Posted on 08/18/2005 5:17:34 PM PDT by curiosity
The appeal of "intelligent design" to the American right is obvious. For religious conservatives, the theory promises to uncover God's fingerprints on the building blocks of life. For conservative intellectuals in general, it offers hope that Darwinism will yet join Marxism and Freudianism in the dustbin of pseudoscience. And for politicians like George W. Bush, there's little to be lost in expressing a skepticism about evolution that's shared by millions.
In the long run, though, intelligent design will probably prove a political boon to liberals, and a poisoned chalice for conservatives. Like the evolution wars in the early part of the last century, the design debate offers liberals the opportunity to portray every scientific battle--today, stem-cell research, "therapeutic" cloning, and end-of-life issues; tomorrow, perhaps, large-scale genetic engineering--as a face-off between scientific rigor and religious fundamentalism. There's already a public perception, nurtured by the media and by scientists themselves, that conservatives oppose the "scientific" position on most bioethical issues. Once intelligent design runs out of steam, leaving its conservative defenders marooned in a dinner-theater version of Inherit the Wind, this liberal advantage is likely to swell considerably.
And intelligent design will run out of steam--a victim of its own grand ambitions. What began as a critique of Darwinian theory, pointing out aspects of biological life that modification-through-natural-selection has difficulty explaining, is now foolishly proposed as an alternative to Darwinism. On this front, intelligent design fails conspicuously--as even defenders like Rick Santorum are beginning to realize--because it can't offer a consistent, coherent, and testable story of how life developed. The "design inference" is a philosophical point, not a scientific theory: Even if the existence of a designer is a reasonable inference to draw from the complexity of, say, a bacterial flagellum, one would still need to explain how the flagellum moved from design to actuality.
And unless George W. Bush imposes intelligent design on American schools by fiat and orders the scientific establishment to recant its support for Darwin, intelligent design will eventually collapse--like other assaults on evolution that failed to offer an alternative--under the weight of its own overreaching.
If liberals play their cards right, this collapse could provide them with a powerful rhetorical bludgeon. Take the stem-cell debate, where the great questions are moral, not scientific--whether embryonic human life should be created and destroyed to prolong adult human life. Liberals might win that argument on the merits, but it's by no means a sure thing. The conservative embrace of intelligent design, however, reshapes the ideological battlefield. It helps liberals cast the debate as an argument about science, rather than morality, and paint their enemies as a collection of book-burning, Galileo-silencing fanatics.
This would be the liberal line of argument anyway, even without the controversy surrounding intelligent design. "The president is trapped between religion and science over stem cells," declared a Newsweek cover story last year; "Religion shouldn't undercut new science," the San Francisco Chronicle insisted; "Leadership in 'therapeutic cloning' has shifted abroad," the New York Times warned, because American scientists have been "hamstrung" by "religious opposition"--and so on and so forth. But liberalism's science-versus-religion rhetoric is only likely to grow more effective if conservatives continue to play into the stereotype by lining up to take potshots at Darwin.
Already, savvy liberal pundits are linking bioethics to the intelligent design debate. "In a world where Koreans are cloning dogs," Slate's Jacob Weisberg wrote last week, "can the U.S. afford--ethically or economically--to raise our children on fraudulent biology?" (Message: If you're for Darwin, you're automatically for unfettered cloning research.) Or again, this week's TNR makes the pretty-much-airtight "case against intelligent design"; last week, the magazine called opponents of embryo-destroying stem cell research "flat-earthers." The suggested parallel is obvious: "Science" is on the side of evolution and on the side of embryo-killing.
Maureen Dowd, in her inimitable way, summed up the liberal argument earlier this year:
Exploiting God for political ends has set off powerful, scary forces in America: a retreat on teaching evolution, most recently in Kansas; fights over sex education . . . a demonizing of gays; and a fear of stem cell research, which could lead to more of a "culture of life" than keeping one vegetative woman hooked up to a feeding tube.
Terri Schiavo, sex education, stem cell research--on any issue that remotely touches on science, a GOP that's obsessed with downing Darwin will be easily tagged as medieval, reactionary, theocratic. And this formula can be applied to every new bioethical dilemma that comes down the pike. Earlier this year, for instance, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) issued ethical guidelines for research cloning, which blessed the creation of human-animal "chimeras"--animals seeded with human cells. New York Times reporter Nicholas Wade, writing on the guidelines, declared that popular repugnance at the idea of such creatures is based on "the pre-Darwinian notion that species are fixed and penalties [for cross-breeding] are severe." In other words, if you're opposed to creating pig-men--carefully, of course, with safeguards in place (the NAS guidelines suggested that chimeric animals be forbidden from mating)--you're probably stuck back in the pre-Darwinian ooze with Bishop Wilberforce and William Jennings Bryan.
There's an odd reversal-of-roles at work here. In the past, it was often the right that tried to draw societal implications from Darwinism, and the left that stood against them. And for understandable reasons: When people draw political conclusions from Darwin's theory, they're nearly always inegalitarian conclusions. Hence social Darwinism, hence scientific racism, hence eugenics.
Which is why however useful intelligent design may be as a rhetorical ploy, liberals eager to claim the mantle of science in the bioethics battle should beware. The left often thinks of modern science as a child of liberalism, but if anything, the reverse is true. And what scientific thought helped to forge--the belief that all human beings are equal--scientific thought can undermine as well. Conservatives may be wrong about evolution, but they aren't necessarily wrong about the dangers of using Darwin, or the National Academy of Sciences, as a guide to political and moral order.
I don't think we could if we wanted to. Really.
"When you construct something with the knowledge that it will do evil, you are responsible. God created man knowing he would do evil; he is responsible."
So what did God do to you that you are holding him responsible for?
Yeay, pretty obvious, n'est-ce pas? But try arguing that with posters who just quote scripture back at you.
Postulating an omnimax creator god has certain ramification which don't vanish no matter how many Bible verses you trow at it.
Omniscience not only means that this god knows exactly what will happen at any point in time but also why, i.e. he knows exactly what chain of events led to your decision X instead of Y at time T.
Taken together with this god's omnipotence it's completely unimaginable how his creation can make decisions which he didn't intend.
Of course one could argue that this god is either not omniscient or not omnipotent (or even both) but I don't think most believers want to concede these points.
So IMHO this seems to be just an other case of wanting to eat your cake and have it too.
With fully pickled and preserved stem cells no less.
Uh, the fact that you found ONE reference in ONE college textbook in no way proves that such is the overall mode of thought in biology. For all I know, that text is a product of the "Discovery Institute", or that the particular biology prof is a closet creationist and chose it specifically for that language. Your "proof" isn't one.
"And watch your language if you wish to post at this site."
Gee--I didn't know your name was also "Admin Moderator". Kiss off!!!
Well, what is someone supposed to say to that drivel? Sure, if I were talking to someone face to face who said that to me I know what I'd say. I'd start with: "Yeah, you 'freakin' dumb@$$, I didn't just stumble in here on the way to the Britney Spears thread. I do in fact think this topic is important." Then it'd be all downhill from there. So tell me, whatta ya want from 'us evos' to make you feel all warm and fuzzy? Will a lollipop do, or maybe a popsicle?
But of course I can't say that to you here on FR so I guess we've nothing to discuss. It's no big deal anyhow, since you can just very safely assume that some variation of the above would be my reply to you no matter what. Whether or not you've checked out my profile as I suggested, then you now know this is the last reply you'll ever get from me. Go jerk your own self off.
Yup! "Memetics" is insidious. A small, noisy minority can sometimes cause a change in the terms used in a debate. There are a huge number of examples---as from "pro-abortion" to "pro-choice", from "terrorists" to "insurgents". It goes on all the time.
No. God had programmed BTK's existence, just as he has programmed yours.
Hmmm. I am just engaging in honest philosophical conversation. You have a problem, I think.
Of course one could argue that this god is either not omniscient or not omnipotent (or even both) but I don't think most believers want to concede these points.
I was easier to handle when all one needed to say was "The Devil made me do it."
We are doomed!
It's ok. I will ask God to forgive him.
You been taking lessons from the Discovery institute?
Thanks. I may be possessed by the Devil too. What should I do about it?
Are you feeling OK mister?
The richest segment of our society is "old people" who have worked their entire lives and amassed personal assets. I agree that they will spend their money on anything that will alleviate their pain, improve their health, or give more time to indulge in the joys of their life (whatever they are). No law can prevent that, nor should it in a land that purports to guarantee us the "pursuit of happiness" and all that entails.
Well a law can prohibit funding to slow down the invention of the aging process interfering agents the rich geezers want to buy. A law can achieve that.
Sheer baloney. Simple economics says you only displace the research into other hands or drive it underground. Which option do you prefer?
You need to wake up. The ones with the religious view are those who say that the universe was caused by a big bang. Letting science teachers teach this nonsense is leading society astray.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.