Posted on 01/01/2002 5:32:15 AM PST by aculeus
A Critique of Intelligent Design Theory and Neocreationism The claims by Behe, Dembski, and other "intelligent design" creationists that science should be opened to supernatural explanations and that these should be allowed in academic as well as public school curricula are unfounded and based on a misunderstanding of both design in nature and of what the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution is all about.
A new brand of creationism has appeared on the scene in the last few years. The so-called neocreationists largely do not believe in a young Earth or in a too literal interpretation of the Bible. While still mostly propelled by a religious agenda and financed by mainly Christian sources such as the Templeton Foundation and the Discovery Institute, the intellectual challenge posed by neocreationism is sophisticated enough to require detailed consideration (see Edis 2001; Roche 2001).
Among the chief exponents of Intelligent Design (ID) theory, as this new brand of creationism is called, is William Dembski, a mathematical philosopher and author of The Design Inference (1998a). In that book he attempts to show that there must be an intelligent designer behind natural phenomena such as evolution and the very origin of the universe (see Pigliucci 2000 for a detailed critique). Dembki's (1998b) argument is that modern science ever since Francis Bacon has illicitly dropped two of Aristotle's famous four types of causes from consideration altogether, thereby unnecessarily restricting its own explanatory power. Science is thus incomplete, and intelligent design theory will rectify this sorry state of affairs, if only close-minded evolutionists would allow Dembski and company to do the job.
[Snipped. For rest of this long article go to the site.]
New? Actually, St. Augustine discussed evolution and said that it was one of many theories, and that Christians could agree with it as long as they acknowledged the Lord guided it. That makes this "new" theory about 1500 years old.
It's just that those believing in "scientism" prefer to find the narrowist creationism arguments to ridicule so that Christians will think they can't be logical and scientific. The problem is that "scientism" itself is nonsense from the standpoint of the Philosophy of Science (the only Philosophy course that I took in college that made sense). You see, science is not dogmatic truth, but merely an explantion of what is observed. Each theory approaches the truth but is not the truth, merely the way we explain what is truth.
Christians approach God the same way: Each one of us sees God, but God is much larger than our ability to grasp him, so our explanations are partial and miss the mark (Christians explain that Christ came here to simplify things so that simple people could follow God).
"Each one of us sees God, but God is much larger than our ability to grasp him…"
This has been my belief for many years. To teach Biblical Creation as fact would open us to teaching that The Great Turtle arose from the abyss, creating the Earth and that Crow created man.
To say "your grandfather was wrong about this, so why should we listen to you?" or "you are associated with these people with whom I am unable to argue, so I have decided to take it out on you" are both examples of faulty argumentation, and both employed liberally by this author.
Progress, ain't it grand?
I’ll take your word for what St. Augustine said about evolution
The most famous intelligent design argument is Paley’s watch.
ID is god of the gaps, nothing more.
It's just that those believing in "scientism" prefer to find the narrowist creationism arguments to ridicule
Those believing in “scientism” are in the minority of scientists, just as the “creationists are a minority of Christians.
What the scientific camp objects to is the creationist claim that they -the creationists - are making scientifically valid statements. Its is not the narrowest arguments that are ridiculed, rather their entire method.
Indeed, it is the creationist who tries to pick up on the narrowest scientific arguments to refute the entire methodology and theory.
I agree.
However, in this article, they are ridiculing the idea of intelligent design.
Newer mathamatical theories imply intelligent design. For example, pure scientism assumes entropy. But Information theory assumes the tendency of nature to evolve into complexity, including the evolution of intellect.
This allows a new theory of a watchmaker, i.e. if things tend toward complexity and intellect, it might be because it was designed that way.
Many "evolution" theories assume magic. I remember in High school we were told that cells divide because of "protoplasm". I thought it was nonsense then. It WAS nonsense: pure magical thinking about a magic substance called protoplasm.
Similarly, before Pasteur, God was rejected because they assumed maggots and frogs came spontaneously: Pasteur was the one proved they came from flies and other frogs.
Lameck's theory that things changed due to environment was disproven by Mendel's theory of inheritance. Yet Dawkin and others insist that these things "evolve" spontaneously.
Since most mutations are fatal, Behe points out that to evolve something like an eyeball requires not only millions of mutations but mutations that would be negative to survival unless the evolved in a certain pattern. This implies a watchmaker, or an anti entropy tendency in nature. It doesnot imply a personal God, but something similar to a life force in nature that many panthiests call God.
Such creation theories are NOT anti scientific, merely the simplist way to explain things.
Eyes are found throughout the animal kingdom and range from simple photoreceptors to complex structures like the human eye. When these eyes are laid out in sequence, a stepwise progression from the very simple to the complex is easily seen and can be attributed to small changes in only a handful of genes, primarily Pax.
Behe is correct if he states that a specific pattern must be followed for evolutionary development of complex structures. That pattern is defined by functional, developmental, and physical constraints. Behe's argument is against the spontaneous eruption of a complex, image-forming eye. But nobody suggests such a thing, except, maybe, creationists.
I have never seen this claim before. Can you back it up? Information theory assumes entropy. If a more complex set of information “evolves”, the laws of entropy are still respected. There is no known drive in nature to “evolve” complexity!
Many "evolution" theories assume magic.
Evolution does not assume magic. It readily admits that there are “missing links” and processes that are not understood. These are assumed to be natural processes not yet discovered. Hardly magic.
I remember in High school we were….
I remember in high school we were shown a film about photosynthesis. The cute little creature that represented a chloroplast ducked behind a blind while it conducted the process of photosynthesis, a chemical reaction not understood at the time
Since then the process has become well understood.
Another gap gets filled.
Similarly, before Pasteur, God was rejected because they assumed maggots and frogs came spontaneously: Pasteur was the one proved they came from flies and other frogs.
So all the atheists were converted?
Lameck's theory that things changed due to environment was disproven by Mendel's theory of inheritance. Yet Dawkin and others insist that these things "evolve" spontaneously.
There is no conflict here. Lamark’s theory implied that experience would influence the germ cells of an organism.
…This implies a watchmaker, or an anti entropy tendency in nature. It doesnot imply a personal God, but something similar to a life force in nature that many panthiests call God.
This does nor imply a “life force” or a “direction” in evolution. All that is required are random mutations and a selection process.
Such creation theories are NOT anti scientific, merely the simplist way to explain things.
Any theory that invokes a force or an entity that is not “natural” is by definition, non-scientific. Assuming a life force, or giving an arrow to the direction of evolution, is not a scientific response, no matter how emotionally gratifying it is.
Adding another layer to the explanation (life force) actually adds more complexity. Thus its is not the simplest.
This is incorrect. Information theory (by which you really mean thermodynamics, which is closely related) assumes the tendency of nature to move towards higher entropy, which is actually orthogonal to "complexity"; complexity is really the wrong word and makes the concepts hard to understand.
In short, local decreases in entropy (e.g. the creation of higher organisms such as humans) are perfectly permissible as long as the net entropy of the entire system increases. On earth, our system includes the sun (among other things) which provides massive quantities of enthalpy so that we can have miniscule quantities of negative entropy on earth. The only reason complex information rich structures can continue to evolve is that earth has a massive entropy/enthalpy gradient that biological processes can tap. The creation of complex living structures is an endothermic process.
And just to clarify: Information theory does not make any mathematical assumptions of trends either towards or away from entropy. Transaction theory DOES make this assumption (though it is less an assumption than the consequence of the mathematics). Thermodynamics is a combination of information theory and transaction theory, and is the relevant science for this discussion.
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