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Why intelligent design isn’t

shecky

Master Poster
shecky
Joined
May 24, 2002
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Nice article in New Yorker covering Behe and Dembski. A good, concise read covering the basis of ID. Worthy of passing on.
 
Another problem with Dembski’s arguments concerns the N.F.L. theorems. Recent work shows that these theorems don’t hold in the case of co-evolution, when two or more species evolve in response to one another. And most evolution is surely co-evolution. Organisms do not spend most of their time adapting to rocks; they are perpetually challenged by, and adapting to, a rapidly changing suite of viruses, parasites, predators, and prey. A theorem that doesn’t apply to these situations is a theorem whose relevance to biology is unclear. As it happens, David Wolpert, one of the authors of the N.F.L. theorems, recently denounced Dembski’s use of those theorems as “fatally informal and imprecise.” Dembski’s apparent response has been a tactical retreat. In 2002, Dembski triumphantly proclaimed, “The No Free Lunch theorems dash any hope of generating specified complexity via evolutionary algorithms.” Now he says, “I certainly never argued that the N.F.L. theorems provide a direct refutation of Darwinism.”
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Oops. No. Not buying. Sorry.

That is not "tactical retreat", that is flat-out lying.

It's just another example of how dangerous superstitious beliefs are: At some point, they compel you to become a liar.
 
From the article in the OP:
The movement’s main positive claim is that there are things in the world, most notably life, that cannot be accounted for by known natural causes
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Is it just me, or is that a negative claim?
 
OK, so there are just two people who are doing the ID technical work, and others are just promoting what they say. Behe, the first, says basically that he agrees with everything kids are taught about evolution, but thinks that the biochemical stuff in cells is too complex to have evolved naturally. Other than that, it sounds like he agrees that all species could have come from a single ancestor, long ago, naturally.

Dembski has backed off his claim that species evolving is mathematically impossible.

So what is all the flap about with teaching ID in schools? It sounds to me like we need to educate the masses about what the current state of ID actuall holds, that everything in a high school biology textbook is agreed to by all. It's been a while since I was in high school, but the evolution of molecular mechanisms in the cell was not addressed at all. We learned about kingdoms and phyla and that stuff, about natural selection, and which animals evolved from which others. Apparently, not only is this the view of the great majority of biologists, it's the view of all biologists, including Behe.

So when someone wants to teach ID in schools, just say that the one biologist who promotes it has a disagreement with an aspect of evolution which is not even addressed in high school anyway.
 
CurtC said:
So what is all the flap about with teaching ID in schools?
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To discuss ID requires the student to ask the question "who is the designer" which can only be answered with a supernatural answer of god. Besides the separation of church and state laws in the U.S. this topic is not worthy of a science classroom. Save it for philosophy or history classes. It would be like discussing Greek mythology in science class to explain the origin of fire, lightening bolts and the sun chariot being ridden across the sky.
 
But the ID controversy is presented as there being some scientists who disagree with what is being taught in high school biology, and this apparently is not the case. Everyone agrees with all that the kids are being taught. Let the ID proponents take up their issue with university junior and senior level biology curricula.
 
CurtC said:
Everyone agrees with all that the kids are being taught. Let the ID proponents take up their issue with university junior and senior level biology curricula.
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I'm sure "everyone" is too bold of a statement. There are plenty of ID folks who take the bible literally and would try to explain it all through ID. ID doesn't deserve a forum in the science classroom anymore then Zeus.
 
Thanks a lot guys -

making me read those 2 fascinating reviews has just made me late home for my tea.....
 
Moliere said:
I'm sure "everyone" is too bold of a statement. There are plenty of ID folks who take the bible literally and would try to explain it all through ID. ID doesn't deserve a forum in the science classroom anymore then Zeus.
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Yes, by "everyone," I meant all the people who develop the ID ideas, i.e., Michael Behe. The ID movement is based on his work, and he doesn't seem to have any quarrel with high school biology as it's currently being taught. If someone on your local school board thinks ID does conflict with the high school level education, maybe we just need to send them over to learn what it really says, note that we disagree with his conclusions, but they really don't have any relevance anyway until a student is in upper-level college biology.
 
My objection to ID being taught in science class: All the versions I've heard of are non-falsifiable, which means it's not a theory, a hypothesis, or even testable. Being untestable means there's no evidence to support it. Because of that, it's psuedoscience, and therefore has no place in any science class.
 
CurtC wrote:
If someone on your local school board thinks ID does conflict with the high school level education, maybe we just need to send them over to learn what it really says,....
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Great! And while we're at it, lets round up all the biblical literalists and educate them as well in topics such as evolution and geology and cosmology. I'm sure that if you just explain to them why Noah's ark really didn't happen, they'll jump on board! All they need is a little educatin'!
 
I can't help myself when I read the article in the original post to come back to the old LaPlace(of course Napoleon and Lagrange) quote....

"Napoleon: You have written this huge book on the system of the world without once mentioning the author of the universe. Laplace: Sire, I had no need of that hypothesis. Later when told by Napoleon about the incident, Lagrange commented: Ah, but that is a fine hypothesis. It explains so many things."
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IIRC The quote comes from the fact that Laplace was never happy with discrepancies in the planetary motions, it seemed that "the hand of God" pushed them back into orbit. It was a hypothesis and he removed it from the math. Thus no more word about its creator. He seeked another explanation than "God".

May I ask why we should just stop searching other explanations than "it was designed", because a couple of persons said "irreducible complex"?
 
The Times (UK) had an article by Dawkins this last weekend on creationism and ID (21 May - Creationism- Gods gift to the ignorant).
On 25th May there were letters of response sent in by 2 ID scientists - (Evolving theory of ID)
MILTON WAINWRIGHT,
Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology,
University of Sheffield and
ANDY C. McINTOSH,
(Professor of Thermodynamics and Combustion Theory),
Energy and Resources Research Institute,
Houldsworth Building,
University of Leeds.

If you go to the Times site and search for Dawkins, you will get up links to these articles/letters (but I am having difficulty linking to the Dawkins article just now)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/
 
I like this part - very concrete:

It’s true that when you confront biologists with a particular complex structure like the flagellum they sometimes have a hard time saying which part appeared before which other parts. But then it can be hard, with any complex historical process, to reconstruct the exact order in which events occurred, especially when, as in evolution, the addition of new parts encourages the modification of old ones. When you’re looking at a bustling urban street, for example, you probably can’t tell which shop went into business first. This is partly because many businesses now depend on each other and partly because new shops trigger changes in old ones (the new sushi place draws twenty-somethings who demand wireless Internet at the café next door). But it would be a little rash to conclude that all the shops must have begun business on the same day or that some Unseen Urban Planner had carefully determined just which business went where.
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If kids are genuinly being taught 'the controversy', which includes criticism of Darwinism, then they need to know about criticism of the only other 'theory' in town.

The saddest part of the article is at the end, where the author points out that 80% of Americans are functional IDiots.
 
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