University separates itself from professor in Dover intelligent design suit

Harrisburg Patriot-News ^ | 10/17/5 | Bill Sulon

[Crackingham]

When Lehigh University professor Michael Behe testifies today at the high-profile federal trial on intelligent design, his fellow faculty members won't be beaming with pride. Behe, a biochemistry professor, is one of the leading proponents of intelligent design -- the belief that some parts of the universe are so complex that they must be the work of an intelligent designer. He's also in the minority among scientists on campus and beyond.

In his book "Darwin's Black Box," Behe argues that many molecular systems in the cell are "irreducibly complex" -- meaning that they cannot function if they are missing just one of their many parts -- and that such systems "were deliberately designed by an intelligent agent."

Fellow professors say Behe has the right as well as the academic freedom to embrace his hypothesis. But they also say intelligent design is not science.

Behe will be the first witness to take the stand on behalf of the Dover Area School District, which is in court defending its policy requiring that a statement referring to intelligent design be read to ninth-grade science students at the start of an evolution unit.

Behe is prominent in the intelligent-design community. Once he testifies in the trial, which has attracted global media attention, his name and that of his university will be linked in countless news reports. On his Web page as a faculty member at Lehigh's department of biological sciences, Behe says his ideas about irreducible complexity and intelligence are his own.

Because of the increased unwanted publicity Behe is generating at Lehigh and comments made by President Bush in support of intelligent design, Behe's department chairman and his colleagues posted a disclaimer of their own on their department's Web site. The department's faculty members are "unequivocal in their support of evolutionary theory, which has its roots in the seminal work of Charles Darwin and has been supported by findings accumulated over 140 years," said the statement, posted Aug. 22. "The sole dissenter from this position, Prof. Michael Behe, is a well-known proponent of 'intelligent design.' While we respect Prof. Behe's right to express his views, they are his alone and are in no way endorsed by the department. It is our collective position that intelligent design has no basis in science, has not been tested experimentally, and should not be regarded as scientific."

Department Chairman Neal Simon said he and his colleagues issued the disclaimer because they "felt it was necessary to take a more public position reflecting that professor Behe's views on intelligent design are not science and should not be treated as science."

To emphasize the point, the department invited noted biologist Kenneth R. Miller to speak on campus last week. Miller, who co-authored the "Biology" textbook used by a third of the nation's high school students -- including those in Dover -- testified two weeks ago in the federal trial, during which he criticized Behe and intelligent design.

"Certainly, the position he is articulating is fully consistent with all other members of the faculty," Simon said of Miller, a Brown University biology professor.

Miller testified during the trial that neither "Darwin's Black Box" nor "Of Pandas and People" -- another book critical of evolution and supportive of intelligent design -- provide scientifically testable evidence for their theories. "Pandas" is mentioned in the Dover statement as a reference book available to students interested in learning about intelligent design.

"Both books rely entirely on negative inferences by saying that if evolution has problems, if evolution is wrong, then we can go ahead and say it's a designer," Miller testified. He later added, "The logic of picking out intelligent design, which is inherently untestable, and saying that any evidence against evolution is evidence for intelligent design employs a logical fallacy that I think most scientists reject."

[podkane]

"Both books rely entirely on negative inferences by saying that if evolution has problems, if evolution is wrong, then we can go ahead and say it's a designer," Miller testified. He later added, "The logic of picking out intelligent design, which is inherently untestable, and saying that any evidence against evolution is evidence for intelligent design employs a logical fallacy that I think most scientists reject."

Can you imagine Newton applying this logic? Gee, the motion of the planets seem so complicated, way too complicated for a single principle to be behind it all, say like, um,

--------------->> F=ma <<----------------

There most be an omnipotent being pushing everything along!

[giobruno]

I have always thought that the critics of natural selection should simply offer strong critique and dissection of the unsupportable claims of the evolution; not forward intelligent design theories. I think they would be harder to refute if they didn't give their opponents the straw man of religion.

[x5452]

Ever try differential equations?

I would say newton was well aware that there are a great many scientific situations where you break everything down into it's simplest parts and there isn't an easy unifying equation and the best thing you arrive at works for some data, and is huge and ugly.

Einstein DIED before finding the big unifying equation he was after, he got a lot of work done but never found the easy equation he wanted.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

"It is our collective position that intelligent design has no basis in science, has not been tested experimentally, and should not be regarded as scientific."

Neither has scientific materialism been "tested experimentally." The trans-species
leap from lower primates to modern man has not been "tested experimentally"
either.

The department might want to consult an editor versed in the ontological and
theoretical presuppositions of modern scientism to get their jargon straight before
releasing future public pronouncements riddled with absurd, disorienting,
and wobbly conceptual misconfigurations.

[PatrickHenry]

Another to catalog.

[Milhous]

Probably just a typo but Behe often writes about intelligent design while critics seemingly spin by using the phrase intelligent designer.

[Junior]

Thanks.

[DustyMoment]

Ok, I'll play along. What does a professor in an intelligent design suit look like?

For that matter, what does an intelligent design suit look like and how do we know that the designer is REALLY intelligent?

Is it a leisure suit?

[mbraynard]

The straw mand is created by their opponents. Religion and ID are not related. ID is not a matter of faith, it is a scientific hypothesis - a theory that fits everything known about the origin of species, with the possible exception of vestigil organs.

[cornelis]

It's not safe to venture outside of the cave.

[giobruno]

The trouble is not so much with Behe (or D. Stove or J. Barzun or many of the other skeptics of the full claims of the evolutionary absolutists), as with the dimwits in the Christian community who latch on to his work and give it their own spin ("First Things" editor R. Neuhaus excepted; the Catholic eggheads have done an admirable job of discussing the subject with great insight and scientific rigor). I think the scientists like Behe should be fairly strict about keeping the religious community at arms length--if for no other reason than strategic. Many ID theories have links to the evangelical community, and strong support, for obvious reasons. ID theory is in it's infancy; it needs a Kant or Darwin or Aquinas to put all the pieces together; right now I think the best position is to demolish the parts of natural selection and the evolution of species that cannot withstand scrutiny, not cobble together bits and pieces of counter-explaination.

[narby]

There most be an omnipotent being pushing everything along!

That would Apollo, the Sun God.

[narby]

The trans-species leap from lower primates to modern man has not been "tested experimentally" either.

Science does not have to be "tested experimentally" to be correct. Courts don't have to experimentally test if someone did a crime, we can use evidence that supports that conclusion.

We don't have to launch an expedition to the sun to determine that it's powered by fusion. There are certain markers that would be true if fusion powered it, we find those markers, so we conclude the sun is a fusion system.

Likewise, there are markers we would expect to find if evolution is true.

One of those markers is that given the fact that an individual can be infected with an Endogenous Retro Virus, and on very rare occasions pass the virus DNA down to their descendants, then evolution would predict that we would find virus DNA segments in ape and human DNA in specific locations, thus proving the existence of a single ancestor to both species. Indeed we do find such virus DNA sequences in humans and apes, several thousand of them. And the pattern of how many identical virus infections we have inherited reinforce morphological evidence we find between the species, confirming a timeline since the species diverged.

Endogenous Retro Virus DNA segments are the smoking gun of evolution, and the existence of a common ancestor shared between apes and humans. You might want to look at this post. Read on down a few paragraphs to get into the meat of the subject.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

The implicit definition of science in the department's statement placing the contingency with its "tested experimentally" language distorts the role of theoretical intuition and rational reflection in the actual development of "science" in Western history. Drawing inferences from observed data, of course, is par for the course. Their theoretical and speculative character remains. A discussion of the epistemological differentiations between modern empirical science and "philosophy of science" or "natural philosophy" (which is what is going on in the broader debate) takes one structurally and topically beyond definition set of "science" set forth by the department.

Those who want to offer ideological and speculative expositions regarding the meaning or significance of "the Big Bang" theory or Darwinian evolution (i.e., materialistic scientism) also venture forth beyond their stated parameters. It's an interesting game to watch.

[narby]

It's an interesting game to watch.

It's the game of how you completely avoided talking about how virus DNA sequences got into ape and human cromosomes in identical locations.

By your definition of science, we could not examine how the sun shines, how continents drift, or volcanos formed Hawaii, because we can't duplicate the situation in a lab in real time.

Your philosophy of "science" is flawed, I suspect merely in order for you to retain a particular religious view of the world that conflicts with it. And rather than examine whether your religious view is wrong, you invalidate science in your mind.

Have a nice day.

[Coyoteman]

We don't have to launch an expedition to the sun...

You better go at night -- placemarker.

[Louis Foxwell]

I was watching a facinating program the other night on NOVA discussing the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe. One comment stuck out.
The phrase Evolutionary Force was used. The term raises the question of the functionality of evolution. If there is no force involved it would seem that devolution would be a likelier event than increased complexity.
Does the universe, and life in particular, demonstrate directionality from simple to complex? If so, why? What is the nature of the force that determines such directionality? It is not a great leap from that question to an hypothesis of design.
The matter of intelligence is a clearly biological phenomenon. Nearly all living things display some form of intelligence. It is a virtual universal condition among life forms. So what is the big antiscience scare about discussing design by intelligence.
Do not birds, after all, choose to be red or blue? Is the scientific community so stuck on the stupidity of a purely mechanistic world view that they are unwilling or unable to consider the possibility that life escapes the rules of chemistry?

[Milhous]

The reason is that retroviruses aren't picky about where their DNA gets inserted into the host DNA.

Proof?

[Coyoteman]

Is the scientific community so stuck on the stupidity of a purely mechanistic world view that they are unwilling or unable to consider the possibility that life escapes the rules of chemistry?

The scientific community is stuck on the 'stupidity' of the "scientific method."

That 'stupidity' means we don't give much credence to divine revelation, prophets, tarot cards, public opinion, crystal balls, the neighbors, opinion polls, what the stars predict, or the local shamans. We deal in facts, to several decimal places, and well-tested theories.

You cite "the possibility that life escapes the rules of chemistry." Where are your facts and well-tested theories? Or are you working from a belief system?