Posted on 10/25/2005 5:33:33 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
Because the scientific community is a monolith, impenetrable and often hostile to new theories, intelligent design proponents have to turn to the public schools to recruit support, a witness said Monday.
Testifying on behalf of the Dover Area School District in U.S. Middle District Court, philosophy of science expert Steve Fuller said intelligent design "can't spontaneously generate a following" because the scientific community shuts the door on radical views.
A sociology professor from the University of Warwick in England, Fuller said, "How do you expect any minority view to get a toe hold in science? You basically get new recruits."
As Dover's attorney Patrick Gillen questioned him, Fuller talked of intelligent design as being a possible scientific-revolution in waiting in which it challenges the "dominant paradigm" of evolutionary theory.
While he stopped short of calling for such a revolution, Fuller spoke of science's broad acceptance of "neo-Darwinian synthesis" — the unifying concepts of Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection and Gregor Mendel's theory of genetics — being a problem for competing ideas.
In the First Amendment trial, Fuller is the second expert witness to take the stand on behalf of the defense. At issue is a statement read to Dover high school biology students in which they are told that intelligent design is an alternative to evolutionary theory.
In often rapid-fire delivery that at times taxed the court reporter's stenographic skills, Fuller said intelligent design is a scientific theory that should be taught in school.
But during cross-examination, he said intelligent design — the idea that the complexity of life requires a designer — is "too young" to have developed rigorous testable formulas and sits on the fringe of science.
He suggested that perhaps scientists should have an "affirmative action" plan to help emerging ideas compete against the "dominant paradigms" of mainstream science.
The pool of peer reviewers is smaller than it has been because, as scientific research gets more and more specialized, there are fewer people in that specialty and even fewer of them are willing to peer review pieces, Fuller said. Consequently, grant money also goes to fewer researchers, he said.
"People don't want to judge the validity of a scientific theory based on who is talking about it and promoting it."
Later, outside the courthouse, Fuller said that public school science class is an appropriate setting for intelligent design in order to keep it from being "marginalized in cult status."
"I don't know where you think future scientists come from," he said.
But Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education, disagreed, saying the purpose of public school education is to educate students, "not feed some theoretical pipeline."
And Nick Matzke, a spokesman for the pro-evolutionary science organization, said students need to learn established theories first before they can begin to question them.
"If a scientist was to overturn evolution they would first have to learn about it," he said. "It would have to be a revolution from within."
As a philosopher, Fuller testified he remains open to all new views, even though he maintains that at the moment, evolutionary theory is a better explanation of the biological world.
"I want to see where intelligent design is going to go," Fuller said.
Fuller also said that while intelligent design's roots are religious, so are the roots of most scientific ideas, pointing to Isaac Newton's desire to understand the natural world through God's eyes.
But there remains prejudice against intelligent design, he said.
Fuller told the court that one of the problems of science is with the very definition of "scientific theory," which is the idea of well substantiated explanations that unify a broad range of observations. He said by requiring a theory to be "well substantiated," it makes it almost impossible for an idea to be accepted scientifically. But Fuller was actually proposing the definition for hypothesis — an untested idea that is the first step toward a theory.
"Does a theory have to be well established to be scientific?" he said. "That means the dominant theory would always be."
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I left my database at home (I keep it on a memory stick). I'll add this and post an update this evening. Evidently, there has been at least one other banning, too.
What a bogus argument.
Plate tectonics, the big bang, string theory, and many other new scientific theories all faced determined opposition in the scientific community when first proposed.
They did not have to recruit in public schools to get traction. Besides, there are millions of christian school students to recruit from.
The Soviet Academy of Science is in session.
Ahh, another Crevo thread. I'm glad I brought my lead underpants.
He suggested that perhaps scientists should have an "affirmative action" plan to help emerging ideas compete against the "dominant paradigms" of mainstream science.
In other words, they don't want to have to do the work to actually establish their ideas as legitimate science. Lovely.
Was Issac Newton a scientist since he believed in God and
God creating the earth? Oops, pardon the "G" word.
I keep hearing from the evolution crowd that you need testable ideas. Could someone please explain to me how you 'test' evolution? You can't. You can't test evolution any more than you can test creationism.
I'm perfectly willing to accept ID as a valid theory just as soon as they show me some hard evidence in support of it.
check later on the evolution of the thread
bttt for later read.
I'd like to see the evidence that there was no intelligence or design to the universe. Surely in a debate, both sides are expected to support their points of view.
By the way, there's an election going on in Dover for
eight school board seats next month. The anti-ID in
science class people won the Democrat primary and the
pro-ID people won the Republican primary. (Candidates
cross-file on both parties for school board in PA) The voters can smell the difference. ID is only the latest
issue the libs brought up here. It started when the
conservative board (A RARITY IN PA SCHOOLS) decided to
save money and renovate the high school instead of building
a new one. Oh yeah, PA STATE EDUCATION ASSOCIATION PAC has
put nearly three thousand dollars so far into the lib DEM
anti-ID school board candidates campaign. They lib candidates call themselves "Dover Cares."
The same as
2 plus 2 =5 "can't spontaneously generate a following" because the scientific community shuts the door on radical views.
You look at the related morphology of fossils you have found, and predict where you will find others, and what they will look like. Then you go dig where you predicted these fossils will be found. If you find them, (and fail to find them wherever else you dig) you have confirmed darwinian theory in much the same way as you can verify theories with a beaker and titration drip in a lab. Astronomy since Hubble works in a similar manner based entirely on historical data. Should we also reject intergalactic astronomy because all the direct evidence is billions of years old?
I'd like to see the evidence that the world is not packed to the gills with tree sprites, fairies, and dwarfs who were brought here by UFOs. Surely in a debate, both sides are expected to support their points of view.
You can't prove a negative. How do you prove an intelligent designer?
Scientists have fossils that show increasing complexity of life forms as time goes by. This is called "evolution". As more fossils are discovered, they seem to fit the general pattern predicted by the theory of evolution.
Sure, there are holes in the fossil record. That we have any fossils at all is amazing. A very small minority of individual animals leave their imprint behind.
This is just silly. There's plenty out there to support evolution. donh's example is of one way to go about looking for fossils. Then there are the fossils themselves - read here for a brief explantion. One of the best examples of evolution as seen through the fossil record is that of the horse. This site is an excellent introduction.
Now, I realize you anti-evo types groan at this stuff and say "that proves nothing" but my point here is that the mere fact you can even do this with the theory of evolution places the theory in the realm of science. It is impossible to produce any kind of objective evidence supporting the theory of intelligent design/creationism because id/cr is an entirely subjective notion. And the fact that id/cr supporters can't produce objective evidence in support of their idea means that they have to resort to "affirmative action"-like tactics to get their theory taught.
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