Pro-Intelligent Design Op-Ed in NY Times

[Elektrix]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/07/opinion/07behe.html?ex=1108530000&en=d66e171e5ece61fa&ei=5070

Curious what everyone's take is on this. This piece was written by:

Michael J. Behe, a professor of biological sciences at Lehigh University and a senior fellow with the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, is the author of "Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution."

-Elektrix

[Ipecac]

Nothing new here.

"Things are complicated. Therefore they must have been designed."

He assumes that complexity has to be the result of intelligence but doesn't offer any evidence. Just tries to poke holes in evolution.

[Elektrix]

Originally posted by Ipecac
Nothing new here.

"Things are complicated. Therefore they must have been designed."

He assumes that complexity has to be the result of intelligence but doesn't offer any evidence. Just tries to poke holes in evolution.

Yeah. Just curious if anyone has any more specific refutations of the specific things in this editorial. A creationist friend of mine sent this to me and I am sure he's going to want to debate it.

-Elektrix

[Yaotl]

The next claim in the argument for design is that we have no good explanation for the foundation of life that doesn't involve intelligence.

The fourth claim in the design argument is also controversial: in the absence of any convincing non-design explanation, we are justified in thinking that real intelligent design was involved in life.

They both sound like "I don't believe you, so you're wrong."

[Elektrix]

Originally posted by Yaotl
They both sound like "I don't believe you, so you're wrong."

Are there any other logical fallacies at play here? I'm not sure, but it sounds like sort of an argument from ignorance (or maybe the inverse of that..... arguing that because we don't know how something could have happened without a designer, it must have happened with a designer). I can't put my finger on it, but it seems like there is some aspect of arguing that the design must be true because there is no other logical explanation for how such complex things came to be.

-Elektrix

[drkitten]

Originally posted by Elektrix
Yeah. Just curious if anyone has any more specific refutations of the specific things in this editorial. A creationist friend of mine sent this to me and I am sure he's going to want to debate it.


Just that I noticed quickly:

Behe's claim that ID is not a religiously-based idea is a flat-out lie; see the infamous "Wedge document" (published by the Discovery institute, where he is a senior fellow) for refutation. (Sample quote: "Discovery Institute's Center... wants to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions.")

His four linked claims are simply gibberish.

First : "we can often recognize the effects of design in nature. For example, unintelligent physical forces like plate tectonics and erosion seem quite sufficient to account for the origin of the Rocky Mountains. Yet they are not enough to explain Mount Rushmore." Unfortunately, we can also often mis-recognize the effects of nature as design (and vice versa); see New Hampshire's Old Man of the Mountan for a rebuttal on one side, and the various Leakey artefacts for another.

Second: "the physical marks of design are visible in aspects of biology." This is simply wrong, and quoting 18th century clergymen doesn't make them so. Since we can't reliably recognize "design" when we see it, this entire point is little more than a restatement of the first fallacy.

Third: "we have no good explanation for the foundation of life that doesn't involve intelligence." This is wrong at two levels. First, we have several good explanations, but none that have been overwhelmingly proven to the satisfaction of the majority of scientists, which is why albiogenesis is still an active research area. Second, albiogenesis is not evolution; evolution (which in its core claims is simply "descent with modification, driven partially by natural selection") only deals with changes to life once it has begun. So he's erected a straw man and then misrepresented what we do know about the straw man.

Fourth, "in the absence of any convincing non-design explanation, we are justified in thinking that real intelligent design was involved in life." This is simply an argument from ignorance. I could identically say "in the absence of any convincing non-fairy explanation, we are justifying in thinking that fairies were involved in life."

Misrepresentation of current scientific beliefs and argument from ignorance. Classic ID.

[Rolfe]

I think there is an element here of people who know they were told so often in science class that left to themselves things will always tend to become more disorganised (and indeed in day to day experience we observe that this is the case), when suddenly they're told to believe that the most extremely ordered structures we know about came about by chance, there's a "huh?" factor.

Maybe to ancient Babylonians were on to something after all....

Rolfe.

[Elektrix]

Awesome, thanks Dr. Kitten!

[wollery]

For my mind he's totally shot himself in the foot by admitting that evolution can and has occurred. If you admit that, then you must concede that it could have occured all the way from protobacteria, and then there's little room for ID. All that's left for the designer is abiogenesis, and almost all of your ID arguments are rendered useless, because protobacteria are, by definition, not very complex.

[Matabiri]

Originally posted by Elektrix
Are there any other logical fallacies at play here? I'm not sure, but it sounds like sort of an argument from ignorance

I call it "argument from personal incredulity", but I don't know if it has a better name...

Basically, "I can't believe/understand this, so it must be wrong."

[Brown]

The first claim is uncontroversial: we can often recognize the effects of design in nature. For example, unintelligent physical forces like plate tectonics and erosion seem quite sufficient to account for the origin of the Rocky Mountains. Yet they are not enough to explain Mount Rushmore.

Of course, we know who is responsible for Mount Rushmore, but even someone who had never heard of the monument could recognize it as designed. Which leads to the second claim of the intelligent design argument: the physical marks of design are visible in aspects of biology. This is uncontroversial, too. What a curious use of the word "uncontroversial," and what a deliberate abuse of the word "design." If one uses the word "design" merely to imply an "arrangement," something that could come into being without intelligence, then the first two claims might be "uncontroversial." We can see and recognize that things are arranged in nature. Snowflakes and crystals are clearly symmetrically arranged, planets tend to be smooth and spherical (and their ring systems display obvious patterns), some volcanoes produce symmetrical cones, and wind can blow sand into pleasant wave-shaped patterns. These are hardly haphazard or confused structures.

But if one uses the word "design" to mean "a planned scheme," then the first two claims are far from "uncontroversial."

A typical dictionary or thesaurus lists both meanings for "design": an arrangement or pattern without the connotation of a designer, and a planned scheme or composition deliberately created by a designer. People can agree with Behe using the former definition, but Behe doesn't explain that he is really using the latter.The next claim in the argument for design is that we have no good explanation for the foundation of life that doesn't involve intelligence. Here is where thoughtful people part company. Darwinists assert that their theory can explain the appearance of design in life as the result of random mutation and natural selection acting over immense stretches of time. Some scientists, however, think the Darwinists' confidence is unjustified. They note that although natural selection can explain some aspects of biology, there are no research studies indicating that Darwinian processes can make molecular machines of the complexity we find in the cell.This is disingenuousness, pure and simple. Eugenie Scott spoke about this at length at TAM2. Behe wrongly and dishonestly equates evolution with Darwinism. The fact that scientists disagree with Darwin does not, by itself, mean that they endorse Behe's thesis. The business about "no research studies" is either wrong, or my university Biology professor was lying to me.The fourth claim in the design argument is also controversial: in the absence of any convincing non-design explanation, we are justified in thinking that real intelligent design was involved in life. To evaluate this claim, it's important to keep in mind that it is the profound appearance of design in life that everyone is laboring to explain, not the appearance of natural selection or the appearance of self-organization.

The strong appearance of design allows a disarmingly simple argument: if it looks, walks and quacks like a duck, then, absent compelling evidence to the contrary, we have warrant to conclude it's a duck. Design should not be overlooked simply because it's so obvious.The illogic of this "simple argument" is stunning. First, it assumes what it is trying to prove, saying that we should take for granted that there has been intelligent design, unless there is "convincing" or "compelling" evidence to the contrary. Second, it is fundamentally unscientific. It assumes that we should throw up our hands and conclude that there is no natural explanation, rather than learn whether such an explanation may exist. In other words, it is a waste of time to try to find any "convincing" or "compelling" evidence. Third, it sets up a false dichotomy, namely, that if Darwin was wrong in any respect, then intelligent design must be right. Fourth, the whole argument is based upon ignorance. Intelligent design is not based upon affirmative evidence of design or the existence of any designer, but upon a lack of evidence that there was no intelligent design. When someone argues that he is right because of the lack of evidence supporting his position, it is a pretty safe bet that he is dead wrong.

Behe says that intelligent design is a "rival theory" to "Darwinism" (which he dishonestly suggests is the same as evolution). What nonsense. Intelligent design is not a "theory" in the same sense as evolution. Intelligent design is not subject to test, and makes no predictions. (Based upon principles of evolution, scientists--including Darwin himself--have made predictions and have subjected the principles to test.) Moreover, the "rivalry" is only in the religious and political arenas not in the scientific arena. In science, the "rivalry" is non-existent. Peer reviewed scientific journals do not recognize any such rivalry, and the vast majority of practicing scientists do not recognize any such rivalry.

[Elektrix]

Awesome, thank you too Brown.

-Elektrix

[cbish]

Elektrix

Thumb through this site: http://www.talkdesign.org/

[Ladewig]

As others on this board have pointed out in great biological detail, calling such a Designer "intelligent" is rather absurd. If the human body was the best that He could do, then He is rather amateurish.

[headscratcher4]

Originally posted by Ladewig
As others on this board have pointed out in great biological detail, calling such a Designer "intelligent" is rather absurd. If the human body was the best that He could do, then He is rather amateurish.

Indeed, the appendix alone would seem to argue for either a very bad designer or the rediculousness of intelligent design...

[Brown]

As of this writing, the Times has not published any letters to the editor pertaining to Behe's column. There is a letter printed today in response to the stories and columns discussing reluctance by some teachers to discuss evolution. The author, a former psychology professor, argues that the effects could spread to other fields of science. He adds:But an even worse casualty would be the conceptual understanding of the scientific method, a procedure whose goal is to completely explain all of a discipline's phenomena. Creationism requires a creator and intelligent design requires an intelligent designer, both of whom intervene at any time to make an otherwise complete explanation moot.For those who wish to do so, there may be an opportunity to write a brief letter to the Times taking some pokes at Behe's arguments. List your credentials if you have them (the Times gives weight to credentials). I doubt my own credentials are sufficiently noteworthy.

My post above is way too big to be the basis for a letter to the editor. You might use an idea or two, or try a different approach. For example, you might ridicule Behe's notion that design is "obvious." That same argument was used to "prove" (for example) that the Earth is flat and that the Sun orbits the Earth.

[thatguywhojuggles]

Originally posted by Elektrix
Awesome, thank you too Brown.

-Elektrix

It's nice having a think tank at your disposal, isn't it! ;)

[SpaceFluffer]

Someone should write a rebuttal and send it to the paper.

[Psi Baba]

My questions for ID proponents would be:

Without quoting from the Bible (since Behe says " the theory of intelligent design is not a religiously based idea"):
1. What does the present design tell you about the designer?
2. Point to some other examples of this designer's work.
3. What processes did the designer employ in the creation of his designs?
4. Did the designer simply set things in motion and adandon (or step back to observe) the design, or is the designer actively continuing to design? What evidence supports your answer over the other possibility.
5. Where is the designer now?
6. Is the proposed designer natural or supernatural?

[headscratcher4]

Everyone should write...just keep in mind that unless you are a major, known scientist (like Dawins) ..the Times is unlikely to publish anything longer than 150 words (and even that's a stretch). Pick one hole and call the bluff...don't try a sweeping rebuttal that answers everyting...they won't even look at it...

[SpaceFluffer]

OK, I wasn't intending to write anything, but that article got me pissed. I'd welcome comments on the following:
Michael Behe's 'Design for Living' Op-ed that appeared on Feb 7th is misleading at best. Intelligent design is not a scientific theory, it is a religiously based idea. Even if a proponent of intelligent design accepts that evolution occurred, this does not make the idea that a creator had a hand in the process a scientific one. Intelligent design is a non-testable theory, one that cannot be rigorously examined and amended in the same way that scientific theories are. The only 'evidence' that ID has to speak of, is the 'walks like a duck, quacks like a duck - it's a duck' idea that Behe appeals to. Why should we believe that our everyday experience is a good basis for thinking about the very nature of our existence?

The analogy that Behe makes with Mount Rushmore - namely that it looks like it was designed, and we know it was, so anything else that looks designed probably is - only displays the author's misunderstanding of the basic ideas behind natural selection. The mutations that occur during the evolutionary process are indeed random, but only mutations useful to survival will tend to be carried on to the next generation. This process is highly non-random.

The human mind can be fooled, and is fooled on a regular basis. The method that science has developed is one that takes the fallability of the experimenter out of the picture, allowing the true nature of reality to shine through, unaffected by any bias or wishful-thinking on the part of the scientists. Just because most people think that life was designed doesn't make it so. Of course, if everyone were to think that life developed without a designer, that wouldn't make it so either.

The current polling numbers on belief in intelligent design simply reflect that fact that most people in this country have not been taught the scientific method adequately; if proponents of ID begin to win more courtroom battles in the future, this situation can only deteriorate.

Probably a bit long, but I felt like writing it...

[69dodge]

The strong appearance of design allows a disarmingly simple argument: if it looks, walks and quacks like a duck, then, absent compelling evidence to the contrary, we have warrant to conclude it's a duck.No. If it looks like a duck, and if we know that non-ducks don't look like ducks, then we may conclude it's a duck.

But that's the very question we're trying to answer: has the non-design process of evolution produced the living things we find around us? If it has, then life does not have the strong appearance of design; it has the strong appearance of evolution.

If we do not already know what non-design is capable of, we cannot say whether something appears to have been designed.

So the argument is quite circular.

[Jorghnassen]

Originally posted by SpaceFluffer
OK, I wasn't intending to write anything, but that article got me pissed. I'd welcome comments on the following:


Probably a bit long, but I felt like writing it...

One little comment, which you are probably going to dismiss, but anyway, I really hate it when people talk about the scientific method, like there was a unique, precise (simplistic) recipe one must perform in order to do science. Just my 2 cents...

[69dodge]

nor does it seem useful to search relentlessly for a non-design explanation of Mount RushmoreNow that's just silly. We know who (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/rushmore/peopleevents/p_carvers.html) designed Mount Rushmore. We do not know who designed life, or even whether anyone did.

Alternatively, it is useful to search for a non-design explanation of Mount Rushmore, and the explanation we've found is: people evolved and then some of them carved it.

[alfaniner]

Originally posted by Psi Baba
My questions for ID proponents would be:

Without quoting from the Bible (since Behe says " the theory of intelligent design is not a religiously based idea"):
1. What does the present design tell you about the designer?
2. Point to some other examples of this designer's work.
3. What processes did the designer employ in the creation of his designs?
4. Did the designer simply set things in motion and adandon (or step back to observe) the design, or is the designer actively continuing to design? What evidence supports your answer over the other possibility.
5. Where is the designer now?
6. Is the proposed designer natural or supernatural?

One I always wanted to ask is "What makes you think the Universe wasn't designed by a committee?"

[BillHoyt]

One has to wonder at the timing of the piece. Last time a battle like the one in Kansas was waged, the mocking laughter from other states caused a reversal and retreat from this idiocy. It looks like Behe wants to give the loonies a New York Times OpEd piece so they can all carry copies of it into the debate. See, even the Times says ID is good for you!

Meanwhile, U.S. schoolchildren keep dropping in ranking when compared with other nations. Keep 'em barefoot and pregnant, I always say. Yee-haw!

Excuse me while I toss my lunch.

[headscratcher4]

I think that we should begin a movement to insist that Lysenkoist biology be taught as well....

[hammegk]

Originally posted by alfaniner
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Psi Baba
My questions for ID proponents would be:

Without quoting from the Bible (since Behe says " the theory of intelligent design is not a religiously based idea"):
1. What does the present design tell you about the designer?
2. Point to some other examples of this designer's work.
3. What processes did the designer employ in the creation of his designs?
4. Did the designer simply set things in motion and adandon (or step back to observe) the design, or is the designer actively continuing to design? What evidence supports your answer over the other possibility.
5. Where is the designer now?
6. Is the proposed designer natural or supernatural?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

One I always wanted to ask is "What makes you think the Universe wasn't designed by a committee?"

1. Nothing
2. Reality
3. Unknown
4. Unknown
5. Location Unchanged
6. Natural

Why not? Define committee ... ;)

[Brown]

My letter to the Times:Michael Behe's February 7 column, "Design for Living," purports to answer questions about Intelligent Design, ostensibly a "rival theory" to "Darwinism." This supposed rivalry certainly isn't present in scientific circles, as peer-reviewed scientific journals don't take this "rival theory" seriously. Scientists may debate whether Darwin was right or wrong in various respects, but that does not mean that they find any merit in Behe's thesis.

Behe argues that intelligent design is obvious. Funny, the very same argument was used to support the notions that the Earth is flat and that the Sun orbits the Earth.

By asserting that it is reasonable to accept intelligent design in the absence of evidence, Behe assumes what he's trying to prove. He advocates not engaging in a fruitless search for natural explanations. He suggests that scientific principles should be determined by opinion polls. Real scientists don't do these things.The Times rules for letters are: "Letters for publication should be no longer than 150 words, must refer to an article that has appeared within the last seven days, and must include the writer's address and phone numbers." My letter has 145 words. I included my name, address and home and office phone numbers, and also my three college degrees.

[Major Billy]

Originally posted by Elektrix
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/07/opinion/07behe.html?ex=1108530000&en=d66e171e5ece61fa&ei=5070Curious what everyone's take is on this. This piece was written by: Michael J. Behe, a professor of biological sciences at Lehigh University and a senior fellow with the Discovery Institute'

I wonder, since so many red states are passing laws mandating that public schools teach "Intelligent Design", does that force schools to also teach Behe's other beliefs (http://www.arn.org/docs/behe/mb_wndfatuousfilmmaking.htm), that:

For decades folks in white coats have confidently assured the public that shunning fatty foods – bacon and eggs, butter, steak – would make for longer, healthier lives. Well, guess what? "Precisely the opposite of what we now know to be true," My advice is, beware of scientists with stirred souls! If they can go off half-cocked to give you a healthy diet, they surely will do so to give you a healthy soul. The best reaction to such overweening concern might be to enjoy the many beautiful nature scenes in "Evolution" while eating a cheeseburger.

[Dr Adequate]

Behe writes:The strong appearance of design allows a disarmingly simple argument: if it looks, walks and quacks like a duck, then, absent compelling evidence to the contrary, we have warrant to conclude it's a duck.But of course there is compelling evidence to the contrary: i.e. the fossil record, cladistic morphology, metabolism, genetics; we know perfectly well that species evolved. Any claim on Behe's part to win the debate by default is either childish or, indeed, mendacious --- for he must be dimly aware of the evidence which has so convinced scientists working in these areas.

Species, he says look like they were designed. They also look like they evolved. And if it looks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, and there is a massive amount of compelling scientific evidence that it's a duck, then it's a duck.

[davefoc]

Hi Brown,
We sat around waiting to go to dinner with you at TAM this year. It turns out you weren't going to the dinner we were and I was disappointed I didn't get to meet you.

If I had seen what you wrote about this subject I would have been even more disapointed than I was already at not getting to meet you. I thought your letter to the editor was about as good as could be done in 150 words.

Just a small personal note vaguely related to this issue:
Many years ago I wrote a computer program to play reversi. It just used a simple look ahead algorhthym plus my cut at positional evaluation after it had looked ahead about 8 layers. After I'd programmed the thing and was playing it our of the blue it made a move I would have never thought of. I felt like I was playing a creative human opponent. Of course the computer had no creativity or insight it just used a mindless highly repetetive algorythm to accomplish something that at first glance seemed to require intelligence.

[SezMe]

It was the last paragraph that had me running off to the thunder mug:

Still, some critics claim that science by definition can't accept design, while others argue that science should keep looking for another explanation in case one is out there. But we can't settle questions about reality with definitions, nor does it seem useful to search relentlessly for a non-design explanation of Mount Rushmore. Besides, whatever special restrictions scientists adopt for themselves don't bind the public, which polls show, overwhelmingly, and sensibly, thinks that life was designed. And so do many scientists who see roles for both the messiness of evolution and the elegance of design.

He is implicitly aguing that science ideas can be judged by public polls. This part is also confirming evidence that this piece was written to help at the school board fight level.

Also, note the opprobrium he heaps on evolution by calling it messy while design is said to elegant. IOW, us IDers are fighting for truth AND beauty.

Personally, I think the concept of evolution and the many insights it brings to understanding our world is absolutely beautiful and inspiring. I find ID to be, well, sterile at best.

[Ladewig]

I sometimes wonder how all the IDers would react if a science teacher forced to include ID in a public school ciriculum said, "ID is based on the idea that everything is too complex to have arisen from natural methods; if everything really is that complex, then it must be too complex for a single designer, therefore it must have been designed by a group of designers." I cannot imagine IDers reacting well to that concept.

[Psi Baba]

Originally posted by Jorghnassen
One little comment, which you are probably going to dismiss, but anyway, I really hate it when people talk about the scientific method, like there was a unique, precise (simplistic) recipe one must perform in order to do science. Just my 2 cents...
APPENDIX E: Introduction to the Scientific Method (http://teacher.nsrl.rochester.edu/phy_labs/AppendixE/AppendixE.html)
I. The scientific method has four steps

1. Observation and description of a phenomenon or group of phenomena.

2. Formulation of an hypothesis to explain the phenomena. In physics, the hypothesis often takes the form of a causal mechanism or a mathematical relation.

3. Use of the hypothesis to predict the existence of other phenomena, or to predict quantitatively the results of new observations.

4. Performance of experimental tests of the predictions by several independent experimenters and properly performed experiments.

If the experiments bear out the hypothesis it may come to be regarded as a theory or law of nature (more on the concepts of hypothesis, model, theory and law below). If the experiments do not bear out the hypothesis, it must be rejected or modified. What is key in the description of the scientific method just given is the predictive power (the ability to get more out of the theory than you put in; see Barrow, 1991) of the hypothesis or theory, as tested by experiment. It is often said in science that theories can never be proved, only disproved. There is always the possibility that a new observation or a new experiment will conflict with a long-standing theory.

[Brown]

Originally posted by davefoc
Hi Brown,
We sat around waiting to go to dinner with you at TAM this year. It turns out you weren't going to the dinner we were and I was disappointed I didn't get to meet you.I am sorry I disappointed. My apologies! Were you looking for me on Monday, by any chance? I was very sick that day and spent the entire day in my hotel room.

I note that the New York Times web site today includes eight letters in response to Behe's column. Some highlights:For me, the telling point is that the proponents of design cannot answer how it was supposed to have happened. Was it from divine intervention, visits by space aliens, magic?

Design will be a real science when we have testable answers for these questions.But the doctrine of intelligent design does not produce falsifiable (or disprovable) statements that are susceptible to testing. This rigorous testing process is the central element of the modern scientific method.I must have missed the concept of "if it looks, walks and quacks like a duck, then, absent compelling evidence to the contrary, we have warrant to conclude it's a duck" in my studies of the scientific method.A century ago, the astronomer Percival Lowell described water-filled canals on Mars for the same reason. When confronted with the unknown, we first perceive it in terms of the known. Perception, however, does not make it so.He hastens to say that intelligent design says nothing about the religious concept of a creator.

But the designer, whoever she may be, must surely be infinitely more complex than the products of her creations.

One then wonders who designed the designer. And that line of questioning never ends.

[Jorghnassen]

Originally posted by Psi Baba
APPENDIX E: Introduction to the Scientific Method (http://teacher.nsrl.rochester.edu/phy_labs/AppendixE/AppendixE.html)

4 steps? Interesting, the following site says there's 11 major stages:

http://www.scientificmethod.com/b_body.html

Obviously at least one must be wrong...

OK, I won't bother pointing to the wikipedia link on scientific method mentioning the problems of trying to reduce the scientific process to a single recipe, or the paper by William McComas (a pretty interesting read) on misconceptions about science. But I really think it's a shame that so few people, even amongst scientists, ever touch the subject of philosophy of science.

You know, the scientific method I learned in high school had perhaps the most insightful first step which I haven't seen in any other "scientific method" description. I'll let you guess what that first step was...

[Psi Baba]

Originally posted by Jorghnassen
4 steps? Interesting, the following site says there's 11 major stages:

http://www.scientificmethod.com/b_body.html

Obviously at least one must be wrong...


I wouldn't say that either one is wrong, just that they break it down in different ways, but the point is that yes there is a precise process that one can or should follow to acquire knowledge in way that can be labeled science. In fact, the site you linked to basically says so:
The research process is not just a collection of miscellaneous "scientific methods." Scientists and other researchers do not proceed in a haphazard fashion. Centuries of trial and error, research, discussions and debates have led to a realization of the general pattern of the scientific method.

The word "method" in the term, "the scientific method," is a collective term for the stages.
Then there is this (bolding mine):
These are included in the SM-14 formula as ingredients rather than stages to help people understand "the method" and as an aid to teaching it to students and others.
Ingredients? So it really is a recipe after all! :)

BTW, that's a cool site. I've bookmarked it. Thanks.

[Jorghnassen]

Psi Baba, I'm glad you liked that link, here's a few more, I hope you like them too:

(Take a look at myth 4 in particular):

http://www.usc.edu/dept/education/science-edu/Myths%20of%20Science.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method

From the above, emphasis mine:

Attempts to systematise the scientific method were faced with the Problem of induction, which points out that inductive reasoning is not logically valid. David Hume set the difficulty out in detail. Karl Popper, following others, argued that a hypothesis must be falsifiable: that is, it must be capable of disproof. Difficulties with this have led to the rejection of the very idea that there is a single method that is universally applicable to all the sciences, and that serves to distinguish science from non-science.


http://dharma-haven.org/science/myth-of-scientific-method.htm

I might just be sodomizing flies (yes, I know this isn't an expression in English), but the point is that scientific progress achieved by repeatedly following a simplistic recipe. Anyway, I'll stop nitpicking now.

[nelsondogg]

ID is just bizarre. How did stuff get designed in the first place? In a labratory of some sort? Where was this place? Why no physical evidence of this designer(s)? Did they stick around or keep coming back to add things? Are they still designing more stuff? If not why did they design anything in the first place? Are they going to come back and eat us or something? Are we emergency rations of some sort?

[T'ai Chi]

Originally posted by BillHoyt
Meanwhile, U.S. schoolchildren keep dropping in ranking when compared with other nations.


Data?


Keep 'em barefoot and pregnant, I always say. Yee-haw!


Or in strip clubs...

[T'ai Chi]

Originally posted by Psi Baba

1. What does the present design tell you about the designer?
2. Point to some other examples of this designer's work.
3. What processes did the designer employ in the creation of his designs?
4. Did the designer simply set things in motion and adandon (or step back to observe) the design, or is the designer actively continuing to design? What evidence supports your answer over the other possibility.
5. Where is the designer now?
6. Is the proposed designer natural or supernatural?

Let's talk SETI instead! :)

1. what do you know about aliens?
2. point to examples of what the aliens have done
3. discuss the aliens' biology
4. did aliens create us?
5. where are the aliens?
6. are the aliens natural, or supernatural?

[Art Vandelay]

Behe’s strategy seems to be to take one basic claim and split it up into four “separate� claims. This allows him to make it more difficult to disagree, because it’s difficult to decide exactly where he crosses the line from “not really right� to “definitely not right�. His entire argument, really, can be summed up in one sentence: “It looks to me like life has been designed, therefore that’s the explanation I’m going with�. The rest of the article is just an attempt to make that sound more rigorous.

First, what it isn't: the theory of intelligent design is not a religiously based idea, even though devout people opposed to the teaching of evolution cite it in their arguments. ID is firmly grounded in religious thinking, and is motivated by a desire to defend literal interpretations of religion. I have yet to see any atheist advance ID, and those that I have seen advance it appear to be markedly more fundamentalist than the general populace. If Behe cannot see the undercurrent of religion that runs through ID, it is probably because he takes it so much for granted that he does not even recognize it as religious. The very idea that intelligence requires a creator is itself closely associated with religion.

Originally posted by new drkitten
"we can often recognize the effects of design in nature. For example, unintelligent physical forces like plate tectonics and erosion seem quite sufficient to account for the origin of the Rocky Mountains. Yet they are not enough to explain Mount Rushmore." This is merely begging the question, namely "Did humans evolve through natural processes?" If the answer is "yes", then Mount Rushmore must be understood as resulting, ultimately, from natural processes. To say that Mount Rushmore cannot be accounted by natural processes simply because the proximate cause involves humans is as valid as saying that humans cannot be accounted by natural processes because the proximate cause (sex) involves humans. If we're going to allow such arguments, we might as well declare evolution to be false a priori and be done with it.

I am a naturalist. What that means to me is that "supernatural" cannot be assigned a meaningful definition, and reference to it is usually an excuse to gloss over the inability to have one's explanation conform to reality. Philip Johnson has said that naturalists refuse to accept supernatural causes, but that is a form of emphasis that grossly misrepresents the situation. It is not "If it is supernatural, then it is not a cause", but "If it is a cause, it is not supernatural". Humans are part of the natural world, therefore anything which causes them is, by definition, part of the natural world, and subject to natural laws. If one insists that their explanation for humans is not subject to natural laws, then it is not truly a cause, as the very concept of "cause" relies on the concept of natural laws. To say that a being, by performing act A, caused event B, is to claim that B would not have happened without A, and one cannot make such a statement without implying that there is some law constricting the being in question from effecting B in the absence of A.

The implicit premise behind Intelligent Design is not, as someone naively relying on the actual name of the movement might think, that intelligence was involved in the design of humans. Who in their right mind could disagree with such a trivial statement? No, what ID claims is that the hypothesis of intelligence somehow stands in opposition to naturalism, that there is somehow something unnatural about intelligence. It must therefore be understood that ID is a philosophy which disagrees with naturalism not merely with regard to the past, but also with regard to the present. According to the thinking that underlies ID, intelligence is a quality that transcends the natural world, and therefore can neither be created, nor determined, by natural processes. The inescapable conclusion is that to accept ID is to accept that humans not only were created by a supernatural being, but, by virtue of their intelligence and ability to engage in intelligent design themselves, are supernatural creatures. Despite frequent claims that ID is not a religious idea, the theological pedigree should be obvious: humans have souls, souls cannot be created through natural means, therefore there must be a supernatural being behind human existence. Cross out “souls� and put in “intelligence�, and you have the central claim of ID. Knowing that the ID concept of “intelligence� is more akin to a soul than mere problem solving ability, the circular nature of the watchmaker argument and its variants should be clear. To say that it is obvious that a watch, or Mount Rushmore, or anything else, was created by intelligence in the ID sense of the word, requires one to first declare that the ID sense of the word is valid. Since the claim depends on ID being true to begin with, to turn around and use it to “prove� ID is ridiculous.

The next claim in the argument for design is that we have no good explanation for the foundation of life that doesn't involve intelligence.
Here, it is necessary to point out the high degree of subjectivity inherent in the term “explanation�. An explanation is something which causes a person to think that that a situation makes sense, and so to say that there is no explanation can be as much a statement about oneself as about the science.

----
Anyone who thinks they can get all of the above into 150 words is welcome to try.

SpaceFluffer
Intelligent design is a non-testable theory,The problem with saying that is that you are accepting it as a theory. It is not any kind of theory, testable or not.

[davefoc]

new drkitten wrote:
Behe's claim that ID is not a religiously-based idea is a flat-out lie;

I was prepared to cut him a little slack on that claim.

I can see how that hypothesizing an undefined intelligent entity that played some role in the development of life on earth could be seen as non-religious.

This is a gray area I think. If a person hypothsesizes the existence of ether as an explanation for some natural phenomena is that a religious idea? There is no definitive evidence for either the ether or the intelligent designer, they are just ideas put forth to explain some observed natural phenomena.

Some of your argument went to the idea that Behe is religious. I don't doubt that, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the idea of an intellgent designer is religiously based.

But I also see your argument that it is a religiously based notion. It is an essentially untestable hypothesis that is consistent with the idea of a supreme being that is obviously a common theme in many religions.

[drkitten]

Originally posted by davefoc

Some of your argument went to the idea that Behe is religious. I don't doubt that, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the idea of an intellgent designer is religiously based.

But I also see your argument that it is a religiously based notion. It is an essentially untestable hypothesis that is consistent with the idea of a supreme being that is obviously a common theme in many religions.

I don't believe I actually addressed the question of whether Behe personally was religious (although I would be extremely surprised if he wasn't). My point is simply that the intelligent design movement itself (for example, the infamous Discovery Institute, the major financial supporter of Behe and Dembski both, as well as the major lobbyist behind the ID movement) is very explicit in their own writings and public speeches that ID is a religious movement.

For example, Dembski stated publically in 1992 that the intelligent
designer had to be a "supernatural intelligence." Phillip Johnson spoke in 1996 that "My colleagues and I speak of ‘theistic realism’-- or sometimes, ‘mere creation’ -- as the defining concept of our movement. This means that we affirm that God is objectively real as Creator , and that [i]the reality of God is tangibly recorded in evidence accessible to science, particularly in biology. " He later spoke (2001) about how the success of ID would demonstrate that "the Christians have been right all along -- at least on major elements of the story, like divine creation."

The best examples, of course, come from "the Wedge Document," which was written and published by the Discovery Institute and lays out step by step the [i]religious agenda behind ID. When this document came to public attention, they attempted a rather thin smokescreen (http://www.discovery.org/scripts/ viewDB/filesDB-download.php?id=109) that doesn't actually cover anything up.

Even in the apologetic smokescreen, the religious overtones come through. "We think [the worldview of scientific materialism] is false, we think that the theories that gave rise to it (such as Darwinism, Marxism, and Freudian psychology) are demonstrably false, and we think that these theories have had deleterious cultural consequences." Fair enough -- that's what they're opposed to. They are specifically against "scientific materialism."[p. 6] "The Discovery Institute's Center... seeks nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its cultural legacies." [p. 6]

In its stead, they wish to raise (really, resurrect) "the cardinal idea [that humans were created in the image of God]." [p. 6] "Discovery Institute's Center... wants to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialistic worldview and replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions." [p. 8] They try to backpedal in their apology by noting that "consonant with" does not mean "the same as." Notice, however, that they are still attempting to dictate the results of scientific inquiry ("it should be consonant with Christianity") prior to the development or examination of evidence -- and this is a point they don't even attempt to disguise.

Furthermore, the actual Wedge document is very explicit in its attempt to bend scientific results to their desired political framework. It outlines some (now-outdated) rather Stalinistic "five year plans," of which the first phase is Research, Writing, and Publication. At this point, they expect to enter phase II, "Publicity and Opinion Making," where they will "seek to build up a popular base of support among our natural constituency, namely, Christians. We will do thiis primarily through apologetics seminars." [p. 14] The word "apologetics" is significant in this context, but I need not belabor the point.

I don't think there's any room for doubt that the ID movement as spearheaded by the Discovery Institute is a religious movement; there may in fact be a few wing-nut groups out there that would be amenable to the abstract proposition that mankind was designed by intelligent but non-divine creatures (I believe the Raelians would qualify), but that's not what the ID movement is offering or supporting.

And, to the point, my original claim was that :

Behe's claim that ID is not a religiously-based idea is a flat-out lie;

Behe is a member (senior fellow) of the Discovery Institute, recieves substantial support from them, and they are major supporters of his book Darwin's Black Box. He is aware of the religious nature of the Discovery Institute's agenda and of the religious basis of the idea; he's one of the movers and shakers behind it. For him to claim that ID is not a religiously-based idea is a flat-out lie.

[hgc]

Originally posted by Ladewig
I sometimes wonder how all the IDers would react if a science teacher forced to include ID in a public school ciriculum said, "ID is based on the idea that everything is too complex to have arisen from natural methods; if everything really is that complex, then it must be too complex for a single designer, therefore it must have been designed by a group of designers." I cannot imagine IDers reacting well to that concept. God by Committee!!!

[Brown]

Originally posted by new drkitten
For him [Behe] to claim that ID is not a religiously-based idea is a flat-out lie. I do not disagree with the thoughful analysis, but I might add one additional wrinkle.

I have been following very closely many church-state controversies that have been working their ways through the courts: The Pledge Case, the Divinity Case, the Ten Commandments Cases, and so on. Not only have I been following the formal arguments asserted by the parties, but also the remarks of members of the courts and also the non-legal remarks of those who have taken sides in the dispute.

And there is an interesting pattern that emerges.

Many religious people do not see their own religious ideas as religious.

They seem to be pretty quick to perceive the religious ideas of others (and occasionally some non-religious ideas of others) as religious, but they do not see their own religious ideas in the same way.

Consequently, when Behe says that intelligent design is not religious, he may be following this pattern. To me (and to many others), the notion of intelligent design is patently religious, because it posits the existence of a superior (if not supreme) being that cannot be observed directly and that is supernatural by definition. When intelligent design is described in such a fashion, it is difficult to conceive how anyone could see such a belief as not being religious.

And yet, there are folks out there--some of them sitting on the United States Supreme Court--who do not see what should be obviously religious concepts as religious. To a degree, such positions often seem to be disingenuous, or double-talk, or flat-out illogical. The feeling of these folks seems to be: "I have good reasons for my beliefs, therefore these beliefs are not really based upon faith and are not really religious." What these folks ought to do (and what many of them seem to be incapable of doing or unwilling to do) is to look at the issues from the point of view of a neutrally-religious outsider, and ask whether that neutrally-religious outsider would perceive these concepts as religious. They seem to be able to do this with other religions; they ought to be able to do it with their own.

[drkitten]

Originally posted by Brown
I do not disagree with the thoughful analysis, but I might add one additional wrinkle.

I have been following very closely many church-state controversies that have been working their ways through the courts: The Pledge Case, the Divinity Case, the Ten Commandments Cases, and so on. Not only have I been following the formal arguments asserted by the parties, but also the remarks of members of the courts and also the non-legal remarks of those who have taken sides in the dispute.

And there is an interesting pattern that emerges.

Many religious people do not see their own religious ideas as religious.


I think you're simply being too charitable. I think that these religious people of whom you speak are simply lying; they are quite willing to acknowledge that their beliefs are religious in private (or in communities of like-minded believers), but are smart enough not to make such statements in a public and potentially hostile situation where they could be used to dismiss the statement out of hand.

Unfortunately, the First Amendment (and subsequent cases) have made it extremely clear that religious beliefs cannot be used as a basis for government actions. So any halfway intelligent believer will recognize that it is necessary to cover the religious belief with a spurious fig-leaf of secular reasoning, and to deny that the belief is in fact religious. Very few of us are above lying in a good purpose. If the legal situation demands the Behe lie about whether or not ID is a religious belief, I believe that he would.

More forcefully, I believe that he has.

[alfaniner]

If the Universe was designed, what kind of drafting table and writing utensils did the designer(s) use? Where did these materials come from if nothing had been designed yet?

[davefoc]

I seem to be in the mnority here but I still think it is at least a plausible position that the concept of intelligent designer is not necessarily a religious idea.

I certainly agree that for the most part people that claim it isn't are just doing so as a method of pushing forth their own religious views about the orgins of life. I also agree that most, if not all. of the people promoting the notion have religious views consistent with the idea of an intelligent designer.

But I think that the concept of an intellgient designer is not necessarily religous and claiming that it is has the effect of adding a largely semantic element to the ID debate. Is the hypothesis that human life was designed and created by an extraterrestial genius a religious notion or just one more hypothesis in a long line of them that attempt to explain the origin of life on earth? Where is the dividing line between a religious hypothesis and a naturalistic hypothesis? I don't think there is a clear one.

[Brown]

Originally posted by new drkitten
I think you're simply being too charitable. I think that these religious people of whom you speak are simply lying; they are quite willing to acknowledge that their beliefs are religious in private (or in communities of like-minded believers), but are smart enough not to make such statements in a public and potentially hostile situation where they could be used to dismiss the statement out of hand.That may be so.

Nevertheless, the Ten Commandments cases now pending before the Supreme Court (the case will be orally argued on March 2) involve issues of whether the presentation of the text--specifically including the prominent text "I AM the LORD thy God"--is secular. In the Texas case (http://www.abanet.org/publiced/preview/briefs/pdfs_04-05/03-1500Resp.pdf), the State of Texas argued--apparently with a straight face--that the Ten Commandments were no more religious than "In God We Trust" on a one-dollar bill:This line-up of words and symbols on the dollar bill--all-seeing eye, eagle with stars and stripes, the words “ONE� and “IN GOD WE TRUST�--is strikingly similar to the prefatory line-up on the monument--all-seeing eye, eagle with stars and stripes, the words “the Ten Commandments� and “I AM the LORD thy God.� The reasonable observer would not likely find this confluence of words and symbols insignificant. Instead, she would reasonably perceive in the design the message the monument’s designers no doubt intended to send: like the motto on our currency, the Ten Commandments are presented here for their civic, and not for their religious, significance. (page 22, emphasis added)Personally, this argument strikes me as absurd, unless one assumes that the so-called "reasonable observer" is a believer in a religion that endorses the Ten Commandments. To such a religious reasonable observer, the proclamations would not necessarily be thought of as religious, even though the contrary view would be evident to a non-religious reasonable observer.

In Stone v. Graham, (http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=us&vol=449&invol=39), a 1980 US Supreme Court opinion holding that the Ten Commandments could not constitutionally be posted on the wall of public classrooms, the Court said:The pre-eminent purpose for posting the Ten Commandments on schoolroom walls is plainly religious in nature. The Ten Commandments are undeniably a sacred text in the Jewish and Christian faiths, and no legislative recitation of a supposed secular purpose can blind us to that fact. The Commandments do not confine themselves to arguably secular matters, such as honoring one's parents, killing or murder, adultery, stealing, false witness, and covetousness. ... Rather, the first part of the Commandments concerns the religious duties of believers: worshipping the Lord God alone, avoiding idolatry, not using the Lord's name in vain, and observing the Sabbath Day.One of the purposes of the pending Ten Commandments cases is to vitiate Stone, if not overrule it outright. Chief Justice Rehnquist, who dissented in Stone, thought the case was wrongly decided:The Court rejects the secular purpose articulated by the State because the Decalogue is "undeniably a sacred text...." It is equally undeniable, however, as the elected representatives of Kentucky determined, that the Ten Commandments have had a significant impact on the development of secular legal codes of the Western World. The trial court concluded that evidence submitted substantiated this determination. ... Certainly the State was permitted to conclude that a document with such secular significance should be placed before its students, with an appropriate statement of the document's secular import.In the Ten Commandments cases, the governmental bodies asserted secular purposes (to commend the Fraternal Order of Eagles and to post a monument about law). In Justice Rehnquist's view, magic words that recite any sort of secular purpose solve all constitutional problems.

In the years since Stone was decided, Justice Brennan, Marshall and Blackmun have left the bench. Justices O'Connor, Scalia and Thomas have joined, and all of them have expressed views that the government can take a stand on what are plainly religious issues without offending the Constitution.Originally posted by new drkitten
Unfortunately, the First Amendment (and subsequent cases) have made it extremely clear that religious beliefs cannot be used as a basis for government actions. So any halfway intelligent believer will recognize that it is necessary to cover the religious belief with a spurious fig-leaf of secular reasoning, and to deny that the belief is in fact religious. Very few of us are above lying in a good purpose.I agree with this sentiment. Nevertheless, what will be at issue in the coming months is whether this sentiment will carry constitutional weight. In the Kentucky Court House (http://www.abanet.org/publiced/preview/briefs/pdfs_04-05/03-1693Pet.pdf) case, Liberty Counsel (representing the Kentucky Counties) urged that not all assertions of secular purpose should be dismissed:Courts should be “deferential� to any “articulation of a secular purpose,� especially where “a legislature expresses a plausible secular purpose,� unless it is insincere or a “sham.� Petitioners’ stated purpose to educate the public about some of the “documents that played a significant role in the foundation of our system of law and government� is a legitimate secular purpose and clearly not a sham. As Judge Ryan noted, a “sham� means a fraud, a hoax or an intentional deception. There is no such evidence in this record.If the Supreme Court adopts this line of reasoning (and Justice Rehnquist has indicated he would view it favorably), then there should be no constitutional difficulty associated with requiring public schoolchildren to memorize Bible verses pertaining to ethical conduct, or erecting a crucifix on public grounds, or displaying a blatantly religious message on a public building during Christmas-time, or requiring public schoolchildren to "learn" about intelligent design. All of these activities can be justified with some sort of plausible secular purpose.

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by davefoc
I seem to be in the mnority here but I still think it is at least a plausible position that the concept of intelligent designer is not necessarily a religious idea.

If one takes the position that the ID is an alien species, one simply begs the question of who designed them. It is, then, a total non-answer, because we're back to square one.

[drkitten]

Originally posted by Brown
In the Texas case (http://www.abanet.org/publiced/preview/briefs/pdfs_04-05/03-1500Resp.pdf), the State of Texas argued--apparently with a straight face--that the Ten Commandments were no more religious than "In God We Trust" on a one-dollar bill:Personally, this argument strikes me as absurd, unless one assumes that the so-called "reasonable observer" is a believer in a religion that endorses the Ten Commandments.


Again, I think you're being too charitable. I think that this argument is absurd, and that not even the lawyers for the State of Texas actually believe it. But one of the professional skills of a lawyer is the ability to present an absurd argument, in which one does not personally believe, with a straight face and apparent conviction. In many cases, this is the only way that a defense lawyer can justify his fee.

So, yes, I think that the Texas lawyers are lying. Presumably either on orders from their bosses, or out of a personal sentiment.

Liberty Counsel's comments are interesting, too, if not in the way that they intended (emphasis mine):


Courts should be “deferential� to any “articulation of a secular purpose,� especially where “a legislature expresses a plausible secular purpose,� unless it is insincere or a “sham.� Petitioners’ stated purpose to educate the public about some of the “documents that played a significant role in the foundation of our system of law and government� is a legitimate secular purpose and clearly not a sham. As Judge Ryan noted, a “sham� means a fraud, a hoax or an intentional deception. There is no such evidence in this record.


It is widely accepted -- ask any cop -- as an informal rule of thumb that a person who is accused of something of which he is innocent will deny the accusation. Someone accused of something of which he is guilty will instead deny or cast doubt on the evidence. "You took Chris out to dinner last night!" "Who told you that?" So why did the Liberty Counsel, in representing their clients, claim only that "there is no such evidence in the record" instead of saying "my clients were clearly not attempting such a fraux, hoax, or intentional deception"?

Well, I (of course) can't prove anything. But my suspicion is that the Kentucky Counties were attempting an intentional deception, and that their lawyers were aware of it. Lying in a brief before the court is usually a bad idea -- but the statement "there is no such evidence in the record" is, of course, not a lie. If it could later be proved (for example, some whistleblower produces the right document) that the Counties were presenting a "sham" purpose, Liberty Counsel would still be in the clear.

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by new drkitten
Behe is a member (senior fellow) of the Discovery Institute, recieves substantial support from them, and they are major supporters of his book Darwin's Black Box. He is aware of the religious nature of the Discovery Institute's agenda and of the religious basis of the idea; he's one of the movers and shakers behind it. For him to claim that ID is not a religiously-based idea is a flat-out lie.

As much as I may agree with your conclusion, it can't be argued from this standpoint. This is the subject/motive shift fallacy.

[Brown]

Originally posted by new drkitten
Well, I (of course) can't prove anything. But my suspicion is that the Kentucky Counties were attempting an intentional deception, and that their lawyers were aware of it.The facts of the Kentucky case are almost comical.

Originally, McCreary and Pulaski Counties wanted to post only the Ten Commandments in their courthouses. The reason for doing so was not to educate the public about law or acknowledge the influence of the Commandments upon government. The reason for the posting was expressly religious.

The Counties got sued. In response, the Counties decided to post additional documents that "demonstrate America’s Christian heritage," and asserted in court that the United States--legally, factually and historically--is a "Christian nation." The additional documents--some of which were obscure--were not posted in their entirety. Instead, the excerpted portions of documents had been selected to include only the documents' references to God or the Bible.

The Counties lost in the district court. The district court enjoined the displays, saying that the documents "were chosen only for their religious references."

Undeterred, the Counties tried again. The Counties erected the Commandments (of course!) but also other documents ostensibly chosen that "played a significant role in the foundation of our system of law and government." The Ten Commandments, said the display, "provide the moral background of the Declaration of Independence and the foundation of our legal tradition."

Once again, the district court enjoined the displays saying, in essense, who do you think you're trying to kid?

The facts, from the Counties' standpoint, are pretty bad. Originally there was a series of forthright statements of blatantly religious goals; but as the court proceedings started to go badly, there was less candor on the part of the government. The notion of religion being the basis for law was floated, and it flopped. So the government tried again, adding more secular stuff to the display, but ALWAYS keeping the Commandments as a part of the display.

The Liberty Counsel, defending the Counties, knows that the facts are bad from its clients' standpoint. That's why Liberty Counsel's brief includes passages like the following:Whether those who posted the foundations Display were accurate regarding the role of the Ten Commandments in American law is irrelevant to their purpose. So long as the government is sincere in its purpose, it need not be accurate. ... Petitioners’ purpose is not to debate historians but to post a Display about law. Regardless of whether someone disagrees with it, Petitioners’ purpose is sincere and legitimate. The purpose is not fabricated.
...
The majority used the prior displays to "taint" the Foundations Display. Yet, the argument that an alleged religious purpose always taints a subsequent purpose that is substantially secular must fail. The Foundations Display is unlike any prior display. The Foundations Display clearly is not devoid of a secular purpose. Even if Petitioners were deemed to have begun with a wholly religious purpose, they did not end with one.
...
Even if some officials began with religious motives, evidence of which is absent from this record, the focus must center on the purpose of the current Display. Motives do not equal purpose.
...
Nothing in the Display, nor its past history, evinces a religious purpose, let alone a wholly religious purpose. [Underscoring mine, italics in original.]
...
Thus, on its face, the Ten Commandments frame contains more secular than religious language. Like the other secular documents in the Display, the Ten Commandments is presented in its entirety except for a few words. Had Petitioners excerpted only the secular portion of the Decalogue, that action would evince hostility rather than neutrality toward religion. ... It is the Ten Commandments, not the "several commandments," that influenced American law.

[T'ai Chi]

Originally posted by BillHoyt
If one takes the position that the ID is an alien species, one simply begs the question of who designed them. It is, then, a total non-answer, because we're back to square one.

Maybe they evolved. ;)

[Art Vandelay]

Originally posted by davefoc
This is a gray area I think. If a person hypothsesizes the existence of ether as an explanation for some natural phenomena is that a religious idea? There is no definitive evidence for either the ether or the intelligent designer, they are just ideas put forth to explain some observed natural phenomena.I don’t think is a good analogy, because there simply is not the same relationship between ether and religion. A better analogy would be claiming that the idea that the Sun revolves around the Earth is not a religious idea.

While the idea of intelligent design is not inherently religious, I think that in the context of our society, it is simply inseparable from religion.

Brown
What these folks ought to do (and what many of them seem to be incapable of doing or unwilling to do) is to look at the issues from the point of view of a neutrally-religious outsider, and ask whether that neutrally-religious outsider would perceive these concepts as religious. They seem to be able to do this with other religions; they ought to be able to do it with their own.
I don’t see how you can possibly expect them to do this. The reason they’re able to view other religions as outsiders is because they are outsiders. When a religious principle becomes so internalized that one views it as an obvious fact of existence, it’s very difficult to recognize it as having arisen from religion.

In the Texas case, the State of Texas argued--apparently with a straight face--that the Ten Commandments were no more religious than "In God We Trust" on a one-dollar bill
It seems quite reasonable to me that if “In God We Trust� is not religious, the Ten Commandments are not either. Where the state of Texas and I part company is the issue of whether “In God We Trust� is religious. Those that say that issues such as this and the Pledge are of little consequence are contradicted by the argument presented by the State of Texas. If the Pledge is upheld, it is certain that it, like IGWT, will be used to defend still further violations of the First Amendment.

BTW, what is the Divinity case?

[davefoc]

Originally posted by davefoc
I seem to be in the mnority here but I still think it is at least a plausible position that the concept of intelligent designer is not necessarily a religious idea.

Originally posted by BillHoyt
If one takes the position that the ID is an alien species, one simply begs the question of who designed them. It is, then, a total non-answer, because we're back to square one.

I completely agree with your comment here. It is one of the reasons that I never understood why people believe in God. What does it explain? What created God? What designed the designer? This is the kind of question that I have asked myself for as long as I can remember and I assumed that everybody else had thought about this kind of thing also. I asked a believer about that and her response to my surprise was that she had just never thought about it. So I guess for some people the notion that God created the universe is a completely satisfactory explanation.

[davefoc]

Art Vandelay wrote:While the idea of intelligent design is not inherently religious, I think that in the context of our society, it is simply inseparable from religion.

I think this is exactly correct.

I wonder what an ID advocate who is claiming that ID is not religious would think of the idea that the intelligent designer might be just an extraterestial setting up the world as part of a sophisticated doll house game. Since ID as a non-religious concept doesn't make any specific claims about the nature of the designer beyond some pretty amazing powers for creating and/or modifying life it's consistent with the idea that just about anything or anybody could be the designer as long as he's got the right set of super powers.

Maybe BillHoyt has just been playing us and he's not really a strip club bouncer. Maybe he's really the intelligent designer who got life going on earth.

[T'ai Chi]

Originally posted by davefoc
Maybe BillHoyt has just been playing us and he's not really a strip club bouncer.

Oh, I know he ain't one.

[RichardR]

It's taken apart here: http://skeptico.blogs.com/skeptico/2005/02/michael_behe_at.html

[Brown]

Originally posted by Art Vandelay
BTW, what is the Divinity case? Locke v. Davey (http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/03pdf/02-1315.pdf), decided last term.

[Brown]

Here's something that puzzles me about ID. Maybe it's been answered, maybe not....

If ID allows that some evolution took place, then at what stage(s) did the designer intervene??

It seems to me that ID proponents ought to be able to answer that question. For a living thing (such as a human), what was the designed component, and what was the evolved component? What percentage was designed, and what percentage was evolved?

Inquiring minds want to know.

[CurtC]

Reason magazine (a thoughtful, libertarian-oriented publication) has published a column by the regular Ronald Bailey: Evolution in the Blackboard Jungle (http://www.reason.com/rb/rb020905.shtml)


Recent studies comparing vertebrate genomes finds molecular evidence indicating that blood clotting has evolved over the past 450 million years after tetrapods (four footed critters) diverged from bony fish.

Behe would likely respond that the blood clotting system was already irreducibly complex 450 million years ago-what happened before then? His evident conclusion is that the intelligent designer intervened at that point. But if you cut an invertebrate, does it not bleed? And more to the point, does its blood not clot? Indeed it does, and precursors of the proteins involved with vertebrate clotting can be found in them. All of the steps of how blood clotting may have evolved have not been worked out to Behe's satisfaction yet, but what if one day they are?

Behe might then reply, all fine and well for blood clotting. But what about the bacterial flagella? This kind of response invites an infinite regress of demanded explanations: If the bacterial flagella are explained, what about the optic nerve, the Krebs cycle, and so forth? Behe's intelligent designer becomes uncomfortably trapped in the ever-smaller gaps of biology that remain to be explained.

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by davefoc
Maybe BillHoyt has just been playing us and he's not really a strip club bouncer. Maybe he's really the intelligent designer who got life going on earth.

Funny you should mention this. When I talked with Behe about his book years ago, he was first going to call it the Intelligent Bouncer. But we concluded that "IB" just sounded too much like colloquial Southern English to not be ridiculed. At the time, though, we missed the possibility of Behe's thesis being labeled, "monsters from the Id." Fortunately, not many recall that SF classic movie.

[CurtC]

Originally posted by BillHoyt
Fortunately, not many recall that SF classic movie.I do! I made a reference to "Krell metal" in a recent post, but no one picked up on it.

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by CurtC
I do! I made a reference to "Krell metal" in a recent post, but no one picked up on it.

Ah! I understand there aren't many Krell around to pick up on that cultural reference either...

However, Disney, Anne Francis and Leslie Nielson thank you!

[IIRichard]

Originally posted by Elektrix
Are there any other logical fallacies at play here? I'm not sure, but it sounds like sort of an argument from ignorance (or maybe the inverse of that..... arguing that because we don't know how something could have happened without a designer, it must have happened with a designer). I can't put my finger on it, but it seems like there is some aspect of arguing that the design must be true because there is no other logical explanation for how such complex things came to be.

-Elektrix

Somebody else may have covered this but I think the logical fallicy to a scientist would be that IE leads to an infinite regression. "The designer exists, who or what created the designer? OK the designer's designer exists, who created the meta-designer......"

Hope this helps someone.

IIR

[Jorghnassen]

Originally posted by IIRichard
Somebody else may have covered this but I think the logical fallicy to a scientist would be that IE leads to an infinite regression. "The designer exists, who or what created the designer? OK the designer's designer exists, who created the meta-designer......"

Hope this helps someone.

IIR

Don't you know that it's turtles all the way down? :D

[IIRichard]

Originally posted by Jorghnassen
Don't you know that it's turtles all the way down? :D

Yes, but damned if I can remeber who first wrote that.

IIR

[Rolfe]

Terry Pratchett, I presume?

Rolfe.

[PixyMisa]

Originally posted by Rolfe
Terry Pratchett, I presume?
No, it's from an old joke that predates PTerry, or at least his books.
A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the centre of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy.

At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise."

The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?"

"You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down."

[IIRichard]

Originally posted by Rolfe
Terry Pratchett, I presume?

Rolfe.

It sounds like Douglas Adams (HG2TG) to me now that I've thought about.

IIR

[Art Vandelay]

Originally posted by Jorghnassen
Don't you know that it's turtles all the way down? :D All the way down to what?

[Brown]

I just paid a visit to discovery.org, in an effort to learn more about the so-called theory of intelligent design. That visit was about as meaningful as Larry King reciting the marriage vows.

If this web site is any indication, intelligent design is devoted to the following key points (which seem to be the ones most discussed and stressed):
1. Darwinism has problems.
2. Intelligent design is not religious.

These two points are both bass-ackward. To quote Isaac Asimov (who was speaking of creationists), "They argue entirely from the negative." One cannot establish a theory of intelligent design by poking holes in Darwinism (whatever Darwinism means). The premise that there are only two theories of origins--Darwinism and intelligent design--and that disproof of one is proof of the other, is factually and logically wrong.

But even if that premise WERE true, then it is possibly in conflict with the second point. After all, creationism claims to be a competitor to Darwinism, and ID proponents insist that ID is not creationism; so there are at least THREE theories, and attacking Darwinism does not establish which of the other two competitors has merit. The only resolution of this dilemma is to say that all creationism is subsumed in intelligent design.

But if this intelligent design IS a scientific theory, and if it really does explain something, what does it explain? According to the web site,The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.
...
Intelligent design theory is simply an effort to empirically detect whether the "apparent design" in nature acknowledged by virtually all biologists is genuine design (the product of an intelligent cause) or is simply the product of an undirected process such as natural selection acting on random variations. Behe is prominently mentioned, of course, but his remarks on the web site tend to be general (perhaps because he wants people to buy his book). The concept of irreducible complexity is key to his "thinking":By irreducibly complex I mean a single system which is composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, and where the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning.Okay, now comes the key problem: what does "intelligent design theory" explain?

"Certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause...." What features of the universe? What features of living things? Why only "certain" features, and not the whole darn thing?

How can the design of the "intelligent cause" be empirically detected? What standards distinguish something that was designed from something that developed or changed over time without intelligent intervention? Is the "irreducibly complex" test the only criterion?

And what use is the "irreducibly complex" test, anyway, in determining origins? On its face, all it speaks to is the functioning of the system NOW, doesn't it? Even if something is irreducibly complex (by Behe's definition) NOW, why does that eliminate the possibility of development from other forms in the past? Moreover, doesn't the test posit a radical change, in which one part is REMOVED? What if change isn't radical? What if the part is only impaired or made less complicated, and the basic function of the system is still there but not as efficient? Or what is there is a less-than-radical change, and the function is different, but still useful?

While we're at it, how many distinct interventions by the intelligent cause have there been? When did these interventions by the intelligent cause take place? Where did they take place? Will there be more interventions in the future? Is there more than one intelligent cause? What standards distinguish the work of one intelligent cause from another?

What metric distinguishes something that was designed from something having an organizational origin that might be explained by further study? Are designed features ever destroyed by extinction or phased out by natural selection?

None of these questions is religious. No one is asking who the intelligent designer is, or where he happens to be at this moment, or why he chose only to design some features but not others, or why some of his designs aren't all that great from a pragmatic point of view, or what he wants us to do, or who designed the designer. These questions all bear upon the "scientific theory" nature, or lack thereof, of intelligent design. As far as I can tell, intelligent design explains exactly nothing.

[Hellbound]

Hmmm....

ID should take a hint from 7-Up:

INtelligent Design...it's the un-theory!

[Tom Morris]

Originally posted by new drkitten
Just that I noticed quickly:

Behe's claim that ID is not a religiously-based idea is a flat-out lie; see the infamous "Wedge document" (published by the Discovery institute, where he is a senior fellow) for refutation. (Sample quote: "Discovery Institute's Center... wants to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions.")

Ah yes, the Wedge. I would also reccomend the following two articles both by Barbara Forrest:

(2001) The Wedge at Work: How Intelligent Design Creationism Is Wedging Its Way into the Cultural and Academic Mainstream (http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/barbara_forrest/wedge.html), from Pennock, Robert (ed.) Intelligent Design Creationism And It's Critics, MIT Press.
(2002) The Newest Evolution of Creationism (http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/nhmag.html#overview).

[Brown]

I would LOVE to depose some of these ID guys in a lawsuit. I wouldn't ask them what ID is not, but what ID is... and I would insist upon answers if they tried to be evasive, reminding them that they needed to answer the questions that I asked, not the questions they'd wished I'd asked.

Some additional questions: Are all designed features in living things organic? Human beings sometimes incorporate designed devices into living things (such as prostheses and medical implants), but these devices are almost never organic. What evidence exists, if any, of a designer using a non-organic material?

If the designed features are organic, are they all passed on to subsequent generations by genetics? If so, are designed features at risk of mutation? If so, is there a possibility that the mutation could actually improve the performance of the feature? What are the odds of such a thing happening? If mutation could actually improve the performance of the feature, could natural influences affect the propagation of that mutation in subsequent generations? What standards exist for identifying a pure designed feature from a design feature that has been subjected to mutation?

Does the designer use mutation as a design tool? If so, what standards would we apply to determine whether a mutation is "accidental" or designed?

If we assume, for the sake of argument, that the human eye is a designed feature, does that mean that the designer intervenes every time a human eye forms? What tests have been performed, or can be performed, to determine whether the designer is actually intervening at a particular time?

Can we set up any experiment that would interfere with the designer's intervention, where we can be sure that no intervention takes place?

Are all designed features beneficial? Are there designed features in living things that are harmful or dangerous? What features, if any, have been identified as being deadly, but designed? Does determining the existence of design take into account whether or not the feature is beneficial?

Inquiring minds want to know.

[Brown]

Originally posted by Tom Morris
Ah yes, the Wedge. More on the Wedge, from Americans United (http://www.au.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=7192&abbr=cs_).

[TillEulenspiegel]

The correlation between the TAG argument and ID is they both posses the same fatal flaw. That being that they both start with a premise that is presumed but must be viewed as fact.

Tag states that the "reasonable arrangement" of the universe must denote a Deity because reason could not exist without one. The universe however much we want to ascribe to it certain "behaviors" is not reasonable. It's a stochastic reality that exists outside of the will and whim of mankind , no matter how strenuous our application of a superimposed arrangement may be.

The ID argument fails in the same way . The basis of the argument is irreducible complexity. Again the idea is based on a pre-supposition, where the merits rely on the foundation of this facetious idea.

I.D.'rs like to use bacterial flagellum as an example of this complexity.The fact is that flagellum can be reduced to it's constituent parts and even traced on an evaluational timeline.

"...there is no "the" bacterial flagella. Eubacteria and bacteria have flagella that look almost identical, except that they are composed of completely different, non-homologous proteins (and they are both different from the eukaryote flagellum)(3,12). I'll ignore the archebacterial system as it is based on class IV pilins and clearly not IC (3,12)."

http://rnaworld.bio.ku.edu/ribozone/resource/transport/Ian%20Musgrave_flagella.htm

Their irreducibly complex objects remind one of the Greek word "ATOM", meaning "that which cannot be divided".
So we once again have a group of folks that believe that Apollo in his firey chariot is daylight.( and I sure their scared to death that daddy doesn't live in the sky)

[Skeptic Ginger]

There may be very little I can add that hasn't been covered but Here's my take on a couple of things:

If the "Wedge Plan" doesn't prove the whole ID thing is religious proselytizing in disguise, the scientific process certainly proves it.

You don't start with the conclusion and fit the evidence to it, (religion). You start with the evidence and follow where it leads, (science).

And if you find your hypothesis no longer fits the evidence you don't keep trying to fit the evidence into it, you look for a new hypothesis.

It's time for these guys to pick up a genetic science text book and get over it like they have gotten over the fact the Sun does not orbit the Earth.

[Art Vandelay]

Originally posted by Huntsman
Hmmm....

ID should take a hint from 7-Up:

INtelligent Design...it's the un-theory!
Make intelligent
Design yours

[Art Vandelay]

Brown
One cannot establish a theory of intelligent design by poking holes in Darwinism (whatever Darwinism means). The premise that there are only two theories of origins--Darwinism and intelligent design--and that disproof of one is proof of the other, is factually and logically wrong.
Now wait a second. If ID has nothing of value to say other than that evolution has flaws, and that it is not religious, then doesn't showing that evolution has flaws mean that ID is halfway towards being proven?

The problem with ID is that they are trying to present a metaphysical issue as a physical one. The issue of whether there is a higher "purpose" at work is not an issue that can be settled empirically. An intelligent designer, IF ACTING THROUGH NATURAL MECHANISMS, would not contradict evolution. So the central issue is NOT whether there is an intelligent designer, but whether there is some "unnatural" nature to the designer. While one could argue that this is not technically an issue of religion, it definitely is a matter of philosophy, not science.

The only way this could be made into any meaningful empirical claim is if they are really advancing Christian Creationism. But of course that's not possible, because they have said that they aren't, and we all know no cre... er, I mean IDer, would ever lie.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally posted by Art Vandelay

Now wait a second. If ID has nothing of value to say other than that evolution has flaws, and that it is not religious, then doesn't showing that evolution has flaws mean that ID is halfway towards being proven?
What flaws? I know you're on my side but what flaws?

[TillEulenspiegel]

If ID is correct, then were the heck does a platupus fit in? God must made that after his 3 martini lunch :)

[Tom Morris]

The Philosophy of Biology weblog has a copy of the op-ed. It's the usual drivel:
http://philbio.typepad.com/philosophy_of_biology/2005/02/id_oped_in_the_.html

[Art Vandelay]

Originally posted by skeptigirl
What flaws? I know you're on my side but what flaws? Well, the absence of the complete genome of every precursor species, for one.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally posted by Art Vandelay
Well, the absence of the complete genome of every precursor species, for one. How do you define flaw? Are you defining it as incomplete data?

Do we have the data for the mass of every body in the galaxy or Universe or for that matter in our own solar system? Is that a flaw in the theory of gravity?

There is more than sufficient genome data collected to show the approximate location of species we have analyzed, when they diverged, whether they are on the same trunk, branch, or side branch.

Or are you just talking about the data of the transition from inorganic to organic?

Studies by Joyce (http://www.scripps.edu/mb/joyce/) and others on RNA molecules have come close enough to solving that piece of the theory to at least show very plausible mechanisms for how it occurred.

So what flaw, Kemo Sabe? (http://www.tcnj.edu/~hofmann/kemosabe.htm) ;)

[Art Vandelay]

I'm just saying that when creationists want a detail that evolutionists are unable to provide, they consider that to be a flaw.

BTW, my Spanish teacher seemed to think that "nosabe" was Spanish for "doesn't know" or "is ignorant".

[TillEulenspiegel]

Originally posted by Art Vandelay
I'm just saying that when creationists want a detail that evolutionists are unable to provide, they consider that to be a flaw.


Well That's the mechanism thru TRY to use.
Science and evolution contains gaps and their advocates would say "We do not know for sure as we do not have the facts ".

The creationist would say: "Ahhh but I do know to a surety". Even tho they do not have facts and worse the underlying foundation of their argument (a Deity) cannot be proved. It tends to be a cyclical and self referencing effort.

[Brown]

Originally posted by Art Vandelay
Now wait a second. If ID has nothing of value to say other than that evolution has flaws, and that it is not religious, then doesn't showing that evolution has flaws mean that ID is halfway towards being proven?Not at all, although ID proponents often assert otherwise.

It is a false dichotomy and a non sequitur to say that if evolution has problems, then ID must have merit. First, even if an ID proponent has a legitimate point about a failing of a detail of evolution, that does not bring down the whole concept. Evolution (and other sciences) have gotten details wrong in the past, but have been modified without scrapping other aspects of the scientific model.

Second, it is easy to suppose other models for origin of species besides evolution and ID: catastrophism, accidental intervention by a supernatural entity (as opposed to directed design by the entity), extraterrestrial contamination, intelligent (as opposed to natural) selection to produce desired traits, inevitable life, and so on. If evolution is wrong, that does not mean that all of these other models, or any particular model, must be right.

Third, the different models are non-exclusive, and therefore the whole notion of negative proof breaks down. ID proponents--some of them, anyway--concede that some evolution has taken place. Logically, therefore, they have conceded that evidence supporting one model does not necessarily contradict another. In particular, proponents of ID assert that just because some of the evolution model is valid, that doesn't mean that the ID model is invalid.

Fourth, ID usually does not point out problems with evolution in a scientific way. As Behe's column shows, a good share of his argument about the strength of the evidence pertaining to evolution is "I'm not convinced." Well, that kind of argument doesn't cut it, because it doesn't promote any understanding of the nature of the problem or what tests could be devised to resolve it. In a similar fashion, it is a waste of everyone's time for ID proponents to point to a structure and say, "How do you explain THAT?" The absence of a current natural explanation does not establish that there is no natural explanation. The history of science is full of examples in which natural explanations for a puzzling phenomenon were a long time in coming.

[Eos of the Eons]

Ho can "ID" NOT be religious? Who is the "designer"? Aliens?

[hammegk]

I don't find anything religious about the Strong Anthropic Principle (nor "Alien") .... ;)

What if we call the Designer Tao? :)

[Eos of the Eons]

Pfft, no matter who the designer is, we're moving into something very ridiculous to tell kids.

Then when you look at the lesson plan, you see them using misinformation and then using misinformation to debunk evolution. Why can't they teach ID without lying about what is evolution?

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=48244

Oh gee, the lesson plans are no longer accessible...

Reflecting its agenda of getting intelligent design creationism into American schools, the CRSC recently added to its web site intelligent design lesson plans for teachers. Until sometime near the end of February, they could be viewed at http://www.discovery.org/crsc/scied/evol.index.html.Now, however, the CRSC has restricted public access to them and they are in a "Secured Administration Area" requiring a name and password. I have found nothing else on the CRSC site which requires this. The reason is obvious: restricted access prevents the lesson plans, which are unconstitutional, from being scrutinized and evaluated, and it allows the CRSC to know who is getting them

http://ntskeptics.org/news/news2002-04-30.htm

They must hide the truth, or they will get caught!The agenda of the intelligent design movement is spelled out in a CRSC document which surfaced last year and is commonly referred to as the "wedge document" because of its enunciation of the creationists' "wedge strategy," the brainchild of Phillip Johnson, who has spoken openly about this strategy. This document outlines the intelligent design movement agenda from 1999-2003. My analysis of CRSC's planned activities as stated in the document shows that they are systematically enacting every part of their agenda except the only one which would gain them the legitimacy they so crave: the production of scientific research using their "theistic science." As I stated earlier, Johnson, Dembski, and their associates have assumed the task of destroying "Darwinism," "evolutionary naturalism," "scientific materialism," "methodological naturalism," "philosophical naturalism," and other "isms" they use as synonyms for evolution. (You can see Dembski's articles on a creationist web site, "Access Research Network," at http://www.arn.org/dembski/wdhome.htm. One of them is "Teaching Intelligent Design as Religion or Science?") The wedge document is available at http://www.humanist.net/skeptical/wedge.html and also at http://www.infidels.org/org/aha/skeptical/wedge.html. You can also find an article on the wedge strategy written by Jim Still, manager of the Internet Infidels web site, at http://www.infidels.org/secular_web/feature/1999/wedge.html. Another article written on the wedge document at the time it surfaced is at http://www.freethought-web.org/ctrl/archive/thomas_wedge.html. This was done by Keith Lankford, past president of the Sagan Society at the University of Georgia.

[Skeptic Ginger]

Originally posted by Art Vandelay
I'm just saying that when creationists want a detail that evolutionists are unable to provide, they consider that to be a flaw.

BTW, my Spanish teacher seemed to think that "nosabe" was Spanish for "doesn't know" or "is ignorant".
Yes, it's true. But it is two words, 'no sabe'. It is from the verb saber which means to know.

I don't think Kemo is a derivative of no.

As to the flaws, I'm trying to say, those details are there now. I find most anti-evolution arguments today are made as if there have been no scientific advances in 25 years. They arguing about gaps in the theory which have long since been filled.

[Gwyn ap Nudd]

I'm confused!

The Teleological Argument (Argument to Design) is a metaphysical argument with a religious purpose. It has a distinguished history going including such renowned religious apologists as Thomas Aquinas and Augustine.

Creationism is a religious backlash to the advance of biological science. Its most famous advocate, William Jennings Bryan, proudly defended a "literal" understanding of the Bible against the godless Darwinism.

So exactly how does wedding a religious philosophy of metaphysics to a religious superstition produce a non-religious science of the physical world?

[Eos of the Eons]

Originally posted by Gwyn ap Nudd
I'm confused!


So exactly how does wedding a religious philosophy of metaphysics to a religious superstition produce a non-religious science of the physical world?

It doesn't, but they've managed to con a few school systems...actually the school boards have been taken over by fundies...they just have to con parents now. The kids keep asking who is the "designer"...silly kids aren't supposed to ask questions!!

http://www.members.shaw.ca/eostory/Squeeze2.gif

You should see em trying to defend the ID crap. They say it's all due to controversies surrounding evolution...that they made up in the curriculum.

[Gwyn ap Nudd]

:id:It doesn't, but they've managed to con a few school systems....

You should see em trying to defend the ID crap. They say it's all due to controversies surrounding evolution...that they made up in the curriculum.

I know. The question was actually a challenge directed at the fundie supporters of ID as an alternative to evolution. (Yes, I know that I'm not likely to find that many here -- other than trolls that post "provacative" thoughts but don't actually read anyone else's posts. )

In as much as most of the intellegent readers here don't accept ID, the best approach would be to treat my question as partly rhetorical and partly sarcastic. Is there an emoticon for that?

[Brown]

Originally posted by skeptigirl
I don't think Kemo is a derivative of no.As I understand it, what Tonto really says is "Que más sabe," which means "most wise one." If you listen to Jay Silverheels in the old TV show, he does not say "kemo."

For some reason that I've never understood, "kemo sabe" is said to mean "faithful friend," but I am skeptical of that assertion.

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by Eos of the Eons
Ho can "ID" NOT be religious? Who is the "designer"? Aliens?
That's what the proponents try to imply, but it gets them into a muddle of pretzel logic crumbs. If you conclude "aliens," they necessarily must be subject to the same muddled thinking about "complexity." That is, they, too, must have been designed by someone else. The "aliens did it" conclusion is simply begging the question. As is any other "x did it" conclusion, where "x" is something subject to this complexity assertion.

If we jump from the natural realm, however, into the supernatural realm, we have a similar problem. Our "supernatural x" is, by definition, more complex than we and must, by definition, have been designed by someone else. That's the "God gotta daddy" conclusion.

The way out of the "God gotta daddy" conclusion is to jump completely out of our logical universe's framework, wave our hands and write "then a miracle happens." If we take that way out, however, skeptical thinkers have to then ask, why did the ID proponents go through this elaborate, question-begging ruse? Then we find more pretzel crumbs on the floor, and more pigeons tracking our every move...

[Eos of the Eons]

Originally posted by Gwyn ap Nudd
:id:

I know. The question was actually a challenge directed at the fundie supporters of ID as an alternative to evolution. (Yes, I know that I'm not likely to find that many here -- other than trolls that post "provacative" thoughts but don't actually read anyone else's posts. )

In as much as most of the intellegent readers here don't accept ID, the best approach would be to treat my question as partly rhetorical and partly sarcastic. Is there an emoticon for that?

I liked your question because I got to add that link...otherwise, might I suggest:
:wink8:

It says "wink"...but I think it may be suitable, lol...

[hammegk]

Originally posted by BillHoyt
That's what the proponents try to imply,

Good strawman, but we agree that "ID" some proponents fit that category.

What *is* energy? What is sentience?

[RichardR]

NYT addresses the balance somewhat with this editorial from sunday. (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/20/magazine/20WWLN.html?ex=1266642000&en=dc8de961f4e932be&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland?NYT_REG_SUCKS_ROCKS)

[RichardR]

Incidentally, another good debunking of Behe's article here:

http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/comments/behe_jumps_the_shark/

(Note: site loads slowly.)

[Brown]

Unfinished business: For those who are curious, here is a link to the story about "Kemosabe" from the Straight Dope (http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a4_061.html).

Now, back to the issue. Behe recently publicly made his little spiel at Lehigh University (http://www.bw.lehigh.edu/story.asp?ID=18444), where Behe is a professor. At times, one wonders whether he was giving a scientific discussion or a stand-up comedy routine:“Darwin rests on imagination,� he said. For Darwin there are no explanations, just speculation. “Science should follow evidence and you can’t worry about the implications. Darwin never gives us an answer,� Behe said.There you have it: Darwinism is just a figment, nothing but a mass of wild guesses, none of which is supported by evidence, and having no explanatory power at all.

Wow. He makes Darwinism sound like ... gasp! ... a false religion!

[Brown]

Time to bump this thread, since many of the same issues have surfaced again, this time at the Bad Astronomy (http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/01/27/rushmore-doubt-less/) web site.

Earlier in this thread, I posed some questions for ID proponents to answer. I'm still waiting....

[sphenisc]

Time to bump this thread, since many of the same issues have surfaced again, this time at the Bad Astronomy (http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/01/27/rushmore-doubt-less/) web site.

Earlier in this thread, I posed some questions for ID proponents to answer. I'm still waiting....

Can you say what's necessary to qualify as an ID proponent? Behe's definition seems to differ from most people's here.

[bokonon]

Earlier in this thread, I posed some questions for ID proponents to answer. I'm still waiting....

Yeah, I count 9 posts from you on this page, and two pages before this. If you're serious about wanting an answer, why not be serious enough to restate the questions, instead of expecting people to read through a hundred posts from six years ago to dig them out?

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Time to bump this thread, since many of the same issues have surfaced again, this time at the Bad Astronomy (http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/01/27/rushmore-doubt-less/) web site.

My god, a "hidden" 5th face on Mt Rushmore? How deep does this go?

Earlier in this thread, I posed some questions for ID proponents to answer. I'm still waiting....

I haven't read the thread. Are there any IDiots here?

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Yeah, I count 9 posts from you on this page, and two pages before this. If you're serious about wanting an answer, why not be serious enough to restate the questions, instead of expecting people to read through a hundred posts from six years ago to dig them out?

Good point. Someone who believes in ID might have trouble reading all those words.

[DC]

So he found something complex and is not able to explain how it could have come about by natural processes, so he believes something even far more complex, able to design complex things did it.
Whats the point? who created that creator?

and other have come up with more plausible hypothesis how his complex things came about, like the flagella....

[Brown]

Can you say what's necessary to qualify as an ID proponent? Behe's definition seems to differ from most people's here.I don't insist upon any qualifications (at least not yet). My questions are open to anybody.

At what stage(s) did the designer(s) intervene?
How many distinct interventions have there been?
If we assume for the sake of argument that the eye is intelligently designed, is EACH eye the result of a separate intervention by the designer?
Could a designed feature be changed by natural selection?
Why are some features so poorly designed (if we use ordinary engineering criteria as our standards)?
Regardless of your answers to any of these questions, how do you KNOW your answer is the correct one?
As best I can tell, creationism and ID can't even get to first base. They cannot even get to the interesting scientific business of modeling and predicting and experimenting and setting up clinical trials and outlining mechanisms for change and all that other stuff that real scientists in general do, and that life scientists in particular do. Instead, the folks pushing creationism and ID are stuck because they are having trouble establishing that creationism and ID have ANY merit at all as fields of study.

[Thunder]

This is my take on it: if believing that "God" is the force behind Evolution and its complexity and supposed "intelligent designs", is necessary for some folks to believe in Evolution, then so be it.

what do I care.

[bokonon]

I don't insist upon any qualifications (at least not yet). My questions are open to anybody.

At what stage(s) did the designer(s) intervene?
How many distinct interventions have there been?
If we assume for the sake of argument that the eye is intelligently designed, is EACH eye the result of a separate intervention by the designer?
Could a designed feature be changed by natural selection?
Why are some features so poorly designed (if we use ordinary engineering criteria as our standards)?
Regardless of your answers to any of these questions, how do you KNOW your answer is the correct one?
As best I can tell, creationism and ID can't even get to first base. They cannot even get to the interesting scientific business of modeling and predicting and experimenting and setting up clinical trials and outlining mechanisms for change and all that other stuff that real scientists in general do, and that life scientists in particular do. Instead, the folks pushing creationism and ID are stuck because they are having trouble establishing that creationism and ID have ANY merit at all as fields of study.

I'm not an ID proponent, nor do I play one on the internet, but were I to walk a mile in one's shoes, this is how I might address these questions:

Not sure, but if we assume we're only interested in "biological" interventions (i.e., we can just ignore possible interventions in specifying the physical constants which led to chemistry which led to biology) it seems reasonable to suppose there would have been an intervention at the point of deciding to use DNA to encode information, at a minimum.
Don't know. Maybe only one (i.e., Big Bang as the most awesome break shot in the history of the universe), maybe one for every mutation and every "natural" selection. How many distinct mutations have there been? How many species, precisely, have gone extinct? How many haven't?

Just because a question might be expected to have a scientific answer ("How many raindrops larger than half a gram and smaller than a gram are falling to earth at this moment?") doesn't mean science has a hope in hell of determining what that answer is.
Not sure I understand the question. Do you mean each type of eye (human, octopus, insect, etc.) or the eye of each species, or my right eye and my left eye?

In any case, I'd think an ID proponent might make the case that even my right eye and left eye were the result of separate (and possibly multiple) interventions.
I don't think natural selection changes features, whether they were the result of natural mutation or design. It may change the frequency of a given change in the next generation.
The experiment is still running.
I don't. How do you?

In Behe's latest book, "The Edge of Evolution" (which I have available and have thumbed through, but haven't really read), he seems to be making the case that most of the complex protein-protein interactions which are ultimately coded by genes have been designed. They're incredibly complex shapes, which must "mesh" with each other in unlikely ways to do what they do. He might be willing to argue the position that the template, at least, for each gene had been designed. Or he might not; as I say, I haven't really spent more than about fifteen minutes with the book, but I could if you want to know something specific.

[bokonon]

Here's what Behe had to say on p. 171/172, which may give you a better indication of how he'd answer your questions:
There are several major classes of cells , which include the simpler prokaryotic cells of bacteria and the more complex eukaryotic cells of creatures ranging from yeasts to humans. Were just the simpler, prokaryotic cells designed? Could the more complex eukaryotic cells have evolved from them over time by unintelligent processes? In other words, given the simpler, designed cells in the distant past as a starting point, is it biologically reasonable to think that random mutation and natural selection could reach the more complex cells?

No. Eukaryotic cells contain a raft of complex functional systems that the simpler prokaryotes lack, systems that are enormously beyond Darwinian processes. For example, the cilium discussed in Chapter 5 , which contains hundreds of protein parts, and IFT, the system that constructs the cilium from the ground up, both appear in eukaryotic cells, but not in prokaryotic cells . And the cilium isn't the only difference. As the evolutionary developmental biologists Marc Kirschner and John Gerhart exclaim in The Plausibility of Life, "enormous innovations attended the evolution of the first single-celled eukaryotes one and a half to two billion years ago." The innovations include such fundamental features as sexual reproduction (meiosis and recombination), the organization of DNA into chromatin, and the provisioning of a cellular protein "skeleton." Of course , the two kinds of cells share a number of similar systems, such as the genetic code. Nonetheless, just as it's reasonable to view a motorcycle as a different sort of system from a bicycle, because eukaryotic cells contain multiple complex systems that prokaryotes do not, it's reasonable to view eukaryotes as integrated, designed systems in their own right.


So, his view seems to be that the designer is keeping his hand in things all the way up the line.

[plumjam]

Two excellent posts, Bokonon.

[bokonon]

My own view is that there is no intelligent designer.

I suspect that when things are understood better, we'll be able to show that many of the design solutions we regard as multicellular innovations were already present in single-celled animals*, and it's really billions of years coupled with the short reproduction cycles of those single-celled animals (and "emergent" properties in multicelled organisms) that accounts for the astonishing diversity and inter-related signaling systems of life.

Nevertheless, I think Behe makes a good case for a different hypothesis, and doing research to address his objections is not a waste of time. There are a lot of surprising facts at the molecular level, and many unanswered questions. I think what's going on inside cells and inside organisms is the most fascinating area of science today, and it's just too bad that it doesn't seem to translate to video presentations as well as "astro" and "eco" and "animal behavior". There are ten shows with fighting CGI dinosaurs for every evo-devo show, and in my opinion it should be the other way around. Hell, even medical shows seem to concentrate on bizarre "one in a hundred million" cases, instead of diabetes and arthritis and cancer and even baldness, that affect many more people.

But I guess I should really get off my soapbox and get on an edit bay somewhere...

* For example, the one-celled amoeba Dictyostelium forms light-seeking clusters which crawl like a slug through the forest, then fruit like a mushroom.

[Perpetual Student]

If the complexity of life must be explained through intelligent design, then we naturally ask, "who or what designed that complex life?"
That intelligent designer, then must be at least, if not more, complex than the complex life that has been designed. If complexity needs intelligence for its origins, who or what intelligence designed the intelligent designer? Unless we accept an infinite chain of intelligent designers, this thinking leads us to ultimately accept an unintelligent designed complexity, so why add unnecessary unsubstantiated layers?

[Wowbagger]

Why the zombie resurrection? Why not a new thread, after all these years?

I think Behe makes a good case for a different hypothesis, and doing research to address his objections is not a waste of time. His hypothesis does not have any testable claims to investigate. Therefore, from a scientific perspective, it's not such a good case. This is especially evident in how begs for us to weaken the scientific method, at the end of his book, in order to make his points appear to be stronger.


There are ten shows with fighting CGI dinosaurs for every evo-devo show, and in my opinion it should be the other way around.I can agree with that!

The inner workings of the cell can be very alien-looking. Perhaps even too alien.

[Wowbagger]

That intelligent designer, then must be at least, if not more, complex than the complex life that has been designed.It is possible, I suspect, for an intelligent entity to develop a self-adapting system that can emerge to become more complex than the original intelligent entity that designed it.

Though, admitting such things is not what I.D. proponents want to do. ;)

[bokonon]

That intelligent designer, then must be at least, if not more, complex than the complex life that has been designed. If complexity needs intelligence for its origins, who or what intelligence designed the intelligent designer? Unless we accept an infinite chain of intelligent designers, this thinking leads us to ultimately accept an unintelligent designed complexity, so why add unnecessary unsubstantiated layers?
I've used this argument in the past, but I don't know that it's valid. A modern American city, created by human beings, is more complex than any of the human beings that helped to create it. It's true the city doesn't seem to possess intelligence, but even so its existence undermines the argument that only something that's more complex can create a given level of complexity.

Standard science says that our intelligence is an emergent property of more simple properties.

It seems conceivable, anyway, that simple properties of matter might have created some intelligence which then went on to design and build life on earth. That intelligence wouldn't necessarily have to have been more complex than we are. People can build computers that do math faster and more accurately than people themselves do, can build cameras that see smaller, larger, faster, more broadly... We can't currently build life itself, but we can build things that do things we can't do. In principle, an intelligent designer might exist that can easily make one-celled organisms, but can't machine a screw.

I don't believe that such an intelligence is responsible for life on earth, but neither do I believe that this is a solid objection to the possibility.

[bokonon]

It is possible, I suspect, for an intelligent entity to develop a self-adapting system that can emerge to become more complex than the original intelligent entity that designed it.

Though, admitting such things is not what I.D. proponents want to do. ;)
Geez, if I hadn't spent so much time composing my reply, I could have saved that time by simply reading yours.

[Wowbagger]

Geez, if I hadn't spent so much time composing my reply, I could have saved that time by simply reading yours.
That's okay.

You gave some examples I did not think of. Most of mine would have been experimental AI systems, and they hardly qualify as being "more complex" than their human creators.

But, again, I don't think I.D. proponents like to consider emergent systems as a solution to their problems, because it is just as likely to be a challenge to their core ideas.

[Philosaur]

I've used this argument in the past, but I don't know that it's valid. A modern American city, created by human beings, is more complex than any of the human beings that helped to create it. It's true the city doesn't seem to possess intelligence, but even so its existence undermines the argument that only something that's more complex can create a given level of complexity.


Hang on a sec. Something seems wrong with this argument.

A person, let's call her Alice, is a complex system. Say Alice folds a paper hat and puts it on her head. Now the Alice + hat system is slightly more complex. So far so good, right? But Alice didn't create herself. And the added complexity from the paper hat is nearly negligible against the complexity of Alice. So it's obvious that in this case she didn't create something more complex than herself. Still good?

Say we have half a million people (the population of a large American city). The sum-total of everything those people create as part of the city (the buildings, cars, traffic, businesses, roads, sewer systems, power lines, etc) are like so many paper hats compared to the fantastic complexity of the half million people. If we look at a city as a system comprised of population + artifacts, we see something similar (if on a much larger scale) to what I presented with Alice above. The population is not self-created, and the sum of all their creations is not more complex than the creators themselves.

Please note: I'm not arguing for a creator. I'm only pointing out that the city argument doesn't hold upon further scrutiny.

ETA:

I just re-read my post, and realized what I should have said from the get-go:

A city is complex, but definitely not more complex than the totality of all the people who had a part in creating it.

That'll teach me to think out loud (or, rather, type while thinking).

[Perpetual Student]

It is possible, I suspect, for an intelligent entity to develop a self-adapting system that can emerge to become more complex than the original intelligent entity that designed it.

Though, admitting such things is not what I.D. proponents want to do. ;)

Since the human brain is the most complex structure known to science, if IDers were to hypothesize that the designer were less complex, it would follow that humans are potentially more intelligent than the designer. Blasphemy!:D

[Perpetual Student]

I've used this argument in the past, but I don't know that it's valid. A modern American city, created by human beings, is more complex than any of the human beings that helped to create it. It's true the city doesn't seem to possess intelligence, but even so its existence undermines the argument that only something that's more complex can create a given level of complexity.

Standard science says that our intelligence is an emergent property of more simple properties.

It seems conceivable, anyway, that simple properties of matter might have created some intelligence which then went on to design and build life on earth. That intelligence wouldn't necessarily have to have been more complex than we are. People can build computers that do math faster and more accurately than people themselves do, can build cameras that see smaller, larger, faster, more broadly... We can't currently build life itself, but we can build things that do things we can't do. In principle, an intelligent designer might exist that can easily make one-celled organisms, but can't machine a screw.

I don't believe that such an intelligence is responsible for life on earth, but neither do I believe that this is a solid objection to the possibility.

If an IDer were to argue that point, he would be admitting that complexity can emerge from less complex entities, thereby allowing for natural evolution, which has no need for a designer. The main thrust of ID arguments are that complexity cannot emerge from less complex entities.

[Wowbagger]

A city is complex, but definitely not more complex than the totality of all the people who had a part in creating it.It could be, in some ways, because the patterns of emergent systems that form within a city can not be predicted, very well, by examining a single human. I would argue there is, in fact, an extra layer of complexity within a city on top of the mere sum of its citizens.

But, this argument might depend on how you define "complexity".

Since the human brain is the most complex structure known to science, if IDers were to hypothesize that the designer were less complex, it would follow that humans are potentially more intelligent than the designer. Blasphemy!:D
Complexity does not necessarily equal Intelligence, of course. But, you are probably correct in your assessment of ID thinking patterns.

[ThunderChunky]

You'll note that Behe has stopped bring up the bacterial flagella, the blood clotting cascade, or any other specific example of something he does not think could evolve... Because every time he does, someone proves him wrong. This entire op-ed lacks substance, and he never tackles any obvious signs of evolution like homology and the tree of life.

[fishbob]

]As best I can tell, creationism and ID can't even get to first base. They cannot even get to the interesting scientific business of modeling and predicting and experimenting and setting up clinical trials and outlining mechanisms for change and all that other stuff that real scientists in general do, and that life scientists in particular do. Instead, the folks pushing creationism and ID are stuck because they are having trouble establishing that creationism and ID have ANY merit at all as fields of study.

As far as I can tell, no ID proponentist has performed a valid experiment, developed a useful tool or technology, made a testable claim, or honestly answered a question.

[Wowbagger]

As far as I can tell, no ID proponentist has performed a valid experiment, developed a useful tool or technology, made a testable claim, or honestly answered a question.
It gets worse.

Evolution is actually answering all of their questions for them. Evolution finds the findings, and ID reacts and reinterprets. ID is like a parasite living off the hard-won knowledge of Evolutionists.

So, ironically, if ID were to (hypothetically) win over the world, and Evolution were to die: ID would find itself without the means to answer any of its remaining questions in a reliable, empirical manner. It is really in the best interest of the ID movement to keep their perceived opponents alive.

[sphenisc]

For my mind he's totally shot himself in the foot by admitting that evolution can and has occurred. If you admit that, then you must concede that it could have occured all the way from protobacteria, and then there's little room for ID. All that's left for the designer is abiogenesis, and almost all of your ID arguments are rendered useless, because protobacteria are, by definition, not very complex.

If an IDer were to argue that point, he would be admitting that complexity can emerge from less complex entities, thereby allowing for natural evolution, which has no need for a designer. The main thrust of ID arguments are that complexity cannot emerge from less complex entities.

You'll note that Behe has stopped bring up the bacterial flagella, the blood clotting cascade, or any other specific example of something he does not think could evolve... Because every time he does, someone proves him wrong. This entire op-ed lacks substance, and he never tackles any obvious signs of evolution like homology and the tree of life.

As far as I can tell, no ID proponentist has performed a valid experiment, developed a useful tool or technology, made a testable claim, or honestly answered a question.

I would find arguments against ID more convincing if they weren't mutually contradictory.

[ThunderChunky]

I would find arguments against ID more convincing if they weren't mutually contradictory.

The only thing highlighted that is slightly contradictory with the others is fishbobs comment about making a testable claim.

[Skeptic Ginger]

You'll note that Behe has stopped bring up the bacterial flagella, the blood clotting cascade, or any other specific example of something he does not think could evolve... Because every time he does, someone proves him wrong. This entire op-ed lacks substance, and he never tackles any obvious signs of evolution like homology and the tree of life.Some folks from the Discovery Institute came to our skeptics group ~a year ago with the new claim, mitochondria are the new irreducible organ(elle). Those goal posts are certainly elusive things. :)

[Lukraak_Sisser]

Some folks from the Discovery Institute came to our skeptics group ~a year ago with the new claim, mitochondria are the new irreducible organ(elle). Those goal posts are certainly elusive things. :)

I hope they're not expecting too much from that, what with mitochondrial proteins, DNA, ribosomes and amino acid usage all being homologous to bacteria, wich all point to the endosymbiosis theory of their origin.
As well as the fact that their designer then decided to create an essential part of the cell that cannot be made directly by the cell.

Looking at mitochondria (and chloroplasts) using the theory of evolution they make sense, but design wise they are utterly inefficient, sloppy or even stupid.

[BobTheDonkey]

Hang on a sec. Something seems wrong with this argument.

A person, let's call her Alice, is a complex system. Say Alice folds a paper hat and puts it on her head. Now the Alice + hat system is slightly more complex. So far so good, right? But Alice didn't create herself. And the added complexity from the paper hat is nearly negligible against the complexity of Alice. So it's obvious that in this case she didn't create something more complex than herself. Still good?

Say we have half a million people (the population of a large American city). The sum-total of everything those people create as part of the city (the buildings, cars, traffic, businesses, roads, sewer systems, power lines, etc) are like so many paper hats compared to the fantastic complexity of the half million people. If we look at a city as a system comprised of population + artifacts, we see something similar (if on a much larger scale) to what I presented with Alice above. The population is not self-created, and the sum of all their creations is not more complex than the creators themselves.

Please note: I'm not arguing for a creator. I'm only pointing out that the city argument doesn't hold upon further scrutiny.

ETA:

I just re-read my post, and realized what I should have said from the get-go:

A city is complex, but definitely not more complex than the totality of all the people who had a part in creating it.

That'll teach me to think out loud (or, rather, type while thinking).

Ok, let's work on this analogy...because it's useful, but I don't think it really makes the point you want it to make.

Let's take Alice. Add a finger. Which is more complex? The finger or Alice+finger? A city is the same idea. Take New York City. You have 5 boroughs. Complex, lots going on, all 5 of the boroughs bring their own bit to the party and contribute to the whole. Now, each borough on it's own is quite complex - say there's 1 million people, that's 1 million parts of complexity. Add The Bronx and Brooklyn together, and now you have 2 million parts of complexity. Add all 5 boroughs together, and it's like having Alice. When we add Hoboken, NJ to the mix, we have Alice+finger. Which is more complex?

1 cell performing it's function is complex. 2 cells doing the same thing in conjunction is, roughly, twice as complex. Imagine how much more difficult the job of City Manager is for Manhattan vs Podunk, SD.

Alternately, the City fails to exist without the people. However, individuals will still manage to function on their own. While not always the case, here it indicates the City is more complex than the individual person (cells can survive on their own (albeit for only a short time), whereas Alice cannot exist without cells).

Now, we could argue about whether a city is Intelligently Designed (seriously, have you driven in Boston? :D), and while a solid argument could be presented that cities are intelligently designed, that doesn't change that communities initially sprung out of individuals deciding to group together to improve their chances of survival.

[bokonon]

Some folks from the Discovery Institute came to our skeptics group ~a year ago with the new claim, mitochondria are the new irreducible organ(elle). Those goal posts are certainly elusive things. :)
It seems more like a scientific claim than a goal post. When an organism is re-classified from one branch to another on the tree of life, it's not characterized as "shifting the goal posts," and I don't think it's fair to use that term here either.

As far as I'm concerned, until a solution is demonstrated for the abiogenesis problem, "prokaryote" (or perhaps "archeon") is the best example of "irreducible" complexity. I don't put much stock in rationalizations like "abiogenesis is not evolution," since all the current research of which I'm aware is attempting to find the solution in the space of replicating chemical feedback loops -- "evolving" RNA, etc.

I agree with most scientists that the problem will eventually be solved. While I am predisposed to think the answer the Discovery Institute proposes will not turn out to be correct, I am not inclined to dismiss the question itself. Until a solution is found, those who ask "How could this have come about?" -- whether they're working at the Discovery Institute or the Scripps Institute -- are asking a valid scientific question.

[ThunderChunky]

It seems more like a scientific claim than a goal post. When an organism is re-classified from one branch to another on the tree of life, it's not characterized as "shifting the goal posts," and I don't think it's fair to use that term here either.

It's a goal post because is started out saying "the bacterial flagella could not evolve." Scientists show them how. "The blood clotting cascade could not evolve" Scientists show them how. Now, apparently, it's the mitochondria, which scientists have already shown how it could have evolved.

As far as I'm concerned, until a solution is demonstrated for the abiogenesis problem, "prokaryote" (or perhaps "archeon") is the best example of "irreducible" complexity. I don't put much stock in rationalizations like "abiogenesis is not evolution," since all the current research of which I'm aware is attempting to find the solution in the space of replicating chemical feedback loops -- "evolving" RNA, etc.

Abiogenesis is a major question, but the ID crowd seems to think that one form of life cannot evolve into another. That is a completely separate objection than claiming that life cannot arise on its own.

One objects to the spontaneous creation of something that can be selected, the other objects to the power of selection itself.

I agree with most scientists that the problem will eventually be solved. While I am predisposed to think the answer the Discovery Institute proposes will not turn out to be correct, I am not inclined to dismiss the question itself. Until a solution is found, those who ask "How could this have come about?" -- whether they're working at the Discovery Institute or the Scripps Institute -- are asking a valid scientific question.

The discovery institute is not asking "how could this have come about?" They're stating "this could not have evolved" and then getting proven wrong over and over again.

[Philosaur]

I've used this argument in the past, but I don't know that it's valid. A modern American city, created by human beings, is more complex than any of the human beings that helped to create it. It's true the city doesn't seem to possess intelligence, but even so its existence undermines the argument that only something that's more complex can create a given level of complexity.


Ok, let's work on this analogy...because it's useful, but I don't think it really makes the point you want it to make.

Let's take Alice. Add a finger. Which is more complex? The finger or Alice+finger? A city is the same idea. Take New York City. You have 5 boroughs. Complex, lots going on, all 5 of the boroughs bring their own bit to the party and contribute to the whole. Now, each borough on it's own is quite complex - say there's 1 million people, that's 1 million parts of complexity. Add The Bronx and Brooklyn together, and now you have 2 million parts of complexity. Add all 5 boroughs together, and it's like having Alice. When we add Hoboken, NJ to the mix, we have Alice+finger. Which is more complex?

1 cell performing it's function is complex. 2 cells doing the same thing in conjunction is, roughly, twice as complex. Imagine how much more difficult the job of City Manager is for Manhattan vs Podunk, SD.

Alternately, the City fails to exist without the people. However, individuals will still manage to function on their own. While not always the case, here it indicates the City is more complex than the individual person (cells can survive on their own (albeit for only a short time), whereas Alice cannot exist without cells).

Now, we could argue about whether a city is Intelligently Designed (seriously, have you driven in Boston? :D), and while a solid argument could be presented that cities are intelligently designed, that doesn't change that communities initially sprung out of individuals deciding to group together to improve their chances of survival.

I think my point got lost in my analogy.

What I was responding to was (I think) the core proposition from Bokonon, highlighted above.

The words Bokonon used made it read as though the comparison was between the city and any single individual who helped make it. I think this is trivially true since a city is composed of a group of people, and the group is more complex than the individual.

In the interests of being charitable, I chose to reinterpret Bokonon's proposition so that it was city vs. all of city's creators to see if the non-trivially true version was still true.

If the question is simply "Is the city more complex than the group of people who made it?" then again, per your analysis, this is true.

But if the question is slightly more nuanced, and we ask if the created portion of the city (only the artifacts) is more complicated than the creators (the population), then the answer is probably false.

And, Wowbagger, I have a hard time considering emergent phenomena as "created". So I still don't think that the city is more complex than its creators.

I know all of this is peripheral to the main discussion, but it's at least an interesting aside, I hope.

[Skeptic Ginger]

It seems more like a scientific claim than a goal post. When an organism is re-classified from one branch to another on the tree of life, it's not characterized as "shifting the goal posts," and I don't think it's fair to use that term here either.I guess if you don't know anything about bacterial flagella or the blood clotting cascade it might seem that way to you.

As far as I'm concerned, until a solution is demonstrated for the abiogenesis problem, "prokaryote" (or perhaps "archeon") is the best example of "irreducible" complexity. I don't put much stock in rationalizations like "abiogenesis is not evolution," since all the current research of which I'm aware is attempting to find the solution in the space of replicating chemical feedback loops -- "evolving" RNA, etc.Ding ding ding, OMFSM, we agree on something. :Banane03: I don't agree with the rationalization that "abiogenesis is not evolution" either!.

I think it's a convenient cop out . One has to go back to the transition from not living to living for the beginning of evolution. To say evolution only starts after the inorganic molecules evolved into a reproducing organism doesn't seem like the right dividing line for the origin of evolution to me.

But as to waiting until we get the last piece of the puzzle when the entire rest of it is complete, that we don't agree on. That would be ignoring overwhelming evidence. And the DI in no way asks legitimate scientific questions. They only look to confirm a preconceived conclusion. That is not science.


There is a lot of work going on in the science of abiogenesis. I'm pretty sure we are close to understanding the process. It certainly isn't any mysterious process one can't figure out without putting a magical god into the explanation.

[ThunderChunky]

I think it's a convenient cop out . One has to go back to the transition from not living to living for the beginning of evolution. To say evolution only starts after the inorganic molecules evolved into a reproducing organism doesn't seem like the right dividing line for the origin of evolution to me.

Well, I think the argument is that evolution starts when we have Darwinian selection. In other words, when does decent with modification begin? That would not require a life form at all like the ones we have today. On the other hand, one could conceive of competing and changing chemical systems that may be precursors to life but do not evolve in the classical sense... It's hard to draw a hard line when we dont know what is actually being divided by it. The reason people separate abiogenesis from evolution is because the theories explain two fundamentally different questions. Abiogenesis explains how life originated, while evolution explains the diversity of life we see today.

[Aepervius]

I don't agree with the rationalization that "abiogenesis is not evolution" either!.


I don't disagree with the rationalization. Why ? In absence of mechanism or model it does not make sense to pretend it falls under evolution. For all we know it could be basic organic chemical reaction law leading to a life path independent of evolution.

At best you can say inconclusive. At worst you can say there is no evidence it must fall under evolution.