← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Petr
Thread ID: 20754 | Posts: 23 | Started: 2005-10-26
2005-10-26 02:02 | User Profile
This piece deals mostly just with social factors that ID has on its side, but I'm convinced that in a[B] fair fight /B, the [B]hypothesis[/B] of spontaneous evolution of all life can be gutted easily on purely scientific arguments.
Darwinism is going to lose because it is not fit for survival!
[url]http://www.techcentralstation.com/100705C.html[/url] [FONT="Times New Roman"] [B][SIZE="5"] Why Intelligent Design Is Going to Win[/SIZE]
[SIZE="3"]By Douglas Kern
Published 10/07/2005 [/SIZE][/B]
[SIZE="3"] It doesn't matter if you like it or not. It doesn't matter if you think it's true or not. Intelligent Design theory is destined to supplant Darwinism as the primary scientific explanation for the origin of human life. ID will be taught in public schools as a matter of course. It will happen in our lifetime. It's happening right now, actually.
Here's why: [B]
1) ID will win because it's a religion-friendly, conservative-friendly, red-state kind of theory, and no one will lose money betting on the success of red-state theories in the next fifty to one hundred years.[/B]
I've said it before and I'll say it again: families that reproduce people tend to reproduce ideas, as well. The most vocal non-scientist proponents of ID are those delightfully fertile Catholics, Evangelicals, and similarly right-leaning middle-class college-educated folk -- the kind whose children will inherit the country. Eventually, the social right will have the sheer manpower to teach ID wherever they please.
Despite what angry ID opponents may tell you, the advent of ID won't hurt American productivity a bit. [U]Belief in ID does nothing to make believers less capable in science or engineering. No geek in the world will find his computer mojo diminished because of his opinions on irreducible complexity[/U]. To the contrary: ID might make biology and the natural sciences more appealing to believers who might otherwise find science to be too far removed from God's presence. As ID appeals to the conservative mindset without hurting anyone's skills, why wouldn't the social right embrace it?
To be sure, believers don't[I] need [/I]ID to accept modern science. The Catholic Church, for example, made peace with traditional Darwinist theory long ago. Many scientists see no contradiction between Darwinism and their own religious beliefs. Rightly understood, Darwinist theory doesn't diminish God's glory any more than any other set of rules governing the world. An omnipotent God can act through scientific media as well as miraculous interventions.
But if ID is correct, then the intelligent designer of life must have lavished astonishing care and attention upon the human race to give it unique dignity and value -- as well as handicaps and temptations that only virtue can overcome. The God of Moses and Jesus didn't leave fingerprints at this scene, but it's His MO all the way. And as believers are detectives of the Almighty's presence, they're naturally more inclined to follow the clues revealing that familiar pattern.
[B]2) ID will win because the pro-Darwin crowd is acting like a bunch of losers.[/B]
[I]"Ewwwââ¬Â¦intelligent design people! They're just buck-toothed Bible-pushing nincompoops with community-college degrees who're trying to sell a gussied-up creationism to a cretinous public! No need to address their concerns or respond to their arguments. They are Not Science. They are poopy-heads."[/I]
There. I just saved you the trouble of reading 90% of the responses to the ID position. Vitriol, condescension, and endless accusations of bad faith all characterize far too much of the standard pro-Darwinian response to criticism. A reasonable observer might note that many ID advocates appear exceptionally well-educated, reasonable, and articulate; [U]they might also note that ID advocates have pointed out many problems with the Darwinist catechism that even pro-Darwin scientists have been known to concede, when they think the Jesus-kissing crowd isn't listening.[/U] And yet, even in the face of a sober, thoughtful ID position, the pro-Darwin crowd insists on the same phooey-to-the-boobgeois shtick that was tiresome in Mencken's day. This is how losers act just before they lose: arrogant, self-satisfied, too important to be bothered with substantive refutation, and disdainful of their own faults. Pride goeth before a fall.
[B]3) ID will win because it can be reconciled with any advance that takes place in biology, whereas Darwinism cannot yield even an inch of ground to ID.[/B]
So you've discovered the missing link? Proven that viruses distribute super-complex DNA proteins? Shown that fractals can produce evolution-friendly three-dimensional shapes? It doesn't matter. To the ID mind, you're just pushing the question further down the road. How was the missing link designed? What is the origin of the viruses? Who designed the fractals? ID has already made its peace with natural selection and the irrefutable aspects of Darwinism. [U]By contrast, Darwinism cannot accept even the slightest possibility that it has failed to explain any significant dimension of evolution[/U]. It must dogmatically insist that it will resolve [I]all[/I] of its ambiguities and shortcomings -- even the ones that have lingered since the beginning of Darwinism. The entire edifice of Darwinian theory comes crashing down with even a single credible demonstration of design in any living thing. Can science really plug a finger into every hole in the Darwinian dyke for the next fifty years?
[B]4) ID will win because it can piggyback on the growth of information theory, which will attract the best minds in the world over the next fifty years.[/B]
ID is a proposition about information. It contends that the processes of life are so specific and carefully ordered that they must reflect deliberate action. Put simply: a complex message implies an even more complex sender. Separating ordered but random data from relevant, purposeful data -- that is, separating [I]noise [/I]from [I]messages[/I] -- is one of the key undertakings of the 21st century. In nearly every field, from statistics to quantum physics to cryptology to computer science, the smartest people on the planet are struggling to understand and apply the unfathomable power of information that modern technology has bequeathed to them. We have only scratched the surface of the problem-solving power that the Internet and cheap computing power open to us. As superior intellects strive to understand the metaphysics of information, they will find the information-oriented arguments of ID increasingly sensible and appealing. ID will fit nicely into the emerging worldview of tomorrow's intellectual elite.
This emerging worldview will take a more expansive view of science than does the current elite. Consider the "meme" meme. We all know what a meme is: a thought pattern that spreads from person to person and group to group like a viral infection spreading through a population. Yet memes cannot be bisected, or examined under a microscope, or "falsified" via the scientific method. Even so, we can make statements about memes with varying degrees of objective truthfulness. Is it possible to speak of a "science" of concepts? Right now, the scientific establishment says no. This unhelpful understanding of science will soon be discarded in favor of something more useful in the information age.
[B]5) ID will win because ID assumes that man will find design in life -- and, as the mind of man is hard-wired to detect design, man will likely find what he seeks.[/B]
The human mind seeks order in everything. The entire body of knowledge available to mankind reflects our incorrigible desire to analyze, systemize, hypothesize, and theorize. It may well be that our brains are physically configured in such a way that we can't help but find order and design in the world. Don't look so surprised, evolutionists -- a brain attuned to order and design is a brain more likely to survive. The ability to detect design is essentially the ability to detect patterns, and the ability to detect patterns is the key to most applications of human intelligence. Hammers tend to find nails, screwdrivers tend to find screws, and the human mind tends to find design. Of course, the propensity to see designs doesn't mean that the designs aren't actually there. But the quintessential human perception is one of design -- and, to the extent that perceptions define reality, a theory built on the perception of design has a huge advantage over its competitors.
The only remaining question is whether Darwinism will exit gracefully, or whether it will go down biting, screaming, censoring, and denouncing to the bitter end. Rightly or wrongly, the future belongs to ID. There's nothing irreducibly complex about it.
[I]Douglas Kern is a lawyer and TCS contributor. To see another view of the debate over ID, read "Descent of Man in Dover" by Sallie Baliunas on TCS today.[/I][/SIZE][/FONT]
2005-10-26 10:24 | User Profile
It's a no-brainer. ID will win because it's obviously correct.
There's no way in hell that an "irreducibly complex" thing like DNA that conveys INFORMATION in anything other than an artifact.
DNA was clearly invented.
Who invented it is another question that ID doesnt, and indeed can't, address.
2005-10-26 11:10 | User Profile
I guess I'll have to defer to the scientific expertise of you folks. Why should I believe someone like, say, [url=http://www.positiveatheism.org/india/s1990a01.htm]Francis Crick[/url] when your scientific training, credentials, accomplishments, and sheer understanding are so much more impressive? :wink:
2005-10-26 12:37 | User Profile
Oh yeah, Francis Crick, the supporter of [B]directed panspermia[/B] hypothesis that is [B]so [/B]much more rational than Intelligent Design.
:tongue:
Petr
2005-10-26 13:02 | User Profile
[quote=Petr]Oh yeah, Francis Crick, the supporter of [B]directed panspermia[/B] hypothesis that is [B]so [/B]much more rational than Intelligent Design.r With respect to Angler (he's clearly a bright guy), I'm always amazed at how "freethinkers" cast off irrational beliefs only to adopt new ones. I have seen polls showing belief in alien abductions, etc., actually being much higher among atheists/agnostics than Christians. Perhaps "irrationality" is part of the human condition, the variation being how it manifests itself.
2005-10-26 17:53 | User Profile
Id is extremely unlikely to win in the long run because it is not based on scientific underpinnings but an irrational belief in the the "Great Skygod" who may or may not exist. I suggest that those interested in ID take time to read about both sides of the issue and then decide from objective scientific analysis, or something close to it. No such legitmate polls exist that point to the credulity of rationals more than their counterparts. This belief is part of an urban myth. Crick merely suggested that panspermia is a possible source of the spreading of life through the universe and may have touched down on earth eons ago. Kern's article is silly in the extreme. ID can not be supported by stringent scientific principles. Those who believe in it are free do do so long as they do not require it to be part of an imposed belief system.
2005-10-26 19:12 | User Profile
[QUOTE=solutrian]... imposed belief system.[/QUOTE]
Hmmm...
2005-10-26 20:22 | User Profile
Yes, it would appear that ignorance and absurd superstition will again win out over truth and reality. Not the first time it's happened, it's a continuing cycle that includes memories of witch burnings as one of it's greater accomplishments. The thousands of innocent women who were so painfully and grusomely murdered in the name of God, just didn't have sense enough to be grateful for their contribution (albeit non-voluntary) to [B]the faith[/B]. Am I wrong? am I a heretic? If so, maybe an exorcism might be in order. Certainly, at the very least, we should deify St. Cotton of Mather.
2005-10-26 21:16 | User Profile
I would vote for Londo were he able to run on a platform such as he mentions, I would vote for him.
2005-10-26 23:26 | User Profile
[quote=Walter Yannis] There's no way in hell that an "irreducibly complex" thing like DNA that conveys INFORMATION in anything other than an artifact.
DNA was clearly invented. Isn't it possible to conceive of naturalistic evolution as the manifestation of an intelligence? How do you know that when a new mutation or adaptation comes into being, the universe is not conscious of that fact?
The notion that evolution is an unconscious, random process and therefore not compatible with the notion of divine creation is essentially tied only to a Deist conception of God.
[URL="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06614a.htm"]http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06614a.htm[/URL]
To Deists is attributed the view -- or at least a tendency towards the view -- that God, having created the universe, leaves it to pursue its own course according to fixed laws, and ceases, so to speak, to take any further interest in, or responsibility for what may happen; and Divine immanence is urged, sometimes too strongly, in opposition to this view. God is immanent, or intimately present, in the universe because His power is required at every moment to sustain creatures in being and to concur with them in their activities.
It is also clear that if the universe depends on God for its production, it must also depend on Him for its conservation or continuance in being; and this truth will perhaps be best presented by explaining the much talked-of principle of Divine immanence as corrected and counterbalanced by the equally important principle of Divine transcendence.
2005-10-27 04:41 | User Profile
I hope other Walter's predictions have more chance of success :D
2005-10-27 13:09 | User Profile
[QUOTE=OPERA96]Yes, it would appear that ignorance and absurd superstition will again win out over truth and reality. Not the first time it's happened, it's a continuing cycle that includes memories of witch burnings as one of it's greater accomplishments. The thousands of innocent women who were so painfully and grusomely murdered in the name of God, just didn't have sense enough to be grateful for their contribution (albeit non-voluntary) to [B]the faith[/B]. Am I wrong? am I a heretic? If so, maybe an exorcism might be in order. Certainly, at the very least, we should deify St. Cotton of Mather.[/QUOTE]
Just this side of hysterical. What does ID have to do with Christianity?
2005-10-28 00:29 | User Profile
[quote=Bardamu]What does ID have to do with Christianity?
Its critics wish to attempt to confuse ID with Creationism. The thing they have in common is the challenge they pose to Evolutionist theories, though I don't think ID presumes God as the only answer to who the Designer is or was.
Creationism doesn't have to presume much of anything, being a matter of Scripture and Faith.
AE
2005-10-28 00:46 | User Profile
[quote=Angeleyes]I don't think ID presumes God as the only answer to who the Designer is or was. This seems like word games to me. If life wasn't created by God, then by who? Aliens? Who created them?
If an intelligent being created life on Earth, then that being is God, almost by definition.
2005-10-28 00:49 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Angeleyes]Its critics wish to attempt to confuse ID with Creationism. The thing they have in common is the challenge they pose to Evolutionist theories, though I don't think ID presumes God as the only answer to who the Designer is or was.
Creationism doesn't have to presume much of anything, being a matter of Scripture and Faith.
AE[/QUOTE]
So far as I can tell ID simply argues that science does not disprove a designer. Doesn't seem like a far fetched theory to me, and it has zero to do with burning witches. This is much different than trying to prove the Bible to be scientifically accurate, which we all know it is not.
2005-10-28 00:54 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Bardamu]This is much different than trying to prove the Bible to be scientifically accurate, which we all know it is not.[/QUOTE]
How so? Believe it or not, but supernatural miracles are not "against science" and even less logically impossible.
Petr
2005-10-28 01:10 | User Profile
[quote=RowdyRoddyPiper]This seems like word games to me. If life wasn't created by God, then by who? Aliens? Who created them?
If an intelligent being created life on Earth, then that being [I]is[/I] God, almost by definition.
Sorry I was so cryptic.
As I understand it, Intelligent Design means just that: an intelligence designed and was an active agent in the form that we, and other animals, take and thus INtelligent Design as a thesis is a counter theory/thesis to "it was a lot of rolls of snakeyes at the casino of universal probability that created the first eye on a fish."
There are enough holes in Evolution to allow for other, better or merelly different theories to begin an effort to paint a different picture, and it is not necessary that all theories that are NOT Evolution are necessarily Theologically based.
What I don't understand is whether or not Intelligent Design allows for the position an Agnostic could take, that of "it may be God, a god, or it may be another source of agency that came up with DNA as a tool for building life from carbon based life forms."
In any event, Whoever or whatever such an agent is far exceeds the powers and perceptions of Man.
For a Christian, it can only be God. That's a matter of Faith and Scripture.
Intelligent Design, to be explored as a scientific theory and stand on viable ground to answer Evolution, has to allow for a Designer to be a designer, as in, a non divine agent of change and structure.
Tough theory to prove, and tough to gather evidence. Worth exploring, however, to find out if it can be proven. Or, if evolution can be disproven, though proving a negative tends to be tough to do.
If Intelligent Design is merely a smokescreen for Creation, why bother? I don't think that the Institute for Creationist Research(ICR), for example, calls itself a proponent of "Intelligent Design."
AE
2005-10-28 01:31 | User Profile
[QUOTE]1) ID will win because it's a religion-friendly, conservative-friendly, red-state kind of theory, and no one will lose money betting on the success of red-state theories in the next fifty to one hundred years.
In spite of Christians having the most children, America is very much moving in the opposite direction.
2) ID will win because the pro-Darwin crowd is acting like a bunch of losers.
Half-true. Their goal is to prevent real debate to preserve the status quo.
3) ID will win because it can be reconciled with any advance that takes place in biology, whereas Darwinism cannot yield even an inch of ground to ID.
That makes ID scientifically worthless.
2005-10-28 02:11 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Petr]How so? Believe it or not, but supernatural miracles are not "against science" and even less logically impossible.
Petr[/QUOTE]
Your definition of supernatural is?
2005-10-28 08:12 | User Profile
[QUOTE=RowdyRoddyPiper]Isn't it possible to conceive of naturalistic evolution as the manifestation of an intelligence? How do you know that when a new mutation or adaptation comes into being, the universe is not conscious of that fact?
The notion that evolution is an unconscious, random process and therefore not compatible with the notion of divine creation is essentially tied only to a Deist conception of God.
[URL="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06614a.htm"]http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06614a.htm[/URL][/QUOTE]
I agree with that, I thinnk. The fact that DNA could not conceivably have arisen by brute chance proves inductively only the existence of some mind that designed it, but says nothing about the identity of that mind.
ID doesn't compel the conflation of that mind with the First Cause of monotheism.
It could just as easily have been the mind of an eternally-existing universe that our pagan friends embrace.
ID is equally friendly to Chistians and Pagans. It does however make mincemeat of the sort of crude Darwinism that is regnant among my fellow semi-educated knowledge workers.
2005-10-31 19:29 | User Profile
I gave my basic view on this issue at my blog.
[url]http://thirdpositionreview.blogspot.com/2005/08/creationism-vs-evolution.html[/url]
Creationism vs. Evolution
Patrick Buchanan has written an [url="http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=45655"]interesting commentary[/url] dealing with the controversial issue of Creationism( or Intelligent Design) against Darwin's theory of evolution. The sad aspect of this on-going controversy is the constant knee-jerking and idiocy that seems abound on both sides of the argument. Many atheists and other anti-religious minded folks will try to argue for evolution as a way of to debunk religious faith. In particular they like to group all creationists or supporters of Intelligent Design as Christian nut-cases who try to promote theology as science. Casey Luskin refuted this notion [url="http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/1308']in a critique[/url] of such arguments made by Michael Shermer. The truth is the Creationist/Intelligent design camp is full of people from different backgrounds(not just Christian). Of course the same should be said for supporters of evolution, many religious people can be found in that camp as well. So the controversy is not entirely religion vs. science as many people try to portray it, it's far more complex.
Yet there are many problems with Creationists as well. In response to Evolutionist arguments, many in this school of thought will degrade themselves into a full-blown crusade against science as a whole. What's even more annoying about many creationists is their literalism towards the Book of Genesis. This is clearly irrational and even goes against Christian tradition in relation to how the scriptures are to be read. Christianity has always been rooted in an allegorical tradition not a literalist one. It was the literalism of the Pharisees that Jesus and the early Christians clearly rejected.
As a Christian, my sympathies are clearly with the Creationist/Intelligent Design camp, but I should mention only in a general sense. That is, I clearly believe that the universe was created by an intelligent being(God). The specifics of how God created the universe and how life came to exist, well.....I'm more than happy to leave it to biologists to explain the specifics of that. So I'm very much in favor of a Creationism/Intelligent Design governed by a strong sense of reason, and there are plenty of Creationists who would agree with me. In fact the Book of Genesis itself advocates an evolutionary-like development of life, where God starts off creating small simple creatures and ending with more complex creatures.
A very interesting [url="http://www.fatheralexander.org/booklets/english/evolution_kuraev.htm"]commentary[/url] on the relationship between evolution and religion (and one which forms much of my viewpoint on this issue) was written by Fr. Deacon Andrey Kuraev. Although it argues largely from an Orthodox standpoint, the points Kuraev makes can easily apply to all denominations. He notes that there's no "textual nor a doctrinal basis to reject evolutionism" especially when separated from its "atheist interpretation". Kuraev goes into more detail concerning what several Orthodox theologians have states on this issue, to even debunking many inconsistencies of Creationists who take the Book of Genesis literally.
Well these are my two cents on this issue.
2005-10-31 19:30 | User Profile
I gave my basic view on this issue at my blog.
[url]http://thirdpositionreview.blogspot.com/2005/08/creationism-vs-evolution.html[/url]
Creationism vs. Evolution
Patrick Buchanan has written [url="http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=45655"]an interesting commentary[/url] dealing with the controversial issue of Creationism( or Intelligent Design) against Darwin's theory of evolution. The sad aspect of this on-going controversy is the constant knee-jerking and idiocy that seems abound on both sides of the argument. Many atheists and other anti-religious minded folks will try to argue for evolution as a way of to debunk religious faith. In particular they like to group all creationists or supporters of Intelligent Design as Christian nut-cases who try to promote theology as science. Casey Luskin refuted this notion [url="http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/1308"]in a critique[/url] of such arguments made by Michael Shermer. The truth is the Creationist/Intelligent design camp is full of people from different backgrounds(not just Christian). Of course the same should be said for supporters of evolution, many religious people can be found in that camp as well. So the controversy is not entirely religion vs. science as many people try to portray it, it's far more complex.
Yet there are many problems with Creationists as well. In response to Evolutionist arguments, many in this school of thought will degrade themselves into a full-blown crusade against science as a whole. What's even more annoying about many creationists is their literalism towards the Book of Genesis. This is clearly irrational and even goes against Christian tradition in relation to how the scriptures are to be read. Christianity has always been rooted in an allegorical tradition not a literalist one. It was the literalism of the Pharisees that Jesus and the early Christians clearly rejected.
As a Christian, my sympathies are clearly with the Creationist/Intelligent Design camp, but I should mention only in a general sense. That is, I clearly believe that the universe was created by an intelligent being(God). The specifics of how God created the universe and how life came to exist, well.....I'm more than happy to leave it to biologists to explain the specifics of that. So I'm very much in favor of a Creationism/Intelligent Design governed by a strong sense of reason, and there are plenty of Creationists who would agree with me. In fact the Book of Genesis itself advocates an evolutionary-like development of life, where God starts off creating small simple creatures and ending with more complex creatures.
A very interesting [url="http://www.fatheralexander.org/booklets/english/evolution_kuraev.htm"]commentary[/url] on the relationship between evolution and religion (and one which forms much of my viewpoint on this issue) was written by Fr. Deacon Andrey Kuraev. Although it argues largely from an Orthodox standpoint, the points Kuraev makes can easily apply to all denominations. He notes that there's no "textual nor a doctrinal basis to reject evolutionism" especially when separated from its "atheist interpretation". Kuraev goes into more detail concerning what several Orthodox theologians have states on this issue, to even debunking many inconsistencies of Creationists who take the Book of Genesis literally.
Well these are my two cents on this issue.
2005-10-31 23:22 | User Profile
Darwin was a pinko-commie-liberal + Jew!