the new yorker article cited in the pinkerton article is an interesting read -- it explains in more detail the basic theories of behe's "darwin's black box" book as well as the one (and only) other big ID researcher. it also goes into detail as to how the flagellum could have developed thru evolution. and, it also points out examples of evolution that are the opposite of a master design: such as fish that used to live in the open ocean but now live in caves--they used to have eyes, but now have sealed-shut eyelids over eyes that don't see.

i've always heard that the 'science' behind ID was flimsy, but now I feel a bit more knowledgeable about what is really out there, and it ain't too impressive.

"I'd even go so far as to say that using science to support religion could actually undermine religion, chiefly by challenging its central reliance."

i agree, depending on the nature of the religion. if a core-tenet of my religion was that the earth is flat, science has been blasphemous to me! And you couldn't have Scientology without science, but science certainly doesn't support Scientology's claims.

You silly man, everyone knows it's Gods all the way down!

I thought the earth sat on a giant tortise's back which swam in a tub of milk, supported by four giants. Or something like that, according to Hinduism. (IIRC)

"I come not to defend ID, but to laugh at man."

Pinkerton: The whole point is that you take it on faith

Ah yes faith.

professor voice on/
You see science is all about reason, questioning, logic, and debate. You silly silly people with ideas of like creation and god. Don't you see that someday there will be ID. It is just that it will be us designing new minds. blah blah blah. With some odd laughter thrown in.
professor voice off/

Yeah just consider that we mathematicians don't need faith. It isn't like logic is based on things like accepting statements as true without being able to prove them. Or having terms of things we can never define, that we would just have to accept. And that obviously all the math equations that science uses must be based on a core built from logic.

... oh wait ... umm ... sorry, I guess I'm wrong about that.

As for evolution. It is the great no-argument via statistics. For a square dart board of real numbers where x and y are from -1 to 1, what is the probability of hitting the origin (0,0)? Zero. Does that mean I will not hit it? Nope, it just mean that probability of hitting it is zero. I could still hit it.

If someone asks "Is randomness enough to explain drastic change?" You always get to answer yes, whether it is true or not that randomness is the cause. And if your faith requires you to believe that random changes is the only possibility ( because every other idea must be thrown out as stupid ) ... you can wrap yourself in the cloak of "it could happen" because stats allows it.

And consider milowent's fish example. The fish still has eyes. Bind and covered in skin. But it still has eyes.

Anyway, so you know where I stand:

I'm not a Pythagorean. I see logic and math as a game with rules. Because that is what they are. Some of us are better at playing the game, but I don't get caught up in the Pythagorean theology of worship of the game. The game has rules that must be taken in faith or you don't get to play. But, sets are not at the heart of the universe, logic is not at the heart of the universe, and neither is math.

And having people like Washington Irving sell the world on the silly idea that Columbus had to fight against flat earth ticks me off. Rather than that Columbus was wrong about the size and people didn't want him to go because the world was bigger than he thought. Irving sold it to the point that most people reading this probably didn't know that simple fact.

Thanks for this posting. Not knowing the answer is the best reason to keep searching. IDers have been with us from before Copernicus. Their argument always boils down to some form of "we don't know, therefore give up the chase".

What is worse about the IDers though, is found in the middle part of the linked article. It's not enough to put forward a non-faslifiable hypothesis, they want to undermine evolution, most recently by calling for "teaching the controversy".

Unfortunately, they seem to be making progress.

There aren't many good arguments for ID. In fact, there's only one I buy at all: the fairly plausible idea that a few billion years was not enough time for live as complex and varied as we see around us to have evolved solely by chance.

Most ID arguments fall apart in the face of the weak anthropic principle. And even the one above is severely weakened by it.

I wonder, in re our previous debate, how far Islam is from having the ID debate?

logic is not at the heart of the universe, and neither is math.

I would have to disagree with that in the strongest possible terms.

I would have to disagree with that [logic is not at the heart of the universe, and neither is math] in the strongest possible terms.

Many people do :)

First one point: It has never been shown ( and I don't believe it ever will be ) that you can get all of math out of axiomatic based logic. And even if you could you must accept truths that are supposedly self-evident (axioms and non-defined terms).

To me math is like paint. A great realist can paint a picture like a photograph or with abstraction capture feelings or sound. Mathematics is what we use to create images of reality within our minds.

It can be a good enough model ( newtonian ) or a very accurate model ( relativistic ). But they are just that ... equations that model. Reality is the child on a tire swing hung from a 150 year old Oak tree.

As far as I.D. vs. W.A.P. on the status on universal constants, I think they are both wrong. If two variables (say x and y) are directly proportional then x = k*y for some constant k. k is determined by the reality of the situation.

Reality forces your hand on what k must be. Any variation in its value and the equality doesn't hold. ID and WAP just state different philosophical reasons for k taking its value though their own predisposed opinions.

Planets don't spin in orbits because of the value a constant "takes on". They spin in orbits on their own. And the gravitational constant is just a number that happens to make your model work. It is just a number. Kind of like picking black to paint the tire swing.

So we can sit around and model the tire swing as a forced-damped pendulum. Only to realize that such a dynamical system model can never predict what is going to happen. And we can go outside and push your child on the swing and have a great time.

Then to stand there and look at the dirt, grass, spiders, rope, and your child. To feel the sun on your back and think ... was this all random? Is there a God?

how far Islam is from having the ID debate?

Don't know. To all Muslims the Koran is supposed to be infallable. You can find debates on how everything from the Big Bang to evolution are in the Koran (excluding the creation of Man). As well as fatwa's that everything really revolves around the Earth.

It comes down to how Islam handles the historical differences in the Koran versus other historical accounts.

arrasmith:

'Faith' isn't what causes me to believe that randomness is the only possibility. Science supports the randomness theory. I have no problem accepting evolution and believing in God. My belief in God is based on faith, but my belief in the basic truth of evolution could be changed if a truly better, or more evolved shall we say, scientific explanation comes along.

The square dart board is a theoretical construct because it has an infinite number of points. (tell me if i'm wrong, you appear to be a math person). There are, in reality, not an infinite number of random genetic changes that can occur.

Washington Irving was taking liberty with his facts, and admitted to doing so. The story took on a life of its own. To the chagrin of economists, we all live in a world of horribly imperfect information. From the muslims who think Jews caused 9/11, to those politicians who are led to think ID has a a real scientific basis to it.

Great, Intelligent Design is bunk. Fine. Hence it follows:

1. The world and any life within it is meaningless. The universe has no design and no goal. It has an origin but no Originator and it is destined to just peter out.

2. Free will is an illusion. All events are pre-determined by the interlocking system of causes and effects which nature is. That you are watching a computer screen at this instant was programmed in the first nano-second of the Big Bang.

3. Right and wrong are meaningless categories. It is totally subjective to say one action is good and another is bad. As G.B. Shaw stated, "the Golden Rule is that there is no Golden Rule." The only sin is calling something a sin, that is being judgmental or intolerant.

4. We can only know appearances not reality (truth). We may speak about "my truth" and "your truth," but to claim any objective truth is pure arrogance. After all, consciousness is merely a chemical reaction.

I'll drink to that!

Actually, Intelligent Design isn't bunk - as theology. Or at least, no more or less bunk than any other belief that calls for faith.

It's just crappy science.

Thus, not many of your "hence, it follows" actually "follow." "Hence." Right and wrong, subjectivity, have everything to do with philosophy and theology, just not science. Science "is."

It's the kitsch nature of humans to characterize organismal life and physical systems in varying degrees of anthropomorphic context. Intelligent Design seems little more than a peculiar form of anthropomorphism imposed upon Cosmology, and therefore ridiculous as a scientific argument. Still, the origins of all things implicitly backtrack to a single original source, which portends a single original moment. Such lies beyond (behind?) all things human. However preposterous religion may be, the construct humans frequently characterize as "G_d" as the origin of the origin of all things is not that unreasonable a metaphor.

milowent,

'Faith' isn't what causes me to believe.

Science involves logic. Hence science involves faith or acceptance without proof. (Note: that was just an enthymeme)

Why? To have a starting point of discussion somethings must be just plain accepted.

Let's look as some of the axioms of random evolution: randomness, linear time, long scale time, propagation of genetic errors are just four. Our intuition ( basically human experience ) gives us a good feeling about them, but it doesn't get rid of your excepting them on faith. I'll visit these later.

For some background consider geometry. Specifically the parallel postulate. Is it true or is just something Euclid pulled out of the air? If you accept it we have geometry on the plane. And nice results like trigonometry. If you don't accept it and rather alter the statement to "all lines intersect" you would form geometry on the surface of a sphere ( elliptic geometry ). Alter it again and you can get hyperbolic geometry.

Mathematicians do this all the time. Change the statements that we accept to be true. And then "hey neat, look what happened".

So what "is"? What is "true"?

What is out your window "is". That is what is "true". Science is you sitting at a desk and holding your Euclidean model up to the window and saying ... Wow this fits pretty good. And then holding up the Elliptical model and saying ... Wow this fits better! It is all fine for a mathematician to mess with "truths" when they are playing with geometries. But, what about applying those techniques to reality?

Back to random evolution. You believe that it logically follows given all you accept on faith and observe.

Consider time. The short of it is that all the math models have no beginning. If the moment I typed the period of the previous sentence all of existence came into being the models wouldn't be able to tell. They talk about the future. WE infer about the past. WE assume that the past is like the future, because why not? It doesn't matter if all of creation started 10 seconds ago, it is more fun to play with the models. We even assume there must be a start time even though we know time is tied to space.

So how old is everything? Well we could consider how long it took light from distant stars to get here. Distance = rate * time. Rate is known ( speed of light is a constant ) and Distance can be calculated ( that only involves trigonometry ). So time can be calculated. Or can it? To use trigonometry we have to take on faith that the universe is Euclidean. And that is something we can NEVER prove.

If the ID people want to go trying to knockout axioms ... who cares? You are free to knockout their axioms as well. That is all part of the game.

What I want to end with is don't get caught up in running in faith from math model to math model. "Yea all that is left is to calculate more decimal places" ... crunch goes an axiom ... everybody runs to the next model ... "Yea gravity is shmavity, just a simple property of space time" ... crunch ... stomp stomp stomp ... "Yea the cat is half-dead!" ... crunch ... "Yea for vibrating membranes".

If you do you are just running from one man's mental landscape to the next's. And I've read enough history books to see the tragedy when people bet their entire life on an idea of man.

Interesting comments, but everything that you say relies on absolutism. (at least the parts about faith in science)

And to be sure, there are wild differences in between faith in an omnipotent deity and faith that various scientific theories have been tested with some rigor and reproduction. The boiling point of water does not require faith, neither do many observable scientific phenomena. So really, you're just speculating on phenomena that aren't directly observable, or incomplete theories.

As for evolution, the progress of mutations is pretty observable, from dark skinned people with Vitamin D deficiency when transplanted to northern climes, to fish with vestigial eyes, to observable, random and significant mutations within generations.

Of course every concept requires some element of belief, "trust" is a better word than faith, but I don't accept your lack of scale.

arra,

ID and WAP just state different philosophical reasons for k taking its value though their own predisposed opinions.

No, because WAP doesn't require anything other than what is self-evidently true (that we exist, and therefore the conditions necessary for us to exist must be fulfilled in this universe), and is therefore a very strong argument when applied within the rigorously defined network of known physics. ID requires intervention from outside the framework of known physics.

To me math is like paint. A great realist can paint a picture like a photograph or with abstraction capture feelings or sound. Mathematics is what we use to create images of reality within our minds.

The difference is math has predictive ability when applied to reality. Paintings do not. The application of that predictive power is an incredibly powerful tool. That's the difference between engineers at Boeing and Intel and cavemen drawing pictures 10,000 years ago.

It can be a good enough model ( newtonian ) or a very accurate model ( relativistic ). But they are just that ... equations that model. Reality is the child on a tire swing hung from a 150 year old Oak tree.

Reality is also a Boeing 747, an F-15, a Pentium III processor, and a rover on Mars.

arra,

So what "is"?

I'm not sure, but I hear Bill Clinton knows.

If the moment I typed the period of the previous sentence all of existence came into being the models wouldn't be able to tell.

In "The Fabric of the Cosmos," physicist Brian Green addresses consigns that argument to irrelevance pretty conclusively by simply pointing out that postulating nonfalsifiable alternate versions of reality serves no useful purpose in relation to dealing with the reality we appear to be experiencing.

The notion that the uniervse has universal, immutable physical laws that always work the same way everywhere and can be mathematically described and predicted was another of the most important concepts ever devised by man. It's interesting that it grew out of Christian philosophy; I think the inherent mysticism of Buddhist and Hindu philosophy greatly hindered development of that principle.

... everything that you say relies on absolutism.

People here have mentioned the scientific method, testing, and reproduction. What does that all entail? I'm not talking about the level of theories or even theorems. I'm talking about way below that.

I had a physics professor who liked to say "All of science is cheap talk without math". I like to say that all of science is a tiny branch of applied mathematics. What do you think the methods of science are? This is about chapter one in a discrete structures book. This is the same kind argument I have every time I try to get a student to abstractly understand the techniques of mathematics.

I'm not talking about the boiling point of water, observables, and even theories. I'm trying to get you the think about what is below all that. Down there at the beginning of what we call science and testing and arguments and the rigorously defined network of known physics. Down at the very bottom of all of that is a playbook.

page one (the articles of faith).
All people who want to argue must agree that the following statements true and these terms just plain are.

page two (manipulation).
During the argument you can only use stuff from page one. And when you combine them you must use only the following rules ... blah blah blah.

and on and on.

What is neat about all the above is that it can make some useful models. And it *is* like a painting. What TallDave calls predictive ability is just a variable within an equation. A painting is a 3D object of 2D position with a 1D value of color. Let's say you want to model a 1D spring-weight model. That is only a 2 variable system (position and time), but what you call prediction is just the model taking on different attributes for difference values. That is all a painting does as well. And aren't all those predictive pictures in your physics books just paintings. ;)

If we follow the rules we can create incredible monuments based on the playbook: a Boeing 747, an F-15, a Pentium III processor, and a rover on Mars. I would have mentioned the Dec Alpha processor ... but that is just me.

Just don't get caught up in "A mathematical model and the physical object it represents are equivalent". Because there are things in nature that we can not model correctly and there are models of nature that don't have any counterpart in reality.

So what "is"?

I'm not sure, but I hear Bill Clinton knows.

:) HA! Though I thought it was what is is?

I can try and sum up Brian Green's argument as "What fun is that?!" Not that he said that, but that is the idea. Sure the models would but just fine if the world started 10 seconds ago fully formed. But what is the point of that? We like talking about flaming stars and young planets.

In the end I strangely find it neat the we can never prove if the universe is Cartesian ( the whole trig thing from previous ). And that saying 100 years ago is odd because matter is tied with time. That two parent plants without a correct gene have an offspring with the correct gene. The Pioneer anomaly. That weather prediction is doomed.

"This is what strikes me as the human comprehension-challenged flaw behind Intelligent Design - that just because we don't understand it, or just because something is incredibly organized and complex, why does our idea of sentience, a Creator's consciousness, have to be responsible for its creation?"

It doesn't. I agree with you in part, but I also think you're knocking down a straw man. I agree that the irreducible complexity of a flagellum DOES NOT SUGGEST that God is the answer. It just suggests that random mutations are not a plausible explanation, and ought not to be treated as dogma by the pseudo-scientists who insist that (inter-special) evolutionary biology is a fact that explains the origens of life and the complexity of life that we observe today.

The real answer is, we don't know (in a scientific sense) why a flagellum happened. This is fine for us Christians, because we think we can come up with an explanation based upon divine guidance. But maybe we're just a buch of fools, and the real answer is that flagellum were introduced to the planet by aliens from the next galaxy (wonder where they came from). Or the real answer is some "natural" God-free process that no one has ever thought of. Bottom line, we don't (scientifically) know.

WE DON'T KNOW (as a matter of science) only seems to be unacceptable to the die-hard adherents to the evolutionist creed, who seemingly have a need to believe that evolution explains all, and scientific progress only needs to fill in the details. They blather on about self-reproducing amino acids, all the while ignoring the fact that they don't have anything approaching a plausible theory as to how life began, never mind that they can't come close to explaining a flagellum. When reason fails, they just resort to labelling the faithful as idiots, because we have a mindset they simply do not comprehend.

Can science undermine religion? Probably not, but it has nothing to do with "Intelligent Design." Paradoxically, the findings of neuroscientists unraveling the biological mechanisms behind religious experience suggest Darwinian explanations for our species' natural tendency to believe:

http://sisu.typepad.com/sisu/2005/03/he_knows_if_you.html

MichaelM -

I agree that the irreducible complexity of a flagellum DOES NOT SUGGEST that God is the answer. It just suggests that random mutations are not a plausible explanation, and ought not to be treated as dogma by the pseudo-scientists who insist that (inter-special) evolutionary biology is a fact that explains the origens of life and the complexity of life that we observe today.

that's not the real goal of Intelligent Design curriculum. GOD is the answer.

http://www.balloon-juice.com/archives/005337.html

BTW, just FYI:

straw man
n.
A person who is set up as cover or a front for a questionable enterprise.
An argument or opponent set up so as to be easily refuted or defeated.
A bundle of straw made into the likeness of a man and often used as a scarecrow.

"that's not the real goal of Intelligent Design curriculum. GOD is the answer."

Well, of course, ID proponents are suggesting the likelihood of a Designer. However, this hypothesis should be distinguished from the more mundane task of simply debunking Darwinism. The "irreducible complexity" argument is no less valid as a challenge to Darwinism because it does not necessarily support the inference of a God. It just supports the inference that we should keep our minds open to something other than evolution as the explanation for everything, and be a little cautious about treating Darwinism as an established fact.

So, I don't want religion being taught in the public schools, and I don't want Intelligent Design being taught as science. I'd be more than satisfied if the kids just don't come home with the idea that a flagellum MUST have resulted from evolution, never mind how improbable that is. And they're told this simply because the secularists just don't have any more credible scientific hypothesis and they don't want to leave the impression that God is even possible. I don't object to the teaching of evolution, I just object to the fraudulent certainy with which it is presented.

However, this hypothesis should be distinguished from the more mundane task of simply debunking Darwinism.

It just supports the inference that we should keep our minds open to something other than evolution as the explanation for everything, and be a little cautious about treating Darwinism as an established fact.

"debunking Darwinism?"

You are talking about debunking "mutationism."

The concept of mutationism has been used by some creationists to create a straw man (or perhaps misunderstanding) of evolutionary theory, to say that the theory predicts that evolution happens only or primarily through mutations.

And -

Darwinism is a term used for various processes related to the ideas of Charles Darwin, particularly concerning evolution and natural selection. Darwinism in this sense is not synonymous with evolution, but rather with evolution by natural selection. Modern biology suggests a number of other mechanisms involved in evolution which were unknown to Darwin, such as genetic drift.

Also, Darwinism may be used to contrast it with other, discredited mechanisms of evolution that were historically thought possible, such as Lamarckism or mutationism.

I don't object to the teaching of evolution, I just object to the fraudulent certainy with which it is presented.

Evolution is certainty. It's a fantastically validated scientific theory.

Get the terms straight.

I gotta admit, I learn something here every day.

I certainly agree that evolution is a certainty in that it is highly validated as the explanation for some things. No one disputes that evolution occurs within species, at a minimum. The controversy is over HOW MUCH does evolution explain, and HOW CERTAIN are we? The irreducible complexity argument addresses this issue. Thus my original point -- criticizing the irreducible complexity argument because it does not provide scientific evidence of a God strikes me as dodging the issue with a straw man.

And, by the way, pointing out d all the now-discredited theories (e.g., mutationism) that have previously been presented as scientific fact under the banner of evolution is NOT necessarily a straw man. Just from reading the newspaper, I get the impression that evolutionary theory goes through some kind of radical revision about every six months. It goes right to the issue of whether evolutionary biologists deserve a whole lot of credibility, and what our kids should be told about how certain we are regarding the current state of our knowledge.

Dawkins himself has a term for those people who postulate the existence of a deity because they cannot see how a particular complex system came to be via naturalistic processes: The Argument from Personal Incredulity. It always struck me as a particularly hubristic standpoint: "since I, who am extremely clever," it seems to say, "cannot posit a plausible mechanism for how Nature could have produced this result, there must be a God."

ID is a worldview in serious trouble. It's necessarily a defensive one. It has no mechanism for overturning the neo-Darwinian synthesis, since all it consists of is a series of ad hoc statements about which biological systems can and cannot be explained, at present, by evolutionary theory, and then goes one (unjustifiable) stage further by saying that no such explanation exists. Evolution, on the other hand, merely needs to provide a plausible pathway by which each of these systems came about. Then ID has to resile from that position and set up its barricades about the next in line. At one point, the poster-child for ID was the mechanism of blood-clotting. As evolutionary biology, and molecular phylogenetics in particular, demolished that one (notably by the identification of pseudogenes), ID retreated to its current bastion, flagellae. It suffers from the same old God-of-the-gaps problem that a close reading of the Catholic Church's stance on evolution will reveal. To say to science, "thus far and no further," is to put oneself in a Canute-like position. ID's combination of intellectual laxity and special pleading renders it unfalsifiable, and hence unscientific in the Popperian sense. But it will be defeated.

MichealIM

HOW MUCH: just about everything. Quoth Theodosius Dobzhansky, one of the fathers of the modern theory: nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.

HOW CERTAIN: very much more certain than that we are on the right track for an explanation of gravity. That evolution occurs is as certain that chemistry occurs. The neo-Darwinian synthesis of how it occurs is on a similarly-sound footing as the explanation for chemistry that we obtain from Quantum Electrodynamics i.e. it is among the most (possibly the most) well-attested and successful scientific theories that we have ever had. Its explicatory qualities are unrivalled by any other theory we have. I'll stake my claim here: it WILL NOT be overturned. Ever.

Don't read the newspaper for sober discussion of trends within evolutionary biology. There hasn't been a 'radical revision' of evolutionary biology since Crick and Watson discovered DNA (and even that was at heart a validation of the particulate gene hypothesis which was relatively uncontroversial at the time). There have been major shifts in emphasis, to be sure, notably in the change of focus from the species via the organism to the gene as the unit of selection, but the high-level mechanisms by which natural selection acts to drive evolution are essentially unchanged since Darwin's time.

Bill,

I think you have gotten a little ahead of yourself over your criticism of Intelligent Design. Not only are you reiterating the talking points of evolutionary dogma, but you don't seem to show any knowledge of even the fundamental aspects of ID, or even science, itself . For instance, when you wrote, "... science (clearly defined and executed), by its very nature, should maintain a healthy delineation from faith." Why should it? If faith is based on something real and science seeks to study reality, then there should be a point where the two overlap. Faith whose object is devoid of a real world correlation is faith in vain. Likewise, a science that attempts to disqualify things or events because their nature contradicts its unnecessary philosophical framework is not a science that seeks truth.

You also mischaracterize ID as essentially being an argument to ignorance: we don't know, therefore God did it. To better understand why this is wrong, we need to remember that the Intelligent Design (ID) movement began as a challenge to the legitimacy of evolution as the theory of the origin of all life. Though the movement recognizes Phillip Johnson as its creator, you can trace it even further to the arguments of microbiologist Michael Denton, in his devestating attack on Evolution in the book, "Evolution: A Theory In Crisis". The central point behind these two men's arguments was that while accounting for limited changes, evolution was incapable of answering the question of how life became so diversified and complex. The whole theoretical edifice was shown to be nothing more than a mixture of circumstancial evidence and a philosophical world view that was predisposed to natural explanations.

With Evolution set aside, those men who followed Denton and Johnson's lead were faced with the initial question of how life came to be as it is anew. Intelligent Design was thus advanced, theorizing that complex organization from the simpliest of cells to the most complex of morphological structures or biochemical systems, were created by an intelligent, intentional act. Intelligent Design can rest on a two-fold support. First, there is the philosophical argument of ID which argues to the best explanation (and not from ignorance). Second, the theory of ID qualifies intentionally designed complexity and purports a method to objectively detect it. Essentially, ID's real position is that Intelligent Design is the best explanation, or theory, given the currently available evidence. This point is well made, in the context of Evolution's ineffectiveness and when we bear in mind that many of the arguments against ID presuppose an evolutionary framework.

-Grace Marzioli

"conservativeandright,"

your comment is the biggest load of pseudo-logical doublespeak I've read in quite a while.

Not only are you reiterating the talking points of evolutionary dogma, but you don't seem to show any knowledge of even the fundamental aspects of ID, or even science, itself .

First of all, this is offensive. I don't know the fundamental aspects of science itself? What in my post possibly indicates that? Let's see ...

For instance, when you wrote, "... science (clearly defined and executed), by its very nature, should maintain a healthy delineation from faith." Why should it? If faith is based on something real and science seeks to study reality, then there should be a point where the two overlap.

Right. And if your faith is that the Earth is 6,000 years old, that Moses parted the Red Sea and/or 72 Virgins await you in Paradise, I urge you to hold your breath if you think that the overlap is just around the corner. But my real point was that science should not subjectively cling to any tenet that requires a great deal of faith in anything. Science relies on the observable, reproducible and/or objective.

Faith whose object is devoid of a real world correlation is faith in vain.

Then I would assume that you spend your life in vain. Though it would be entertaining for you to discuss the real world correlation of a talking burning bush, all life springing from two fully formed humans in a garden and a dastardly snake. Or perhaps the tortoise Akupera supporting the world on its back. All the water turning to blood? Plagues of frogs and fleas? Sure, real world correlations abound. As allegories.

Likewise, a science that attempts to disqualify things or events because their nature contradicts its unnecessary philosophical framework is not a science that seeks truth.

And that shows your fundamental ignorance of what "science" is. Science is dispassionate. Sometimes those that practice it are not. Your inability to make this distinction, as well as your ridiculous belief that the point of evolution theory is to disqualify things based on any philosophical framework, does not serve you well, to say the least.

With Evolution set aside, those men who followed Denton and Johnson's lead were faced with the initial question of how life came to be as it is anew. Intelligent Design was thus advanced, theorizing that complex organization from the simpliest of cells to the most complex of morphological structures or biochemical systems, were created by an With Evolution set aside, those men who followed Denton and Johnson's lead were faced with the initial question of how life came to be as it is anew. Intelligent Design was thus advanced, theorizing that complex organization from the simpliest of cells to the most complex of morphological structures or biochemical systems, were created by an intelligent, intentional act.

And who determines what an "an intelligent, intentional act" is and what objective terms are used to define it? That it's really really complex, and can't be accounted for by randomness within a certain timeframe? And this indicates "sentience?" Whose sentience? Human sentience? Super-duper sentience?

And notice that I even gave the benefit of the doubt for the possibility that ID coud be defined and executed in objective terms in my post. Then, who designed the designer? And how does ID get us any closer to a fundamental scientific truth?

Essentially, ID's real position is that Intelligent Design is the best explanation, or theory, given the currently available evidence. This point is well made, in the context of Evolution's ineffectiveness and when we bear in mind that many of the arguments against ID presuppose an evolutionary framework.

And ID's position, as you propose it as a competing, mutually exclusive theory, is wrong.

Again, your complete rejection of an "evolutionary framework," even some of the most basic, consistently reproducible facets of the theory, such as the fact that organisms do drastically change over time, as well as your misunderstanding and bias against the clear definitions of "science" and inability to distinguish what I mean by the term faith (not YOUR faith as "having religion" in contradiction to science, rather the concept of believing and feeling something with subjectivity in the context of science) forces me to rename you:

"conservativeandwrong,loudly,arrogantlywrong"

In fact, anyone with a commenting handle like your original should probably sit in the corner and rethink life anyway. And I'm not talking evolution vs. ID.

I don't object to the teaching of evolution, I just object to the fraudulent certainy with which it is presented.

Okay, now I realize that now we have abiogensis (origins oriented science) and evolution (the whole change of time, randome selection stuff), but you forget all the lovely films they show in science class, anthropology class, and other things.

They treat these two issues as if all the holes are filled in (and any scientist worth his salt will tell you that we are far from knowing the answers). You have a film, it starts off with the whole billions of years ago we had primordial soup (or whatever you want to call it), then moves on to how life began, and then that cell had babies that turned into something else, and so on and so on. They say all this as if they have the answers-shoot scientists can't tell you how the dinosaurs died off (there are lots of theories, some more believable than others, but they still don't know). They can infer things, but they still don't know, but all those films present everything as if the holes are filled in, as if they do have all the answers.

Then I will add my other beef, which is that a lot of things used as examples of evolution still get taught and used as examples, even though they have been debunked: peppered moths, the evolution of the horse (I got this one in my biology class), the fetus going through different stages of evolutionary development etc. Now I am not sure why these things continue to be used (I imagine the scientists don't like it either), but these things in conjunction with the who presentation of evolution as if all is known, and further study isn't neccessary is troubling.

I am fine with teaching the theory, I am fine with using known examples of support for the theory, but at least the science classroom should be honest and admit that there are still a lot of holes that science hasn't been able to answer yet. It doesn't hurt the theory, but it doesn't leave the impression that science has answered everything.

We know far less about evolution and the human than we know, and we shouldn't be pretending that we do.

I am fine with teaching the theory, I am fine with using known examples of support for the theory, but at least the science classroom should be honest and admit that there are still a lot of holes that science hasn't been able to answer yet.

Well, my science education did. But again, no disagreement, as you are preaching the scientific ideal, and I agree with shooting for that standard.

Bill,

Let me begin by saying that my tone was not intended to be condescending. I highly respect you, and have read your blog faithfully for a year now. I apologize for how I came across.

Now to the argument at hand:

Bill wrote: "Right. And if your faith is that the Earth is 6,000 years old, that Moses parted the Red Sea and/or 72 Virgins await you in Paradise, I urge you to hold your breath if you think that the overlap is just around the corner. But my real point was that science should not subjectively cling to any tenet that requires a great deal of faith in anything. Science relies on the observable, reproducible and/or objective."

Well, that's not where I would go with it. Historical events, which are by definition no longer existent, rarely play a part in modern science and that's whether its Red Sea parting, burning bushes, big bangs or avian lung development. Science interacts in faith so far as faith predicts, or is at least compatible with, those aspects of reality which are known to be true. If science relies on observation, repeatability and objectiveness, then a faith whose object is in real things will be observed, repeated and objective. Of course this depends on the religious tenet in question. As I said before, historical events are of little use to modern science (with obvious exceptions, such as the issue of origins). However, if we took the broader form of theism, the basic tenet of all monotheistic religions, we very plausibly could see interaction. Monotheism states that God designed life, the universe and everything. Therefore, we would find a prediction of theism to be that certain aspects of reality do, in fact, exhibit design. And, thus any observation of design would be predicted by, or compatible with, theism. To this end we might point out the existence of the Anthropic Cosmological Principle and Intelligent Design.

Bill wrote: "Then I would assume that you spend your life in vain. Though it would be entertaining for you to discuss the real world correlation of a talking burning bush, all life springing from two fully formed humans in a garden and a dastardly snake. Or perhaps the tortoise Akupera supporting the world on its back. All the water turning to blood? Plagues of
frogs and fleas? Sure, real world correlations abound. As allegories."

Or else, to be fair, let's also talk about how interactive abiogenesis is in modern times. You know, that common event in which a single cells springs forth so willing from the primordeal ooze. Or even how they spring so willingly from the fabricated conditions in laboratories, directed so eagerly by the intelligent intent of trained scientists. Additionally, we can talk about how often fish loving bears will eventually, over time, become something not unlike a whale (i.e. Darwin's supposition). Of course we shall see none of these. Historical events have passed on into metaphysics, regardless if their subject is science, pseudoscience, religion or pseudoreligion.

I wrote: "Likewise, a science that attempts to disqualify things or events because their nature contradicts its unnecessary philosophical framework is not a science that seeks truth."

Bill wrote: "And that shows your fundamental ignorance of what "science" is. Science is dispassionate. Sometimes those that practice it are not. Your inability to make this distinction, as well as your ridiculous belief that the point of evolution theory is to disqualify things based on any philosophical framework, does not serve you well, to say the least."

Science as an ideal is no different than courage as an ideal: it's not set in stone, but rather a concept that is varied from time to time and person to person. We ourselves might have a preference about how it should function and operate, how it should be defined, but that unfortunately is often failed by its popular form in science writings and the practices of scientists themselves. Modern science will never transcend modern scientists, so we must look to revolutions for refreshing changes most meet our ideologies. Thus, it would take modern
medical science to redefine itself to exclude leeches as a cure-all. It would take modern biology to correct misunderstandings about how life arose and, specifically, how maggots and parasites are not spontaneously generated from garbage. And it will take new revolutions before the materialistic foundation (i.e. biased foundation) of modern science is itself corrected. To put it simply, science is how it is presented to us, which is how it is understood and defined by our modern scientific leaders. If they are passionate, then science is passionate. If they are materialists, then science is materialistic. To see it any other way is to deify science and ignore all that is being said by our current science leaders. This assumes something that both you and I seem to be taking for granted, and that is that science even has a consistent definition like "computer" and unlike "life" or "love." Of course there are quite a few people who (rightfully) challenge that idea.

Bill wrote: "And who determines what an 'an intelligent, intentional act' is and what objective terms are used to define it? That it's really really complex, and can't be accounted for by randomness within a certain timeframe? And this indicates 'sentience?' Whose sentience? Human sentience? Super-duper sentience?"

It's up to science to make such determinations, or the scientists interested in pursuing such a line of thinking. William Dembski and Michael Behe have made such attempts, but progress for two obviously comes slower than progress for an established school of thought that existed since the early 19th century. As for what randomness can and cannot accomplish, it is actually up to evolutionists, not ID, to establish this. Of course they don't; their assumption seems to be that a process which includes undirected, and random, means can accomplish anything, but I wager the evidence is not as forthcoming as they would have us believe. (There's your faith in modern science for you, the idea that all things evolved from one another without actually ever showing the natural processes at work in our world today are even capable of producing such results is certainly not an empirical fact.) Lastly, as for the sentient being, or beings, responsible for creating life, that issue is a red herring at this point. Why? Because design can more often and easily be discerned then the designer. Take the Sphinx, for instance. We can observe the design, but the name or the person who designed it seems to escape us at the moment. Should we then bother ourselves over the undiscovered designer, or simply attribute cause to effect when at all possible? Of course we should bother! And so, if the sentience can be traced through the design, by the only force known to create such forms of complex organization, it should be.

Bill wrote: "And ID's position, as you propose it as a competing, mutually exclusive theory, is wrong."

This is your assumption. I am an evolutionist, through and through. However, instead of the absurdity of saltations and punctuated equilibria (which are all post hoc explanations to falsifying problems in evolutionary theory), I believe in ID. So, as you can see, ID to me is a macroevolutionary process that replaces what I view as the spurious materialistic views that have been suggested before it.

-Grace Marzioli

Saltation? That's as far outside the mainstream as divine intervention. Punctuated equilibrium? That's as widely accepted as allopatric speciation.

The onus is not on the evolutionary biologists to defend their turf. It's on the attackers of evolution. I never cease to be amazed at the hostility evolution attracts, especially from laymen. Now, I'm a layman, but from my point of view I have to give the professionals the benefit of the doubt. Attacking evolutionary theory from outside the stockade is like critiquing M-theory without knowing what a Grassmannian is.

Well, to add to her comments, none of the macroevolutionary theories that biologists have put forward are all that convincing. Part of the problem has to do with the fact that they have to explain events which will never be empirically observed, and part of the problem is that many of us believe it is merely self-evident that undirected means and random forces never produce complexity on the level of life. So throw up gradualism there, if you'd prefer, but I suspect some of your statement is merely hyperbolic. Of course Saltations are out of the mainstream (so of course we should all avoid it), as poor Richard Goldschmidt and his poor hopeful monster are all too aware. However, Ernst Mayr, Stephen J. Gould and Niles Eldredge are amongst the most respected of scientists and either hand a hand in creating punctuated equilibria or else believe it occurs. Ernst Mayr, who is essentially the Einstein of modern biology, not only accepts it but claims it is a mere extension of his own ideas. He wrote of P.E., "They are in no respect whatsoever in conflict with the conclusions of the evolutionary synthesis" (What Is Evolution, Ernst Mayr, 2001). Obviously, P.E. isn't all that outside of the mainstream if merely ERNST MAYR, the mainstream itself, accepts it.

-Samuel

I misunderstood how you were addressing P.E. and thought you were actually criticizing it as outside the mainstream. As for P.E., I'll just say that what is and isn't accepted in a process that is unobservable, and merely a post hoc explanation of the facts, isn't all that impressive. The question of whether or not macroevolution can occur is still left wide open, and no amount of theory that presumes its truth a priori solves it.

Evilution, Stephen Gould was a very skilled populizer. So skilled that he would rewrite evolutionary science to redefine himself as the majority view.

Arra,

page one (the articles of faith).
All people who want to argue must agree that the following statements true and these terms just plain are.

page two (manipulation).
During the argument you can only use stuff from page one. And when you combine them you must use only the following rules ... blah blah blah

I have to disagree. You can claim anything on page one is wrong (or that the rules on page 2 are wrong) if you can provide repeatable experiments that prove it; that's the whole basis of science, and that's how pages one and two came about.

I can try and sum up Brian Green's argument as "What fun is that?!" Not that he said that, but that is the idea. Sure the models would but just fine if the world started 10 seconds ago fully formed. But what is the point of that?

Right, you can postulate all kinds of nonfalsifiable states of the universe, but there's really no point to it because it has no practical application.