Posted on 06/23/2007 12:21:46 PM PDT by GodGunsGuts
Pro-Darwin Biology Professor Laments Academia's "Intolerance" and Supports Teaching Intelligent Design
Charles Darwin famously said, "A fair result can be obtained only by fully balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question." According to a recent article by J. Scott Turner, a pro-Darwin biology professor at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, New York, modern Neo-Darwinists are failing to heed Darwin's advice. (We blogged about a similar article by Turner in The Chronicle of Higher Education in January, 2007.) Turner is up front with his skepticism of intelligent design (ID), which will hopefully allow his criticisms to strike a chord with other Darwinists.
Turner starts by observing that the real threat to education today is not ID itself, but the attitude of scientists towards ID: "Unlike most of my colleagues, however, I don't see ID as a threat to biology, public education or the ideals of the republic. To the contrary, what worries me more is the way that many of my colleagues have responded to the challenge." He describes the "modern academy" as "a tedious intellectual monoculture where conformity and not contention is the norm." Turner explains that the "[r]eflexive hostility to ID is largely cut from that cloth: some ID critics are not so much worried about a hurtful climate as they are about a climate in which people are free to disagree with them." He then recounts and laments the hostility faced by Richard Sternberg at the Smithsonian:
It would be comforting if one could dismiss such incidents as the actions of a misguided few. But the intolerance that gave rise to the Sternberg debacle is all too common: you can see it in its unfiltered glory by taking a look at Web sites like pandasthumb.org or recursed.blogspot.com [Jeffry Shallit's blog] and following a few of the threads on ID. The attitudes on display there, which at the extreme verge on antireligious hysteria, can hardly be squared with the relatively innocuous (even if wrong-headed) ideas that sit at ID's core.
(J. Scott Turner, Signs of Design, The Christian Century, June 12, 2007.)
Turner on the Kitzmiller v. Dover Case
Turner sees the Kitzmiller v. Dover case as the dangerous real-world expression of the intolerance common in the academy: "My blood chills ... when these essentially harmless hypocrisies are joined with the all-American tradition of litigiousness, for it is in the hand of courts and lawyers that real damage to cherished academic ideas is likely to be done." He laments the fact that "courts are where many of my colleagues seem determined to go with the ID issue” and predicts, “I believe we will ultimately come to regret this."
Turner justifies his reasonable foresight by explaining that Kitzmiller only provided a pyrrhic victory for the pro-Darwin lobby:
Although there was general jubilation at the ruling, I think the joy will be short-lived, for we have affirmed the principle that a federal judge, not scientists or teachers, can dictate what is and what is not science, and what may or may not be taught in the classroom. Forgive me if I do not feel more free.
(J. Scott Turner, Signs of Design, The Christian Century, June 12, 2007.)
Turner on Education
Turner explains, quite accurately, that ID remains popular not because of some vast conspiracy or religious fanaticism, but because it deals with an evidentiary fact that resonates with many people, and Darwinian scientists do not respond to ID's arguments effectively:
[I]ntelligent design … is one of multiple emerging critiques of materialism in science and evolution. Unfortunately, many scientists fail to see this, preferring the gross caricature that ID is simply "stealth creationism." But this strategy fails to meet the challenge. Rather than simply lament that so many people take ID seriously, scientists would do better to ask why so many take it seriously. The answer would be hard for us to bear: ID is not popular because the stupid or ignorant like it, but because neo-Darwinism's principled banishment of purpose seems less defensible each passing day.
(J. Scott Turner, Signs of Design, The Christian Century, June 12, 2007.)
Turner asks, “What, then, is the harm in allowing teachers to deal with the subject as each sees fit?” ID can't be taught, he explains, because most scientists believe that "normal standards of tolerance and academic freedom should not apply in the case of ID." He says that the mere suggestion that ID could be taught brings out "all manner of evasions and prevarications that are quite out of character for otherwise balanced, intelligent and reasonable people."
As we noted earlier, hopefully Turner’s criticisms will strike a chord with Darwinists who might otherwise close their ears to the argument for academic freedom for ID-proponents. Given the intolerance towards ID-sympathy that Turner describes, let us also hope that the chord is heard but the strummer is not harmed.
I did not deny the existence of "guides." The algorithm comprised of variation, superfecundity and selection is a guided system.
It does not, however, plan or see ahead, except for the acknowledged fact that variation is more sophisticated than anything we have yet modeled in software.
Of course six-sevenths of the history of life has been erased. It could take some time to reverse engineer three billion years of work.
I agree with you on all except for this one thing which is a presupposition, i.e. it has not yet been tested:
Not so... God allows many malefactors to exist as examples to his children of error and spoiled blessing as a warning and caution of self centered observations.. That reject a view wider and broader in scope than a frog in a well.. considering the sky at the mouth of his well.. that causes some frogs(malefactors) to resort to humility..
Eaten. We (life) ate the evidence.
But it has been tested. Directed evolution experiments demonstrate that when you target a specific trait for selection -- adaptation for high temperatures, for example -- that the entire space of point mutations is explored in no particular sequence.
This aspect of variation is not being ignored.
And "Satan"(snake) said; "Eat of it and YOU will be like [a]God"..
His OWN personal error.. and the error of those that "followed"(and ARE following) him.. good vs. evil, ugly vs. beautiful, debit vs. credit, right vs. wrong, politically left vs. right, holy vs. UNholy, male vs. female, black vs. white, rich vs. poor, and much more..
MANY gloss over this metaphor to thier own loss.. Because THIS is where the drama of Human Communication begins.. The pure genius of this metaphor can get obscured.. Because this metaphor is the bedrock of the human condition..
Worship or reverence God -OR- be your OWN God.. two choices..
And since all humans carry this very needy, filthy and demanding body.. Only a moron can see themselves as God, more as they mature in the trials the good and evil.. of being a human..
You miss the metaphorical image(message) of THIS TREE??? and you miss the bedrock questions to explain the human experience.. How could the BIBLE be based or grounded right from the beginning(Genesis Ch 1-3) in this most basic of explanations of what being a human is?.. Its pretty amazing that so-called "bronze age" humans could come up with it.. This is as relevant today as when it was first penned on paper or quoted as spiritual truth from memory..
What IS good or evil? is indeed part of the "Observer problem"...
AND maybe the entire "problem" itself..
He who laughs last, laughs best. 8~)
Amen to your post.
Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you." -- Luke 17:20-21"And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation:
Ah, but how long to summarize?
Ah, but if you really knew me, hosepipe, you would know it is not freedom I am enslaved to, but Love...only, I’m not a very good Loveslave. To be honest, I’m really very bad.
It is my Master that is Good.
But of course those who've been through this discussion with you previously recall that, despite the decisive rhetoric ("I assert," "cannot," "Period"), this statement is actually an empty tautology. Because, as you continue:
There are always guides to the system.
Those who have been through this discussion with you before realize that, in your own terms, this statement is true not only of systems within which order can spontaneously arise, but rather of "physical systems" generally, since you allow that even factors as ubiquitous and unavoidable as the laws of physics themselves qualify as "guides to the system".
If this were not so then a case as simple as the one I gave previously in another context -- the orderly convection cells that spontaneously form in large pan of water heated on the stove -- would contradict your claim that "order cannot rise spontaneously out of chaos in an unguided physical system". But we know (again those have already been through this) that you consider that pan or water to be guided by the laws of physics.
The consequence of this, however, is that you cannot then turn around and claim that evolutionary systems are "unguided," since they are subject to the laws of physics (not to mention the laws of chemistry; and the principles of variation, heredity, reproduction and consequently of selection; although js11388 did mention this in his reply).
And yet you DO turn around and do just this, repeatedly; even though the contradiction in doing so has been pointed out to you, repeatedly.
I admire you and I am thankful to be included in your post. I do, however, take issue with the above statement, or rather, Scripture does:
For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face:
now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
~1 Corinthians 13:12
Warning: Argueing about love can give you the warm fuzzies..
S: No. Not just to understand his biological theory. But it is advisable if you're going to issue declarations about Darwin's actions, personal views, assumptions and philosophy, as you have been doing.
Wow! What a lot of grist for the mill Stultis! Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts with me so graciously and civilly.
WRT the opening italics: I don’t recall that I ever have issued declarations regarding “Darwin's actions, personal views, assumptions,” though it’s true that in the matter of his philosophy, the Malthusian association is clear to me [see below]. As a student of Western culture, I’m more interested in what other thinkers have done with Darwin along these lines, rather than what Darwin did himself. Generally I rely on the logic, coherence, and explanatory power of Darwin’s theory to justify itself. That’s as “into Darwin” as I ever get.
By “opening line” I mean the overarching, main theme of a work -- usually stated in the opening passages whether called introduction, author’s preface, or foreword –- from which the body of the subsequent argument flows, for the purpose of demonstrating the original premise -– the main theme -- from which it flows. Then a conclusion usually follows, showing that the main body indeed supports the initial premise, together with pointers to the inferences we are entitled to draw from that. (There is also a connotation to sports betting here; but let’s leave that aside for now.)
You wrote:
“[The survival of the fittest] is the doctrine of Malthus applied in most cases with tenfold force”…. But by the “doctrine of Malthus” Darwin is referring only to Malthus’ famous observation that populations do (or rather can) increase far more rapidly than the means of subsistence provided by nature. IOW Darwin is simply referring to the principle of “superfecundity”: that organisms typically produce far more offspring than can potentially survive.Instantly I had a problem with this: What does Malthus actually say: “do” or “can?” Here I point to the parenthetical statement, “or rather can.”
My suspicion is Malthus could only say “do.” That’s because evidently he was a thoroughgoing determinist: For Malthus, nature –- evolution -- is a causally determined sequence of events that unfurls, or evolves, in linear time, each iteration of which depends on local causes themselves determined by strict application of the physical laws.
Note the word “determined”: That which is determined is specifiable in advance of its actual occurrence. If that’s the case, then what would be the value of observation, experience, and evidence, which can only take place after the fact –- a fact that, being determined, could not be otherwise than what it is?
And so my further suspicion is that the “or rather can” part is your “correction” of Malthus. Were that actually to be the case, then you know more than Malthus does.
And indeed, I think you do Stultis. He leaves no room for the activity of free intelligent agents in this universe. Seemingly, you do.
To the extent that Darwin follows Malthus, then, he is already in error.
Which brings me to another observation from what you wrote, this “superfecundity principle.” Jeepers Stultis –- is that really a full-fledged, validated “principle”; or is it merely a conjecture?
If I’m following you here, nature overbreeds (thereby squandering precious resources) in order to obtain a comparatively few surviving individuals of whatever species, which is what constitutes the very future of the species, assuming said species can be said to have a future. The mechanism of determinism engaging an equally deterministic nature is what qualifies whether a species is to be “in” or “out.”
Given that I am persuaded that nature is fundamentally parsimonious -- that is, relentlessly economical WRT her resources -- I am amazed by the magnitude of sheer waste and inefficiency implied by the Malthusian/Darwinian model.
* * * * * * *
Thank you so much for excerpting those poignant lines from Tennyson. Across the generations, human beings still resonate and sympathize with the painful enormity of his personal loss….
However you said this:
So, in general there, as I think you can see, and although [superabundance] is not the ultimate message of the poem, Tennyson is railing against the wanton wastefulness and cold dispassion of nature/creation. [Hullo???]Jeepers, all I thought Tennyson was doing was mourning for the loss of a deeply beloved friend. Instead, I get from you this interpretation:
Darwin, by contrast, was engaged in no similar fit of existential angst. He was simply trying to describe how nature actually is, that there is a competition of sorts to survive and successfully reproduce, that superfecundity is a fact, and one that gives nature scope to "select" among the vast excesses of population those that manage to survive.Oh, let’s have no truck whatsoever with this “existential angst!” Darwinist theory has to get rid of it, for it has no description or explanation of it.
That to me is precisely the problem with Darwinian evolutionary theory: It has no theory of man.
What it does have is a theory that includes a “placemarker” called “human.” Which is just the name of a particular species.
Thus Darwinian theory does not explore the extension of “human,” which is “human being.”
It can deal with man from the physical side of his basic constitution; and then wants to say that that is all that man “is.”
The extension denoted by “being” is not (and cannot) be described by Darwinian theory…. I won’t say another word on that issue here; I just hope you will give it some thought sometime, Stultis.
* * * * * * *
Meanwhile, can we delve into the “design issue” you raised in a subsequent post, #737 on this thread?
Our subsequent exchange went as follows:
bb: On what basis can you call them designs? Do accidents usually produce “designs?”In what way is “accident” “loaded language?” We need to clarify our terms here.S: I'll jump in ahead of js1138 and say, on the basis that they are effective solutions to evolutionary (generally adaptive) problems. And, yes, leaving aside the loaded language of "accidents," other natural processes without preconceived ends in mind, or elements of consciousness, will or choice, do indeed produce design.
Meanwhile, if you are proposing Bénard cells are examples of “design,” I couldn’t disagree with you more. Effectively, Bénard cells are functions of a local heat source. Turn off the heat source, and there are no Bénard cells. And this is supposed to be an example of “design?” In what way???
Actually “design” is a well-defined word by now. And it, and each and every one of its cognates necessarily implies a designer. For the traditional meaning of “design” encompasses the following understandings:
To conceive; invent; contrive. To form a plan for; to draw a sketch of; to have a goal or purpose; intend.It should be obvious to you, from the traditional definition of the word, that “design” necessarily implies a designer, or thinker, or purposeful imaginer “of things which are not, but which may come to be”; that is, a free, willful, rational agent which we nowhere encounter in Darwinian theory.
To put the historical definition into perspective, taking Bénard cells as our model, we would have to say that a "design" such as Michelangelo's sublime David could never have been constructed -- because every time Michaelangelo left the room (he being the "heat source"), the stone into which he had been graving David up to that point reverts to its original state. And so, the David could never have been executed as an object intended to persist in time.... And yet, we still have Michaelangelo's David centuries later.
In the end, we are drawn to the problem of intelligence, of information, as it may affect the development of the natural world. Darwinism is playing “catch-up ball” in recent times respecting these matters. And every time the theory confronts this problem, its solution is to try to establish that “nature,” all by itself, can produce ingenious solutions without the aid of intelligent agents…. Either that, or the "intelligent agents" are spontaneously generated via the processes associated with "Matter in its motions."
Then again, there is nothing in the motions of matter, if understood as "spontaneous," that can furnish any solid basis for an understanding of universal law....
If Darwinists want to take the historically well-established definition of “design,” and try to make it say something other than what it has historically meant, then I just want to “get off of this train.” I would consider that intent as entailing such an abuse of nature, and of human historical experience, that I could not condone it for all the tea in China.
Thank you so much for sharing your penetrating and thought-provoking thoughts with me, dear Stultis! Happy Independence Day to you and all of yours, and to all of the rest of us, each and every one!
Sorry if the parenthetical "can" confused you. I simply meant to acknowledge that while organisms generally have the reproductive capacity to increase their populations very rapidly, with rare and transitory exceptions they do not realize anywhere near this capacity in fact because their population is checked by the environment, competition, and etc.
What Malthus said was that populations increase geometrically, whereas the means of subsistence only increases arithmetically.
Now Malthus was referring to human populations. In that respect there are various problems with his claim. For instance writing before the industrial revolution he didn't appreciate the capacity of economic growth and development to increase "the means of subsistence" very rapidly as well.
But since Darwin was applying this idea in the case of living things generally, these problems don't apply. Again, reading Malthus simply brought Darwin to think about the implications of superfecundity with respect to species.
And so my further suspicion is that the “or rather can” part is your “correction” of Malthus.
Um, no. Didn't have anything to do with that. See above. Again I was just saying the natural populations CAN increase very rapidly, but they generally don't. This excess of population which usually is eliminated provides the material for natural selection to act upon. Has nothing really to do with Malthus' writings on sociology and political economy.
To the extent that Darwin follows Malthus, then, he is already in error.
But, again, Darwin only "follows Malthus" in terms of the fact of superfecundity. The rest is Darwin's own reflection on the implications of superfecundity, i.e. how it will lead to selection in nature.
The little bit that Darwin gets from Malthus, and which he might have got any number of other places, the basic idea of superfecundity, that populations produce more offspring than the environment can possibly support, is not "in error". Superfecundity is simply a fact. It is indubitably true. You ever have a cottonwood tree in your back yard? You don't think ALL those seeds, or even anything but the tiniest, most minuscule fraction of them, are ever going to become a cottonwood tree, do you? If so the world would soon be covered with nothing but cottonwood trees.
However you said this:
So, in general there, as I think you can see, and although [superabundance] is not the ultimate message of the poem, Tennyson is railing against the wanton wastefulness and cold dispassion of nature/creation. [Hullo???]
Jeepers, all I thought Tennyson was doing was mourning for the loss of a deeply beloved friend.
"Hullo?" Well, I really you need to go back and read the stanzas I quoted again. Of course I distinguished their subtheme from the overall message of the poem, but in this section, the one with the "tooth and claw" phrase, Tennyson is clearly reflecting on the wastefulness and dispassion of nature wrt to the living things in contains. This message is put VERY starkly and strongly. I don't see how it's possible to miss. Like I say, try reading that whole section again, but in the meantime I'll try extracting a couple of the more pertinent bits:
So careful of the type she [nature] seems,
So careless of the single life;[I.e. nature is careful to preserve species, but careless of individuals. E.g.:]
And finding that of fifty seeds
She often brings but one to bear,[But then Tennyson decides he's been too chartable, and that nature isn't even careful of "types"...]
‘So careful of the type?’ but no.
From scarped cliff and quarried stone
She cries, ‘A thousand types are gone:
I care for nothing, all shall go.
First I must apologize. When I saw your excerpt from my post, I realized I left an important word out:
s/b
But God did not want these beings to suffer by actually experiencing what He is not.
Who shall I serve - God or myself?
And yet you DO turn around and do just this, repeatedly; even though the contradiction in doing so has been pointed out to you, repeatedly.
I have presented the Intelligent Design hypothesis which contrasts between “intelligent cause” and “undirected process.” Which is to say, one cause being intelligent and the other, not.
But sadly, because I often type the hypothesis from memory, I do have a habit of using the phrase “unguided process” instead of “undirected process.” The difference between the two phrases may be at the root of this dispute.
Here is what the Intelligent Design hypothesis accurately says:
Indeed, intelligence (as a phenomenon) is theorized in some models to emerge from self-organizing complexity.
In that case, if the emerging phenomenon of intelligence thereafter causes “certain features” in life, then the hypothesis holds. For instance, choice of mates causing “certain features” in the offspring.
That is “intelligent cause” as a phenomenon which is also a “guide” to the system. Of course intelligence as a phenomenon could also be fractal
And then there are many possibilities for an agent as an “intelligent cause” - God, space aliens (panspermia,) Gaia, etc.
In sum, the guides necessary for order to rise out of chaos in a physical system are not necessarily intelligent. But the guides are causally related to the order rising out of chaos. If the guides to the system are intelligent, then they are “intelligent causes” and thus the Intelligent Design hypothesis holds.
But again, the Intelligent Design hypothesis uses the term “undirected process” in contrast to “intelligent cause” – every instance the term “unguided process” was used was my error.
My intent was to convey that none of us will ever be able to know all that God knows about every thing and every one and every when and every where - not that we won't know all there is to know about ourselves, personally.
Whether "design" was intelligent or not.. there is no getting away from an established fact..
Humans from where ever they originated [from], evolved to believe in [a]God..
There are human "gods" of every conceivable shape size and demeanor even some humans think they ARE GOD... some make government god.. HUMANS LOVE GOD.. if only a concept or mental construct.. So called lesser lifeforms could/seem to care less..
I wonder if any intelligent culture anywhere in the Universe would gravitate toward "god"(of some kind) as their intelligence increases???.. and certain manipulators would try to assume a gods position/authority/judgement to control the culture..
You know, the way it happens here on this planet..
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