it is their omnipotent deity, as it was for Darwin:
"Not that he was above exploiting Gray's providential defence of
'my deity "Natural Selection".' " (Desmond A. & Moore J.,
"Darwin," 1992, p.502)
SC>Dembski wants to "destroy
>Darwinism" and destroying Darwinism is a different project from
>doing science and adding to mankind's knowledge.
No. If Darwinism claims to be scientific, and to have refuted design, then it
should *welcome* attempts by design theorists to "destroy" (i.e. falsify) it.
Susan's attempt to protect Darwinism from such destruction, by attacking
the critics and ruling out of bounds their attempts at falsification, show that
to Susan (and others who do likewise), Darwinism functions as a
*religion*:
"I still remember arguing in the Arkansas court house with one of
the most prominent of the literalists (now generally known as
creationists). Duane T. Gish, author of the best-selling work,
"Evolution: The Fossils Say No!," resented bitterly what he felt was
an unwarranted smug superiority assumed by us from the side of
science. "Dr Ruse," Mr. Gish said, "the trouble with you
evolutionists is that you just don't play fair. You want to stop us
religious people from teaching our views in schools. But you
evolutionists are just as religious in your way. Christianity tells us
where we came from, where we're going, and what we should do
on the way. I defy you to show any difference with evolution. It
tells you where you came from, where you are going, and what you
should do on the way. You evolutionists have your God, and his
name is Charles Darwin." At the time I rather pooh-poohed what
Mr. Gish said, but I found myself thinking about his words on the
flight back home. And I have been thinking about them ever since.
Indeed, they have guided much of my research for the past twenty
years. Heretical though it may be to say this -- and many of my
scientist friends would be only too happy to chain me to the stake
and to light the faggots piled around -- I now think the Creationists
like Mr. Gish are absolutely right in their complaint. Evolution is
promoted by its practitioners as more than mere science. Evolution
is promulgated as an ideology, a secular religion -- a full-fledged
alternative to Christianity, with meaning and morality. I am an
ardent evolutionist and an ex-Christian, but I must admit that in this
one complaint -- and Mr. Gish is but one of many to make it -- the
literalists are absolutely right. Evolution is a religion. This was true
of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still today."
(Ruse M., "How evolution became a religion," National Post, May
13, 2000.
http://www.nationalpost.com/artslife.asp?f=000513/288424)
[...]
Steve
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"Darwin wrote to Asa Gray in 1860. - `The eye to this day gives me a cold
shudder, but when I think of the fine known gradation my reason tells me I
ought to conquer the odd shudder.'" (Darwin C.R., letter to Asa Gray,
February 1860, in Darwin F., ed., "The Life of Charles Darwin," [1902],
Senate: London, 1995, reprint, p.208)
Stephen E. Jones | Ph. +61 8 9448 7439 | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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