Casey Luskin of the Discovery Instintute will be producing a 10 part response to Barbara Forrest’s take on Kitzmiller v Dover. She was an expert witness on the winning side of that case. He is the author of Traipsing Into Evolution, which exposes the fallacious reasoning employed by Judge Jones.
A Discovery Institute talk on the book was recently aired on C-SPAN, watch it here.
In the post Conservatives Against Intelligent Design, Indian Cowboy reveals the astounding ignorance of what ID proposes which is sadly so common among those who oppose it, especially those who do so because they consider it a “perversion of science”.
I’ve looked at his prior posts and see nothing indicating depth where this issue is concerned. The rub with ID proponents isn’t and has never been ‘evolution’, but the Darwinian inference those changes and ultimately life itself is a result of undirected mutations and chance. This is not provable by any experimental standard Indian Cowboy would consider good science. I’d challenge him and others to point me to the experiment designed to observe random and undirected mutations over vast time without any intelligence influencing the mutations!
From a blog entry I wrote a few months back:
When critics dismiss ID arguments out of hand as ‘not Science’, they attempt a pass on addressing the arguments that are being put forward for this theory.If one were to study intelligence and come up with general rules or properties of intelligence, would critics consider that science? If they were then to apply those rules to observable and documented processes or structures in nature (for instance, the ATP synthase motor), is that science?
The fact is, critics do not know if the micro-evolutionary process of adaptation is built in (ie ‘designed’) or if it is part of a larger purposeless process. They start with the premise it must be the latter and circle around to prove their original premise.
NDE proponents do not know that natural processes account for the origin of life. That is simply a matter of their own faith! Got gaps? Natural selection or infinite monkeys on infinite typewriters eventually producing the works of the old Bard is the answer!
I’m wide open to science and believe in the scientific method and the rigor of review and critique. It is critical to a decent understanding of our physical world. But I also know that with humans, the philosophic framework by which we view the world around us informs our conclusions about that world. Naturalists deny this when they deny their faith in science to provide the answers and their faith that observable, quantifiable nature is the means to all ends of understanding.
The bottom line? Critics should practice a little more intellectual honesty with their own faith based narrative and acknowledge the science upon which the nascent ID movement draws the design inference.
Intelligent Design is more a modifyier of Evolutionary Theory (in all its forms), than a replacement. I know of few ID proponents who discount the mountains of science showing the earth and universe to be very old and living things to undergo change over that time.
Is anyone game for polite exchange on the topic? Help resurrect this old post on my forum and join in!
Part One: Evolution isn’t science by the same definition that Intelligent Design isn’t science
The blogosphere and op/ed columns are abuzz over President Bush’s recent comments about Intelligent Design (ID). Search any bloggy engine such as Technorati for the ID keywords and you’ll see entry after entry, ranging from arrogant sneering to maternal clucking. The high majority of posts are critics of ID, a smatter defend ID and even smaller number do so with logical rigor.
In all the criticisms, several common themes exist, foremost among them that ID is not science, but myth, religion, politics all wrapped in fear of having cherished beliefs shot out of the sky by rational, true, science-based Evolutionary Theory.
In almost all the blog entries I read over the last few days, what ID proponents put forward is distorted by unsupported dismissals such as the ‘not science’ critique. Most ID critics fail to consider the inverse of this argument and apply the same standard to the Neo-Darwinian Evolutionary (NDE) ‘just so’ explainations for the origin of life.
Moreover, most entries I read don’t seem to have the first clue what the founders and scientists involved in ID theory have actually said, as evidenced by their gross misrepresentations of what these ID researchers are proposing and what science they are using in making the design inference. In fact, opponents of ID seem blind to their own inferences where the naturalist narrative is concerned.
To be clear, I’m talking of the rise of complex bio-mechanics at the sub-cellular level.
This criticism says ID isn’t science because it isn’t falisifiable, has religious implications and isn’t supported by the scientific community at large, as witnessed by a dearth of peer-reviewed ID papers.
Yet, evolutionary theory (in full) rests upon a naturalist assumption that nothing exists that we cannot quantify and that life must have arisen by means explainable without any outside influence.
Ask any believer of evolution how it is that cells and the incredibly complex micro-system needed to operate a single cell arose by chance and they’ll likely tell you radiation decided the earth needed amino acids, which somehow gathered together randomly, eventually stringing an intelligent code which then decided it should replicate and direct the ooze around it to form even more fragile proteins which then assembled into highly specialized micro machines, which formed the cell walls and gave those proteins protection from the volatile environment of primordial earth. (I have heard many ‘popular’ evolutionists say something very similar to this - ascribing choice and benefit analysis to a whole species, as if it has consciousness.)
Is such a notion falsifiable? Does such an experiment exist where life proteins arise spontaneouly and form into complex microbiological life? And what are the odds, given the time frame?
Does not the whole Darwinian narrative have religious and philosophical implications, especially in the face of thousands of years of human Theism? If correct, does it not prove the religion of Atheism to be correct?
Finally, do scientists suffer the same foibles of other humans, including ignorant bible thumping hicks? Are scientists prone to vanity and closed minded reactions when long held beliefs are challenged? Is ‘Science’ immune from prevailing orthodoxies? Can we find past examples of widely held beliefs among scientists that were upturned by dissenters who were ostracized and refused publication in peer-reviewed journals?
Clearly, by the same standard upon which ID critics call it pseudo-science, so too can the NDE narrative be characterized. What critics fail to acknowledge is the belief in NDE origins is as faith based as those of an intelligent creator.
I don’t dispute that species change over time, nor that they may, in fact, change enough to be categorically different from prior generations. But the observation that physical attributes change over time doesn’t necessarily mean those changes ‘prove’ the very huge changes required for the diversification we see, nor does it necessarily mean those changes were all due to random mutations and selective adaptation. (the latter of which requires a pre-exiting information set to function)
The ID researchers - not the creationists who are trumpeting their work, are all trained scientists. All use scientific evidence to support their conclusions. Indeed, Mike Behe is a micro-biologist and converted to the view of ID based upon the scientific evidence his profession has produced.
When critics dismiss ID arguments out of hand as ‘not Science’, they attempt a pass on addressing the arguments that are being put forward for this theory.
If one were to study intelligence and come up with general rules or properties of intelligence, would critics consider that science? If they were then to apply those rules to observable and documented processes or structures in nature (for instance, the ATP synthase motor), is that science?
The fact is, critics do not know if the micro-evolutionary process of adaptation is built in (ie ‘designed’) or if it is part of a larger purposeless process. They start with the premise it must be the latter and circle around to prove their original premise.
NDE proponents do not know that natural processes account for the origin of life. That is simply a matter of their own faith! Got gaps? Natural selection or infinite monkeys on infinite typewriters eventually producing the works of the old Bard is the answer!
I’m wide open to science and believe in the scientific method and the rigor of review and critique. It is critical to a decent understanding of our physical world. But I also know that with humans, the philosophic framework by which we view the world around us informs our conclusions about that world. Naturalists deny this when they deny their faith in science to provide the answers and their faith that observable, quantifiable nature is the means to all ends of understanding.
The bottom line? Critics should practice a little more intellectual honesty with their own faith based narrative and acknowledge the science upon which the nascent ID movement draws the design inference.
Coming soon! Part II: Literalist Creationists don’t like ID theory, either. Knocking down another dishonest technique used by naturalists, that of associating ID with the Young Earth Creationists.
See extended comments for blog links.