Should Intelligent Design Be Taught In Schools?
Is there a place for an intelligent designer in public education?
Guest host Alex McFarland, President of Southern Evangelical Seminary in Charlotte, N.C. welcomes Casey Luskin to today’s broadcast to discuss the issue and take your calls.
Luskin is co-founder of the Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness (IDEA) Center (ideacenter.org), a non-profit helping students to investigate evolution by starting “IDEA Clubs” on college and high school campuses across the country.
Luskin is also an attorney with graduate degrees in both science and law. He earned his B.S. and M.S. in Earth Sciences from the University of California, San Diego. His Law Degree is from the University of San Diego. In his role at Discovery Institute, Mr. Luskin works as Program Officer in Public Policy and Legal Affairs, helping educators and policymakers nationwide to teaching evolution accurately.
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22 Comments on “Should Intelligent Design Be Taught In Schools?”
Mr. Luskin, if you should by chance read this, we would all be most grateful if you would join us here for a long length of time to debate on this matter.
But of course, we would also be more than happy to debate on this matter with Mr. McFarland, should Mr. Luskin prove unavailable for whatever reasons, as Mr. McFarland no doubt has just as much knowledge on the subject of Evolution as Mr. Luskin does….[smile].
If it educates and provides an explanation as to how the world came to be, then why not? Well, if we teach that then we must assume there is a God and if we assume that then we will have to investigate further, and if we do that we will find out that there is no other explanation that comes close to being logical. Oh wait, then we have to realize that we have a Maker and He gives us guidelines to live by. Now we have to be responsible for our actions. Oh man, I really wanted to do things my own way. Oh wait, I tried that and failed miserably. I say we stop hiding things from those who are in school to learn and let them decide. What are you so afraid of if you don’t agree?
Welcome to the website Irene Abbott[smile].
You sound familiar, have you been here before?
It may provide an explanation, but it does not use a scientific or honest education/explanation to do it my dear woman, and therein lies the problem with doing this within public secular school systems.
And no offense, but if one feels the need for theology to make one realize that one has to be responsible for one’s own actions, then take care….you may unwittingly set yourself up to be taken advantage of by the smooth talking and self-serving[Unless you are just one of those types of people that use religion as a "shield" to keep YOURSELF in line, because you're aware enough to know that you have a wicked little anarchist in your soul, and can't be left to your own devices.]. Scientific evidences stand on their own and need no theological support of any kind. Beware of those who try and convince you otherwise. Do you think that mathematics or chemistry need theological support in order to be factually presented to the common public? Well they don’t, and the Natural Sciences don’t either.
“I say we stop hiding things from those who are in school to learn and let them decide. What are you so afraid of if you don’t agree?”
Well, I can agree with that[smile]. Unfortunately, the people who are doing all of the hiding are the people you are showing support for. Many, many, maaaany times evidences have been requested to offer support for Young Earth Christian Creationism/Intelligent Design and to debunk evolution and modern Natural Sciences, and after years of asking, nothing has been presented that was not easily proven false using rational thinking and real scientific knowledge. And this was when something WAS actually provided. Usually, scientific evidences and questions brought up for debate that pose problems for Young Earth Christian Creationism/Intelligent Design are ignored and unaddressed.
What are THEY afraid of?
Honesty, intelligence, knowledge, and free thinking?
Let me be clear about my stance on this issue. Intelligent Design and creationism deserve their place in Social Studies courses, since the impact these philosophies have had on society has been interesting and profound. However, they most certainly do not belong in a science class.
I did not get to hear the entire program this time, but the parts I did hear were littered with the usual creationist/cdesign proponentsist fallacies: teaching the natural laws behind the phenomena we observe will lead to anarchy or animalistic behavior, someone who accepts evolution does not believe in real good and real evil, quoting Antony Flew’s assessment of a divine origin for life without bothering to mention his later retraction of that statement, and so on and so on.
Irene Abbot: If it educates and provides an explanation as to how the world came to be, then why not?
Science concerns itself with much more than simply coming up with explanations for things. Science concerns itself with explanations that happen to match the observable facts of the Universe. Intelligent Design and creationism do not do this. Would you like examples of what I mean?
Irene Abbot: Well, if we teach that then we must assume there is a God and if we assume that then we will have to investigate further, and if we do that we will find out that there is no other explanation that comes close to being logical.
Well, yes, Intelligent Design assumes a Creator, but it is far from the only logical explanation for things.
Irene Abbot: Oh wait, then we have to realize that we have a Maker and He gives us guidelines to live by.
It’s also a leap to go from “there is a Maker” to “the Maker is interested in how we live and will hold us responsible for our decisions”. We Christians are accustomed to bridging that gap, but Intelligent Design doesn’t have that by itself… unless it starts to drag in religious ideas as well.
Irene Abbot: Oh man, I really wanted to do things my own way.
Those who accept abiogenesis and/or evolution do not always do so out of a desire to believe themselves free to do things their own way. These ideas also happen to agree with the facts as we understand them. There need be no more rationalization in their acceptance than in the idea that there really is gravity or that there really are atoms.
Irene Abbot: I say we stop hiding things from those who are in school to learn and let them decide. What are you so afraid of if you don’t agree?
A poorly-educated populace who thinks certain things are “science” that are not, and who are then free to shape the policy and the direction of society at large with their false and presumed knowledge. Lack of critical thinking when making decisions may not guarantee disaster, but it certainly invites it.
There is also the problem of various Christians thinking that their fellow believers are dangerous, compromised, or even Hell-bound for bothering to think critically, attempting to understand the evidence, and understanding the implications and real scientific findings on the matter in question.
I was disappointed to hear that this program repeated the same basic fallacies that creationists/cdesign proponentsists have become famous for: that evolution is a way to try to rationalize God out of the picture; that acceptance of evolution causes people to behave poorly toward one another; quoting Antony Flew’s assessment of life requiring a divine origin without mentioning his subsequent retraction of that statement (which he blamed on not having had a proper understanding of the science on the matter); and so on.
I also think creationism and Intelligent Design deserve their place in social studies courses; they have done much to shape public opinion, and our children deserve to hear them and understand them for that reason. But they are not science, and do not belong in a science classroom.
Irene Abbott: If it educates and provides an explanation as to how the world came to be, then why not?
Well, not to be too pedantic about it, but because science isn’t out there for the sole purpose of generating explanations. Science attempts to find explanations that are consistent with things we observe in the Universe around us. Creationism and Intelligent Design are not consistent with the Universe around us.
Irene Abbot: Well, if we teach that then we must assume there is a God and if we assume that then we will have to investigate further, and if we do that we will find out that there is no other explanation that comes close to being logical.
No need to worry about that. There are theories of abiogenesis that are completely logical and provide a complete chemical pathway, and they make no mention of God one way or the other.
Irene Abbot: Oh wait, then we have to realize that we have a Maker and He gives us guidelines to live by.
It’s a leap quite outside the purview of science to leap from “a Creator exists” to “the Creator is interested in how I live my life and will hold me responsible for my decisions”. We Christians are accustomed to thinking about things like this, but that doesn’t mean that the leap is mandated by dint of the simple fact that one understands that a Creator exists.
Irene Abbot: Now we have to be responsible for our actions. Oh man, I really wanted to do things my own way. Oh wait, I tried that and failed miserably.
Acceptance of abiogenesis and/or evolution is not dependent on trying to find a moral or religious framework independent of God. These are theories that neither demand nor exclude God; they no more dictate a method of behavior than acceptance of gravity or atoms.
Irene Abbot: I say we stop hiding things from those who are in school to learn and let them decide. What are you so afraid of if you don’t agree?
The idea that a poorly-educated populace would come to think that certain ideas are “scientific” that are not, who are then free to steer the course of the society through their votes and social influence in spite of that poor education. Lack of critical thinking doesn’t guarantee disaster, but it certainly invites it.
There’s also the notion that certain Christians will think their fellow believers dangerous, compromised, or even Hell-bound based on a poor understanding of what scientific theories propose and why, simply because these believers have attempted to analyze the information, ask honest questions, and try to understand what’s really going on.
Is there any evidence to support the idea of ID outside of “scriptural evidence?”
Sorry for the double-posting, there. I thought my first post had vanished into the ether, when it was probably just awaiting moderation or something.
Welcome to the website, O Nata Lux[I like your name]!
Always a pleasure to hear from someone new[smile]. As to your question, I really can’t say, but then, I am probably not the best person to try and answer this question. We have asked for such evidences in the past, from other posters as well as the radio show guests[As I would have gotton around to doing with Mr. Luskin had he accepted my invitation within post #1 above.] but nothing has ever been provided yet that could not be explained away with science or proven false.
Yet….
O Nata Lux: Is there any evidence to support the idea of ID outside of “scriptural evidence?”
Not so far.
I mean, there is a background hum of things that ID proponents claim to be “evidence”, but they boil down to one of several types:
* Argument from incredulity. “I can’t imagine any natural process that would have given rise to what I see. Therefore, no one else will ever be able to. Therefore, God.” This is where you find the most vocal proponents of ID hanging out. Some have even pretended to open whole new fields of study (curiously devoid of any falsifiable explanations, overarching theory, or actual application) to make their stance seem more sophisticated and/or “logical”. You’ll also find many post-hoc appeals to probability.
* Wishful thinking. “I want to think this, therefore this.”
* Appeals to emotion. “I find alternatives repugnant, therefore this.”
* Personal attack. “You obviously don’t experience the wonder/faith/joy/pick-a-trait that I do, so your stance must be incorrect.” or “Your interest in this matter is beneath my contempt.” or “Your interest in this matter does no good that I can perceive.”
* Begging the question. “It was created. Therefore, a Creator must exist.”
* Unfalsifiable ideas. “Maybe God changed the speed of light or something.”
* Straw men. “My opponent believes/thinks this”, when “this” is something their opponent does not think or believe; when they show the illogic of their opponent’s invented stance, they treat it as a logical victory against their opponent’s stance.
* Quotes taken out of context.
* Distortions of scientific principle. (Lots of appeals to the Second Law of Thermodynamics in here.)
* Simple denial of fact. (Pretending that there are no transitional fossils, or that E. coli’s flagellum is “irreducibly complex”.)
* Attack on scientists who have found things out. (For example, casting aspersions on not being able to get data on demand without regard for the self-correcting process of peer review.)
* Fabricating data to suit. (Yeah, it happens. Want examples?)
* Technical-sounding jargon with no real definitions. (Appeals to “DNA information” or “kinds”.)
None of them provide an idea that can be tested or even refined further. None of them suggest avenues of investigation. None of them offer a unifying explanation of observable phenomena, or predict where we can look for new data and what we should expect to find when we uncover it. In other words, none of them are science.
O Nata, The evidence I’ve seen the ID proponents produce has been typically void of ANY scriptural references. The inner workings of cells working like little factories for example. It is more likely that these are a result of a brilliant design than they are a product of “blind, purposeless, chance occurrences over time” But that’s all I have to say about it.
O Nata Lux
Take post 11 as an example.
“The inner workings of cells working like little factories for example.”
is * Technical-sounding jargon with no real definitions
“It is more likely that these are a result of a brilliant design than they are a product of “blind, purposeless, chance occurrences over time”
is * Begging the question
and
* an unfalsifiable idea
and
* Simple denial of fact
and
* a straw man argument
Mike S: The evidence I’ve seen the ID proponents produce has been typically void of ANY scriptural references.
That’s a fair point. ID advocates have been quite careful to avoid explicitly quoting Scripture while attempting to corroborate their cause. However, there can be little doubt that Intelligent Design is motivated by a desire to find a Universe consistent with their understanding of their Creator than attempting to find out the way the Universe really is.
(The entire basis of the movement seems to belie this; its entire message is borne out of looking at the Universe with a desire to prove specific methods of creation — namely, supernatural ones — rather than looking out at the Universe and attempting to find, based on the evidence we see, which methods suggest themselves.)
Design theory is ambiguously defined. Usually, when we talk about finding design, we’re talking about finding out evidence that someone purposely arranged something, but that concept is nowhere in Intelligent Design. Dembski, for example, defined design in terms of what it is not, making the entire idea an argument from incredulity (see above); he never defined what design is, so that we can determine when we have evidence for it. You have to be able to define the parameters of what you’re looking for, or else you’re just waving your hands — and that ain’t science. In order to demonstrate design, there must be some mention of the agent and the purpose in order to lend a testable structure to the idea; not only has that not come from the ID movement, some have said that it’s impossible to do so (No Free Lunch, page 313). This is not design in any sense that science is accustomed to talking about it; and it sure isn’t evidence, since even if it’s true, it demonstrates nothing.
Things that are defined yield results contrary to common sense. For example, a spider web meets the standards of “specified complexity”, so we can conclude that spiders are intelligent. Or, if not the spider, then the spider’s designer, or the spider’s designer’s designer, or someone even higher up the chain. Dembski has tried to back out of this by inventing new terms: “apparent specified complexity” and “actual specified complexity”, and 0only the latter indicates design. But there is no way, in principle, to tell which one a brand-new thing you’re looking at happens to be; and if an explanation is to hold any scientific weight, you must be able to know when you’re looking at an instance of one versus the other. (Imagine if I said that there are emeralds and there are bemeralds, and emeralds are valuable whereas bemeralds are useless, but you can’t tell the difference just by looking or by testing them. Why would you have any reason to think that my ideas hold any descriptive power or scientific weight?)
Intelligent Design wasn’t even intended to be about science anyway. Philip Johnson, the founder and leader of the movement, said that it’s about religion and philosophy, not science. So teach it in school, sure, but not in the science classes.
One can even point out that it’s difficult to separate the movement from a particular religious viewpoint. They may not quote Scripture outright, but you still run into ideas like, “Intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John’s Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory” (Dembski, “Signs of intelligence: A primer on the discernment iof intelligent design”, Touchstone, Jul/Aug 1999). Many materials are published by InterVarsity Press, which includes in its mission statement, “InterVarsity Press serves those in the university, the church and the world by publishing resources that equip and encourage people to follow Jesus as Savior and Lord in all of life”. I may share a common faith with these people, but I can’t pretend that they’re not trying to figure out how they can get natural phenomena to appear to reflect their interpretation of Scripture, rather than trying to understand the way the Universe really is to try to make sure they’re not getting the wrong idea.
Mike S: The inner workings of cells working like little factories for example.
What, specifically, do you mean by that?
Mike S: It is more likely that these are a result of a brilliant design than they are a product of “blind, purposeless, chance occurrences over time”
How do you assess this probability? What makes you think that natural selection is “purposeless”, or that it is driven by chance?
Mike S: But that’s all I have to say about it.
I hope not! You seem to have some intelligent ideas to share, and we’ve only just gotten started. Would you consider sticking around?
The ID movement is beginning to make a lot of people uncomfortable. Although its approach is not without its own difficulties, ID’s major strength has been in asking the difficult questions that Darwinists have been willing to ignore for the last 150 years. In order for strict materialistic evolution to work—i.e. no God, no how (which is what purely naturalistic science requires by definition)—standard observable laws of science must be conveniently “put aside.” Old favorites like “life only comes from life,” “order does not arise from chaos,” and “mutations cannot increase genetic information”[2] are not addressed when it comes to Original “science.” These laws are only allowed to come into effect AFTER the evolutionary mechanism (whatever that may be) has been put into action. Even then they don’t fit with observational science, and this is what ID adherents want to have answered. They are not content to allow evolutionary scientists to curl up in their Kantian boxes and act as if faith and reason operate independently. “The idea that fact can be separated from values and meaning ‘jibes poorly with what we know of the history of science.’”
While the ID movement is pushing hard, the orthodox evolutionists are beginning to push back. “Belief in the supernatural, especially belief in God, is not only incompatible with good science, this kind of belief is damaging to the well-being of the human race.” That’s quite a statement. I would like to know if Dr. Hauptman has verified this empirically or this is a statement of sheer belief that he takes on faith? While he makes his living as a chemist, he is daily standing on the shoulders of pioneers in the field of chemistry (e.g. Robert Boyle) that knew that science was only possible because of their belief in God. Without a belief in a transcendent, omnipotent, omni-present and omniscient God, irrationality becomes rational. Disorder becomes order. Why should today’s experiment turn out the same results as yesterday’s? There is no rational basis for believing this and Dr. Hauptman must steal from the Christian worldview to prop up his own anti-Christian one.
Some are not so bold in their ignorance as Dr. Hauptman and are trying to place the blame elsewhere:
Accepting the fact of evolution does not necessarily mean discarding a personal faith in God. But accepting intelligent design means discarding science. Much has been made of a 2004 poll showing that some 45 percent of Americans believe that the Earth - and humans with it - was created as described in the book of Genesis, and within the past 10,000 years. This isn’t a triumph of faith. It’s a failure of education.
The only “failure of education” is that evolution has been running unopposed for over 30 years in the public school system in America, and it still hasn’t been able to convince almost half of the population that Genesis is only an enchanting myth for the children on Sunday morning. This is a “failure” all right, but it’s their own doing, not the Church’s. The Church has a hard enough time trying to convince couples to honor their marriage vows, much less what to believe about Genesis and creation/evolution. But Klinkenborg is not quite finished exercising his nonsense. He concludes his editorial this way:
The essential, but often well-disguised, purpose of intelligent design, is to preserve the myth of a separate, divine creation for humans in the belief that only that can explain who we are. But there is a destructive hubris, a fearful arrogance, in that myth. It sets us apart from nature, except to dominate it. It misses both the grace and the moral depth of knowing that humans have only the same stake, the same right, in the Earth as every other creature that has ever lived here. There is a righteousness —a responsibility—in the deep, ancestral origins we share with all of life.
He’s gonna have his materialism and his religion, too. But, without a Designer, grace, morals, rights, righteousness and responsibility are irrelevant and absurd. They are machinations of a materialistic mind that can’t live with the social consequences of its intellectual dogma. This is the ultimate case of intellectual schizophrenia.
Welcome back Paul!
Do you feel cleansed and purged now, after typing your post[grin]? Or inflamed with passion?
It’s good to hear from you. A pity not to hear from you more ofter on this topic, you always seem to have so much to say, when you actually say it, that is[smile].
Could you, uh, provide us evolutionists[the label "Darwinists" is so outdated and subjective, you know] with some of those difficult questions that you were thinking of as the ID movements major strength that has been ignored by people like us for the last 150 years? I hope it’s nothing that you brought up already in your post above or in the past….because we already addressed the flaws in those. I guess that you just forgot…?
Paul
“The ID movement is beginning to make a lot of people uncomfortable.”
I am one of those people. I am very uncomfortable with pseudoscience and anti-intellectualism being taught as truth.
“Although its approach is not without its own difficulties, ID’s major strength has been in asking the difficult questions that Darwinists have been willing to ignore for the last 150 years.”
Could you provide examples of some of those ‘difficult’ questions? I would be happy to show you some of the research that may answer some of the questions for you.
“In order for strict materialistic evolution to work—i.e. no God, no how (which is what purely naturalistic science requires by definition)”
This is a common misconception. The basic theories of science do not exclude god so much as they attempt to explain the apparent laws of nature without explicitly referring to a God.
“standard observable laws of science must be conveniently “put aside.”
That’s not true. Be specific and I will explain why.
“Old favorites like “life only comes from life,”
That’s true, but I don’t think you fully understand what it means.
“order does not arise from chaos,”
There is no such rule.
“and “mutations cannot increase genetic information”[2]”
This statement is also untrue, and it doesn’t even make any sense.
“are not addressed when it comes to Original “science.”
These particular “questions” are not addressed because we already know the answers.
“These laws are only allowed to come into effect AFTER the evolutionary mechanism (whatever that may be) has been put into action.”
That’s why we can call it Science. These laws are based on things that we can observe. There is no supernatural agent required for a theory regarding random genetic variation AND natural selection to describe the biodervsity we see today.
“Why should today’s experiment turn out the same results as yesterday’s? There is no rational basis for believing this …”
For the simple reason that it ‘does.’ We can test and observe this. We don’t have to invent a supernatural explanation.
Hi, Paul! Welcome to the discussion! Based on the fact that this thing seems to have footnote references which were not included, am I to surmise that you copied and pasted this article from somewhere else?
Paul: In order for strict materialistic evolution to work—i.e. no God, no how (which is what purely naturalistic science requires by definition)—
Er, no. Strictly speaking, science doesn’t deny God — it’s agnostic about God. It can’t say anything about supernatural stuff unless it affects things in the Universe in a way we can test, so it doesn’t. The distinction is important.
Paul: standard observable laws of science must be conveniently “put aside.”
Or, one would hope, common misconceptions and oversimplifications of scientific principles must be abandoned.
Paul: Old favorites like “life only comes from life,”
To be pedantic, science disagrees with the notion of spontaneous generation — the idea that bacteria, maggots, snakes, and mice can appear fully-formed from nonliving materials like rotting meat or dirty rags. There is no law that says that very primitive life cannot come from increasingly complex organic chemical interactions. (Strictly speaking, spontaneous generation is a form of creationism.)
It’s also the case that where life comes from is not under the purview of evolution. Evolution merely describes what happens to life once it’s here.
Paul: “order does not arise from chaos,”
Which order? Which chaos? Crystals are much more ordered than the materials they are formed from. Snowflakes are much more organized than the jumbly water molecules that make them up. Adults are much more organized than gametes or zygotes. Can you be more specific?
Paul: and “mutations cannot increase genetic information”[2] are not addressed when it comes to Original “science.”
Well, this one isn’t addressed because it’s patently false. Mutations can and do increase genetic information (assuming that by “genetic information” you’re referring to the types and amounts of proteins produced by DNA, as well as their expression in structures). I can give you some directly-observed examples if you like — I have before on this site — but it might be good enough to remember some general principles so that you can refrain from making this mistake again.
First of all, for any given mutation you can name, there is a corresponding mutation that undoes it. If it is possible to “decrease” genetic information, then it is possible to “increase” genetic information.
An easy example of how “increased” genetic information is possible is from gene duplication followed by point mutation. I can give you other ways genetic information is “increased” if you like. I can also give you references to experiments where they have been directly observed.
The idea that “mutations cannot increase genetic information” was never advocated by science (it’s nothing more than a straw man argument); it relies on ill-defined terms like “genetic information”; and it flatly denies what we’ve actually watched happen. It doesn’t help you make your case to repeat misrepresentations.
Paul: These laws are only allowed to come into effect AFTER the evolutionary mechanism (whatever that may be) has been put into action.
Nope. Natural selection, the mechanism that drives evolution, was proposed long before we even knew what genes were, never mind “increased genetic information”.
Paul: Even then they don’t fit with observational science, and this is what ID adherents want to have answered.
Ha! The questions that ID wants answered don’t even match observations in our Universe. They even have to make stuff up — like the “no increased genetic information” “law” — in order to try to give their platform more weight. When they’re not doing that, they’re oversimplifying principles to the point of outright distortion (”order from chaos”, “life from non-life”) so that they don’t even relate to the Universe we life in (never mind address what evolution is about).
Paul: Without a belief in a transcendent, omnipotent, omni-present and omniscient God, irrationality becomes rational. Disorder becomes order.
That’s quite a statement. How do you figure?
Paul: Why should today’s experiment turn out the same results as yesterday’s?
Because there is a way the Universe behaves regardless of what you or I happen to think or believe about it. Science is merely a systematic attempt to figure out what the way it behaves is.
Paul: The only “failure of education” is that evolution has been running unopposed for over 30 years in the public school system in America, and it still hasn’t been able to convince almost half of the population that Genesis is only an enchanting myth for the children on Sunday morning.
The truth or falsehood of a scientific theory is not dependent upon who accepts it. Besides, evolution is not concerned with lowering Genesis to the level of “an enchanting myth”; showing that an interpretation of Genesis is inconsistent with direct observation is not the same thing as attacking Genesis itself. (That’s your argument — that the truth of Genesis depends on the truth of your interpretation of it.)
Paul: But, without a Designer, grace, morals, rights, righteousness and responsibility are irrelevant and absurd.
Not necessarily. When organisms live socially — as humans do — natural selection should favor behavior that allows individuals to get along with one another. Studies have shown that altruism is a benefit to social species; I can give you citations if you like. There are also issues like “kin selection” (keeping the genes of those close to you alive betters the chance that genes like yours will survive).
Basically, though, this boils down to an argument from incredulity. Not knowing an explanation does not mean that no explanation exists.
Paul: They are machinations of a materialistic mind that can’t live with the social consequences of its intellectual dogma. This is the ultimate case of intellectual schizophrenia.
Can ID ever address what science is talking about instead of inventing stances for its philosophical opponents and then knocking them down?
Can ID ever sound like it has any scientific legitimacy without grossly distorting science itself?
Can ID ever provide a testable theory, the bare minimum needed to call itself a science, even after decades of trumpeting itself and the imminent death of evolution?
Will the United States ever adopt the metric system?
Tune in next week!
Look, the problem isn’t that ID has leveled criticisms at evolution that evolution can’t answer. It’s that these criticisms have been answered, over and over again, on this blog alone. It’s that ID is dishonestly misrepresenting science and what it claims, and circumvents responsibility for these actions by going directly to the public. It’s that it tacitly and implicitly assumes that science has failed, and is content not to seek answers, but to substitute curiosity for unsubstantiated, unscientific guesswork.
Of course, there are legitimate criticisms of evolutionary theory. But they must be evidence-based criticisms. Countless people devote their entire careers to research and unconvering phenomena that criticize evolution, and these serve to refine our understanding. To say that it’s borne out of some kind of “intellectual scizophrenia” or “put[ting] aside scientific law” is simply ignorant. When researchers challenge whether or not this organism, that trait, or the other appendage could have arisen through evolutionary processes, the thing to do is not to throw up your hands and declare evolution invalid! The thing to do is more research. See what really is going on — gather evidence to determine the real mechanism behind things. Something that seems to contradict our understanding is not the end — it’s the beginning.
Thomas Kuhn, in Structure of Scientific Revolutions, likens theory to a dam. Observations, experiments, and discoveries that are inconsistent with the theory are like water building up and exerting pressure on the dam. The water mounts to a certain, critical point, and the dam gives way, usually prompting the proposal of a new theory. ID advocates are claiming that the dam has burst, when in point of fact, there is no water behind the dam at all.
For example, I mentioned E. coli’s flagellum. ID advocates continue to mention it as something that couldn’t have arisen gradually. Unfortunately, it’s been explained for a good, long while. The “water” has been drained for years. But rather than trying to redo the research, or dig deeper to see if the claims to have found an evolutionary basis for the flagellum hold water (ha!), they continue to repeat the same old lines as if nothing had happened. Sadly, this is a common pattern: ID poses a difficulty; science answers it; ID advocates stop listening because their ideology doesn’t allow it. (It’s not universal, though. To his credit, Behe has completely abandoned the notion of “Darwin’s Black Box” in light of directly-observable evidence, and even accepts notions like common descent and descent with modification; one has to dig pretty deep to see where Behe and evolution diverge, and his shift in position has even caused Dawkins to characterize him as “a man who has given up”.)
This wouldn’t be so bad in itself if ID didn’t skirt responsibility for not doing the research by putting the case to the public, who for the most part haven’t been following and have no interest in the discussion or the facts surrounding it. They also get a decent amount of mileage out of arguing from incredulity, which goes a long way with the public, rather than presenting legitimate fact. Science, of course, is not run or determined by popular vote.
It also does no good to accuse science of a materialistic mindset. It should be obvious that science is trying to develop an objective understanding of the natural Universe, something that everyone can test. If a purely natural phenomenon were not responsible for what we see, those tests would fail. Abandoning the legitimacy of empirical understanding abandons the unique benefits that a systematic attempt to discover the Universe’s workings can bring us (and has!).
Where it is possible to find empirical understanding, it behooves us to do so; and we don’t know what’s possible until and unless we investigate. The very fact that a solid empirical explanation exists ought to be telling. But Intelligent Design would have us stop examining altogether, assuming we can’t find a rational answer before we even look. Some investigations may justify searching for answers outside the natural realm; but the flagellum, and countless other asked-and-answered “evidences” endlessly repeated by the ID crowd, aren’t among them.
This should present some problems for Intelligent Design to answer. If it can’t answer them, it shouldn’t be attempting to force or coerce an unsuspecting public into embracing its poorly-thought-out stance, and it shouldn’t be trying to place itself on equal footing with honest inquiry. (One especially shouldn’t be trying to tie it into the truth or falsehood of one’s faith.)
So, there is no quantifiable evidence, just a strong feeling? Like a hunch…
Welcome back O Nata Lux[smile].
Have you seen/read through any of the past shows involving this topic yet? Some of the show sites are listed under “Apologetics” and “Atheism” as well as under the expected “Evolution” category. If not, then do check them out, or at least go through about two of the longer ones, and you’ll get a pretty good idea of the best that proponents of Intelligent Design/Young Earth Christian Creationism have to offer.
O Nata Lux: So, there is no quantifiable evidence, just a strong feeling? Like a hunch…
From an intellectual standpoint, I’ve never seen anything more than a hunch backed up with rationalizations that sound scientific and technical, but which are quickly demonstrated in light of directly-observed phenomena to be flawed and facile.
From an emotional standpoint, it’s much more, of course. There are strong elements of faith tied in; people are given ideas that seem to be consistent with their faith, and that these rationalizations are “real” science. Of course, the only way they can make it look that way is to grossly misrepresent what logic is, what science is, what evolution is, and in some cases, even what truth is. As a crowning touch, many of them tie belief in things like Intelligent Design to be absolutely critical to the faith — claiming that belief in evolution is equivalent to disbelief in Christ or the Bible, for example, and that this is indicative of someone compromised at best and Hell-bound at worst.
For example, Phillip Johnson, the founder and leader of the Intelligent Design movement, equates theistic evolution with atheism because of its acceptance of evolution. (This is really bizarre if you think about it. The belief that there is a God, and that He steered evolution, is somehow the same as the belief that there is no God. But with this “reasoning”, he has condemned most of Christianity. I’m not, strictly speaking, a theistic evolutionist — I agree in some places, disagree in others — but I find the line of thinking reprehensible.)
I can speak first-hand to the problems this sort of teaching engenders. It drives away people within the Church who manage to be exposed to infinitesimal bits of actual fact. It drives away people from outside the Church who happen to know a few facts of their own before hearing these post-hoc rationalizations from a Christian. It gives Christians a bad understanding about how science works, and cripples their ability to think critically when confronted with new ideas. It allows Christians who know enough to know better to rationalize “lying for Jesus”. And so, so much more.
I had a strong desire to be a young-Earth creationist teacher when I was young. My mistake was trying to find out what we really observe, hoping to find new evidences and new arguments; even if one believes the rhetoric completely, one doesn’t have to hear very much before noticing that there’s a cerain amount of repetition of the same ideas. Far from making my confidence in young-Earth creationism stronger and stronger, I found the teachings I had been given and which I believed more and more thoroughly undermined by undeniable fact.
I was one step away from leaving Christianity altogether for many years. I’d have been content to hear one bit of positive evidence in favor of creationism (not just arguments against evolution, which I had come to find that creationism grossly misunderstood anyway) — one argument that did not hinge on a glaring logical fallacy. After all, if it was true what I’d been taught — that without a creation taking place in the way I had been taught, concepts like sin and redemption were meaningless — then it really seemed like Christianity could be nothing more than a self-contained, somewhat self-consistent delusion.
Many Christians I sought counsel from encouraged me to “just believe”; some handed me more flawed arguments, which gave me hope for a few brief moments while I chased them down, and even more despair as they proved to be every bit as shaky as the rest. Maybe I owe these people a debt; maybe they kept me busy, for example, and that kept me from running away when it seemed like there was no other way to maintain intellectual honesty. It wasn’t until I had some deep conversations and Bible study with a very patient physicist, though, that I began to see that it was possible to struggle to understand the facts and one’s faith; it finally crystallized that “just believing” in what you’ve been taught when confronted with facts that seem to contradict it is not a solution, and that some elements of faith are meant to be difficult if one is honestly attempting to progress in one’s pilgrimage. It also gave me a desire to try to keep others I know from having to face the years of aimless solitude I experienced, and to try to explain facts that would keep Christians with a real desire to spread the gospel from alienating others who know better with the flawed arguments I knew so well.
Sorry for the info dump there. I do tend to blather on.
Paul: “mutations cannot increase genetic information”
I had to give this line one more go to show how completely inane it really is.
It depends, of course, on what one means by “increased genetic information”. There are several different things that might be meant by this; since you didn’t see fit to specify what you meant, I’ll have to guess.
1. Increase of genetic material. Mutations that do this have been directly observed. (Lynch and Conery, “The evolutionary fate and consequences of duplicate genes”, Science 290; Pennisi, “Twinned genes live life in the fast lane”, Science 290; Brown, Todd, and Rosenzweig, “Multiple duplications of yeast hexose transport genes in response to selection in a glucose-limited environment”, Molecular Biology and Evolution 15; Ohta, “Evolution by gene duplication revisited: differentiation of regulatory elements versus proteins”, Genetica 118; Alves, Coelho, and Collares-Pereira, “Evolution in action through hybridisation and polyploidy in an Iberian freshwater fish: a genetic review”, Genetica 111; and Hughes and Friedman, “Parallel evolution by gene duplication in the genomes of two unicellular fungi”, Genome Research 13)
2. Increase of genetic variety within a population. Mutations that do this have been directly observed. (Lenski, “Evolution in experimental populations of bacteria”, Population Genetics of Bacteria, Society for General Microbiology, Symposium 52; Lenski, Rose, Simpson, and Tadler, 1991, “Long-term experimental evolution in Escherichia coli. I. Adaptation and divergence during 2,000 generations”, American Naturalist 138)
3. Brand-new genetic material. Mutations that do this have been directly observed. (Park, Lin, Walsh, “Gain of D-alanyl-D-lactate or D-lactyl-D-alanine synthetase activities in three active-site mutants of the Escherichia coli D-alanyl-D-alanine ligase B”, Biochemistry 35; Knox, Moews, and Frere, “Molecular evolution of bacterial beta-lactam resistance”, Chemistry and Biology 3)
4. Brand-new abilities, genetically created and regulated. Mutations that do this have been directly observed. (Prijambada, Negoro, Yomo, and Urabe, “Emergence of nylon oligomer degradation enzymes in Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO through experimental evolution”, Applied and Environmental Microbiology 61)
These mechanisms are all that is necessary to drive evolution — and we know they happen because we’ve watched them happen.
With that in mind, it’s a little ridiculous to maintain that “mutations cannot increase genetic information” was ever a law of science. If you mean to propose it as a law, you must show what you mean by “increased genetic information”, and show that it doesn’t happen (or, at least, that we’ve never seen it). For your larger point to stand, you must show that your requirement for “increased genetic information” is a process that must occur if evolution is going to give rise to the diversity of species that we witness.
In addition, it might be worth noting the following points:
* Gene duplication followed by point mutation, one of the simplest (and probably most common) ways for new “genetic information” to be created, has been directly observed to do so. Go to PubMed and do a search for “gene duplication”. You’ll be there for a while; as I write this, it produces nearly 14,000 hits.
* Shannon-Weaver information theory predicts that random noise will increase information content. That’s not a trivial thing. Evolution depends on increased content, some of which is eliminated because it is non-adaptive. Natural selection is the process by which information about the environment is transferred to the genome of an organism.
* There are models in many different fields of engineering and technology that require random mutation and a selection process in order to become more adaptive and more complex. Would you like examples?