Posted on 05/19/2005 6:02:32 AM PDT by Nicholas Conradin
"What's all this I hear about Intelligent Decline? Decline isn't intelligent; it's sad. Sad or tragic. Who could think that it's intelligent? That's just...".
"Excuse me, Miss Litella, but the phrase is Intelligent Design. Not Decline; Design."
"Intelligent Design? Oh, you mean that so-called alternative to Darwinian evolution. I see. Never mi….wait a minute! That's still sad; sad or tragic."
Of course, the late, great Gilda Radner, aka Emily Litella, never actually did this sketch on "Saturday Night Live", but I like to think she might have, perhaps prompted by the present recurrence of "debate" over the "theory" of Intelligent Design. (Style mavens generally deprecate the use of shudder quotes, but when dealing with a movement that is built on using common words in unconventional or undefined ways, they are unavoidable.)
The ID party holds that certain aspects of the world, especially details of the anatomy and biochemistry of living beings, are simply too complex to have evolved without guidance. The approved phrase is "irreducible complexity," a "concept" to which we will return. ID partisans have trained themselves not to be too specific about the Designer, either, for they have learned the lesson left by the political failure of their predecessors, the Creation Scientists, namely, that too much frankness in the matter of Who the Intelligent Designer is does not pay. So, carefully avoiding anything that sounds like theology, while all the time the butter remains quite firm in their mouths, they simply aver that there is a Design and that it prima facie evidences Intelligence. "God? Oh, heavens, we're not talking about God. It might just be his next-door neighbor Wilson."
Philosophically this is old ground, of course. William Paley's argument for the existence of a watchmaker, given a watch, is the best known example of the type. Not surprisingly, Paley assumed in his analogy that the watch in question was well made and actually kept time. So the naturalist's response to this form of theism has taken a standard form. He points to the very considerable amount of relevant contrary evidence: black flies, killer asteroids, the vermiform appendix, acne, tsunamis, hiccups, and Jerry Springer, not to mention death and disease and a hundred other varieties of human depravity, all of these suggesting if they do not prove that ours is perhaps not the very best of all possible worlds.
But -- correct me if I'm wrong -- this is creation as we actually know it. Any objective observer must report that the universe, if it is the product of conscious design, is clear proof that the designer is incompetent, a blunderer, an all-thumbs amateur who should not be allowed back into the workshop. (As a lad I read a science fiction story whose premise was that the universe is the product of a young Being-in-training, a kind of test piece by an apprentice not yet ready for journeyman status. For the life of me I can't recall the title or author of the story.) Unfortunately, however well Not-Quite-Bright Design might fly as an intellectual position, it lacks market appeal.
The duplicity of the ID party as to theology is all quite transparent. What seems to be less so, at least to some, is the violence the ID party does to the work of the intellect. Consider "irreducible complexity." What does it mean to say that a given degree of complexity is irreducible? And who gets to say it? Has the ID party discovered a scale by which this question can be answered? Up (or down) to a certain point complexity is open to naturalistic explanation, but beyond that point it is not? "We don't know this yet, therefore it is unknowable." And further, "If you do happen to find it out anyway, don't tell me, because if you do I'll stick my fingers in my ears and go La-la-la-la-la really loud." The "debate" whose current installment is playing out in Kansas is a debate in just that sense and no other.
Then there is the simple fact that the "theory" of ID is no theory at all, not in the sense that the word is used in science. It is not based on the best available evidence; it enables no predictions; and it is thus not testable. It is, at best, a paltry substitute myth that incorporates some of what actual science has learned or theorized but spurns not only scientific rigor but any intention to perform science. It is not, as claimed, a legitimate criticism of a scientific theory but a criticism of having such a theory at all. No less than the Creation Scientists, and no less than dear Bishop Wilberforce in 1860, though far less forthrightly, the proponents of ID wish to draw an arbitrary line and use the force of the state to declare that science shall not cross it.
Had that watch been found, not by the good Rev. Paley -- equipped as he was by culture and training not only to recognize in it the work of a human artisan but to judge his competence according as it got him to tea on time or not -- but by, say, a mud man of New Guinea, the conclusion drawn would have been quite different. The mud man instantly recognizes what could only be the work of a god, its materials unfamiliar, its intricacy beyond imagining, and its purpose utterly occult.
The difference between the mud man, gazing in awe at the watch, and the ID man, coolly regarding the bacterial flagellum, is that the mud man acts in good faith. The ID man is heir to a culture of knowledge-building that has evolved over millennia, and, for quite private reasons that have nothing to do with the rest of us, he declines the legacy. To be sure, he has every right, for himself, to decline whatever, and however far, he chooses. It only remains for the rest of us decline to decline with him. That would be intelligent.
Robert McHenry is Former Editor in Chief, the Encyclopædia Britannica, and author of How to Know (Booklocker.com, 2004).
Amazing...
ping
ping
The ID man is heir to a culture of knowledge-building that has evolved over millennia, and, for quite private reasons that have nothing to do with the rest of us, he declines the legacy.
From what I can tell, it would be more accurate to say that ID'ers decline a certain portion of the legacy. What must be asked is whether they are selectively declining the portion of greater present value or, on a different view, whether, at the end of the day, they will have increased the total value of that legacy.
Indeed, it is sad and tragic.
What is sat and tragic is this article, which does nothing to hurt the ID case, but continues to make Darwinists look like 5 year olds who don't want to debate issues like irreducible complexity or the anthropic principle. They continue to sit back and claim that they "own" the same science that they cannot explain through genetic mutations. In addition to this myopic belief system, they continue to sling mud at those who question the holes in their "scienctific theory".
In fact, Stephen Meyer of the Discovery Institute testified that there is a "tremendous amount of criticism of the theory that students should be permitted to know about." For example, nearly 400 scientists, including professors at MIT, Rice, and Yale, have signed a Discovery Institute statement that questions "the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life."
In addition, other Darwinian skeptics are flying under the radar. For instance, the April 28 issue of the science journal Nature reported approaching a skeptical researcher who declined to be interviewed because he did not want to hurt his chances for tenure.
"In addition, other Darwinian skeptics are flying under the radar. For instance, the April 28 issue of the science journal Nature reported approaching a skeptical researcher who declined to be interviewed because he did not want to hurt his chances for tenure."
The fact that scientists fear for their professional positions because of their skepticism says a lot about those who hold their dogmatic beliefs in evolution. Hopefully that will change and a free and impartial debate can begin. But I won't hold my breath.
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>>>clear proof that the designer is incompetent, a blunderer, an all-thumbs amateur who should not be allowed back into the workshop<<<<<
Maybe the makings of an alternative ping list?
Perhaps Unintelligent Design if you will?
Science is not politics. I would question the credentials of a physicist who did not accept quantum mechanics or special relativity (unless he had a well-developed tenable alternative). I would question the credentials of a chemist who did not accept the atomic theory. The theory of evolution has the same staus with respect to biology as special relativity to physics or the atomic theory with respect to chemistry. It's a central, unifying paradigm.
. Hopefully that will change and a free and impartial debate can begin.
Science does not operate by free impartial debate. Quantum mechanics is not obliged to offer equal time to the handful of physicists who don't accept it. And yes, those do exist as well.
Irreducible complexity has been so thoroughly debunked that it's an 'issue' only in the sense phlogiston is an 'issue'.
Why, in this thread yesterday we had another candidate for irreducible complexity blown out of the water after 17 minutes. The author wrote.
The inverse law of Darwinese stands: the more detailed the discussion of cellular complexity, the less the tendency to mention evolution. This is wonderful stuff. The cell is alive with wheels, gears, motors, monorails, winches, ratchets and clocks. Paley would be pleased.
Problem was, it took me about 10 minutes to find a entire phylogenetic tree for the kai protein, already published and on-line. And guess what? There are bacteria that have genes for one component and not the other two; and there are proteins that seem to have given rise to all three proteins through duplication.
The duplicity of the ID party as to theology is all quite transparent.... I'll stick my fingers in my ears and go La-la-la-la-la really loud. [Where have we heard that before?]
It [ID] is, at best, a paltry substitute myth that incorporates some of what actual science has learned or theorized but spurns not only scientific rigor but any intention to perform science. It is not, as claimed, a legitimate criticism of a scientific theory but a criticism of having such a theory at all. [Outstanding!]
The difference between the mud man [of New Guinea], gazing in awe at the watch [William Paley's argument for the existence of a watchmaker], and the ID man, coolly regarding the bacterial flagellum, is that the mud man acts in good faith.
Just a reminder that William paley invented ID in his 1802 book, and nothing new has been added to the theory since.
There is no such thing as irreducible complexity. Anything with complexity can, by definition, be reduced. The very purpose of science is to reduce the next level of complexity.
No, ID specifically seeks to define science down to their level. The Kansas School Board is trying to redefine "science" itself.
If IDers are successful, it could bring our current age of technology to an end after a few generations of such neglect.
IDers are already at that level of the New Guinea tribesman, believing that the watch in their hand is made by a god.
Spot on!
Not really. In computer science, there is the concept of genetic or evolutionary algorithms that are designed, not as a direct solution to a problem, but a system in which possible solutions or parts of a solution are thrown together, tested, and the best parts combined until a certain goal is reached.
The result is that there are a lot of useless "solutions" on the way. But that's part of the process of complexity rising from simple parts. Not the process of "an all-thumbs amateur."
In the same way, evolution can be seen a process. Maybe there is an intelligent designer behind it who set it up and gives it nudges along the way. I don't know if there are specific fingerprints on the process we could be looking for.
But the fact is we humans design evolution-like processes that are messy, but work, and that the people who design these processes are not seen as incompetent blunderers. Given a Bible that says man was created in God's image, does it seem so unlikely -- as a philosophical and religious idea, if not necessarily a scientifically provable or disprovable one -- that the methods man uses to create may be images of the method God has used.
Saying "God did it" is easier that studying quantum mechanics or biochemistry.
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