Witness: 'Intelligent Design' doesn't qualify as science [Day 4 of trial in Dover, PA]

Sioux City Journal ^ | 29 September 2005 | Staff

[PatrickHenry]

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) -- The concept of "intelligent design" is a form of creationism and is not based on scientific method, a professor testified Wednesday in a trial over whether the idea should be taught in public schools.

Robert T. Pennock, a professor of science and philosophy at Michigan State University, testified on behalf of families who sued the Dover Area School District. He said supporters of intelligent design don't offer evidence to support their idea.

"As scientists go about their business, they follow a method," Pennock said. "Intelligent design wants to reject that and so it doesn't really fall within the purview of science."

Pennock said intelligent design does not belong in a science class, but added that it could possibly be addressed in other types of courses.

In October 2004, the Dover school board voted 6-3 to require teachers to read a brief statement about intelligent design to students before classes on evolution. The statement says Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection is "not a fact" and has inexplicable "gaps," and refers students to an intelligent-design textbook for more information.

Proponents of intelligent design argue that life on Earth was the product of an unidentified intelligent force, and that natural selection cannot fully explain the origin of life or the emergence of highly complex life forms.

Eight families are trying to have intelligent design removed from the curriculum, arguing that it violates the constitutional separation of church and state. They say it promotes the Bible's view of creation.

Meanwhile, a lawyer for two newspaper reporters said Wednesday the presiding judge has agreed to limit questioning of the reporters, averting a legal showdown over having them testify in the case.

Both reporters wrote stories that said board members mentioned creationism as they discussed the intelligent design issue. Board members have denied that.

U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III agreed that the reporters would only have to verify the content of their stories -- and not answer questions about unpublished material, possible bias or the use of any confidential sources.

"They're testifying only as to what they wrote," said Niles Benn, attorney for The York Dispatch and the York Daily Record/Sunday News, the papers that employed the two freelancers.

The reporters were subpoenaed but declined to give depositions Tuesday, citing their First Amendment rights. A lawyer for the school board had said he planned to seek contempt citations against the two.

The judge's order clears the way for the reporters to provide depositions and testify Oct. 6.

[exDemMom]

The statement says Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection is "not a fact" and has inexplicable "gaps," and refers students to an intelligent-design textbook for more information.

Once again, we have a shining example of the misuse of the word "theory" to mean "supposition put forth in the lack of supporting evidence." Of course, that is NOT the scientific meaning of theory. For a scientific idea to reach theoryhood, it has to have a pretty solid body of evidence (i.e. facts) to back it up.

Furthermore, if it weren't for those gaps in scientific knowledge, there'd be no reason to keep paying us the big bucks to keep researching. What we do is identify gaps in current knowledge, propose a hypothesis, and test it. If we're successful, we make the gap a little smaller.

[Nathan Zachary]

I guess not.
It doesn't change the FACT that NO fossel record exists that even remotely suggests evolution.

[exDemMom]

Perhaps someone should spend more time looking at the quotes from many of teh best scientists in the world - including Albert:

You're confusing the issue. Many scientists are religious--Christian, Moslim, Buddhist, Jewish--but do not believe in a literal creation as presented in the Bible. The evidence is for evolution, while there is none supporting a literal creation.

[general_re]

He's right, you know - the fossel record doesn't support evolution. The fossil record, on the other hand...

[ml1954]

All it proves every time a fossil is found is that something was alive at one point and now is dead. That doesn't "prove" it evolved.

If a fossil is found that shows a modern rabbit existed 500 million years ago, the TOE would have a major problem. Every fossil found must fit into the evolutionary schema posited by the TOE. That's how every new fossil found tests evolution.

But from you're response, I'm guessing you've heard this before and choose to ignore it. Apparently you think the fossil record is evidence of nothing more than 'that something was alive at one point and now is dead'. Now how do you know a fossil is evidence of even that?

[Nathan Zachary]

No, it means you thought wrong period. Bit's of my list? No, because they wouldn't be on it if they weren't creationists.

[doc30]

Actually, it is the opposite. Scientists that reject the possibility of a higher intelligence as the designer of the Universe, do not follow the scientific method. If one removes a possibility from the probability of out comes, they create holes in their conclusion.

Have you always been anti-science and anti-education? The scientists are following the scientific method. It is you that doesn't even know what the scientific method involves. Otherwise, you would not be making statements that are completely backwards. Postulating the concept of a 'designer' is one thing, but it has no testable premises. Science will have to be warped beyond recognition in order for ID to be taught as science. ID is capitualtion on learning about our universe. It basically says it's too complicated to understand. My head hurts from thinking about it so someone smarter must have done it all. If that is the case, scientists can hang up their lab coats. The explanation "God did it" will be the final answer. No need for research anymore. Trying to get ID into a classroom is nothing more than intellectual affermative action.

[FostersExport]

"It doesn't change the FACT that NO fossel record exists that even remotely suggests evolution."

Right, keep telling yourself that.

On the other hand, we could recall Piltdown man. Although creationists love to somehow offer this fraud as evidence against evolution, the truth is that real scientists realised that something was amiss when they tried to reconcile it with later fossils. And what do you know? It turned out to be a fraud.

There’s a test of evolution for you right there, and it would have been pretty difficult to carry out if it was a “FACT that NO fossel record exists that even remotely suggests evolution”.

[Nathan Zachary]

"The evidence is for evolution, while there is none supporting a literal creation."

List this evidence.

Your statement is backwards. The evidence supports ID

[gobucks]

Robert T. Pennock, a professor of science and philosophy at Michigan State University

Who also happens to be in the business of making his living attacking I.D. folks and evangelizing secular humanism under the radar:

Now if he's making good money at it ... well. He can't be all bad, right?

Btw, here are some revealing comments about his book, including some of his own remarks:

Evolution as a Worldview:

Pennock’s arguments for naturalistic evolution reveal its metaphysical nature. When a theory becomes paradigmatic, it explains everything but looses its tentativeness. This, even according to Pennock, is ground for dismissal as a scientific theory:

"Of course Popper was correct that science should rule out all-purpose "explanations" (this is just one of the reasons, as we shall see in chapter 6, that science does not consider the Creation hypothesis), but he was wrong to have thought that Darwinism fell prey to this problem" (100). Yet, previously Pennock was praising evolution’s ubiquitous explanatory power:

We should thus think of scientists not as simply using a collection bucket, but as using a flashlight. One tests a hypothesis as one tests a flashlight - by turning it on and seeing whether and how well it can illuminate one’s surroundings…. Particularly powerful theories are like searchlights that shed a broad, bright, and sharply focused beam upon the world, allowing us to clearly see and distinguish its features. Evolutionary theory is such a searchlight…. It is the great explanatory power of evolutionary theory - that it accounts for so much data so well - that testifies to its truth (54).

But notice that a truly scientific theory, such as say, the law of gravity, does not have universal applicability to virtually every subject one can talk about. We do not explain macroeconomics with Einstein’s theory of relativity. Yet throughout The Tower of Babel, Pennock illuminates everything from cosmology, to biology, law, language and even creationism with the search-beam of evolutionary theory. This reveals its Weltanschauung rather than scientific nature.

and this, very interestingly, about morality:

Pennock’s Ethics:

Pennock insists that morality has a positive basis whether or not God exists. His explanation of why this is true, however, falls between two stools. First, he tells us that people do find meaning in their lives, apart from whether or not they believe in God. For instance they might find worth and meaning in their children, or in their work, or in building a new home.

Then he simply acknowledges that this is not a solid basis for morality and worth, for we might "expect more." Beyond mere "feeling of value," we may want "values that are justified"(329). One wonders just what point the example was making.

He states, "On this point the philosopher and the creationist can agree - by itself the simple identification of individual psychological value does nothing to justify those values. We would not want to fall into a form of subjective relativism, which is antithetical to the most basic meaning of morality" (329).

In what seems like an attempt to mask the desperation of his case, he tells us that there is a vast history of ethical theory justifying morality and values apart from God’s existence (what that body of thought actually says on the subject he leaves out). The issue is so simple though that he sees the need to only "briefly note one solution to the (creationist’s) existential crisis." The solution? Existentialism itself. Pennock elaborates:

According to the existentialist, we are right to feel worried about meaninglessness because the world really is meaningless. We are moral beings in an amoral world, so it is quite understandable that, thrown into such an absurd situation, we might wonder whether life is worth living. Nevertheless, let us not give in to despair … for as moral beings we have the freedom to interpret the world as we will, and thereby to impart meaning to life.

If we are not given a purpose, we can generate our own purposes.

We can thumb our noses at meaningless and rise above the amoral contingencies of the world, creating value as we go, by the choices we make and the actions we take. This is a philosophy that challenges us to be masters of our own fate and to carry on in the face of hopelessness" (330).

To summarize: The angst that creationists feel results from their perceived need to ground their existence in God’s existence. But this is really unnecessary. There is abundant meaning in a universe without God. On the one hand, we can ground our significance in the baseless feelings of purpose we have in our relationships, our material things, and our occupations. Or, we can just set our jaw, accept the real meaninglessness of our existence, and then conjure up our own meaning. Well, perhaps some of us may be forgiven if we still "expect more."

from http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/1128 "Conjure up our own meaning" - indeed.

That is really what Pennock is up to, a secular humanist evangleist posing as an 'unbaised' "scientist" in a Pennsylvannia courtroom.

Someone needs to call the lawyers for the school board, have them read this post, then cross examine the thoughtful, fair, unbaised, non-leftist Dr. Robert - and ask him why he makes his living denying God.

I bet his Dad badly mistreated him when he was a vulnerable kid.

[Nathan Zachary]

Well, tell me what this evidence is!!! You keep claiming it, but fail to tell anyone what it is!!!

The Archaeoraptor? proven fake

The Archaeopteryx? proven to be a bird, not a missing link.

What else? List them instead of making statements with nothing to back them up.

[doc30]

Americans need several hundred lawsuits filed in strategically-located school districts for teaching a theory as scientific fact.

Have you always been anti-science? All of science is built upon theories. You are misunderstanding the word 'theory.' According to you, teaching the Theory of Gravity, Quantum Theory, Electrodynamic Theory, Germ Theory, and all other theories in science are misleading taxpayers and students? Theories are the explanations that best fit the facts. A fact is an observation. A theory is the understanding of the facts. It is not a guess, estimation or hypothesis. Before you start talking about scientific theories, you need to learn what they mean. Otherwise, you sound like you want to eliminate all science, and everything built upon them. Sounds like you want to live in the Dark Ages during the Inquisition.

[RadioAstronomer]

Actually, it is the opposite. Scientists that reject the possibility of a higher intelligence as the designer of the Universe, do not follow the scientific method. If one removes a possibility from the probability of out comes, they create holes in their conclusion.

You certainly don't know many scientists it seems.

[anguish]

Try this - NCSE's "Project Steve". They currently have 628 scientists named 'Steve' supporting evolution on their list. How many Steves do you have? ;)

[FostersExport]

“No, it means you thought wrong period. Bit's of my list? No, because they wouldn't be on it if they weren't creationists.”

Wrong period? What are you talking about? The scientists metmom mentioned are pre-Darwin, and are noted as such on your list. They are the ‘bits’ I take issue with.

The post-Darwin bits of your list are acceptable to support your point.

But by the way, ‘believing in a creator’ and ‘believing in Evolution’ are not mutually exculsive.

[Gulf War One]

"The scientific mentality may be roughly characterized as the tendency to suspend belief until evidence of the appropriate kind is produced, and then to believe the proposition in question only to the degree that they available evidence warrants it, without excluding the possibility of a future disconfirmation."

Arthur Pap, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science (The Free Press of Glencoe, 1962), p. 1.

You are exactly correct. If it cannot be measured, it is something other than science. Not something less valid; something simply beyond the realm of science. Religiosity should not mascarade as science, nor vice versa.

[Nathan Zachary]

NO fossel record exists. Your monkey man was a fraud. try again.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/tj/docs/v13n2_skull.asp

[CarolinaGuitarman]

Here are 600 scientists named Steve who believe in evolution.

http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/articles/5945_the_faqs_2_16_2003.asp

I notice that a good deal of your creationists were either dead before Darwin published or were old men by then. That says a lot about the desperation you must feel to include people who never even heard of Darwin as anti-darwinian. Next you're going to tell us that since Newton didn't believe in The Theory of Relativity, it means there is a problem with it.


Nice try, no cigar.

[exDemMom]

Seems "crystal clear" man has invented a "method" and nobody but nobody is going to mess with their invention. Interesting times watching man protect his "method" of operation.

Do you have any idea how the scientific method works? The method is designed to be as objective as possible. It is based on a never-ending process of observation, hypothesizing, and testing. Note that there is no room for baseless conjecture, personal feelings, or beliefs.

We don't reject the possibility of a "higher intelligence" (i.e. God); the existence or non-existence of God just isn't a factor. The issue of God is as irrelevant to our work as, for instance, the issue of mad cow disease is irrelevant with respect to the logging industry.

[RadioAstronomer]

You are obviously not familiar with what a theory in science is. So here ya go:

Let me post my own example of gravity:

A little history here: Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation

“Every object in the universe attracts every other object with a force directed along the line of centers for the two objects that is proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the separation between the two objects.”

F=Gm₁m₂/r²

Where:

F equals the gravitational force between two objects
m₁ equals the mass of the first object
m₂ equals the mass of the second object
R equals the distance between the objects
G equals the universal constant of gravitation = (6.6726 )* 10^-11 N*m²/kg² (which is still being refined and tested today)

(BTW this is a simple form of the equation and is only applied to point sources. Usually it is expressed as a vector equation)

Even though it works well for most practical purposes, this formulation has problems.

A few of the problems are:

It shows the change is gravitational force is transmitted instantaneously (Violates C), assumes an absolute space and time (this contradicts Special Relativity), etc.

Enter Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity

In 1915 Einstein developed a new theory of gravity called General Relativity.

A number of experiments showed this theory explained some of the problems with the classical Newtonian model. However, this theory like all others is still being explored and tested.

From an NSF abstract:

“As with all scientific knowledge, a theory can be refined or even replaced by an alternative theory in light of new and compelling evidence. The geocentric theory that the sun revolves around the earth was replaced by the heliocentric theory of the earth's rotation on its axis and revolution around the sun. However, ideas are not referred to as "theories" in science unless they are supported by bodies of evidence that make their subsequent abandonment very unlikely. When a theory is supported by as much evidence as evolution, it is held with a very high degree of confidence.

In science, the word "hypothesis" conveys the tentativeness inherent in the common use of the word "theory.' A hypothesis is a testable statement about the natural world. Through experiment and observation, hypotheses can be supported or rejected. At the earliest level of understanding, hypotheses can be used to construct more complex inferences and explanations. Like "theory," the word "fact" has a different meaning in science than it does in common usage. A scientific fact is an observation that has been confirmed over and over. However, observations are gathered by our senses, which can never be trusted entirely. Observations also can change with better technologies or with better ways of looking at data. For example, it was held as a scientific fact for many years that human cells have 24 pairs of chromosomes, until improved techniques of microscopy revealed that they actually have 23. Ironically, facts in science often are more susceptible to change than theories, which is one reason why the word "fact" is not much used in science.

Finally, "laws" in science are typically descriptions of how the physical world behaves under certain circumstances. For example, the laws of motion describe how objects move when subjected to certain forces. These laws can be very useful in supporting hypotheses and theories, but like all elements of science they can be altered with new information and observations.

Those who oppose the teaching of evolution often say that evolution should be taught as a "theory, not as a fact." This statement confuses the common use of these words with the scientific use. In science, theories do not turn into facts through the accumulation of evidence. Rather, theories are the end points of science. They are understandings that develop from extensive observation, experimentation, and creative reflection. They incorporate a large body of scientific facts, laws, tested hypotheses, and logical inferences. In this sense, evolution is one of the strongest and most useful scientific theories we have.

Here is another nice page of what a theory is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory

"In common usage a theory is often viewed as little more than a guess or a hypothesis. But in science and generally in academic usage, a theory is much more than that. A theory is an established paradigm that explains all or many of the data we have and offers valid predictions that can be tested. In science, a theory can never be proven true, because we can never assume we know all there is to know. Instead, theories remain standing until they are disproven, at which point they are thrown out altogether or modified slightly.

Theories start out with empirical observations such as “sometimes water turns into ice.” At some point, there is a need or curiosity to find out why this is, which leads to a theoretical/scientific phase. In scientific theories, this then leads to research, in combination with auxiliary and other hypotheses (see scientific method), which may then eventually lead to a theory. Some scientific theories (such as the theory of gravity) are so widely accepted that they are often seen as laws. This, however, rests on a mistaken assumption of what theories and laws are. Theories and laws are not rungs in a ladder of truth, but different sets of data. A law is a general statement based on observations."

For Laws:

"A well-known example is that of Newton's law of gravity: while it describes the world accurately for most pertinent observations, such as of the movements of astronomical objects in the solar system, it was found to be inaccurate when applied to extremely large masses or velocities. Einstein's theory of general relativity, however, accurately handles gravitational interactions at those extreme conditions, in addition to the range covered by Newton's law. Newton's formula for gravity is still used in most circumstances, as an easier-to-calculate approximation of gravitational law. A similar relationship exists between Maxwell's equations and the theory of quantum electrodynamics; there are several such cases. This suggests the (unanswered) question of whether there are any ultimately true physical laws, or whether they are all just cases where our sensory and rational apparatus have generated mathematically simple approximations, valid within the range of normal human experience, to unobtainable true formulas."