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Irreducible complexity
You’re walking down the street with a toddler and come upon the sight of sneakers tied end to end and draped over the telephone wire. I almost said “thrown” over the telephone wire, but that would be begging the question.
How do they happen to be there, that’s what the kid wants to know. Your adult mind, at this point, races through a rolodex of childhood pranks, and you mentally reconstruct the incident. But until you explain it, for all he knows the things spontaneously erupted from the wire like lichen.
None of us was around when the first human eye appeared, so one could say “your guess is as good as mine” — Evolution or Creation. But nobody believes one guess is as good as another for explaining the wristwatch you find on the beach; nobody countenances for one second that it’s a fortuitous collision of glass and metal. You know design when you see it.
It’s all about choices, isn’t it. One person sees irreducible complexity and considers the staggering improbability of simultaneous and co-adaptive mutations, or a series of cumulative fortuitous mutations just hanging on till the payoff arrives of a whole functioning eye. The other person (perhaps smuggling a little teleology into his atheism unawares) invokes time plus chance to silence all objections.
The mechanisms of biology are complex but the concept is simple enough (Matthew
“To the person who does not feel obliged to restrict his search to unintelligent causes, the straightforward conclusion is that many biological systems were designed” (Michael J. Behe, Darwin’s Black Box)
back to top128 Comments to “Irreducible complexity”
I never really understood why kids threw shoes over telephone/power lines. When I was in Mexico, sometimes there were so many shoes bunched together on a line that it looked like some sort of bizarre hive.
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Maybe it’s because you can.
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I think we in the faith community really botched the way we introduced ID into the public square. Trying to get it taught in science classes alongside more conventional topics was the wrong way to go. It’s more metaphysics than straght science, so the church or an honors programs is the more appropriate venue.
The problem is that not enough people in the church understand well enought to teach it, and it would be rejected by churches that have a young-earth world view. So we just tried to get the state to teach it for us. Bad move.
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First of all, the mechanics of evolution and the metaphysics of design are two separate questions. Secularists and Christians alike too often confuse the two.
Scientists claim to have ample evidence of the mechanics of evolution, so it is not fair either to adopt a “your guess is as good as mine” attitude or to assert that your metaphysical reasoning trumps their material evidence. That would be like defending a suspect by ignoring all the evidence of his crime and just saying, “Well, your honor, none of us were there so the prosecutor’s guess is no better than mine. And despite the prosecution’s evidence, my client is such a nice guy that he just couldn’t have done what they say — it doesn’t make sense.”
The Creator’s existence has for me the perfect clarity of a logical necessity. But I also know that Creator has crafted the material world in such a way that we humans can learn truths about it. Scientists, including a great many believers, have overwhelming asserted that they have sufficient material evidence of evolution. Lacking the scientific knowledge to dispute that overwhelming consensus, I must trust their testimony on that. I likewise trust Scripture that God created the heavens and the earth, and that perfect truth reconciles these two seamlessly.
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(I missed your post, John M. Good points.)
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Drat. Wish we had an edit feature.
Should be “overwhelmingly asserted.”
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Amen, JJF.
It helps me to think of it this way: God designed the process of evolution.
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None of us was around when the first human eye appeared, so one could say “your guess is as good as mine” — Evolution or Creation. But nobody believes one guess is as good as another for explaining the wristwatch you find on the beach; nobody countenances for one second that it’s a fortuitous collision of glass and metal. You know design when you see it.
Classic fallacy – you know a watch was designed primarily because you know that people design watches, not because it’s complicated! This is “side information.”
The “first human eye” was pretty much like the first pre-human eye which was like the first mammal eye which was like the first reptile eye which was a lot like the first fish eye. Eyes have been around a long time. To see their beginnings you have to look at much more primitive forms of life, like mollusks.
Then Eye evolution is pretty easy to account for with natural selection. That’s why the likes of Behe have gone to bio-chemical examples that lie nearer the frontier of current knowledge. But as we learn more, the evolutionary origin of things like the “bacterial flagellum” are being understood, and Behe’s God of the gaps has to move to a new gap…
Seu, you should really try learning some mainstream biology instead of burping up Kool-Aid from the Discovery Institute!
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The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show Mr. Know it all
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great. that evolutionary progression is all nice and dandy, spin, but where’s the step BEFORE letter A?
you know?
the one that goes from “no complicated protein synthesis reacting to light” to “complicated protein synthesis reacting to light”…
that is most definitely the biggest jump, and the one that cannot be broken down into smaller steps.
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# 9: “And now, here to tell you everything about anything is Mr. Know-It-All.” ~ Rocket J. Squirrel
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the one that goes from “no complicated protein synthesis reacting to light” to “complicated protein synthesis reacting to light”…
Biochemical steps leave little trace, which is why Behe loves them so. But even here are many plausible choices of steps. Many important molecules are light-sensitive, from chlorophyll to protective pigments, and they often store the extra photon energy as ATP. It’s not really much of a step from here to using this information in primitive neural processing like that of the limpet’s “eye spot.”
Do we know the exact steps that did happen? I haven’t heard that we do. Does that make the step highly improbably or prove God did it? NO!
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JJF, I’m sure the atheist trolls on this board would applaud your submission to the authority of science. You’re right, it’s hard for we, the “unwashed herd,” to comment (let alone contend) with an overwhelming consenus on the part of a professional elite.
The science mainstream tells us to “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain,” since they know that if we took a peak, we’d understand how evolutionary science constantly fabricates contrived explanations in response to contrary data. Take the currently accepted model of the formation of the Earth-Moon system, as dreamed up by Bill Hartmann et al….
The Moon’s orbit is too circular to support a capture scenario but the Moon’s composition (as established by the Apollo missions) is too iron-deficient to support co-accretion with the Earth. So let’s just imagine a Mars-sized object that collided with the proto-Earth a zillion years ago and blew off enough silicates to form the observed mass and composition of the Moon. And let’s create a computer model that includes the exact size, mass, angle of attack, and other parameters of the object and the proto-Earth to shoehorn the currently-observed data into the model. Presto! a reverse-engineering of the desired scenario. Then let’s include that theory in public school textbooks and make a few PBS specials about it and pat anyone on the head as a simpleton who has any doubts.
Critics of darwinism might find it hard to compete with this sort of manpower and resources, but such endeavors nevertheless do not incontrovertibly establish objective scientific “fact” but are rather more akin to indoctrination. Apparently it worked in your case.
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And let’s create a computer model that includes the exact size, mass, angle of attack, and other parameters of the object and the proto-Earth to shoehorn the currently-observed data into the model.
The data don’t need to be shoe-horned at all.
1) There is abundant data that inner planets in both our and other solar system(s) form by the collision of planetesimals – asteroid-sized bodies that accumulated from circumstellar dust.
2) Computer simulations of the process with many ranges of parameters typically result in a few large objects, several of which are Mars-sized, that ultimately collide until a planetary orbit zone is relatively free of them.
3) Geochemical affinities between earth and moon confirm that moon-rock comes from earth: The moon has exactly the same oxygen isotope composition as the Earth, whereas Mars rocks and meteorites from other parts of the solar system have different oxygen isotope compositions. This shows that the moon formed form material formed in Earth’s neighborhood.
This theory is younger and less established than evolution, but it’s still far and away the best-confirmed scenario for lunar origins. There is no reason to pick on it with an uninformed argument from incredulity!
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The science mainstream tells us to “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain,”
It says no such thing. But I do recommend not spouting off an opinion until you really DO look behind the curtain. This means learning what mainstream science actually says, not what the priests of AIG, ICR, DI, etc., claim it says.
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1) There is abundant data that inner planets in both our and other solar system(s) form by the collision of planetesimals – asteroid-sized bodies that accumulated from circumstellar dust.
———————
none of that data has actually been observed, however. the planets are still planets, and have been for all of observable time. It’s all hypothetical data.
You did nothing to disprove his accusation that it’s all shoe-horned into a pre-determined model.
You merely gave your counter-opinion to his opinion.
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This theory is younger and less established than evolution, but it’s still far and away the best-confirmed scenario for lunar origins. There is no reason to pick on it with an uninformed argument from incredulity!
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::snicker:: who ever heard of QUESTIONING *gasp* science!?! i mean, c’mon! electrons still “orbit” the nucleus in an atom, light is merely a wave, and bloodletting cures cancer.
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PS: #12 shows an unreasonably simplistic view of the complex sequencing required for such a change to occur… not only in ONE cell, but in several cells.
Followed by the necessary nerve cells all somehow being perfectly coded at the exact same time…
Followed by the neural cells in the brain stem itself being perfectly coded to register and understand the input from these new nerve cells transmitting data from these new photoreceptor cells.
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this brings up an interesting point, as well.
Assuming that the organism that got all this sequencing right somehow, how is he supposed to know what it all means? Modern eyespotted organisms know that “dark” usually equals “getting eaten” and so they move when they receive that input from their eyespot.
How would the “pioneer” eyespotted critter know that “dark” = “death?” the scenario would essentially play out like this:
Critter: “hungry”
*shadow passes over critter*
Critter: “something happened. i’m not sure what.”
*critter is eaten because there isn’t a chapter on “visual stimuli” in the critter existence manual*
*critter’s newfound knowledge about the relationship between “dark” and “death” is not passed on, because critter is dead*
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#19 correction:
first sentence in the second line should be “Assuming that the organism got all this sequencing right somehow….”
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I just wanted to say I know why they are there: it’s a marker for drug dealers.
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my neighbor (a user/dealer) used to have them hanging outside her house.
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JayFromCleveland:
I doubt you take the same approach to your doctor’s advice, or your lawyer’s, or your accountant’s. You trust that they are professionals, and that the years of study they’ve put into their fields makes their opinion more valuable than your own. Certainly this trust has limits, and you would be wise to learn what you can on your own to be checking on them, but you have no notion that your opinion on medicine, the law, or taxes is equal to theirs. Why do you feel that you deserve an equal voice with the man who has spent 30 years reading and researching in the field of science?
What you say may be true. If so, prove it. Take your argument to ten evolutionary astronomers and solicit their reactions. Could you convince even one that your evidence poses a significant challenge to their theories?
Charges of indoctrination are fruitless. I could just respond with “Nuh uh, I’m right and YOU were indoctrinated by recalcitrant creationists!” And then we could have a shouting match. Good times.
Overwhelming scientific consensus does not establish fact, but it establishes a very high probability of truth. What makes you call it indoctrination? Simply that you disagree with it? If 98 out of 100 professionals agree that something is true, shouldn’t that be the established curriculum in that field? Is it indoctrination to teach kids Newton’s three laws of motion just because Buddhists believe the material world is an illusion?
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16/17 Tombob
none of that data has actually been observed, however. the planets are still planets, and have been for all of observable time. It’s all hypothetical data.
You did nothing to disprove his accusation that it’s all shoe-horned into a pre-determined model.
You merely gave your counter-opinion to his opinion.
I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’m talking about the following:
In Our Solar System:
1. Dating of lunar rocks from surfaces with crater counts show that the early solar system was heavily bombarded in the first few hundred million years
2. Key populations of meteorites are geochemically fractionated in ways that indicate they came from large parent asteroids that were destroyed – presumably in collisions
3. Asteroid and comet populations themselves are the remnants of the early planetesimal populations
Outside the solar system
1. Young stars (t < few million years) have disks of dust – the spectral emission at radio wavelengths shows that the dust includes larger rocks of at least cobbles size (I wrote one of the first papers that shows this for Astrophysical Journal)
2. Slightly older stars (t < 100 million years) have disks of dust, but no gas. The dust has timescales for dispersal under radiation pressure that are much younger than the ages of the stars; the most logical explanation is that the dust is being regenerated. The simplest mechanism? Colliding planetesimals. I’m about to publish 2 dozen such “debris disks” discovered with NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope.
Now you can continue to shout “You weren’t there” or “You don’t really know” all you want, but that is a gross misrepresentation of the state of observations and theoretical understanding of planetary origins!
::snicker:: who ever heard of QUESTIONING *gasp* science!?! i mean, c’mon! electrons still “orbit” the nucleus in an atom, light is merely a wave, and bloodletting cures cancer.
Yes scientific understand evolves; that’s what makes it so exciting. That’s also what makes religious dogma so dull! The theory of the moon’s origin was a topic of hot debate among scientists just 2 decades ago. The emergence of the collision theory signals the discovery of a preponderance of new data that confirm the collision theory and refute the other theories. Why is this so much trouble for you?
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I would like an ID advocate to answer, clearly and plainly, the one question everybody always glosses past:
How does it help your case?
ID does NOT give you a young universe, a single literal Adam, a literal Noachian flood or any of the other things that Creationisists insist are necessary to maintain for literalistic Christian belief to hold.
It DOES pin God into specific and narrow gaps, taking the risk that whenever a natural answer is arrived at, God has one less gap to live in.
So again:
How does it help your case?
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SteveG – A young earth maybe needed for “young earth ceationists” to maintain their interpretation. ID is likely incompatible with that belief/interpretation.
But there are “old eartth creationists” (I lean that way).
Irreducable complexity is a very compeling argument. I have never seen it refuted by anything that sis’t involve presuppositions that were less unsatisfying.
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Irreducable complexity is a very compeling argument. I have never seen it refuted by anything that sis’t involve presuppositions that were less unsatisfying.
Why do you find it compelling? Honestly, I just find it to be ridiculous in the context of evolution by natural selection.
E.g., Irreducible Complexity Demystified
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Note – OEC Hugh Ross doesn’t think ID is your friend, either (not that I agree with him):
More Than Inteligent Design
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Spinoza – from your cited site: “How might an IC system evolve? One possibility is that in the past, the function may have been done with more parts than are strictly necessary. Then an ‘extra’ part may be lost, leaving an IC system. Or the parts may become co-adapted to perform even better, but become unable to perform the specified function at all without each other. This brings up another point: the parts themselves evolve. Behe’s parts are usually whole proteins or even larger. A protein is made up of hundreds of smaller parts called amino acids, of which twenty different kinds may be used. Evolution usually changes these one by one. Another important fact is that DNA evolves. What difference does this make, compared to saying that proteins evolve? If you think about it, each protein that your body makes is made at just the right time, in just the right place and in just the right amount. These details are also coded in your DNA (with timing and quantity susceptible to outside influences) and so are subject to mutation and evolution. For our purposes we can refer to this as deployment of parts. When a protein is deployed out of its usual context, it may be co-opted for a different function. A fourth noteworthy possibility is that brand new parts are created. This typically comes from gene duplication, which is well known in biology. At first the duplicate genes make the same protein, but these genes may evolve to make slightly different proteins that depend on each other.
We can summarize these four possibilities this way:
Previously using more parts than necessary for the function.
The parts themselves evolve.
Deployment of parts (gene regulation) evolves.
New parts are created (gene duplication) and may then evolve.”
This is classicly disingenuous. Evolution posits development from simple single cells into much more complicated forms. The sytem was not more complicated beofre and got simplified (a rather classic entropic sort of change) – it was almost nothing and got more complicated. Nothing there gives any satisfying explanation of how a complicated system spontaneously evolves from the simple to a more complicated sate by increments through natural selection.
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Learner 21,
That was my understanding from several of the young users I have known. Don’t know if it was accurate or just them pulling my leg.
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“Evolution posits development from simple single cells into much more complicated forms.”
Perhaps overall, but evolution doesn’t predict greater complexity at every step. Far from it.
Many organisms adapt by simplifying. Behold the legless snake (I know, Satan again …)!
To SHOW that God did it, the burden of proof is on you to show that there is NO possible pathway for an allegedly irreducibly complex structure to be produced by ANY set of initial conditions acting under natural law (including ones we haven’t thought of). IDers never do this, nor can they. Dembski calculates probabilities that are impossibly low for the scenario of his choice, but he doesn’t calculate them for all possibilities, so they are useless.
I wish one really could prove divine intervention scientifically! That’s one reason I am so opposed to false pretenses of success like the efforts of DI, Behe, Dembski, et al. They haven’t succeeded, so they are trying to wage a public propaganda campaign, as if convincing John Q. Public will somehow make up for their failures.
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Re: “Overwhelming consensus.” It means nothing except that if you disagree you are in the minority. “Everyone” thought the earth was flat but it’s not (at least that’s what everyone thinks right now. Maybe we will discover that there is a 4th dimension which shows us that the earth is really totally indistinguishable from the rest of the universe and thus completely shapeless). The term “Everyone” brings up another problem with “overwhelming consensus.” What group are you talking about? The majority thought is only the majority of the group you are referring to.
This is NOT to say majority thought should be disregarded, because it is reasonable to think that if something IS true, then it is likely that most people will agree it is true. History has proven, though, that this is not always the case.
The main two problems I see with the theory of evolution is
1. The only thing we have is evidence (no actual observation) and none of is that great. If it takes millions of years for macroevolution to occur, then evolutionists will have to be very patient about actually proving the theory.
2. The theory of evolution precludes the possibility of ID. It is built on the premise that there HAS TO BE a natural explanation for nature itself.
This is a reasonable premise b/c nature provides natural explanations for everything that happens inside of nature. But that does not necessitate that there is a natural explanation for nature itself.
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SPINOZA, I appreciate the knowledgeable and mature way you are discussing this (though, personally, I have no feasible way to confirm any of your cited facts).
So where do you think nature itself came from?
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ACBOYDSTON at #32: 2. The theory of evolution precludes the possibility of ID. It is built on the premise that there HAS TO BE a natural explanation for nature itself.
I don’t think that’s true. The theory of evolution is built on the premise that there is a natural explanation for natural phenomena.
One of the favorite ways anti-evolution people have to try to discredit evolution is to say that it claims far more than it really does. Evolution is simply a description of how life forms change over time. Period.
It’s not about how life began in the first place. It’s not about anything at all outside of biology. It’s just a field of study, with boundaries.
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STEVEG #32: I think I see what you are saying. Your theory of evolution is just that species started out as very simple organisms and evolved into more complex species. God could have started/overseen it. Is that correct?
I say “your theory,” b/c I don’t know what the “official” theory is. Is there one? Do you know it?
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In very simple terms, evolution holds that over time — several billion years — the basic building blocks of life have been shaped by natural selection (the self-evident principle that the better suited an organism is to survive in a given environment, the better it will survive) and chance mutation (giving natural selecting variations to select) into the “endless forms most beautiful” that have existed in the past, exist now and will exist in the future.
That’s it. Did God set the initial conditions that allow this to happen? That’s a question beyond the scope of science to answer. Did God reach down and make occasional “course corrections” as needed? Again, such intervention, unless it skewed the path of life into a starkly unlikely direction, would be undetectable by science.
If evolution is true (and the physical evidence is all on its side), then Genesis cannot be a physical historical account. But for a non-fundamentalist Jew or Christian, that presents no problem.
Hence, evolution may be a threat to literalism, but not to religious belief in any other form.
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#33 I’m happy with a religious answer to the question, “Where did nature come from?” (i.e., “God”) The details of the universe make me, well, kinda “high”. And when I get high, I seem to have no problem believing in “God.” This is not a compelling philosophical argument, I admit – it’s my psychological experience, though.
I am amused and unconvinced by one of the proposed alternatives: “The universe is just one of those things that happens from time to time.”
Right!
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34. BY STEVEG 04.18.08 AT 9:04 PM
ACBOYDSTON at #32: 2. The theory of evolution precludes the possibility of ID. It is built on the premise that there HAS TO BE a natural explanation for nature itself.
I don’t think that’s true. The theory of evolution is built on the premise that there is a natural explanation for natural phenomena.
I am confused STEVEG, you say I don’t think that’s true. then you say the same thing.
Please explain.
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jjf wrote:
I doubt you take the same approach to your doctor’s advice, or your lawyer’s, or your accountant’s. You trust that they are professionals, and that the years of study they’ve put into their fields makes their opinion more valuable than your own.
Your naive faith in humanity is touching, it really is, but it’s also very ignorant. Humanity has a pervasive history of charlatanism that you apparently know nothing of. In recent times technology having to do with knowledge is undermining charlatanism, i.e. the internet is undermining it just as the printing press had much to do with the Reformation. Those who tend to believe Darwinian creation myths rooted in a grand myth of Progress as we know it point to charlatanism in the past but tend to be blind to modern forms of charlatanism. But it’s still around because it’s part of human nature. For example:
An interesting case of expertise is that of real estate agents, studies have shown that they sell their own homes for significantly more than their client’s. Charlatanism:
They cite an interesting study on key words that real estate agents use to describe their own homes vs. the words they use to describe homes that they want to sell quickly. And so on.
Certainly this trust has limits, and you would be wise to learn what you can on your own to be checking on them, but you have no notion that your opinion on medicine, the law, or taxes is equal to theirs.
That’s why the best thing to do is to have competition and disagreement among experts. Given that people are often evil it is best to set evil against itself and hope for the best.
Why do you feel that you deserve an equal voice with the man who has spent 30 years reading and researching in the field of science?
There is a long line of critics who have gone the iconoclastic route of smashing the charlatanism typical to Darwinists/”biologists”. You haven’t heard of them I suppose? Why would that be? If charlatanism is “overwhelming” Darwinian biologists just as eugenicists were overwhelmed by their own sense of consensus and so on then how can it ever be corrected if you keep citing the consensus itself as if it is evidence that opposing views need not be debated?
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Bob … the explanation was contained in the rest of the post I think, but to put it another way … the theory of evolution has boundaries. It starts after life came into existence, and it pertains only to the history of life.
The question of how life came into existence in the first place is outside of its boundary. (There is a scientific effort to explore that question as well, which might or might not ever get anywhere, but it’s not evolution.)
Another point I think is important is that the physical sciences, no matter how much they ever reveal about the physical universe, will never (despite Dawkins, Dennett, et al) have anything to say about the metaphysical. We are studying, through science, the painting. And all we learn about the chemical make up of the paint, the physics of the adhesion of paint to canvas and the aesthetics of the brush strokes will never tell us anything about the painter.
Or in practical terms, if science ever finds a description of the chemical reactions that led to the start of life, it won’t tell us anything about whether a Creator set it up to be that way.
They are just different questions addressed by different disciplines.
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In very simple terms, evolution holds that over time — several billion years — the basic building blocks of life have been shaped by natural selection (the self-evident principle that the better suited an organism is to survive in a given environment, the better it will survive)…
I’m not sure that is a self-evident principle in the case of man. For example, sometimes a person perfectly capable of surviving in their environment, much more fit and capable than others who are disabled, chooses to commit suicide anyway. Yet if we admit that acts of intelligent intention and choice exist then we have to ask what role they might play in the way that the history of life unfolds. If there are self-evident truths that are evident in the Self and therefore scientia/knowledge then your so-called “self-evident” principle isn’t so much false as that it is increasingly inapplicable to higher life forms.
…and chance mutation (giving natural selecting variations to select) into the “endless forms most beautiful” that have existed in the past, exist now and will exist in the future.
“Chance” mutation? What do you suppose chance is?
If evolution is true (and the physical evidence is all on its side)….
Well I suppose it is to those willing to give it a chance. But what do you think chance is?
…then Genesis cannot be a physical historical account.
I don’t know how physical it is. All I know is that when people begin by saying that they must, absolutely must, limit themselves to explanations that seem “natural” to them then one ought not be surprised when an overwhelming amount of mythological narratives of “Nature” are imagined. The odd thing is that the argument begins with, “We must limit ourselves to natural explanations.” but often concludes with “Would you look at that, we have now found that naturalism is the truth!” It would seem that you can only find what you are looking for. Evolution has been defined by the pursuit of explanations that seem natural, yet then you claim that it is “true.” It seems that it should be admitted that “evolution” may not be true given that it was not defined as a pursuit of the truth in the first place.
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…all we learn about the chemical make up of the paint, the physics of the adhesion of paint to canvas and the aesthetics of the brush strokes will never tell us anything about the painter.
By your own analogy such an analysis would tell you a few things about the painter and the intelligence involved in creating the correct mix of pigments for different lighting effects and so on. Empirical evidence indicates that the chemical make up of the pigments used to paint a picture about life may have been mixed just so. For example:
Or in practical terms, if science ever finds a description of the chemical reactions that led to the start of life, it won’t tell us anything about whether a Creator set it up to be that way.
Why not?
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I’m not sure that is a self-evident principle in the case of man. For example, sometimes a person perfectly capable of surviving in their environment, much more fit and capable than others who are disabled, chooses to commit suicide anyway.
It’s a species issue, not an individual one. If a few people commit suicide, it doesn’t have much effect on the species. If 99.5 percent of people committed suicide (before reproducing), we would disappear in a generation or two.
All I know is that when people begin by saying that they must, absolutely must, limit themselves to explanations that seem “natural” to them then one ought not be surprised when an overwhelming amount of mythological narratives of “Nature” are imagined. The odd thing is that the argument begins with, “We must limit ourselves to natural explanations.” but often concludes with “Would you look at that, we have now found that naturalism is the truth!”
That is true of some people’s thought processes, but I find it illogical. To use the analogy I used in #40, it’s like saying that because we now know the paint is made of pigment mixed with oil, we’ve explained the creation of the picture.
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Perhaps overall, but evolution doesn’t predict greater complexity at every step. Far from it.
Unfortunately it does generally have to explain Progress as we know it, which is quite a bit. It used to be that Darwinists had no problem with predicting a general sort of progress based on Darwinian reasoning. Virtually all socialists used the Darwinian myth of Progress based on natural laws (”science”) as the foundation of their ideology, different types of socialists simply disagreed over how Progress rooted in natural laws and “science” would come about. Now there is a bit of a stigma to socialism (Especially heretical variants like national socialism) and Darwinists do not focus on the old Darwinian myth of natural/general progress. I suspect this is only for pragmatic reasons.
Many organisms adapt by simplifying. Behold the legless snake (I know, Satan again …)!
Many organisms might be advanced as possible falsifications not only of the myth of an inevitable and general type of Progress but against Darwinian reasoning itself. E.g.
Spinoza: To SHOW that God did it, the burden of proof is on you to show that there is NO possible pathway for an allegedly irreducibly complex structure to be produced by ANY set of initial conditions acting under natural law (including ones we haven’t thought of). IDers never do this, nor can they.
Well, of course it’s impossible to to show that no possibility exists, especially possibilities which hasn’t even been imagined yet. How would anyone ever show that no one will ever imagine up some supposed “possibility” in the future? That’s clearly impossible. So I agree with you, IDers can never do that and that’s the main reason that they do not. I would hope that you keep in mind that the reason that IDers don’t meet your standard is that it’s clearly impossible because sometimes it seems that you imagine that it is possible.
At any rate, the problem with your standard is that by your reasoning imagining things about the past can be treated as the equivalent of empirical evidence because irreducible complexity can be observed and tested, imagining “natural” things about the past cannot be. What can generally be observed empirically is typically a form of irreducible complexity where if a part is taken away then a lack of function results. You neglect empirical observation and instead focus on what might possible in line with Darwinian reasoning: “If an organism could be found which I could not imagine coming about in a gradual sequence of events then my theory would absolutely break down.” A theory should be verified by empirical evidence, not your capacity to imagine mythological narratives of naturalism that seem possible.
Irreducible complexity isn’t an “argument” about unobservable events, it’s generally an empirical observation which can be observed in the form and function of organisms. If you do not imagine your own imagination to be the equivalent of empirical evidence you quickly see that the capacity to imagine things doesn’t change empirical facts or explain the history of all biological specification, form and species.
Dembski calculates probabilities that are impossibly low for the scenario of his choice, but he doesn’t calculate them for all possibilities, so they are useless.
It’s best to have empirical evidence which specifies and defines possibility as far as possible, as many possibilities can be imagined.
I wish one really could prove divine intervention scientifically!
Then where have you argued against the philosophical game of definitions and rules by which such a possibility is forbidden by definition. If science is by definition “natural” explanations and divine intervention is by definition a “supernatural” explanation then why would you hope for a logical impossibility? It is impossible for science so defined to find any evidence of divine intervention.
That’s one reason I am so opposed to false pretenses of success like the efforts of DI, Behe, Dembski, et al. They haven’t succeeded, so they are trying to wage a public propaganda campaign, as if convincing John Q. Public will somehow make up for their failures.
It’s not apparent how they could fail at something which is impossible. You seem to assume that the possibility of success is open to them, you even say that you hope for it. You’ve already defined science in such a way that what you supposedly hope for is impossible.
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MYNYM
Your posts are too long.
“Brevity is the soul of wit.” and convincing argementation.
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It’s a species issue, not an individual one. If a few people commit suicide, it doesn’t have much effect on the species. If 99.5 percent of people committed suicide (before reproducing), we would disappear in a generation or two.
So people commit suicide, have abortions, use contraception, become celibate priests, etc., on the individual level because natural selection filters organisms at the level of species? Shouldn’t the individual organisms within a species be shaped in accordance with specifications drawn from natural selection? Does natural selection explain the characteristics and form of individual organisms?
…it’s like saying that because we now know the paint is made of pigment mixed with oil, we’ve explained the creation of the picture.
Again, there is no reason that you could not explain elements of the creation of the picture based on a knowledge of its physical substrate. Provided that it could be admitted that it was a painting you would know of the intelligence that went into fitting the pigments to basic purposes having to do with painting a picture.
Here is a short satire which will be far too close to the truth when it comes to many Darwinists/biologists.
Once upon a time there was an artist who painted a picture for a scientist. She gave it to him and hung it on his wall. She noticed that he was looking at it too closely and would not be able to see the big picture. She said, “Stand back here with me.”
He replied, “It looks like it is a compound of pigments, some type of material.” She said, “I know, come back here with me to be able to see the big picture.” He said, “I only look at things scientifically. You know, people talking about looking at the big picture have done terrible things in the name of the big picture!” Then he got out a little magnifying glass and studied a corner of the picture intently. She said, “Look, you know I would not do anything terrible in the name of the big picture. Now would you just come back here and look at the big picture?”
He said, “It’s not scientific to look at the big picture. No….and the science of me, that is what is tested and verifiable.” Then, he got out a knife to take a scraping of the picture. His friend came forward, grabbed his hand and said, “Stop! What do you think you’re doing?” He replied, “I have to test the materials of it to be able to make some observations.”
She said, “You’re going to ruin it! You should have stood back to observe it with me if you wanted to make observations. But I can see that you do not want to see the big picture. You know, that is really ashame because it is beautiful.” Then she took it off the wall and walked out. The scientist caught a glimpse of her big picture as she walked out and it seemed beautiful. Then he thought, “But I once heard that people who see the big picture are a threat to science. Science!” So he turned away from it and went back to his test-tubes.
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One of my professors was fond of reinforcing the following: “Correlation is not causation.” So much of what the scientists keep throwing at us is description and correlation, but it’s not causation. Scientists (yes, scientists!) who happen to question the causation of what they’re observing are being persecuted. It’s as simple as that. They shouldn’t be called nasty names and lose their jobs over it; it just goes to show that those who disagree with them are tyrannical.
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MYNYM
Your posts are too long.
Much of it can be condensed:
Those with the Darwinian urge to merge want to crawl back in the womb of Mother Nature, so they will make themselves blind to irreducible forms of complexity. (See Plato’s metaphor of the cave, etc.)
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In #44, Mynym, quoting a book review, said: On the other hand, he finds many evolved structures which are unused, unusable, or even apparently detrimental: teeth which in many fish genera first develop at spawning season, when the time for feeding is past; crossed mammoth tusks which could not have functioned; winged insects which never fly, vegetarian insectivorous plants, and sailed fish which prefer to swim, to name but a few.
Ummm … given that you are defending the idea of intelligent design, you might want to think about whether these examples really serve your case.
In #46, Mynym said: Again, there is no reason that you could not explain elements of the creation of the picture based on a knowledge of its physical substrate. Provided that it could be admitted that it was a painting you would know of the intelligence that went into fitting the pigments to basic purposes having to do with painting a picture.
Well perhaps, but my point is that scientists who insist that naturalism must explain everything are the ones not seeing the big picture. I’m actually not disagreeing with you here, I’m making a slightly different point.
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Who’s the charlatan? And how do you know?
Let’s say 98% of accountants say you must pay federal income tax, but 2% claim you don’t. Those 2% are sure that they’re right, and they make some persuasive arguments. I do not know the ins and outs of the Federal Tax Code. When the No-Taxers claim that there is no law compelling income taxes, that tax payment is a fraud perpetrated on the American people, that there’s an insider conspiracy to keep us ignorant of the truth, I don’t have the knowledge to refute them with section, subsection, and addendum. Nor do you. So ultimately we must trust someone’s interpretation. Whom should we trust?
I agree with you on the magnitude of the Internet’s impact. And I agree that at its best, it is a democratizing force, giving wider access to information and the means of publishing information. But the Internet has also made unparalleled contributions to the spread of charlatanism. Just ask any historian whether he’d accept http://members.aol.com/~ArmchairHistorian/proofJFKwasMurderedByTheIlluminati.html as a credible source.
So just because you have few favorite “Creation Science” websites that trumpet proof that everyone else is stubbornly ignoring because they’re part of the conspiracy does not mean that you’ve benefited from the liberating power of the Internet.
I agree with you 100%. Science absolutely needs professionals willing to question the consensus. That’s how any field of knowledge progresses. But you don’t count as someone knowledgeable enough to question the consensus, just because you’ve read a few sketchy websites. Nor do I. And, to the point of my post which you quoted, it’s foolish of us to expect that our own views should carry the weight of someone who has made the field his lifetime study.
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#47 – “Scientists (yes, scientists!) who happen to question the causation of what they’re observing are being persecuted.”
Actually – if you mean the ilk of “Expelled” – you’re confusing this with sectarian religious zealots that claim divine causation without sufficient reason and want to pretend their claims are “scientific.”
The mechanisms of evolution are constantly debated in the professional literature. But the “science” line is drawn at simply inserting a theological cause simply because you doubt all other theoretical choices.
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CSLewisLover at #47: Michael Shermer writes:
A final leitmotif running through Expelled is inscribed in chalk by Stein in repetitive lines on a classroom blackboard: “Do not question Darwinism.” Anyone who thinks that scientists do not question Darwinism has never been to an evolutionary conference. At the World Summit on Evolution held in the Galapagos Islands during June 2005, for example, I witnessed a scientific theory rich in controversy and disputation. Paleontologist William Schopf of the University of California, Los Angeles, for instance, explained that “We know the overall sequence of life’s origin, that the origin of life was early, microbial and unicellular, and that an RNA world preceded today’s DNA-protein world.” He openly admitted, however, “We do not know the precise environments of the early earth in which these events occurred; we do not know the exact chemistry of some of the important chemical reactions that led to life; and we do not have any knowledge of life in a pre-RNA world.” Stanford University biologist Joan Roughgarden declared that Darwin’s theory of sexual selection (a specific type of natural selection) is wrong in its claim that females choose mates who are more attractive and well-armed. Calling neo-Darwinians “bullies,” the University of Massachusetts biologist Lynn Margulis pronounced that “neo-Darwinism is dead” and, echoing Darwin, she said, “It was like confessing a murder when I discovered I was not a neo-Darwinist.” Why? Because, Margulis explained, “Random changes in DNA alone do not lead to speciation. Symbiogenesis — the appearance of new behaviors, tissues, organs, organ systems, physiologies, or species as a result of symbiont interaction — is the major source of evolutionary novelty in eukaryotes: animals, plants, and fungi.” Finally, Cornell University evolutionary theorist William Provine (featured in Expelled) presented 11 problems with evolutionary theory, including: “Natural selection does not shape an adaptation or cause a gene to spread over a population or really do anything at all. It is instead the result of specific causes: hereditary changes, developmental causes, ecological causes, and demography. Natural Selection is the result of these causes, not a cause that is by itself. It is not a mechanism.”
Despite this public questioning of Darwinism (and neo-Darwinism), which I reported on in Scientific American [“Rumsfeld’s Wisdom,” Skeptic, by Michael Shermer; Scientific American, September 2005], Schopf, Roughgarden, Margulis and Provine have not been persecuted, shunned, fired or even expelled. Why? Because they are doing science, not religion. It is perfectly okay to question Darwinism (or any other ism in science), as long as there is a way to test your challenge. Intelligent Design creationists, by contrast, have no interest in doing science at all.
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Spinoza — Classic fallacy – you know a watch was designed primarily because you know that people design watches, not because it’s complicated! This is “side information.”
Roger — Your objection misunderstands the concept of irreducible complexity. It isn’t that the watch is “complicated.” The watch is both “complex” and “irreducible”; since the watch would not be able to keep time if any essential piece is missing.
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Steve — To SHOW that God did it, the burden of proof is on you to show that there is NO possible pathway for an allegedly irreducibly complex structure to be produced by ANY set of initial conditions acting under natural law (including ones we haven’t thought of). IDers never do this, nor can they.
Roger — Actually, the burden of proof is on the Evolutionists to demonstrate the exact developmental pathway, from organism to organism, for any particular physical trait.
If, for instance, Evolutionists insist that the Human eye came about due to an evolutionary process, they should be able to find an example of each antecedent stage in nature or in the fossil record. AND, this is a big one, the Rube Goldburg process must not jump across known lines of ascent. In other words, all known animals that share a similar eye with a human being must have a common ancestor.
Isn’t that right?
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For those rebutting me, I want to say that some of the scientists and doctors in the film Expelled have more publications in science journals, and had more going for them in that capacity before they were denied tenure, than the friends and professionals I know who have gotten tenure or who have high-level professional jobs. I do not know of everyone, of course, but when some say that these people do not have the knowledge or brains for their fields, they are just being either ignorant or biased. All these people are different too, in what they see as problems with neodarwinsim or in what they do or don’t believe in spiritually.
As for the persons Steveg brings up – are these people tenured? From what I know, Behe’s collegues would love to get rid of him, but they can’t. Anyway, I’m glad some questioning is going on. But when you read of firings, like with the Smithsonian editor, or the researcher fired from Woods Hole for simply having Christian beliefs (there is an article in World about this, but it is not in Expelled), you start to wonder at the level of prejudice going on. Much of what is happening is indeed mean-spirited, Spinoza, despite what you say. All you have to do is to read some blogs here and there, or letters to the editor in the LA Times, for instance, to see the unreasonable vehemence that is directed towards people of faith who question the origins of life. Francis Collins, in The Language of God, professes faith in God as the creator but also strongly believes in evolutionary theory.
There’s no reason anyone should get fired or lose tenure because of their level of loyalty or excitement over neodarwinian theory. As far as I can tell, claiming that many or most aren’t real scientists is just an excuse to ostracise them and is arrogant as well as uncharitable.
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Roger in #54: Steve — To SHOW that God did it, the burden of proof is on you to show that there is NO possible pathway for an allegedly irreducibly complex structure to be produced by ANY set of initial conditions acting under natural law (including ones we haven’t thought of). IDers never do this, nor can they.
That was Spinoza, not me. However …
Roger — Actually, the burden of proof is on the Evolutionists to demonstrate the exact developmental pathway, from organism to organism, for any particular physical trait.
Then you’re demanding a far higher standard of precision than is available in almost any science, let alone one that looks back into the distant past.
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CSLewisLove at #55: As for the persons Steveg brings up – are these people tenured? From what I know, Behe’s collegues would love to get rid of him, but they can’t.
I don’t know. I do know that Joan Roughgarden is openly Christian and has written at least one book about reconciling evolution with faith, and she is not apparently in any danger of losing her job.
Anyway, I’m glad some questioning is going on. But when you read of firings, like with the Smithsonian editor, or the researcher fired from Woods Hole for simply having Christian beliefs (there is an article in World about this, but it is not in Expelled), you start to wonder at the level of prejudice going on.
I am highly skeptical that anyone doing good work is fired for no reason other than having Christian beliefs, and they’d have grounds for a very winnable lawsuit if they were.
I suspect these are more like the cases where some group of Christians will begin to wail that a man was “arrested just for praying,” and then when you look more closely you learn that he was actually kneeling in the street blocking traffic, and that he was actually not arrested, just escorted to the sidewalk and given a ticket, or maybe just a warning.
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Here is a list of Scientist’s who believe that Creation which is stated in Genesis is true
Dr Raymond V. Damadian, M.D., Pioneer of magnetic resonance imaging
Dr Chris Darnbrough, Biochemist
Dr Nancy M. Darrall, Botany
Dr Bryan Dawson, Mathematics
Dr Douglas Dean, Biological Chemistry
Prof. Stephen W. Deckard, Assistant Professor of Education
Dr David Boylan, Chemical Engineer
Prof. Stuart Burgess, Engineering and Biomimetics, Professor of Design & Nature, Head of Department, Mechanical Engineering, University of Bristol (UK)
Prof. Linn E. Carothers, Associate Professor of Statistics
Dr Robert W. Carter, PhD Marine Biology
Dr David Catchpoole, Plant Physiologist (read his testimony)
Prof. Sung-Do Cha, Physics
Dr Eugene F. Chaffin, Professor of Physics
Dr Choong-Kuk Chang, Genetic Engineering
Prof. Jeun-Sik Chang, Aeronautical Engineering
Dr Xidong Chen, Solid State Physics, Assistant Professor of Physics, Cedarville University
Dr Donald Chittick, Physical Chemist
Prof. Chung-Il Cho, Biology Education
Dr John M. Cimbala, Mechanical Engineering
Dr Harold Coffin, Palaeontologist
Dr Paul Ackerman, Psychologist
Dr E. Theo Agard, Medical Physics
Dr James Allan, Geneticist
Dr Steve Austin, Geologist
Dr S.E. Aw, Biochemist
Dr Thomas Barnes, Physicist
Dr Geoff Barnard, Immunologist
Dr Don Batten, Plant physiologist, tropical fruit expert
Dr Donald Baumann, Solid State Physics, Professor of Biology and Chemistry, Cedarville University
Dr John Baumgardner, Electrical Engineering, Space Physicist, Geophysicist, expert in supercomputer modeling of plate tectonics
Dr Jerry Bergman, Psychologist
Dr Kimberly Berrine, Microbiology & Immunology
Prof. Vladimir Betina, Microbiology, Biochemistry & Biology
Dr Raymond G. Bohlin, Biologist
Dr Andrew Bosanquet, Biology, Microbiology
Edward A. Boudreaux, Theoretical Chemistry
Dr Bob Compton, DVM
Dr Ken Cumming, Biologist
Dr Jack W. Cuozzo, Dentist
Dr William M. Curtis III, Th.D., Th.M., M.S., Aeronautics & Nuclear Physics
Dr Malcolm Cutchins, Aerospace Engineering
Dr Lionel Dahmer, Analytical Chemist
Dr David A. DeWitt, Biology, Biochemistry, Neuroscience
Dr Don DeYoung, Astronomy, atmospheric physics, M.Div
Dr Geoff Downes, Creationist Plant Physiologist
Dr Ted Driggers, Operations research
Robert H. Eckel, Medical Research
Dr André Eggen, Geneticist
Dr Leroy Eimers, Atmospheric Science, Professor of Physics and Mathematics, Cedarville University
Prof. Dennis L. Englin, Professor of Geophysics
Prof. Danny Faulkner, Astronomy
Dr Dennis Flentge, Physical Chemistry, Professor of Chemistry and Chair of the Department of Science and Mathematics, Cedarville University
Prof. Carl B. Fliermans, Professor of Biology
Prof. Dwain L. Ford, Organic Chemistry
Prof. Robert H. Franks, Associate Professor of Biology
Dr Alan Galbraith, Watershed Science
Dr Paul Giem, Medical Research
Dr Maciej Giertych, Geneticist
Dr Duane Gish, Biochemist
Dr Werner Gitt, Information Scientist
Dr Steven Gollmer, Atmospheric Science, Professor of Physics, Cedarville University
Dr D.B. Gower, Biochemistry
Dr Dianne Grocott, Psychiatrist
Dr Stephen Grocott, Industrial Chemist
Dr Donald Hamann, Food Scientist
Dr Barry Harker, Philosopher
Dr Charles W. Harrison, Applied Physicist, Electromagnetics
Dr John Hartnett, Physicist and Cosmologist
Dr Mark Harwood, Satellite Communications
Dr Joe Havel, Botanist, Silviculturist, Ecophysiologist
Dr George Hawke, Environmental Scientist
Dr Margaret Helder, Science Editor, Botanist
Dr Larry Helmick, Organic Chemistry, Professor of Chemistry, Cedarville University
Dr Royal Truman, Organic Chemist
Dr Larry Vardiman, Atmospheric Science
Prof. Walter Veith, Zoologist
Dr Joachim Vetter, Biologist
Dr Tas Walker, Mechanical Engineer and Geologist
Dr Jeremy Walter, Mechanical Engineer
Dr Keith Wanser, Physicist
Dr Noel Weeks, Ancient Historian (also has B.Sc. in Zoology)
Dr A.J. Monty White, Chemistry/Gas Kinetics
Dr John Whitmore, Geologist/Paleontologist
Dr Carl Wieland, Medical doctor
Dr Lara Wieland, Medical doctor
Dr Alexander Williams, Botanist
Dr Clifford Wilson, Psycholinguist and Archaeologist
Dr Kurt Wise, Palaeontologist
Dr Bryant Wood, Creationist Archaeologist
Prof. Seoung-Hoon Yang, Physics
Dr Thomas (Tong Y.) Yi, Ph.D., Creationist Aerospace & Mechanical Engineering
Dr Ick-Dong Yoo, Genetics
Dr Sung-Hee Yoon, Biology
Dr Patrick Young, Chemist and Materials Scientist
Prof. Keun Bae Yu, Geography
Dr Henry Zuill, Biology
Dr Harold R. Henry, Engineer
Dr Jonathan Henry, Astronomy
Dr Joseph Henson, Entomologist
Dr Robert A. Herrmann, Professor of Mathematics, US Naval Academy
Dr Andrew Hodge, Head of the Cardiothoracic Surgical Service
Dr Kelly Hollowell, Molecular and Cellular Pharmacologist
Dr Ed Holroyd, III, Atmospheric Science
Dr Bob Hosken, Biochemistry
Dr George F. Howe, Botany
Dr Neil Huber, Physical Anthropologist
Dr Russell Humphreys, Physicist
Dr James A. Huggins, Professor and Chair, Department of Biology
Evan Jamieson, Hydrometallurgy
George T. Javor, Biochemistry
Dr Pierre Jerlström, Creationist Molecular Biologist
Dr Arthur Jones, Biology
Dr Jonathan W. Jones, Plastic Surgeon
Dr Raymond Jones, Agricultural Scientist
Dr Valery Karpounin, Mathematical Sciences, Logics, Formal Logics
Dr Dean Kenyon, Biologist
Prof. Gi-Tai Kim, Biology
Prof. Harriet Kim, Biochemistry
Prof. Jong-Bai Kim, Biochemistry
Prof. Jung-Han Kim, Biochemistry
Prof. Jung-Wook Kim, Environmental Science
Prof. Kyoung-Rai Kim, Analytical Chemistry
Prof. Kyoung-Tai Kim, Genetic Engineering
Prof. Young-Gil Kim, Materials Science
Prof. Young In Kim, Engineering
Dr John W. Klotz, Biologist
Dr Vladimir F. Kondalenko, Cytology/Cell Pathology
Dr Felix Konotey-Ahulu, Physician, leading expert on sickle-cell anemia
Dr Leonid Korochkin, M.D., Genetics, Molecular Biology, Neurobiology
Dr John K.G. Kramer, Biochemistry
Dr Johan Kruger, Zoology
Dr Wolfgang Kuhn, biologist and lecturer
Dr Heather Kuruvilla, Plant Physiology, Senior Professor of Biology, Cedarville University
Prof. Jin-Hyouk Kwon, Physics
Prof. Myung-Sang Kwon, Immunology
Dr John Leslie, Biochemist
Prof. Lane P. Lester, Biologist, Genetics
Dr Jean Lightner, Agriculture, Veterinary science
Dr Jason Lisle, Astrophysicist
Raúl E López, meteorologist
Dr Alan Love, Chemist
Dr Ian Macreadie, Molecular Biologist and Microbiologist
Dr John Marcus, Molecular Biologist
Dr George Marshall, Eye Disease Researcher
Dr Ralph Matthews, Radiation Chemistry
Dr Mark McClain, Inorganic Chemistry, Associate Professor of Chemistry, Cedarville University
Dr John McEwan, Organic Chemistry
Prof. Andy McIntosh, Combustion theory, aerodynamics
Dr David Menton, Anatomist
Dr Angela Meyer, Creationist Plant Physiologist
Dr John Meyer, Physiologist
Dr Douglas Miller, Professor of Chemistry, Cedarville University
Dr Albert Mills, Reproductive Physiologist, Embryologist
Robert T. Mitchell, specialist in Internal Medicine and active speaker on creation
Colin W. Mitchell, Geography
Dr John N. Moore, Science Educator
Dr John W. Moreland, Mechanical Engineer and Dentist
Dr Henry M. Morris, Hydrologist
Dr John D. Morris, Geologist
Dr Len Morris, Physiologist
Dr Graeme Mortimer, Geologist
Stanley A. Mumma, Architectural Engineering
Prof. Hee-Choon No, Nuclear Engineering
Dr Eric Norman, Biomedical researcher
Dr David Oderberg, Philosopher
Prof. John Oller, Linguistics
Prof. Chris D. Osborne, Assistant Professor of Biology
Dr John Osgood, Medical Practitioner
Dr Charles Pallaghy, Botanist
Dr Gary E. Parker, Biologist, Cognate in Geology (Paleontology)
Dr David Pennington, Plastic Surgeon
Dr Mathew Piercy, anaesthetist
Dr Terry Phipps, Professor of Biology, Cedarville University
Dr Jules H. Poirier, Aeronautics, Electronics
Prof. Richard Porter
Dr Georgia Purdom, Molecular Genetics
Dr John Rankin, Cosmologist
Dr A.S. Reece, M.D.
Prof. J. Rendle-Short, Pediatrics
Dr Jung-Goo Roe, Biology
Dr David Rosevear, Chemist
Dr Ariel A. Roth, Biology
Dr Ron Samec, Astronomy
Dr Jonathan D. Sarfati, Physical chemist / spectroscopist
Dr Joachim Scheven Palaeontologist
Dr Ian Scott, Educator
Dr Saami Shaibani, Forensic Physicist
Dr Young-Gi Shim, Chemistry
Prof. Hyun-Kil Shin, Food Science
Dr Mikhail Shulgin, Physics
Dr Emil Silvestru, Geologist/karstologist
Dr Roger Simpson, Engineer
Dr Harold Slusher, Geophysicist
Dr E. Norbert Smith, Zoologist
Dr Andrew Snelling, Geologist
Prof. Man-Suk Song, Computer Science
Dr Timothy G. Standish, Biology
Prof. James Stark, Assistant Professor of Science Education
Prof. Brian Stone, Engineer
Dr Esther Su, Biochemistry
Dr Dennis Sullivan, Biology, surgery, chemistry, Professor of Biology, Cedarville University
Dr Charles Taylor, Linguistics
Dr Stephen Taylor, Electrical Engineering
Dr Ker C. Thomson, Geophysics
Dr Michael Todhunter, Forest Genetics
Dr Lyudmila Tonkonog, Chemistry/Biochemistry
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And here is a list of scientists who believe that Creation as described in Genesis is true for scientific reasons and not because of their religious beliefs:
….
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Steveg, I knew this list would MAKE YOUR DAY! Have fun checking them all out.
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Steveg, #57. I hope that World magazine had it correct regarding the researcher fired from Woods Hole. As reported in the article, the researcher never had a problem at his work – never had anyone criticize his work or fault him over his writing. His boss found out that he was a Christian and believed in Creation, and fired the researcher with the assumption that such a person couldn’t be a real scientist (basically). The case is going to court, and may be in litigation now. Yes, it would clearly be unconstitutional for a person to get fired based on their religion alone.
As for your #59 post, how can you assume that all those scientists “leave their brains at the door” when they read the bible or attend church? It takes both brains and faith to understand the Bible and/or God (and no, no one fully understands either one).
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Just for the record, many SCIENTISTS were on the road to disprove creation, they didn’t believe in GOD, but as they studied, they found they had to change their minds, evolution doesn’t fit.
There is a GOD, HE created the universe, the heavens and earth.
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As for your #59 post, how can you assume that all those scientists “leave their brains at the door” when they read the bible or attend church? It takes both brains and faith to understand the Bible and/or God (and no, no one fully understands either one).
Because there is no scientific evidence for the sudden appearance of modern animals fully formed over the span of a few days a few thousand years ago.
If scientists believe that the facts support Biblical creation, they are not good scientists.
However, there are many, many people, scientists and theologians alike plus a lot of laypersons who aren’t experts in either field, who accept evolution but find that there is no conflict between that and Christian faith.
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By the way, Victoria claims these scientists believe in Genesis Creation.
THAT IS NOT “INTELLIGENT DESIGN.” Most ID people accept evolution as well — including a 4.5 billion year old Earth and the slow, gradual development of life forms — holding out only a few particular things where they invoke a Designer.
So just what are we arguing here? Whether Creation happened exactly as the Bible describes it? Or is it rather, whether evolution happened largely as scientists understand it, but with a bit of a Creator’s intervention here and there?
Because those are two very different things.
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Steveg,
YOU WRITE:…..”So just what are we arguing here? Whether Creation happened exactly as the Bible describes it? Or is it rather, whether evolution happened largely as scientists understand it, but with a bit of a Creator’s intervention here and there?”
You have made some gaffs, but this one beats all others. GOD is not a ‘part timer’-
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Then it’s the IDers who’ve made the gaffs, Victoria. When you learn about what they’re arguing, you might begin see why their program puts theology, not science, in a precarious position.
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As for your list of scientists, I believe that the creation which is stated in Genesis is true.
What does that mean? I doubt it means what you think it means most of the time.
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Serious George,
Twist it up George, — you’re doing a great job, maybe Steveg can help you.
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Victoria,
I’m beginning to suspect you don’t even know what ID argues. That might explain why you bring taunts but no content to these discussions.
Take (more) care,
SG
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I think there are basically two different things being brought up. One is, how did life on earth begin? (Either God made it happen, or it occured by itself somehow, or it came from outer space.)The other is, is neodarwinian theory true, false, or somewhere inbetween? You’ll find people who say they’re Christians (and other religions) who accept one of the three options. But yeah, the article is about irreducible complexity, so God created it that way. I believe God created everything, in all its complexity and ability to adapt and change (I don’t accept neodarwinian theory, however). Honestly, though, I can’t say whether I believe that the “days” in the creation account are short or long. When I’ve read scholars on both sides of this issue, they both not only had what seemed very legitimate points, but they actually used some of the same things to come up with opposing conclusions. I’d have to go back and study this again. As for the list of scientists, I’ll have to take some time and check their viewpoints out. Thanks for providing them, Victoria (that’s my real name too).
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Serious George,
Don’t flatter yourself with such a remark, it doesn’t bolster your position.
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Victoria: You have made some gaffs, but this one beats all others. GOD is not a ‘part timer’-
Victoria doesn’t even understand the topic. Figures.
Sweetie, what’s being discussed in this thread is the idea of “Intelligent Design,” advocated by some Christians, and in which God very much is a “part timer.” I don’t think that makes much sense, so your argument is not with me.
Why don’t you figure out the topic before posting meaningless lists into it, ‘k?
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HOW LONG was Adam and Eve in the Garden
And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.Genesis 2:8
(Not until Genesis 8 is it mentioned God planted a garden, until this time was there a garden? it appears there wasn’t. This verse also says God put the man (Adam) in the garden.)
And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. Genesis 2:15
Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? Genesis 1:3
(Adam and Eve had been in the Garden HOW LONG? None of us know the answer to that question, in fact we aren’t even given a clue. It could have been hundreds or thousands of years, maybe longer, perhaps millions? It would make sense that in the beginning when they were in the Garden, they didn’t go even close to the tree they were forbidden to eat, but as time passed the woman was tempted, and as we all know disobeyed God.)
So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life. Genesis 3:24
(The Garden of Eden is obviously a ‘PLACE’ we can see this as God drove Adam and Eve out of the Garden. In this way wouldn’t you be able to see that the whole earth was not covered by the garden? How long were Adam and Eve in the Garden before they were they were driven out? This question, and the length of time they were in the garden is very mind provoking.
20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. Genesis 1
What was going on in the world at large while Adam and Eve were in the garden? ———- there obviously were life forms, God had made them. So what were these animals like, did they fly and walk, did they roam around?
How long were Adam and Eve in the Garden? Thousands of years, or LONGER?
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Steveg
Before you bluster out over what I understand about ID…… try checking out post #58 with many Scientists mentioned who believe in ‘Creation’ –
Intelligent Design is not a topic you can twist and twirl like an adolescent ballerina in a tutu, ——
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If you understood the conversation, you’d know I was not the one saying God is “part-time,” it’s the ID movement that says that.
You don’t get it, even after two of us have explained it.
Get it?
By the way, I like some of your interpretation in #73, but I have to ask … if the Cherubim guarding the Tree of Life are literal, then where are they now? Unless God has uprooted the Tree, if they are literal they should still be somewhere on Earth.
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Steve — Then you’re demanding a far higher standard of precision than is available in almost any science, let alone one that looks back into the distant past.
Roger — Well, you see, now you are getting it. Evolutionists are doing historical research, attempting to deduce the past from various clues. And I agree, what they think they know is not as precise as they lead us to believe.
The foundational principle of Evolutionists, however, is not a scientific one, but rather a philosophical one: all things can be explained in terms of natural laws. This foundational axiom of Naturalists is not a thing to be proved, it’s a primary, self-evident truth on which the entire system is built.
All systems of thought have primary, self-evident truths, which become the foundation and framework for the rest of the system. {Euclid’s “Elements” comes to mind.) The axiom that all things can be explained in terms of natural laws is a primary, self-evident truth for modern science, not a thing to be proved. The praxis of science is built on that, and therefore, not able to prove or disprove it. To attempt to disprove it is to question whether the axiom is “self-evident”, which is another question outside the realm of science.
A scientist can no more prove or disprove that “all things can be explained in terms of natural laws” than they can prove or disprove that God created the universe.
The concept of irreducible complexity takes an ax to the base of that tree, cutting at the foundation of Evolution theory. Unlike Evolution Theory, the concept of irreducible complexity comes from a school of thought that does not take as it’s foundational, primary, self-evident truth, that all things can be explained in terms of natural laws. And unlike Evolution Theory, the concept of irreducible complexity is compelling because it fits with our everyday experience.
Anyone can see that a mousetrap without a trip lever can not catch a mouse. It isn’t as if the mousetrap will work poorly without the trip lever. Rather, the mousetrap will not work AT ALL without it.
Behe, a microbiologist, noticed certain biological “mousetraps” in various cells. These cells were complete in themselves and irreducible in function such that, like the mousetrap, they would not function at all if various pieces were missing. In order for these biological mechanisms to function, they had to exist fully formed and complete in order to have any effect on survivability. His work calls into question Darwin’s concept of “natural selection” because even though natural processes can effect the survival of fully formed biological systems, it has no way to affect the formation and assembly of new, irreducible, complex systems from biological “parts” that lay outside the influence of natural selection.
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Intelligent Design is not a topic you can twist and twirl like an adolescent ballerina in a tutu, ——
Apparently it is, cause that’s what its proponents do with it. Why? Really, it’s due to the legal background.
Recap: The supreme court ruled in 1987 that creationism was religion, not science, and was therefore prohibited in public school teaching under the establishment clause. Creationists worked on their next tactic, and “intelligent design” was born entirely out of an effort to endrun the constitution. In order for this neo-creationism to look like “science” and not ‘religion,” it had to omit references to “God” and, instead, refer only to an intelligent designer, possibly an extraterrestrial. Then effort was put into a positive test for “design.” The most vocal IDers (but not all) believe in an old earth and a variant of progressive creationism where God introduces his created kinds sporadically throughout hundreds of millions of years. Some, like Behe, actually believe in common descent of all life from an earlier form.
The effort to create a positive ID “theory” has failed completely, and the single subsequent court case on the new “intelligent design” (Kitzmiller v. Dover 2005) ruled it as thinly designed creationism probited in public education. This decision was helped by the creationist textbook “Pandas and People” which, before the 1987 ruling used the word “creationism” and merely interposed “intelligent design” after the ruling. You can see this in typos in intermediate drafts where “creationists” is incompletely transformed to “design proponents” as “cdesignproponentsists”.
This “term” is now famous as the missing link between creationism and intelligent design.
As a result of this dead end strategy, DI/ID have apparently changed tactics again and simply gone after evolution without trying to put forward a competing “scientific” version of their belief. Here, they have complete agreement with standard creationism. The “Expelled” movie now adds the new twist – “academic freedom” to countermand the establishment clause and force ID into education, while completely giving up the effort to secularize the “designer” in order to withstand te establishment clause.
Of course, the rest of fundamentalist Christianity didn’t care much for the concessions ID made to secularism in the first place. So the Discovery Institute makes no mention of these beliefs while mustering evangelical support for the new anti-evolution pro-”freedom” ploy, even if this support has no understanding or agreement with their “scientific” effort at developing a secular ID theory. But rest assured, if an ID court case comes up again, DI will disavow any and all explicit ID references to “God” like that illustrated over and over again in “Expelled.”
So Victoria, you are unwittingly championing something I doubt very much that you totally agree with! You should BONG those crazy ID people and stick with AIG and standard Young Earth Creationism, because that’s clearly what you believe! The “academic freedom” bills following on from “Expelled” will almost certainly fail the “Lemon Prongs” right, left, and center, and be ruled unconstitutional, and you will have fought for something that 1) doesn’t represent your belief and 2) failed anyway.
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Roger – The foundational principle of Evolutionists, however, is not a scientific one, but rather a philosophical one: all things can be explained in terms of natural laws.
Spinoza – This is not entirely accurate – science (not merely evolution) restricts itself to natural explanations, but it doesn’t make any statement about whether or not “all things” can be explained this way! I don’t know any scientists who, if pressed, would subscribe to such a statement!
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Anyone can see that a mousetrap without a trip lever can not catch a mouse.
Perhaps not, but it makes a dandy tie clip, as Miller showed at the Dover trial.
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Steveg
Steveg I don’t know where the Cherubim are, nor do I know where the tree is. God isn’t required to give us all the details of his plan or how he organizes HIS universe.
The passage of Scripture below is one of my favorites. God bless you as you read it.
6 Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near:
7 Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
10 For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:
11 So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.
Isaiah 55
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Roger, Spinoza answered before I got to it, so I’ll just echo it. “Science” as a whole does NOT say that “all things can be explained in terms of natural laws.”
Some individual scientists believe that, but it’s not a necessary principle. It’s more accurate to say that science can examine only those things that can be explained in terms of natural laws.
The problem with Behe (well, one problem of several) is that a great deal of his case rests on his assertion that no explanations of certain things evolving through natural processes have been offered, and that assertion has proven in many cases to be untrue.
If I recall right, one of the more dramatic moments of the Dover case came when attorneys piled a stack of research papers on the table in front of him — research into one of the very topics he’d just finished insisting had no research.
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Steve, if you and Spinoza want to pick at nits, that’s fine. The point is, the idea that science can only examine those things that can be explained in terms of natural laws is an a-priori axiom that can not be proven using science.
Steve — The problem with Behe (well, one problem of several) is that a great deal of his case rests on his assertion that no explanations of certain things evolving through natural processes have been offered, and that assertion has proven in many cases to be untrue.
Roger — I have read Behe’s book and attended his lecture and I believe you have mischaracterized Behe’s point. He is NOT making an argument from incredulity as you suggest, i.e. science has not found an explanation so there isn’t one. Rather, Behe argues that the theory of evolution is an inadequate explanation for the presence of irreducible, complex biological structures. It’s not that science can’t find explanations for them. It’s that Evolutionists will never find one because the theory itself is logically flawed as it pertains to irreducible and complex structures. The forces of natural selection can not work on biological systems until they are fully formed. In other words, there is no reproductive benefit from pieces of non-functional gunk.
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#82
1. It is not a “nit” we’re picking at. Science restricts its field but not the religious beliefs of its practitioners! It makes no statement pro or can about what does or doesn’t exist beyond its purview. Your radical mis-characterization of it as insisting that what it doesn’t examine doesn’t in fact exist, is substantive and not trivial! Your claim is like saying dentists don’t believe in cardiology, because it’s not what they do!
2. Behe mischaracterizes his own argument. His argument that evolution is “inadequate” stems entirely from a leap of faith wherever science “hasn’t yet found an explanation.” This has always been true of design arguments. But neither he nor Dembski nor any other ID “theorist” have ever, ever, ever shown that evolution cannot explain the structures he labels “irreducibly complex.”
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Spinoza — Your claim is like saying dentists don’t believe in cardiology, because it’s not what they do!
Roger — Your analogy is totally off the mark as usual, which is typical of your unwillingness to listen and understand what others are trying to say.
Spinoza — But neither he nor Dembski nor any other ID “theorist” have ever, ever, ever shown that evolution cannot explain the structures he labels “irreducibly complex.”
Roger — Neither Behe nor Dembski need to make such a ridiculous and wasteful challenge. The mere presence of irreducibly complex structures refutes natural selection. Let’s accept that and move on.
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Neither Behe nor Dembski need to make such a ridiculous and wasteful challenge. The mere presence of irreducibly complex structures refutes natural selection. Let’s accept that and move on.
We can’t accept it because it’s not true. There has been ample research showing that the “irreducibly” complex structures (more correctly for Behe, biochemical processes) are quite reducible. I don’t believe Behe is ignorant of his own field of expertise, but the unavoidable alternative to that is to believe he is simply lying.
For example, Behe looks at the bacterial flagellum and declares that the particular arrangement of parts is the only way to make flagellum, and that it is irreducibly complex. However, many organisms’ sperm cells have flagella made in different ways, many of them missing some the parts that Behe insists are essential, or with them arranged in different configurations than the one Behe insists is necessary.
Read Finding Darwin’s God, by Kenneth R. Miller. He not only shows the many ways in which ID fails, he also shows how Christian faith and evolution can be seen to complement, not conflict.
(Francis Collins does this too, but Miller goes into much greater detail.)
On your other point, Spinoza’s analogy was quite on the mark. Scientists understand they operate in the world of natural phenomena and are necessarily limited to it. That is quite a different thing from your suggestion that they are obligated to believe that only the natural/material can exist.
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Steve — On your other point, Spinoza’s analogy was quite on the mark. Scientists understand they operate in the world of natural phenomena and are necessarily limited to it. That is quite a different thing from your suggestion that they are obligated to believe that only the natural/material can exist.
Roger — You also missed the point. Do they teach people how to read in college? No wonder we’re having such a hard time communicating.
What does this statement mean to you?
“The axiom that all things can be explained in terms of natural laws is a primary, self-evident truth for modern science, not a thing to be proved.”
Do you not see that my statement applies to the field of science, and has nothing to do with what scientists think on their own time in the privacy of their homes? Do you not understand that Naturalism is the philosophical foundation and framework for modern science?
Steve — For example, Behe looks at the bacterial flagellum and declares that the particular arrangement of parts is the only way to make flagellum, and that it is irreducibly complex.
Roger — Did you REALLY read his book? You don’t seem to comprehend his position at all. Behe is not saying “the particular arrangement of parts is the only way to make flagellum,” Rather, he is is saying that natural selection can not account for the arrangement we find in nature because the particular assembly is useless without one of the parts, and until the entire working assembly has “evolved” natural selection has nothing to act upon.
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Roger: What does this statement mean to you?
“The axiom that all things can be explained in terms of natural laws is a primary, self-evident truth for modern science, not a thing to be proved.”
Do you not see that my statement applies to the field of science, and has nothing to do with what scientists think on their own time in the privacy of their homes? Do you not understand that Naturalism is the philosophical foundation and framework for modern science?
Of course it is.
But that does not justify your use of the phrase “all things” in your axiom. That suggests that science demands that absolutely every real thing must have a natural explanation. While I acknowledge that some, or even many, scientists believe this, I also know that many, or even most, do not.
I believe, rather, that the unchallenged axiom of science is “only things that can be explained in terms of natural laws are suitable subjects for science.” (And where some scientists may lack the humility to recognize this, it nevertheless is the reality in which they must operate.)
The fact is that for every Richard Dawkins there is a Kenneth Miller, or maybe two; for every Steven Weinberg, there is a John Polkinghorne.
Your thesis would hold up only if it were true that the vast majority of scientists are atheists, and survey after survey has shown that not to be true.
Time constraints prevent me from saying more now, but I’ll address the Behe point later.
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Roger – The mere presence of irreducibly complex structures refutes natural selection. Let’s accept that and move on.
Your statement above is absolutely false and, consequently, rejected by mainstream bioogy. For only one of many simple refutations, read:
The Mullerian Two-Step: Add a part, Make it Necessary or, Why Behe’s “Irreducible Complexity” is Silly”
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Roger – The mere presence of irreducibly complex structures refutes natural selection. Let’s accept that and move on.
Your statement above is absolutely false and, consequently, rejected by mainstream bioogy. For only one of many simple refutations, read:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/ICsilly.html
(The Mullerian Two-Step: Add a part, Make it Necessary or, Why Behe’s “Irreducible Complexity” is Silly)
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Roger – The mere presence of irreducibly complex structures refutes natural selection. Let’s accept that and move on.
Your statement above is absolutely false and, consequently, rejected by mainstream biology. For only one of many simple refutations, google “Mullerian Two-Step” (The WOW filter won’t let me post the link, apparently)
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Well weird – sorry for the multiples – the first two (88/89) were delayed and hadn’t yet appeared when I gave up on the link and posted the third (90). At least ya got the link!
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Roger just read Candide again and it will all become clear.
no one, including behe, has provided any biological phenomena that is irreducibly complex. it’s just hand waving.
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Steve — That suggests that science demands that absolutely every real thing must have a natural explanation. While I acknowledge that some, or even many, scientists believe this, I also know that many, or even most, do not.
Roger — Again, you are using the term “science” as a metonymy, synonymous with “the body of scientists”, while I am using the term “science” as an epistemological discipline. I fail to understand why you would disagree with the idea that science, (the discipline, not the people) takes account of the natural at the exclusion of the supernatural.
And I find it most disconcerting that I can argue your side better than you. For some reason, and to my surprise you don’t seem to understand or realize that “design” has not always been considered “bad science”, which is a recent and modern philosophical a-priori the forefathers of science did not share with their children.
To reject “design” as a valid and fruitful area of study is nothing more than willful ignorance and a neurotic repression of a naturalistic mindset, which has stunted the growth of our knowledge and left the human race in darkness for a century and a half.
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Erasmus — Roger just read Candide again and it will all become clear.
Roger — Hey, Voltaire was a Frenchman; what else? Just compare and contrast the American Revolution with the French Revolutions. For starters, the French had three revolutions and they still didn’t get it right. Need I say more?
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Roger: I fail to understand why you would disagree with the idea that science, (the discipline, not the people) takes account of the natural at the exclusion of the supernatural.
Ah, I see. I don’t disagree with that. Science as a discipline does. It MUST. Because it deals only with what can be measured, quantified and demonstrated. How would you propose to measure, quantify or demonstrate supernatural intervention?
For some reason, and to my surprise you don’t seem to understand or realize that “design” has not always been considered “bad science”, which is a recent and modern philosophical a-priori the forefathers of science did not share with their children.
Yes, and that is due to a number of factors, including both the discovery of perfectly natural explanations for things previously thought to be inexplicable by natural means, and the rise of Enlightenment thought.
Science in the very olden days was a mixture of superstition and knowledge. Astrology was once considered to be science. So was alchemy.
To reject “design” as a valid and fruitful area of study is nothing more than willful ignorance and a neurotic repression of a naturalistic mindset, which has stunted the growth of our knowledge and left the human race in darkness for a century and a half.
Here I must continue to differ? “Darkness?” In the past century and a half, we have figured out old the universe is, how germs cause diseases (and how to prevent and cure them) how to build machines that can fly into the air and even into space, and a long long list of other scientific and technological accomplishments that I could spend the rest of the night trying to list (I am typing this message on one.)
The past 150 years have had great evils as well, but it has hardly been overall a time of “darkness.”
If you want to establish design as an area of study, that is fine, IF you can find a way to approach it as science. Otherwise, it remains philosophy and theology. (And there is nothing wrong with that! I do not believe that science is supreme among the realms of knowledge; I just think that it’s a disservice to try to apply it to a question it’s not suited to answer.)
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Roger – I would like to hear your defense of ‘irreducible complexity’ – even if one admits “supernatural causes” to science, Behe’s argument is flat out wrong and there is no worthwhile “design” theory to put on the table!
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spinoza, it is important to draw the distinction between ‘wrong in principle’ and ‘these examples are wrong’.
i dont think it is possible to falsify ‘irreducible complexity’ in principle, it is always modifiable and capable of reformulation as information is obtained and processed. as such, it is merely a metaphysical belief and an ontology that is completely unjustified by and is trivial to empirical evidence.
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#97 – yes well there are several points that could be made. The narrow point I want to make is that the thesis: “Irreducible complexity refutes natural selection” is wrong. Structures that are irreducibly complex as defined by Behe – i.e., could not be formed by step-wise addition of mutated proteins – can indeed be formed by natural selection in other ways and probably are!
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Steve — Ah, I see. I don’t disagree with that. Science as a discipline does. It MUST. Because it deals only with what can be measured, quantified and demonstrated.
Roger — Thank you.
Steve — How would you propose to measure, quantify or demonstrate supernatural intervention?
Roger — I’ll leave that to others. However, I wouldn’t necessarily expect to find evidence of “intervention”, which would imply tinkering or innovation. If I read my Bible correctly, God’s intervention is very rare and only to make a statement.
Steve — Yes, and that is due to a number of factors, including both the discovery of perfectly natural explanations for things previously thought to be inexplicable by natural means, and the rise of Enlightenment thought.
Roger — I see it differently. Gutenberg’s Press made possible the free-flow and wide dissemination of ideas, the first benefactor being the Protestant Reformation with its new Bible translations and publications of other Greek thinkers of the past. As the Western World moved away from Catholic authoritarianism, all current aspects of the social order came under the skepticism of the new thinkers.
Two schools of philosophy began to gain dominance in the Western World: Naturalism and Positivism, which got the most funding from industrialists who backed the ideas that served industry the best. Positivism served the technocrats the best, giving them the philosophical framework for industry and a search for the most efficient means of production.
Enlightenment thought, and the move away from God, degenerated into a darkness in which the individual became subservient to the needs of the corporation, whether that corporation be the state, the industry, or the military. Efficiency rose to the top of all values and God got in the way of that goal.
Steve — Here I must continue to differ? “Darkness?” In the past century and a half, we have figured out old the universe is, how germs cause diseases (and how to prevent and cure them) how to build machines that can fly into the air and even into space, and a long long list of other scientific and technological accomplishments that I could spend the rest of the night trying to list (I am typing this message on one.)
Roger — Yes. I acknowledge the accomplishments of the technocrats. What of the human being? How has man changed in the last 150 years? Have we solved hatred, bigotry, prejudice, sloth, gluttony, greed, murder, warmongering, etc.?
Steve — If you want to establish design as an area of study, that is fine, IF you can find a way to approach it as science.
Roger — Only if science abandons the shackles of positivism.
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“How has man changed in the last 150 years? Have we solved hatred, bigotry, prejudice, sloth, gluttony, greed, murder, warmongering, etc.?”
Well, we’ve had those around a bit longer than positivism.
Slipping in and out of categories robs your argument of sense, Roger. If you want to talk about the ill effects of positivism on philosophy, industry and sociology, that’s fine. But don’t pretend that discussion is interchangeable with one about the need to unshackle science from positivism. What would that even look like? Can you describe it?
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Roger — I wouldn’t necessarily expect to find evidence of “intervention”, which would imply tinkering or innovation. If I read my Bible correctly, God’s intervention is very rare and only to make a statement.
Then why in Heaven’s name do you support the program of Intelligent Design? It’s all about negative “evidence” of divine intervention!
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Spinoza — Then why in Heaven’s name do you support the program of Intelligent Design? It’s all about negative “evidence” of divine intervention!
Roger — I support the idea that the world was designed by an intelligence because it’s true.
Now Steve’s comment pertained, not to design, but to intervention, which are two totally different things.
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SG — Slipping in and out of categories robs your argument of sense, Roger.
Roger — One can only assume you speak for yourself.
I suppose, for proper understanding, one would need to review Steve’s assertion that scientists were compelled to dismiss design because of enlightenment thought, rather than the real reason, which was due to the demands and pressures of the new technocracy.
SG — What would that even look like? Can you describe it?
Roger — Can you imagine doing science for it’s own sake, rather than serving the needs of technocrats? Can you imagine doing science without the threat of losing funding, or career?
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Roger — I support the idea that the world was designed by an intelligence because it’s true.
If that is all you mean by intelligent design, you should stop routing for Ben Stein and the Discovery Institute. Lots of scientists support this without supporting the ideology of Discovery Institute fellows, who hope to “scientifically” prove that alleged intermittent failures of natural selection during evolution are compensated by intermittent Divine interventions.
Roger — Can you imagine doing science for it’s own sake, rather than serving the needs of technocrats?
I pretty much get to do that, so yeah!
Can you imagine doing science without the threat of losing funding, or career?
If I do *good* science, I am still fortunate if I get funding and have a career (no one is “entitled” and competition is fierce for limited resources). If I do “bad” or “pseudo” science, I hope no one will fund me, and I won’t have a “career” wasting my time and someone else’s money. With funding comes responsibility.
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Spinoza — If that is all you mean by intelligent design, you should stop routing for Ben Stein and the Discovery Institute. Lots of scientists support this without supporting the ideology of Discovery Institute fellows, who hope to “scientifically” prove that alleged intermittent failures of natural selection during evolution are compensated by intermittent Divine interventions.
Roger — Try looking over here when you talk to me. Apparently you don’t have the decency or ability to concentrate on what I am saying, since you would rather read my words as if your boogie man spoke them.
No wonder it takes you so long to understand things.
Spinoza — If I do *good* science, I am still fortunate if I get funding and have a career (no one is “entitled” and competition is fierce for limited resources). If I do “bad” or “pseudo” science, I hope no one will fund me, and I won’t have a “career” wasting my time and someone else’s money. With funding comes responsibility.
Roger — In your world “good” and “bad” are relative terms, which indicate how well you serve the technocracy. “Good” science is any investigation into the natural world that helps technocrats become more efficient. Efficiency is the ultimate “good”, and convenience is the daughter of efficiency.
You’re just part of the machine.
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For those criticizing ID, have you read Behe’s newer book, “The Edge of Evolution”? Just wondering.
The critics here, in particular, seem to find it OK to talk like they know it all, and “their team” knows it all too. Life is so astoundingly complex, we should all be humbled, no matter which “team” we’re on.
“Remind the people . . . to be ready to do whatever is good, to slander no one, to be peaceable and considerate, and to show true humility toward all men” (Titus 3:1-2).
As far as what I’ve seen here and elsewhere, many ID people and Christians are being shunned and ridiculed simply for not believing that life began in some random way. It isn’t just about evolution, since if life did not begin in a random, nondirected way, then it follows that whatever caused life here might have influenced it historically and may still be influencing it. These leads to a lot of other things . . .
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CSLewisLover:
There are two different things that people mean when they say “design” in this context, however.
One view is that the Creator set up the initial conditions in such a way that life would develop according to principles that would eventually lead to the emergence of creatures able to sense and enter into relationship with the Creator. This is, as I see it, not a question of science. It is something one can believe or not believe based on faith about God.
The other view — the one Stein’s film and Behe’s books are about — holds that a Designer has periodically reached down into the developing life forms and inserted a specially-designed “irreducibly complex” system to help life along.
That IS a question of science. It depends on there being no way the system in question could have evolved a bit at a time, and ideally, for there to be some measureable and testable way to discern where the Designer has intervened.
Unfortunately for proponents of this view of Design, the evidence is against them. I have no read Behe’s latest book, but I did read his first one (Darwin’s Black Box). As I recall, he claimed in several instances that there was little or no research on the various systems he highlighted to show plausible pathways of gradual development, and I later learned that there indeed was research to that end, in some cases a good deal of it.
CSLewisLover, let me ask you a theological question: If it could be proved that Behe, William Dembski and other proponents were right, how would that fit into a Christian theology?
The reason I ask is because a lot of Creationists seem have to seized on ID, when I don’t see how the two are similar. Fundamentalists usually feel obligated to believe that the Genesis story is literal history, that is, that God created the universe in a few days and then populated the Earth with all its plants and animals, and man, in a couple more days.
ID doesn’t support that view any more than pure Naturalistic evolution does. So if the ID advocates were to be proven correct, do you think it would be a gain or a loss for Christianity?
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#105 – So you don’t support the Discovery Institute version of Intelligent Design, then? So you don’t support Ben Stein’s championing of allegedly persecuted IDers? Please clarify.
In your world “good” and “bad” are relative terms, which indicate how well you serve the technocracy. “Good” science is any investigation into the natural world that helps technocrats become more efficient. Efficiency is the ultimate “good”, and convenience is the daughter of efficiency.
It appears that you are extrapolating from some nano-slice of sociological reality with which you think you are familiar. Fortunately for me, I have no experience with it whatsoever and can continue to practice “good science” as defined by good methodology applied to interesting and soluble questions and as identified by peer-review without the imposed will of your politico-technocratic bogeyman.
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Steveg – Hi. I came on quick to look up something else, so for now I’ll just give a quick response and hopefully add more later. At a very basic level, I believe God created everything and is personally involved with us, but I don’t know what to make of the very numerous explanations of how God did it. I’m slowly trying to understand it all. I just looked up CS Lewis’ view yesterday, as gleaned from his various pub.s by a researcher. Not that Lewis is a semi-god or anything, but I just wanted to check. He believed that since God is outside of time, that his creation can be viewed by us as done and continuing at the same time. I hope I’m not messing that up. I don’t know, of course, what Lewis would think today, since there is so much more info. available. But his overall point was that how God created things wasn’t near as important as how we live our lives in Christ, and with that I totally agree. Personally, I’m trying to get to know the arguments more so that I can talk about them. But, I find that so many good (and intelligent) people disagree that it might as well be a case of throwing up my hands. Really, when it comes down to it, I simply believe that God did it all and that we are just trying to describe it.
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Good and bad science? Science is the observation and study of things, correct? And each area of science has its own methods, which can be done correctly or well (or not!). The good or bad of it come from what people do with the findings of science. As for the movie Expelled and peer reviews, it showed that the Smithsonian editor was fired after a PEER REVIEWED article was published that just mentioned ID. This is just wrong (it’s amazing that since no peers will approve of IDers work, that the peers turn around and say that the IDers can’t get published in a peer reviewed journal; classic circular reasoning).
There is such a thing as ethics, even if it can’t be quantified by science. People who see the evidence that evolutionists provide and simply disagree with the conclusions, should not be ostracized or fired. Everything I’ve seen from critics of ID people boils down to: “I have the evidence for my conclusions and beliefs, but this person doesn’t agree with me, therefore he’s incabable of seeing the evidence for what it is and is therefore stupid (since of course I’m not).” This is not good or moral.
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#110 The good or bad of it come from what people do with the findings of science.
Ethical “good” or “bad” may indeed come from either good or bad science as scientists typically use the terms – good science is simply a process that yields scientific results well supported by empirical data that is well documented and properly analyzed. “Bad” science is often full of premature conclusions, non sequiturs, selection bias, poor use of statistics (or none) and lacking in critical detail.
The ideological review article approved by Sternberg with totally inadequate peer review was retracted by the journal and wholesale rejected by peers in the areas that should have been consulted for review (e.g., paleontology). It was the very embodiment of bad science as outlined above. Other bad papers do indeed occasionally get published, but a scientific idea continues to go through peer review even afterward. If it can be shown to be wrong, it is ultimately rejected by contradictory publications. Sternberg went through the motions of peer review as volunteer editor of a lesser journal. But the article was so bad that the journal retracted it, and I think no professional would even consider it worthwhile to bother to refute it. The article was full of really bad science by Stephen Meyer who has utterly inadequate credentials in the area he was writing about (Cambrian explosion). He also lacks simple powers of logic. He is no longer a scientist at all (he does no relevant research, but at one time actually did work for an oil company after getting a Bachelors degree in geology), but the ideological leader of a cultic form of ID religion.
To read the truth about Sternberg, who suffered no serious consequences for a very serious breach of scientific ethics, read Expelled Exposed: Richard Sternberg
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We both said the same thing regarding scientific methods. I do not have degrees in biological science, so I can’t judge these things well. But I do have two degrees and have worked with academics (person wish phd.s and ms.s that work in their fields), so it’s my experience with the egos and politics involved in academia that have helped to determine what I wrote. Because of that, I can’t wholeheartedly agree with what you wrote and your reasoning.
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#112 I have had close experience with clerics in 5 Christian Denominations where I experienced “egos and politics” as bad as any I’ve known in 20+ years in academia, but the religious environment allowed them a much freer and malevolent hand as “authorities.”
People are people. So what.
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#112 – p.s. I guess your point is that, since you know some strong-ego academics, you are willing to take the Stein/Sternberg charge at face value? That’s pretty silly.
Read Meyer’s article yourself, as I did, and please tell me why you don’t think it is demonstrably bad and fails a minimum publishable standard of professional research:
The origin of biological information and the higher taxonomic categories
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It’s true, there are egos and politics wherever you go. But, I really think you need to get more experience with Christian leaders. I’ve known some that seemed “off,” and through further experience found that they were sinning. We all sin, but Christian leaders need to live by a higher standard. And I have experienced Christians, leaders or no, that have exemplified, to me, Christ.
In academia, there is no accountability, as far as I can tell, after one gets tenure. To me, that’s not just a “so what.” Many of the professors I have met and dealt with were just so arrogant, it’s amazing. The way they act is in fact very base, and of course uncharitable. I do intend to look up the credentials of the scientists that were in Expelled. I recall, however, that Sternberg has two Ph.Ds – I think from good universities. I’ll look it up. But just the fact that he has two Ph.ds from, I think, non-Christian univ.s (I mention this just for the sake of argument) goes to show that the professors overseeing his degree completion thought he was good enough to be granted the Ph.d – twice. To say that he’s a bad scientist also cuts into the credibility of both the granting professors and the universities which gave him the degrees.
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I was responding to #113; I saw #114 after I posted #115.
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“To say that he’s a bad scientist also cuts into the credibility of both the granting professors and the universities which gave him the degrees.”
I know lots of lousy scientists w/Ph.D.s, so I don’t quite follow. Remember, “cold fusion” was published in a peer-reviewed journal too! I think Sternberg probably can do good science himself, which makes it all the more reprehensible that he chose to promote the very bad science of not-a-real-scientist Stephen Meyer in order to further a religious (not scientific) agenda. Sternberg claims to have no religious agenda, but his actions shout otherwise, including a fellowship at DI, hooking up with Meyer at a creationist conference (where the idea to publish the paper was born), association with the young-earth creationist Baraminology group, etc. He still works for NIH, btw, so I don’t know what all this “persecution” talk is all about. He was never fired for anything! Maybe he was just cranky cause his wife left him at the same time – the only thing he was actually “expelled” from was his marriage.
I agree with the “Times” review of “Expelled” vis a vis Sternberg:
“Stein does not attempt to detail the logic of creationism, instead focusing on half a dozen academics who claim their beliefs disrupted their professional upward mobility. Looking at them, though, you can think of other reasons why maybe they crashed and burnt.”
This “joke” is actually true if you really take a good look at each of the cases in Expelled!
Re: #115 – I know some very good and some very rotten people in both science and religion. I see no distinction between them because of religious faith. The religious saints are not better than the scientific saints. The scientific devils are not worse than the religious ones, so I still don’t see your point.
I see no real evidence that, on average, religious authorities are more ethical because they are held to a higher standard.
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RE #114. I wrote in #112 that my degrees aren’t in biology (they’re in anthropology and history), so I couldn’t honestly say that I can judge Meyers’s article. But what is the Biological Society of Washington? Are they all unqualified to judge? We need to be able to trust people in these fields. When some come out, like they are now, and can only say harsh, condemning things, that’s when trust and character is questioned.
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RE #117. When it comes to religious leaders, it’s more than ethics that I’m thinking about. It’s deeper than that, and I don’t think I could explain it. Part of it is that you can see that “they’re nice beyond all reason.”
Stein et al. used that John Lennon song, where he sings about how everything would be peaceful if there were no religion. I’m beginning to think that he should’ve sang instead about science. When I die I’d much rather be able to say that I helped out some people here, not that I was right about some scientific theories or facts (which may change in a hundred or so years).
Anyway, Meyers has a degree from Cambridge – nothing to sneeze at – in the Philosophy of Science. So for him to be philosphical in looking at data seems very reasonable.
Otherwise, since I have other things to do with my life (getting to the bottom of this specific conversation would take the work of acquiring a Ph.D all in itself), I’m going to say: “Oi. Nevermind.” May God bless your inquiries.
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When it comes to religious leaders, it’s more than ethics that I’m thinking about. It’s deeper than that, and I don’t think I could explain it. Part of it is that you can see that “they’re nice beyond all reason.”
Well I can agree to the “beyond all reason” part, but they’re typically only “nice” if you’re willing to follow them “beyond reason”!
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“‘Come now, let us reason together,’ says the Lord” (Isaiah 1:18). I think a lot of pastors take this to heart, but others speak in a very light-weight way. In any case, a full understaning of God himself is beyond our reasoning abilities, so I don’t think you should take it lightly. That God wants to save us, instead of destroying us for all of our sins, I believe is beyond all reason.
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Spinoza — Fortunately for me, I have no experience with it whatsoever and can continue to practice “good science” as defined by good methodology applied to interesting and soluble questions and as identified by peer-review without the imposed will of your politico-technocratic bogeyman.
Roger — Sadly, you are blind and don’t know it. And I can tell you have no idea what I’m talking about. All you can do is repeat the party line. Think about this, the gangs of America are under peer-review.
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Think about this – the churches of America are under peer review. I never experienced such social coercion and pressure to conform as when I was in an fundamentalist church! Not ANYWHERE!
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#123 p.s. – by “peer review” I mean Roger’s usage of conflating it with “peer pressure.” I don’t really believe these are the same thing!
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Nice NY Times article today on Francisco Ayala:
Roving Defender of Evolution, and of Room for God
Excerpt:
He said he was saddened when he saw the embrace of evolution identified with, as he put it, “explicit atheism,” as in the books of the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins or other writers on science and faith.
Neither the existence nor nonexistence of God is susceptible to scientific proof, Dr. Ayala said, and equating science with the abandonment of religion “fits the prejudices” of advocates of intelligent design and other creationist ideas.
“Science and religion concern nonoverlapping realms of knowledge,” he writes in the new book. “It is only when assertions are made beyond their legitimate boundaries that evolutionary theory and religious belief appear to be antithetical.”
It is important that Dr. Ayala “is not a religion-basher,” Dr. Scott said, “because creationists always showcase the religion-bashers in science as if they speak for all scientists. They clearly do not speak for Francisco and many others.”
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Spinoza — Think about this – the churches of America are under peer review. I never experienced such social coercion and pressure to conform as when I was in an fundamentalist church! Not ANYWHERE!
Roger — So that’s what this is all about. I suspected you had a dog in this fight and weren’t some objective observer.
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So that’s what this is all about.
No it’s not. It’s about your flawed use of the concept of “peer review.”
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“I suspected you had a dog in this fight and weren’t some objective observer.”
Well I certainly do have a dog in the fight to protect academic scientific freedom from religious bullies and hypocrites. I’m pretty sure everybody here does! But perhaps not in the way you think.
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