Univ. of Kansas Takes Up Creation Debate

It shouldn't matter who found the problem, that is one of the premises of science right? My understanding of part of this issue with ID is that they are not scientists, check out the Dissent from Darwin List put together by Discovery.org with scientists who state "We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged." There are over 400 scientists who are not convinced by the evidence of evolution. This list was only 100 scientists in 2001 when the list first came out. So just as evolution may being strengthened, there has been an fourfould increase in the number of scientists who aren't sure about macroevolution. By no means are all of these scientists supporters of ID, but this goes to show that individuals can still be scientists and not fully buy into the macroevolutionary theories within Darwinism.

I am no expert to debate about the merits of ID over evolution, I am just getting increasingly tired of this criticism of ID as unscientific layman with no understanding of science. I know of several scientists, other than myself, off the top of my head who are believers in ID, including a soon to be psychiatrist, a surgeon, a physics PhD student and a chemistry PhD student . Interestingly enough, the soon to be psychiatrist (he is in his psych residency) obtained his undergrad Biology degree in Egypt and was taught the principles of evolution, but only as one possible theory and in no way a foregone conclusion.

You are assuming that a designed object will be designed in a very efficient in the way that you think of efficiency. However, it is possible that for the human eye to be able to do what it does, it needed to be more complex than you think that it should have been. Another possibility is that the simpler designs were designed first, and as those were working fine, the designer made a more complex eye based on the simple designs. Either way, your argument is in no means scientific proof (neither are mine) as we are simply looking at a finished product and determining how it developed. There are no a priori hypothesis, only post hoc formulations and basic assumptions. I am no eye expert, so check out this article by an ophthalmologist for a detailed look at why the inverted eye may have been necessary for an intelligent designer.

 

Your point that there are scientists at work trying to question certain aspects of evolution is science at work, and by no means shows that evolution is "weak."

If you pick nearly any boring scientific theory developed in the last 2 centuries (why not pick relativity for example?) , there are scientists out there who are working day and night trying to dispute the theory, or to come up with a better more detailed explanation.

Work is continually being done to refine our understanding of evolution. When i learned about evolution in school, I was by no means taught that it's a static theory that explains everything. I was told very clearly that there are things that evolution has difficulty explaining, and that work was being done to come up with a better explanation.

My problem with challenges to evolution isn't with the scientists. They are doing necessary work!

My problem is that ID vs. evolution is more a POLITICAL debate (we have school boards, legislatures, and courts debating it) and not a SCIENTIFIC debate.

And that's why I cringe. We don't need someone to legislate what science is or isn't. If people have a problem with evolution and want to dispute it scientifically, i can point them toward the scientific method, NOT to the local school board and legislature.

The fact is, science isn't doesn't work democratically. You can't have a room of people with a vote with a simple plurality or majority decide what is right and true or what is false and wrong.

This is what the whole debate sounds like to me : a bunch of people in a room... none of whom have any idea about rabbit anatomy sit down to judge the sex of a rabbit. They don't know anything about rabbit anatomy, so they vote based on superficial factors. A majority vote decides what sex the rabbit is...

 

If you think about it, the focus of showing the holes in a theory that is posited by the majority of the scientific community would be necessary to create the seed of doubt that this is a theory and could be found wrong. Then, the evidence that is in support of ID can be shown to those who have the seed of doubt that maybe evolution isn't what they thought it was cracked up to be. The same principle applies to behavior change in therapy. You can't work on giving a person a new way of interacting with the world until an individual has realized that there are problems with their way they had previously been interacting with the world.

By the way, there are several books out there that focus on the evidence of ID:

The Design Revolution: Answering the Toughest Questions About Intelligent Design
Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science & Theology
Signs of Intelligence: Understanding Intelligent Design
Science and Evidence for Design in the Universe (Proceedings of the Wethersfield Institute)
Mere Creation; Science, Faith & Intelligent Design

 

You have a misunderstanding about science. The scientific method encourages critical thought, and encourages doubt of even well established scientific theories.

Every scientist has "doubts" about evolution... every scientist is prepared for if and when new evidence is revealed that reshapes or throws out their theories.

The problem is that ID proponents are rehashing a lot of older "evidence" that has long since been debunked, and for scientists, the ball is back in the ID proponents court to find stronger evidence... and they haven't. The crucial missing part is that ID cannot state their challenging thesis without referring to the supernatural (by the very definition, contrary to science) either explicitly or implicitly.

It's great that you can list books about ID evidence, but how about ID in a scientific journal? Why hasn't any ID work been published?

 

Fact: Evolution is a theory.
Fact: Scientists continue to study, debate and refine this theory based on the scientific method.

No one is disputing that evolution is a theory. That's why it's called "the theory of evolution."

What Behe (see above) poses is basically a hypothesis, based on his observation that the cell couldn't come about by accident.

But how does one apply the scientific method to his hypothesis?

Many scientists believe, through observation and reflection, that there's more to life than what science can give us. That's called faith. And something based on faith can't be tested and proven. And faith has no place in a science class.

 

Bingo. You are absolutely right Brian.

Michael, and the rest of you ID proponents... No one is belittling the idea of intelligent design... If that is what you believe, it is not my place or anyone elses to try to change what you believe...

But it's NOT science... It's either a. philosophy or b. theology

It *can* be taught in school, but in either a a. philosophy class or b. theology class.
I've said it once and I'll say it again. Teaching ID in a science class is like teaching oil painting in an algebra class.

 

I am unclear what you mean by your first sentence, I didnt' say evolution was weak and I didn't say there are scientists who are trying to question evolution. I simply pointed that there are a growing number of scientists who don't agree that macroevolution is the key to the diversity of species. This was in response to airport kids portayal as the ID crowd as unscientific zealouts.

As evolutionary theory is not (EDIT) static, it could conceivably eventually include ID in lieu of macroevolution and still mantain microevolution (survival of the fittest, etc). I guess my education was lacking however as I was not informed of how much evolution has changed over the years and it's holes (despite the 1/2 dozen biology courses I took).

I would agree with your hesistancy with boards determining what is science. However, there are those that legitimately believe that ID is a credible theory and deserves exactly what you are asking for, scientific debate. Deep down, I think this is what most IDs want. Not a requirement for schools to push ID as the sole answer for life, but evolution and ID taught as possible explanations based on the scientific evidence.

Unfortunately this has become a political debate because this is the clashing of two religions colliding (ala Michael Ruse). I think as many people find the religion of Evolution contrary to their religious viewpoints, it becomes a political process.

Science has become somewhat of a political process, as controversial findings may or may not be accepted and/or published. Likewise, some studies are just too hard to get funding for (one example might be with sex offenders) that science is stymied because of political reasons. Even IRB's can be political in what type of science they will allow and won't allow.

 

Michael:

ID still has the major hurdle in that its entire thesis relies on the supernatural.

The very notion of ID is contrary to the scientific method because if you say that ID is true, then it would effectively fill in all of the gaps in human understanding of the world around us... basically, God or some other intelligence did it, and that's the end all explanation.

That is why ID has legitimately failed to gain any traction in becoming a real scientific theory... because it flies in the face of the Scientific Method itself.

the scientific method was meant precisely to beat back end-all theories like ID... from the way that the "theory" is phrased, it is too open ended to be proven even partly.

 

How do you empirically measure Intelligent Design? How do you measure intelligence?

Again, it seems less like a scientific debate than a philosophical one!

 

No scientific theory is "static," including evolution. Theories are constantly challenged. When a challenge finds a problem with a theory, the theory is refined or completely refuted.

Perfect example: Newtonian physics, followed by quantum physics. (I learned Newtonian physics way back in high school. Now I'm trying to educate myself on this cool new theory, quantum physics.... :blink: )

So could ID eventually stand up to the scientific method, and then be given a place in science? Yeah, when (and only when) we can have a face-to-face with the Designer.

 

This is the key to understanding the non-science objection to evolution, IMHO. It is not evaluated on the basis of the science, but on the basis that it is a social movement that threatens the core beliefs of various faiths.

Professors like the one reported here offering a class as a "slap in the face" only reinforce that view. It is a culture war among lay people. But science should be judged on the basis of science alone, and not on its impact. It is either true or not.

Free will is a metaphysical concept, and has nothing to do with science and evolution. But I understand your point; you approach the issue much like I do, with a presupposition and then consider how facts fit in with that presupposition. Instead of free will, I approach the issue more from the standpoint of beliving that what is true and proven comes first, and unproven things then have to accommodate the truth.

 

fshagan, you continue to make excellent points. .

I agree with your approach in your last sentence.

 

I've used this example before as well. It's a good example... in a sense, newtonian physics was proven incomplete and wrong under certain circumstances...

But what I find remarkable about science is that Newtonian physics are still taught in schools, and are still used every day because it serves as a workable model for many things in our world. quantum physics is a further refinement and is closer to the truth, but to invoke quantum physics all the time is overkill .

 

Point me to the lab that has shown in a scientific experiment, a complex mammal, such as even a dog or a cat that has been shown to have produced by evolution through the scientific method. Supposedly, simple organisms with a short life span (perhaps some bacteria?) have been shown to produce new species in a laboratory. However, generalizing this to large complex mammals seems a huge leap of faith to me. Perhaps in biology, generalizability is seen differently in psychology where we can only be sure our results are applicable to our particular sample.

You ask about how the scientific method could be applied to Behe. Perhaps one could use some experimental method of trying to get a mix of nucleotides, membranes and proteins in a mix to see how long it would take to form a cell under various conditions. Or it might be easier to get a series of nucleotides to form a dna molecule and extrapolate from that amount of time, using statistical probabilities. By the way, has a DNA molecule as complex as a humans ever been reproduced by random mutations and such? If it hasn't, aren't you taking by faith that this could happen?

It is interesting to read about some of Michael Ruse's positions on how evolution has become somewhat of a secular religion. It would be interesting to see where he thinks evolution stops being a science and starts being a religion in our classrooms. Perhaps one of these days I will read that in one of his books.


EDIT: I just thought about your comment on observation. Isn't naturalistic oberserations still a scientific design (albeit a flawed one)?

 

Oops, see edit in original post. I meant since evolution is not static. It's late!

 

No, I think that's wrong. If ID is to stand as a scientific theory, it needs to start publishing papers in scientific journals that are peer reviewed, have the concepts discussed among scientists, etc. When it reaches the point that it is considered an viable scientific theory, it should be taught along with all viable scientific theories. Until that time, it doesn't belong in a science classroom.

The "face to face with the Designer" statement is really too close to the statement that "no one has observed evolution" (or substitute "trans-mutation" or any of the other words Creationists use), or "there are no transitional forms in the fossil record". Science can postulate a theory and present it based on analogous observations (like the current article about the Hawking effect at black holes and efforts to prove the effect through analoguous experiments involving fluids in the current issue of Scientific American ... we don't have to have a ride down the "event horizon" to prove it exists).

Re-familiarizing myself with some of the scientific information out there has been an eye-opener. Somewhere in this thread, someone said there's no fossil evidence of intermediate stages ... but there are thousands of examples now. And guess what? While some details of the theory have been modified by what has been found, the basic theory has been validated by those finds. That statement of "no transitional forms" was true in the 1950's, but it isn't any more. But it is still trotted out every time there is a debate because a pastor or activist (read: non-scientist) has repeated it.

I approach this from a completely different perspective than most, because I am, at heart, a believer in Intelligent Design. But it is not an accepted scientific theory, and shouldn't be taught as such until it IS an accepted theory. Lying about God is still lying.

 

That sounds like an extremely flawed experimental setup... every scientist who worked on such a project could die, thousands of years could pass, and that experiment could neither yield a positive nor a negative... so it neither proves nor disproves anything.

It's a flawed experiment to run something for a small amount of time in an attempt to prove a NEGATIVE, especially if conceivably the process happened on a timeframe of 9 orders of magnitude larger than the average human lifespan.

and plus, you're ONCE AGAIN trying to disprove evolution instead of PROVING ID.

Try this... step one, state ID's thesis... step two... come up with a way to empirically test it. You CAN'T.

 

Yeah, it is late. This is a great debate, tho, and I can't seem to make myself go to bed!! I appreciate your comments, BTW. It's too bad quantum physics hasn't perfected the wormhole.... Otherwise, maybe we all could meet over coffee........

 

I understand where you're coming from. My "face-to-face" comment was meant to show that ID raises too many questions that can't be answered, like "who was the designer." I remember reading that loooooong Wiki article a week or so ago on this, and I remember something about that being one of the reasons why ID hasn't been published in any scientific journal.

 

Michael. I think you should read this overview of scientific theory, and how to go about challenging one:

http://teacher.nsrl.rochester.edu/phy_labs...E.html#Heading6

Emphasis added by me.