PZ Myers. 2005 Feb 07. Behe jumps the shark. <http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/behe_jumps_the_shark/>. Accessed 2008 Dec 01.
Posted on M00o93H7pQ09L8X1t49cHY01Z5j4TT91fGfr on Monday, February 07, 2005
Behe jumps the shark
Nick Matzke has also commented on this, but the op-ed is so bad I can't resist piling on. From the very first sentence, Michael Behe's op-ed in today's NY Times is an exercise in unwarranted hubris.
In the wake of the recent lawsuits over the teaching of Darwinian evolution, there has been a rush to debate the merits of the rival theory of intelligent design.
And it's all downhill from there.
Intelligent Design creationism is not a "rival theory." It is an ad hoc pile of mush, and once again we catch a creationist using the term "theory" as if it means "wild-ass guess." I think a theory is an idea that integrates and explains a large body of observation, and is well supported by the evidence, not a random idea about untestable mechanisms which have not been seen. I suspect Behe knows this, too, and what he is doing is a conscious bait-and-switch. See here, where he asserts that there is evidence for ID:
Rather, the contemporary argument for intelligent design is based on physical evidence and a straightforward application of logic. The argument for it consists of four linked claims.
This is where he first pulls the rug over the reader's eyes. He claims the Intelligent Design guess is based on physical evidence, and that he has four lines of argument; you'd expect him to then succinctly list the evidence, as was done in the 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution FAQ on the talkorigins site. He doesn't. Not once in the entire op-ed does he give a single piece of this "physical evidence." Instead, we get four bald assertions, every one false.
The first claim is uncontroversial: we can often recognize the effects of design in nature.
He then tells us that Mt Rushmore is designed, and the Rocky Mountains aren't. How is this an argument for anything? Nobody is denying that human beings design things, and that Mt Rushmore was carved with intelligent planning. Saying that Rushmore was designed does not help us resolve whether the frond of a fern is designed.
Which leads to the second claim of the intelligent design argument: the physical marks of design are visible in aspects of biology. This is uncontroversial, too.
No, this is controversial, in the sense that Behe is claiming it while most biologists are denying it. Again, he does not present any evidence to back up his contention, but instead invokes two words: "Paley" and "machine."
The Reverend Paley, of course, is long dead and his argument equally deceased, thoroughly scuttled. I will give Behe credit that he only wants to turn the clock of science back to about 1850, rather than 1350, as his fellow creationists at the Discovery Institute seem to desire, but resurrecting Paley won't help him.
The rest of his argument consists of citing a number of instances of biologists using the word "machine" to refer to the workings of a cell. This is ludicrous; he's playing a game with words, assuming that everyone will automatically link the word "machine" to "design." But of course, Crick and Alberts and the other scientists who compared the mechanism of the cell to an intricate machine were making no presumption of design.
There is another sneaky bit of dishonesty here; Behe is trying to use the good names of Crick and Alberts to endorse his crackpot theory, when the creationists know full well that Crick did not believe in ID, and that Alberts has been vocal in his opposition.
So far, Behe's argument has been that "it's obvious!", accompanied by a little sleight of hand. It doesn't get any better.
The next claim in the argument for design is that we have no good explanation for the foundation of life that doesn't involve intelligence. Here is where thoughtful people part company. Darwinists assert that their theory can explain the appearance of design in life as the result of random mutation and natural selection acting over immense stretches of time. Some scientists, however, think the Darwinists' confidence is unjustified. They note that although natural selection can explain some aspects of biology, there are no research studies indicating that Darwinian processes can make molecular machines of the complexity we find in the cell.
Oh, so many creationists tropes in such a short paragraph.
Remember, this is supposed to be an outline of the evidence for Intelligent Design creationism. Declaring that evolutionary biology is "no good" is not evidence for his pet guess.
Similarly, declaring that some small minority of scientists, most of whom seem to be employed by creationist organizations like the Discovery Institute or the Creation Research Society or Answers in Genesis, does not make their ideas correct. Some small minority of historians also believe the Holocaust never happened; does that validate their denial? There are also people who call themselves physicists and engineers who promote perpetual motion machines. Credible historians, physicists, and engineers repudiate all of these people, just as credible biologists repudiate the fringe elements that babble about intelligent design.
The last bit of his claim is simply Behe's standard outright lie. For years, he's been going around telling people that he has analyzed the content of the Journal of Molecular Evolution and that they have never published anything on "detailed models for intermediates in the development of complex biomolecular structures", and that the textbooks similarly lack any credible evidence for such processes. Both claims are false. A list of research studies that show exactly what he claims doesn't exist is easily found.
The fourth claim in the design argument is also controversial: in the absence of any convincing non-design explanation, we are justified in thinking that real intelligent design was involved in life. To evaluate this claim, it's important to keep in mind that it is the profound appearance of design in life that everyone is laboring to explain, not the appearance of natural selection or the appearance of self-organization.
How does Behe get away with this?
How does this crap get published in the NY Times?
Look at what he is doing: he is simply declaring that there is no convincing explanation in biology that doesn't require intelligent design, therefore Intelligent Design creationism is true. But thousands of biologists think the large body of evidence in the scientific literature is convincing! Behe doesn't get to just wave his hands and have all the evidence for evolutionary biology magically disappear; he is trusting that his audience, lacking any knowledge of biology, will simply believe him.
After this resoundingly vacant series of non-explanations, Behe tops it all off with a cliche.
The strong appearance of design allows a disarmingly simple argument: if it looks, walks and quacks like a duck, then, absent compelling evidence to the contrary, we have warrant to conclude it's a duck. Design should not be overlooked simply because it's so obvious.
Behe began this op-ed by telling us that he was going to give us the contemporary argument for Intelligent Design creationism, consisting of four linked claims. Here's a shorter Behe for you:
The evidence for Intelligent Design.
- It's obvious.
- It's obvious!
- Evolutionary explanations are no good.
- There aren't any good evolutionary explanations.
That's it.
That's pathetic.
And it's in the New York Times? Journalism has fallen on very hard times.
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The next claim in the argument for design is that we have no good explanation for the foundation of life that doesn’t involve intelligence. Here is where thoughtful people part company. Darwinists assert that their theory can explain the appearance of design in life as the result of random mutation and natural selection acting over immense stretches of time. Some scientists, however, think the Darwinists’ confidence is unjustified. They note that although natural selection can explain some aspects of biology, there are no research studies indicating that Darwinian processes can make molecular machines of the complexity we find in the cell.
Any doubt that Behe had lost all integrity was just laid to rest. I give that paragraph a full 750 Milli-Hovinds. If Behe had only thrown in something about the Big Bang, he would have rivaled the matser himself. -
It seems that at least one UK newspaper has noticed the creeping tide of IDiocy in the USA.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1407422,00.html - Did you send a letter to the editor of the NY Times demolishing Behe? I bet you could get it published.
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Write the Times a letter, PZ! Politely rip the silly bastard a new one!
#: Posted by on 02/07 at 07:52 AM
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Behe says that the theory of intelligent design is not a religiously based idea. Ergo, ID must be a scientific idea. Are there scientists publishing research papers based on ID "theory"? The whole thing is starting to make me sick.
#: Posted by on 02/07 at 07:59 AM
- I sent a Letter last night, but I doubt they'll publish it - it's too angry! BTW, Orac, great avatar!
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I think that a refutation of Behe's outrageous claim that "intelligent design is not a religiously based idea" should be nailed firmly to the Times's door.
#: Posted by on 02/07 at 08:17 AM
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I despair. You American chappies have a bad lot, but you're exporting the idiocy over here now:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/breakfast/4236735.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/breakfast/3342693.stm#creation
I nearly had apoplexy in my porridge (with of course not sugar on it, even though I'm not Scottish I like to remain true!) when Auntie Beeb aired the little snippet you can watch by clicking the appropriate link, this very ante meridian.
I agree, by the way, with those who are calling for you PZ Myers to send a suitable missive to the NY Times. I've sent one to Auntie Beeb, though doubtfully as erudite as a submission from someone in the field like yourself. Get to it man! Put pen to paper and have at them.
Louis
P.S. Sorry, I've been reading Stephen Fry and P G Wodehouse novels again. They're like literary crack as far as I am concerned, highly addictive.#: Posted by on 02/07 at 08:28 AM -
I think the proper approach to this piece is to call
Behe what he is: an ignorant liar. His claim that the presence of design in nature is not controversial is simply a lie and he knows it. Therefore, he is a liar. His claim that, "The next claim in the argument for design is that we have no good explanation for the foundation of life that doesn’t involve intelligence" is an admission of ignorance. He is saying, "I don't know how it could have happened, so god must have done it." But plenty of biologists know how it happened (whatever "it" is); therefore, he is ignorant. This silly "ID is not religion" mantra is also patently a lie. Everyone knows exactly what the IDers are up to. Are we supposed to pretend we don't?#: Posted by on 02/07 at 08:56 AM -
They note that although natural selection can explain some aspects of biology, there are no research studies indicating that Darwinian processes can make molecular machines of the complexity we find in the cell.
I must have imagined that article about ribozymes in Discover then. And really, it's Discover...it's not Nature or even Scientific American.
And what scientists are voicing their support for ID, incidentally? Sociologists? I agree, PZ, you should send in a letter.
It's always struck me as ironic that a theory called Intelligent Design has at its center the assumption that we humans are too stupid to figure things out, so we should stop right now.#: Posted by on 02/07 at 08:58 AM -
Check out "The Forum" in USA today (Feb 7, page 15A). Rabbi Gerald L Zelizer has an editorial about the co-existence of ID and evolution. As my blood began to boil, Zelizer ends with the coexistence should be with ID in history or social studies classes and evolution in science classes. Zelizer doesn't realize the whole argument is that ID is presented as an alternative science, not religon. Behe gets nice words in one paragraph and Kenneth Miller gets two paragraphs.
#: Posted by on 02/07 at 08:58 AM
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Crap? In a newspaper? I'm shocked, shocked...
Cheer yourself up with World O'Crap's hilarious discussion of Ken Ham's response to recent news articles that he doesn't like...#: Posted by Bartholomew on 02/07 at 09:16 AM -
I am shocked - SHOCKED! - to see the comments on the BBC website, from my erstwhile compatriots. I'm amazed and upset that Brits are being indoctrinated by "scientific" madness too. The only thing I can hope for is that the BBC editors pulled a couple of comments from each side, but that there were many thousands against ID/creationism in the science classroom.
Look, we all know that the only reason evolution is challenged is that there's something in the Bible which narrow-minded asses don't realize is a parable/folk tale/tribal explanation for the creation of the world. My wife, who has a masters in theology, says that most non-fundie biblical scholars note that the structure of the Bible's creation story is very song-like in nature, so is likely to be a folk story which people used before they had a deeper/more realistic explanation for how the universe came into being. If there was something in the Bible which spoke about the "theory" of gravity or the "theory" of atomic structure then the fundies would be challenging that too. My personal take is that they're so shaky in their own faith that they can't take questioning or challenges or people who think differently from how it was written down thousands of years ago. -
We call the bible story a creation myth. It's like every other primitive society's just-so stories. What takes the "intelligent" out of "intelligent design" is that these morons can't tell that the story is a myth.
#: Posted by on 02/07 at 09:28 AM
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Based on personal experience letters to the editor should not just demolish claims, but should advance a positive statement.
My pet phrase, available under a very liberal creative commons license, is "Evolution is useful, IDC isn't."
There's good theory behind this. It means that you aren't perceived as being unfair or mean, and at its base, it's so uncontroversial that it wins people over. It also moves the debate to ground that's solid, rather than debating the (nonexistent) scientific merits of creationism. -
ID can't be useful, by its very nature. It says "we can't possibly understand this, let's stop trying" which is completely antithetical to scientific inquiry.
#: Posted by on 02/07 at 09:55 AM
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Prof. Myers,
On opening my (electronic) Times and seeing Behe's op-ed, my first move was to come here, certain that you'd have a good comment. You did not disappoint! I thank you.
My only complaint is about your title. I admit that it is hardly precise terminology, but I always thought that "jumps the shark" is a phrase that refers to something that once was good going bad -- as in, some TV show has jumped the shark. Surely, in that case, Behe's shark came (as it were) pre-jumped? Or, at least, he jumped it with the publication of his book some years ago?
Now, if you titled your post "New York Times Editorial Page Jumps the Shark", that might be an appropriate title...#: Posted by on 02/07 at 09:58 AM -
You American chappies have a bad lot, but you’re exporting the idiocy over here now. And not only over there, Louis! ID ideas are surfacing in the Israeli educational system too. Once, our students were among the best in Math contests. Now we have sunken to the bottom of international rankings. There is a cause - effect relationship: ID causes ignorance, or is it ignorance that causes ID?
#: Posted by on 02/07 at 10:02 AM
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Sorry, but I don`t think that journalism has gotten any worse or has had some previous golden age (probably the contrary).
But sometimes the publications we rely on and/or respect slip in quality.
Just recently our Dagens Nyheter newspaper had an absolute piece of drivel in the culture pages where a poorly educated journalist built her whole piece on an sophmoric assumed conflict between Darwin and an anarchist writer.
Her whole piece was built on the incorrect (I hope)assumption that all of Darwins evolutionary concept is summed up by the phrase "survival of the STRONGEST". The anarchist (as i understood it) was not himself attacking Darwin but was building his philosophy on examples of human self sacrifice and unselfish co-operation,. I make the assumption that Darwin and evolution very very simplified is more a "survival of the fittest" and evolution in principle is not so much about the short term "competition" (as if there is some sort of contest going on) between indiviuals as between species. As such a species which co-operates and sacrifices for the greater good is a much more viable candidate for continuance (accidents and whims of nature aside)and is completely in accordance with the basic theory of evolution. I assume that this is all very elementary and old hat (I hope I´ve grasped something) and Darwin has not ever really been the apologist for some sort of natural Fascism that some people assume.
I wish the science Editor of Dagens Nyheter had checked that column instead of letting a completely gratuitous piece of misinformation and psuedo humanism strengthen popular mythology and misconception. People really believe that evolution is all about big guys killing and eating the little guys and then getting all the chicks (kind of like high school).
But I still don`t think journalism has gotten worse.#: Posted by on 02/07 at 10:07 AM -
I just thought I'd check out the website of the creationist they got onto the BBC news this morning. Not Ken Ham, everyone knows about that "gentleman", but an Englishman (of all horrors!).
The website is here:
http://www.biblicalcreation.org.uk/index.html
I thought it was just one relatively harmless nutter. But there's MORE of them! And they have MEETINGS! I mean, it's ok to have these sorts of lunacy infect the Colonies, but it simply will not do here in Merry Olde England (tm). Kindly come over here and remove them please. Although I can see some interesting opportunities for amusing scupperage. I may nip along and start asking awkward questions.....
I am reminded of the poem by Shelly, which I shall now butcher a famous quote from:
'My name is Creationism, Lie of Lies:
Look on my works, ye thoughtful, and despair!'#: Posted by on 02/07 at 10:40 AM -
On the other hand, in Denmark, two newspapers (Information and Weekendavisen) have started having weekly science sections, so there might still be hope...
jc, do you have a link to that Dagens Nytheder article?#: Posted by on 02/07 at 10:50 AM -
Having already read Behe's piece early this morning, I've already posted a letter to the NYTimes, a copy of which is over at Panda's Thumb. I kept it within shouting distance of the upper limit (150 words) the Times sets for letters. But whether mine makes it in or not, I'm sure the Times expects and will receive a slew of letters, mostly attacking Behe. I did try to be civil, with my strongest language being that Behe was "blatantly dishonest" and that he conflated religion and science. But I agree, given PZ's writing talents, he should post a letter to the Times demolishing Behe's offering scientifically. Go for it PZ.
#: Posted by on 02/07 at 11:31 AM
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Keanus said: But I agree, given PZ’s writing talents, he should post a letter to the Times demolishing Behe’s offering scientifically. Go for it PZ.
Brian Leiter, http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2005/02/creationist_pub_1.html:
"Michael Behe--the only academically employed and credentialed scientist to have ever written in support of Intelligent Design Creationism (though not in peer-refereed journals, needless to say), and whose arguments, though long demolished, are still favorites of the ID conmen--has exploited that familiar bit of journalistic pablum about 'two sides to every issue' ('You say black is black, but in fact there are good arguments that black is white') and snuck on to the Op-Ed page of The New York Times.
[...]
"I know there are some New York Times journalists who read this blog. Please, folks, get your editors to print Pharyngula's comments, or provide a link! Your newspaper has done a huge disservice to your non-scientific readers by serving up this garbage as though it were anything more than 'black is white.'"#: Posted by on 02/07 at 12:27 PM -
Knowing (hoping) that NYT will get a lot of good letters in response, my response was not designed to get published, but to demonstrate the outrage to the Editors - perhaps they'll understand what a big flop they just made if they read this:
<i>As if David Brooks was not enough, you have started giving editorial space to real crackpots now, like Michael Behe (Design for Living, Feb 7, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/07/opinion/07behe.html). Who is next, Unabomber? Are we to expect Bin Ladin's Op-Ed next week? This is supposed to be the Newspaper of Record, not the newsletter of the Flat-Earth Society. Try to catch up with about 150 years of history you missed and join the rest of us in the 21st century.<i> -
Romans 1:14-25
I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.
Because I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Because in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
Because the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. Because what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. Because although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever!#: Posted by Don'tWasteYourLife on 02/07 at 12:51 PM -
That last is much better in Pirate Mode:
Because what can be known about God is plain t’ them, because God has shown it t’ them. Walk the plank!
#: Posted by Chris Clarke on 02/07 at 01:01 PM -
Ph'nglui mglw'nfah Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.
#: Posted by on 02/07 at 01:21 PM
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"Mt Rushmore was carved with intelligent planning...."
IMHO, Mt. Rushmore is an an abomination, a vain effort by the White Man to memorialize political figures and impose them permanently on the landscape. Ugh.#: Posted by on 02/07 at 01:33 PM - I've been to Rushmore. It left me with a sense of acute distaste.
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I sent off a letter to the NY Times, trying to distill this thing down to something within 150 words. 150 words??!? That's insane. I write a weblog to indulge my decadent fondness for prolixity, rococo modifiers, and convoluted phrasing.
Anyway, here's what I sent:
Michael Behe claims to give four arguments for 'intelligent design'. Unfortunately, this is it:
1. It's obvious and uncontroversial!
2. It's obvious again!
3. Evolution is no good.
4. There are no good evolutionary explanations.
Points 1 and 2 are the same thing, and are not evidence. "Obvious" is a subjective impression, and one with which most biologists disagree -- it is not obvious that the frond of a fern, for instance, is designed, or that it is more designed than a snowflake.
His third and fourth points are also the same thing, and again are not evidence. Claiming that evolutionary biology is incomplete or flawed sets up a false dilemma, and does not constitute evidence for his alternative.
I am disappointed that the New York Times has given him a soapbox to trumpet this empty noise, and that the Times is uncritically presenting what is merely fringe pseudoscience.
Everyone else, get in there and deluge the Times with complaints! -
In other evolutionary journalism developments, SF Chronicle science writer David Perlman breaks the exciting news that some scientists are starting to question the notion of a Great Chain of Being.
Oy.#: Posted by Chris Clarke on 02/07 at 01:56 PM - Wow! I would have never made it within 150 words!
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I think we should throw Behe and his ID ilk in jail. They do not deserve freedom. They probably don't deserve to live either, but we'll have to wait a few more years before we can get away with that.
#: Posted by on 02/07 at 02:19 PM
- No, we should not, and please do not even suggest such a thing.
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PZ, I'm glad you sent your letter. It was succinct, which is required (as you noted) for a letter to the editor. What you really need is an op-ed piece in the NYT. That would be nice.
#: Posted by on 02/07 at 02:48 PM
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What is hilarious and illuminating about this op-ed by Behe is that it is published in the Opinion section of the NYT and not the Science section. Friends, at best intelligent design will remain a convoluted assemblage of biased opinions. At least the Times got this much right, and hopefully our school boards can likewise view intelligent design as 'opinion', not 'theory'.
#: Posted by on 02/07 at 02:50 PM
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I am an editor at the Times, and I clashed with PZ once before over a Times article on a creationist theme park. At that time I invited him not to write a letter to the editor, but to submit an op-ed piece. That's what Behe wrote, and PZ could write a refutation of the same length. There's no guarantee that it would be published, but if it's good, it very well might be.
To defend Times journalism very briefly, opinion articles, like letters to the editor, are not edited or challenged for "balance." They are intended to give people a platform to spout their views, one hopes in an intelligent way. Then the paper runs other articles or letters with contrary viewpoints. I doubt you'll ever see the Times run an opinion piece by someone advocating that the earth is flat, or that the six-day creation is literally true, because such ideas are so thoroughly discredited as to be utterly indefensible. Unfortunately, many reasonable people believe that ID is at least somewhat defensible or at least possible. And so opinion pieces like this can get published, but so can their refutations, if PZ or another scientist wants to take a crack at it.#: Posted by on 02/07 at 02:59 PM -
A blast from the past, courtesy of uggabugga:
http://uggabugga.blogspot.com/2005/02/behe-on-scientists-in-todays-new-york.html
The purpose of this post isn't to wrestle with Intelligent Design, but to relate a fact. Way back in late 1999 on a Los Angeles talk radio program (host: Stephanie Edwards) the subject was Intelligent Design and the person being interviewed was Michael Behe. We were driving around and don't have a recording, so this is from memory. During the discussion the subject turned to the opposition of scientists to ID which Behe claimed was due to their rejection of religion. Then Behe went on to assert that,
If scientists had evidence of religion they would suppress it.
Hmm...#: Posted by on 02/07 at 03:09 PM -
Interesting display of behavior patterns belonging to fanatical, fundamentalist True Believers, this time of the religion of philosophical naturalism.
#: Posted by on 02/07 at 03:12 PM
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Davidm, I (a former newspaper reporter) can see your point, but (a big but) there is a danger in allowing people like Behe to spout their nonsensical opinions. What you (the editorial "you") are doing is applying your judgement to the value of an opinion -- a good thing to do -- but since your judgement is limited by your knowledge, you end up allowing a lot of leeway in an apparently complicated subject area. You (would) refuse to allow an op-ed piece supporting a flat Earth but you do allow an op-ed piece from someone who rejects evolution. The problem is that you know (or think you know) that the Earth is not flat, but you do not know that ID is nonsense. Exactly how far do you trust your judgement of scientific matters? And how far should you trust it?
#: Posted by on 02/07 at 03:18 PM
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The fact that 'Intelligent Design' is rhetorically "defensible or at least possible" doesn't make it something we should teach in a biology class as an alternative explanation to the theory of evolution for the diversity of life we see on earth. Behe and his ilk have merely cherry-picked a few godly gaps of knowledge and claim to have adduced a mountain of an explanation. As some here have noted however, even the gaps they've pointed to aren't such (the 'design' of bacterial flagellum for example), and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the hidden religious agenda at work on the part of said IDers.
I realize newspapers do have to report this sort of thing because sadly it is news. (I certainly don't hold the NY Times responsible for creationist activity in Dover, PA and Grantsburg, WI for example.) Part of that is giving a platform to those who give a supporting rationale, in the interest of fairness. But I want to ask this: what is the interest on the part of the NY Times in the actual truth of the matter? At what point do you make the judgment that this latest version of creationism is as absurd as theories about a six-day creation? When popular opinion tells you such? Or when scientists tell you such? I'm frankly very curious to know.#: Posted by on 02/07 at 03:26 PM -
david wrote:
I doubt you'll ever see the Times run an opinion piece by someone
advocating that the earth is flat, or that the six-day creation is literally
true, because such ideas are so thoroughly discredited as to be utterly
indefensible.
IDC is as thoroughly discredited as Flat Earth
Evolution is not an opinion, it is a documnted fact.
IDC is not an opinion, it is a falshood promulgated by femiphobic morons.
Unfortunately, many reasonable people believe that ID is at least somewhat defensible or at least possible.
People who push IDC are not reasonable - they are dogmatic fundamenalists.
This is just one more instance of the dangers that "He Said/She Said" journalism poses to the society. Journalists should have the intellectual beckground to see it, and integirty to print it as it is. But they don't teach that in J-schools, do they. Are graduates of J-school those students who cannot pass rigorous college classes, like science? -
Whew, how many typos! I was rushing to go get my son back from school. I can write better, I think...
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Shameless self-promoting plug here:
This post and its comments are exactly the sort of stuff I'd like to feature at the second edition of the Skeptics' Circle next week, which St. Nate has given me the honor of hosting. I hope PZ will submit it (unless, of course, he comes up with something even better between now and then). - My letter is here, hopefully in some day's paper too. Sent this morning, blogged now.
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Don'twasteyourlife said:
Because what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
That's a warning to creationists, isn't it? Evolution, made from "invisible" attributes such as genes and DNA, and supported by other "invisible" attributes such as radioisotope dating, has been made plain to all. Those who deny it are without excuse. Indeed.#: Posted by on 02/07 at 04:40 PM -
I must say that it semms all of you folks feel passionately about hating ID and those who promote it. I can understand an intellectual distaste for ID, but why such malcontent? Isn't "science" supposed to evaluate opposing theories with an unbiased eye? Does Darwinian evolution really undoubtedly and satisfactorily answer the questions of the origin and complexity of life? Well, it must in most of your narrow minds. I must ask then, is this becuase your naturalistic worldview demands this of you? It seems that you more likely fulfill the characterization espoused by coturnix: "People who push IDC are not reasonable - they are dogmatic fundamenalists."
#: Posted by on 02/07 at 04:43 PM
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I don't hate IDer or creationists. I am like the christians say they are: I condemn the behavior, not them. They lie and they are ignorant. Is their behavior exempt from criticism?
#: Posted by on 02/07 at 04:59 PM
- Morrison, the thing is, scientists do analyze alternate theories with an unbiased eye. And, in the case of ID, they've already done it. Our annoyance comes from the fact that this nonsense has been refuted already, but Behe keeps spouting off his garbage arguments anyway.
- Morrison: The problem is, ID is not a "theory" and it has been refuted many times. But, like the zombies in a bad horror flick, just when you think ID is finally and truly dead (as it deserves), it's resurrected again. I don't "hate" ID advocates. I just get irritated by their bad science, bad theology, and disingenuousness.
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"Evolution is not an opinion, it is a documnted fact."-coturnix
Great! Show us the documentation of how the human eye "evolved"!#: Posted by on 02/07 at 05:34 PM -
Kevin, your question is an example of the kind that frustrates scientists when they are confronted by IDers or creationists. This and many similar questions have been answered dozens of times in dozens of places. You are asking the biologists to do your homework. You are also quite presumptuous when you think that you, a nonbiologist, have stumped the biologists.
#: Posted by on 02/07 at 05:39 PM
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Some of us feel passionately that children should be taught science in science class.
#: Posted by on 02/07 at 05:43 PM
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I agree with Morrison.
#: Posted by on 02/07 at 06:16 PM
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Priece, Bomp.
#: Posted by on 02/07 at 06:20 PM
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The problem with Behe's argument is that the comparison isn't Mt. Rushmore vs. the Rockies, it's Mt. Rushmore vs. The Old Man of the Mountain. Bomp, Morrison, would you support Intelligent Design geology:
“[geologists] assert that their theory can explain the appearance of design in [cliffs] as the result of random [melting] and [slipping] acting over immense stretches of time. Some scientists, however, think the [geologist]s' confidence is unjustified. They note that although [ice sheets] can explain some aspects of biology, there are no research studies indicating that [geological] processes can make [faces] of the complexity we find on [Mt. Cannon].”
With no apologies to Behe's original argument. -
Here was my letter to the NYT:
Michael Behe's article on "intelligent design" (ID) was notable for not
providing a single piece of scientific evidence supporting his theory. This
is understandable; ID proponents are not undertaking actual scientific
research in this area, and have yet to publish a single primary research
article relevant to ID in the scientific literature. Instead, they have
taken their claims directly to school boards and the general public without
the inconvenience of first subjecting their ideas to informed criticism.
The essence of ID theory, shorn of the euphemisms of Behe and
the Discovery Institute, is that life on Earth was designed either by a
supernatural God or space aliens - and the public statements of ID
proponents make it clear which they prefer. Since no evidence currently
supports either idea, lobbying for this theory to be taught in schools makes a mockery of the scientific method and insults the intelligence of us all.#: Posted by on 02/07 at 06:38 PM -
davidm, it was a mistake for Times to provide a soapbox to Behe. By giving equal weight to evolution and ID, it was implying the existence of a controversy between two legitime currents of ideas. But there is no controversy at all. Evolution is science, it explains how things work and is appliable to create useful products, such as effective herbicides, multi-drug AIDS treatment, new antibiotics (because bacteria have evolved resistance to the old ones) and so on. Evolution helds no opinion on the existence of God, but finds that at least in the realm of biology, things can be explained with no need for any god. The same is true regarding weather, meteorology can explain thunderstorms with no need for Zeus. ID is trying to argue that meteorology cannot explain reality, Zeus is there expressing his mood in the heavens. ID argues that biology cannot explain the workings of reality, including ourselves, and you need something else. That is simply not true, we are finding explanations and reasons and mechanisms and mathematical laws that explain the biological realm, and this knowledge is being applied in medicine, in agriculture, in animal husbandry, etc. and it works. The problem is that ID is not inoffensive and legitimite opinion, it implies that science is somehow imperfect, that non-scientific methods are equally or more effective, that rain can be made by praying, that cancer can be cured by ceremonies. This is no entertainment but serious business, and Times should have thought it twice before providing a free soapbox to snake-oil salesmen like Behe.
#: Posted by on 02/07 at 06:52 PM
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Josh, although your witticism of the “ID’s geologist” was clever, I am dissatisfied with evolutionary answer to the complexity that we see in life (and biologist above all, have keen insight into this). My quandary is this: the “scientific” community (represented here by the disconcerted biologists on this thread) is guilty, in my opinion, of what they decry the IDers of, closed-minded dogmatism. Dogmatic belief in evolution (which is by the way what is it is, belief) and the subsequent naturalism that logically follows, still begs the question, “Where did it all begin?” and What is the point?
It is my opinion that evolutionists hold so dearly to their ideology because it is their religion. Any competing theory must be immediately disparaged vehemently (and mocked incessantly) because it is seen as an attack at the base of their worldview. That is why jaimito, for example, sees NYT publishing this article as such an ordeal. Why not see it as a chance to think, to explore other options and let the public do the same? To those dogmatic evolutionists, a piece of advice, question everything. Are you, in actuality, satisfied believing that the ridiculous complexity that is contained in a single cell, a basic building block of our existence, is a product of randomness? I will grant that microevolution is a certain, documented fact; however, the myriad of unanswered questions that evolutionary theory leaves me with, does not convince me (as well as many others) of the “fact” of evolution. Thus, I shall to continue to push for open-minded dialogue and think you should do the same. (but, you won’t and that’s ok)
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Ah, coturnix and jaimito, you're getting my back up now. And I can be even a bigger curmudgeon than PZ.
jaimito, you're saying nothing new to me, and in fact what you are saying is a strawman of Behe's position. Not that Behe's position is defensible, but it is indefensible for other reasons.
More tomorrow, as I find time. -
Davidm: You think you out-curmudgeon me, but you've already lost: smilies? Do you also dot your i's with little hearts?
Morrison: I'm sure you are dissatisfied. But your personal dissatisfaction and ignorance don't mean a thing. Especially not when you sprinkle it with silly and frequently disparaged nonsense like the micro/macro distinction (which no creationist I've ever met understands), and the "product of randomness" strawman.
We have met your dogma open-mindedly, a century and a half ago. Your side was steamrollered by the evidence. We've moved on. You've been stuck in the past. At this point, if you want to continue the discussion, you need to do your homework and get past Paley and Natural Philosophy. Learn about little things that have strengthened evolutionary theory, like, oh, genetics. And population genetics. The synthesis. Biogeography. Paleontology. Molecular freakin' biology. Evo-devo.
You wanna talk about ID? Tell me how it accounts for all of that data. You can't. You don't even know any of it. -
By giving Behe space, the Times is endorsing the respectability of ID. It is no different from publishing a proponent of astrology or crystal power cancer cures, except that those theories can be tested experimentally and therefore resemble science. ID is more of a fraudulent marketing scheme, like Judith Miller’s reporting on WMD, and with some of the same backers.
#: Posted by on 02/07 at 07:40 PM
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You wanna talk about ID? Tell me how it accounts for all of that data. You can’t.
It's worse than that. ID can explain literally anything, given a designer with the ability and the motives. As an explanatory device, it's pretty much a dead end, with every answer being "Designerdiddit".#: Posted by on 02/07 at 07:48 PM -
davidm, coturnix and jaimito are right. That's what the New York Post is for (when it's not being used to intercept avian metabolic leftovers).
#: Posted by on 02/07 at 07:54 PM
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ODIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
#: Posted by on 02/07 at 08:00 PM
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The geologist thing wasn't a witticism. It was Behe's words with the field of study changed. When you take away the loaded language, it's a pile of nonsense, and you rightly dismiss it. By dismissing Behe's reasoning, you dismiss your own position.
IDC is a string of witticisms tacked together. Scientists want evidence, especially disproof. Bring a testable, falsifiable prediction generated by IDC. If it isn't falsified, but the equivalent evolutionary prediction is falsified, you've got the first step of turning IDC from dogma to science. That's the difference. You have the dogma ("I am dissatisfied" "In my opinion" ...), we have the data. Your beliefs, opinions and feelings aren't data, and that's what distinguishes religion from science. Nothing wrong with religion, but there's plenty wrong with confusing science and religion. -
Lets call a spade a spade. The real reason Behe's article caused such a raucous amongst the scientists stems from the fact that they feel somewhat betrayed by the NYT because somehow something made it in that was not typical fare; it was not dripping with liberal propaganda. How about a story on global warming. Cause we all know thats true.
Ah forget it, lets just listen to a week and a half long lecture entitled "A Celebration of Microscopy".#: Posted by on 02/07 at 09:30 PM -
davidm, I work at the City Desk of a quite different New York state newspaper. And what you said was about the dumbest thing I've ever read from a supposed newspaper editor.
"Unfortunately, many reasonable people believe that ID is at least somewhat defensible or at least possible."
David, when I was growing up in East Texas, many "reasonable people" believed that all those with dark skins were stupid, inferior, and dangerous. They also thought all Jews had big noses and would steal you blind in a business deal. Many "reasonable people" thought a snake wouldn't die until sundown, no matter how many pieces you chopped it into.
Yeah, yeah, the first two of these are some trite, overused examples. But it's still ugly to think that the Times might have printed an op-ed piece that unabashedly supported such positions (I'm not talking 1800s here, either; I'm talking 1970), merely because they were accepted by "reasonable people."
If you're talking about issues of actual Science, who the hell do you think the "reasonable people" are?? Not psychic mediums. Not backwoods folklorists. Not the people walking out of the World Hairdressers & Manicurists Convention.
And not Christian religious fundamentalists -- whom you already KNOW have an utterly outrageous sectarian axe to grind over this particular field of science.
You only see them as reasonable people (if you honestly do) because 1) they're loud and visible, and 2) you and the people at the Times are too lazy to look beyond the annoying little storm which these obnoxious and irrational people have created.
"Intelligent design" is no more defensible than the silly idea that snakes live until sundown, no matter what.
Uglier still, you have to have some kind of idea in that collective of dull fucking heads over at the Times what kind of DAMAGE this whole mess will eventually do to scientific research in our nation. Not to mention the government, the economy, education ... and too many other things to even think of.
And yet here you are making this stupid, incautious mistake, ACTIVELY SUPPORTING a known shill for a rotten mess of known lies. Feeling smug and safe so long as you can make your simpering, silly statement "Well, we're perfectly justified in printing it because a lot of REASONABLE PEOPLE believe it."
Christ on golden crutches, you have to have SOME allegiance to what's really true, don't you? What the fuck are you doing working as a JOURNALIST, if you don't?
Come to think of it, I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that the Times has a Science Editor somewhere on staff, or at least on call. And I'll bet if you'd asked him, he'd have told you what an offensive idea it was to put this fantastic drivel into print.
Two years from now, is the Times going to be writing another one of those bloodless, ball-less, too-little-too-late apologies? ("We got Iraq wrong. We got Bush wrong. We're awfully sorry about all the deaths and stuff but, hey, no biggie, right? We're only human.")
Do your readers a favor and get a fucking clue. Or else switch over to one of the tabs and print stories about "Bat Boy Joins Anti-Terror Effort" and "Face of Satan Seen Over Pope's Hospital Room." -
I somehow managed to miss this comment on my first read through.
David wrote:
"Great! Show us the documentation of how the human eye “evolved”! "
The eye seems to always be held up as some sort of particularly difficult problem to explain by the ID folks.
And what's particularly funny about that to me is, if you know anything at all about eyes, they strike you as such completely kluged contraptions that it's amazing they work at all. They are not what I would pick as a poster-child for a "designed" feature.
A brief list of odd design decisions would include the facts that:
1) The visual image from the outside world is flipped by the lens and presented upside down to the retina, leaving the brain to sort it back out.
2) There are blood vessels all throughout the retina which occlude the visual receptor cells, again leaving the brain to factor these out so that we don't see a big veiny mess across our field of vision.
3) Our acuity and color vision degrade sharply towards the periphery of our vision due to the density and distribution of cell types there. You really see quite crappily out of the corner of your eyes.
4) The spot where the optic nerve exits the eye leaves a big fat spot with no photoreceptors right near the center of our field of vision. This is not called 'the blind spot' for nothing. It's yet again up to your brain to fake a "filling in" of this hole in our perception so that you think you see a coherent, continuous world in front of you. It's pretty easy to shine a light on this particular limitation of our eyes - you can go here for a nifty demonstration:
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/blindspot1.html
Now, if some being designed an eye, why the HELL would it have designed it this way? I would be ever so grateful if Kevin, Morrison, or some other ID folk might be so kind as to explain this to me.#: Posted by on 02/07 at 10:52 PM - Behe's case is straightforward. It's delusion and not dishonesty. In the absence of either historical perspective or creativity he had a "great insight". The "great insight" redirected both creativity and historical perspective into novel (bizarre) directions. It's a simple case of Irving Langmuir's "pathological science" ("the science of things that aren't so".)
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jbarker,
Do you not answer your own question in stating the "odd design decisions"? Its not why was it designed that way, but "Wow!", despite the need for a vascular supply, an efferent nerve tract, the ability to have an amazingly efficient brain to automatically fill in a blind spot, and fovea centralis so you can even read these words, the eye still works so perfectly. How about the ten cell layers of the retina so perfectly placed that the image coalesces into a conscious image. The incredible design is in the fact that the thing actually works. The eye is unquestionably complex, but one need not look further than the study of a single cell to be able to appreciate the complexities that necessitates a designer.
Now if I may ask an evolutionist a serious question purely for my own interest, and I'm being serious: According to your theory of the origins of life/everything, going all the way back, where did the first molecule of matter come from be, it gas or whatever. And please don't tell me that I'm making someone else do my homework, just give me a straight serious answer.#: Posted by on 02/07 at 11:17 PM -
Now if I may ask an evolutionist a serious question purely for my own interest, and I’m being serious: According to your theory of the origins of life/everything, going all the way back, where did the first molecule of matter come from be, it gas or whatever.
Why did it need to "come from" anywhere? Why mightn't something just always have been there? Surely everything we perceive of as "a beginning" is in reality a transformation.#: Posted by Jan Theodore Galkowski on 02/07 at 11:29 PM -
And not only over there, Louis! ID ideas are surfacing in the Israeli educational system too. Once, our students were among the best in Math contests. Now we have sunken to the bottom of international rankings. There is a cause - effect relationship: ID causes ignorance, or is it ignorance that causes ID?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't all people who win these math/science contests in Israel first-generation immigrants from the USSR who came when it collapsed?
By the way, about liberal propaganda/how dare the Times publish this: given that the Times has David Brooks and up until recently had William Safire, I can't say I'm surprised. If they let nutcases like these two and Maureen Dowd into their op-ed team, they should easily publish pseudo-scientific crap by Michael Behe. There's no reason to get so worked up about it.#: Posted by on 02/07 at 11:30 PM -
Mr. Galkowski,
The first matter needed to come from somewhere because of the First Law of Thermodynamics. Sure it may have been a transformation, but from what? Energy? Well, where did that come from? You know what I'm getting at. I'm being seriouis, I'm curious what the evolutionary explanation is.
Speaking of laws of thermodynamics, another serious question that puzzles me: How is it that evolution doesn't break the Second Law of Thermodynamics if entropy is always increasing? Is not evolution a more ordered and less chaotic state of matter?#: Posted by on 02/07 at 11:40 PM -
Mammalian eye is all backwards, leading to detached retina in old age - not a "Wow", but "Ouch", but goddies will always find a way to excuse God's actions, as in explaining away the needless deaths of tsunami victims.
If you want good eye design, look at cephalopods (there are plenty of those on this site) - their eyes are right-side forward.
Even Darwin had a pretty good explanation of eye evolution right there in the first edition of "Origin". We filled out the details, myriads of deatils over the past 150 years. You can find the info on the Web easily - it is too long to fit a post on a blog. Take-home message: it was extremely easy and it happened repeatedly in the evolution of life, each time using same or similar types of genes, proteins and biochemical cascades and putting them together during development, tweaking them over millions of generations until they worked reasonably well for whatever the needs of that species for vision were at the time.
The original function of photoreceptors was for entrainment of circadian rhythms anyway, and once you have a photoreceptor, evolution of vision can proceed as slowly or as fast as the environment requires - the eye is functional and will not get lost while selection tinkers with the vision-aspect of it.
And again, for the millionth time, evolutionary theory does NOT concern itself with Origins Of Life - that is a separate scientific subdiscipline and a part of biochemistry, with some very nifty hypothese being kicked around, from Oparin's coacervates, through Protein-first and DNA-first, to RNA-first, the roles of clays etc. Evolution takes it from there - once there is life, a primitive cell of some sort, how does it evolve into the billions of species that lived on this planet at one time or another, including today. It asks two questions: explaining diversity and explaining adaptation. The two go hand-in-hand, as one leads to another. There is nothing mysterioius about it. One only needs to study it and it becomes obvious. Only people who do not know anything about it, or have emotional blocks against learning about it, lack the ability to see how easy and simple the evolutionary process is, and how much more wondrous and beuatiful the evolutionary theory is than any invocation of Gods, Gieppettos or Aliens as Creators. Disbelief in evolution exposes the lack of creativity and imagination of the beholder. Evolution is beautiful, and those who deny it are missing out on all the fun, as well as being curnadgeons. -
As an engineer I have to take exception to jbarker's argument that the eye is such a kluge that it could not have been designed. I've worked with too many quirky pieces of hardware and software to believe that anything could be too bad to be the product of human ingenuity.
Three engineers were arguing as to what kind of engineer God is. The ME extolled the body's musculature and skeleture, the EE the nervous system, as proof that God belonged to their specialty.
The third shook his head. "Who but a civil engineer would think to run a waste water line right through the middle of a recreational facility?#: Posted by on 02/08 at 12:04 AM -
Seriously, who asks the people on a biology blog the equivalent of "Why is there something rather than nothing"? Bomp may be amazed to find out that biology can't answer that. The physicists and cosmologists are working on it. Maybe they'll find an answer. Maybe they won't. Until they do (if ever!), the rest of us can just be honest with ourselves and say: "We don't know."
#: Posted by on 02/08 at 12:13 AM
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bad Jim, that joke reminde me of this hillarious cartoon:
http://nanovirus.blogspot.com/2005/02/god-designs-ass.html -
Someone up there wrote, "IDC is as thoroughly discredited as Flat Earth. Evolution is not an opinion, it is a documented fact." But Behe says he accepts evolution, and says Darwinian selection accounts for many aspects of evolution. Furthermore, Behe claims he is not a creationist. I may not be reading him correctly, but his position seems to be that somewhere back up the line, God (or perhaps space aliens) started the whole thing off. My question is, how does Behe differ from Darwin, who, at the end of The Origin of Species, spoke of "the laws impressed on matter by the Creator" and of life "having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one" prior to the evolution of a multitude of forms via natural selection? Of course, it may be (seriously) that Darwin was not Darwinian enough. But given that Behe says he accepts evolution, and that Darwin spoke of Creation, I'd appreciate some help here.
#: Posted by on 02/08 at 12:28 AM
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The first matter needed to come from somewhere because of the First Law of Thermodynamics. Sure it may have been a transformation, but from what? Energy? Well, where did that come from? You know what I’m getting at. I’m being seriouis, I’m curious what the evolutionary explanation is.
Yes, you are arguing for continuity which we have no disagreement over. But at some point you seem to think it must be discontinuous because there somehow has to be a beginning, where the continuity has to stop. Why? Just because someone asks a question does not mean it has an answer. It's perfectly feasible whatever stuff is or was there was just there forever. Expecting a beginning is imposing an additional constraint or assumption.
Speaking of laws of thermodynamics, another serious question that puzzles me: How is it that evolution doesn’t break the Second Law of Thermodynamics if entropy is always increasing? Is not evolution a more ordered and less chaotic state of matter?
The Second Law of Thermodynamics is one of the most misunderstood laws of science. There's nothing deep about it at all. All it means really is that the set of states in which the covers of your bed are considered "ordered" are very small in number compared to the set of states in which they are considered "disordered". Therefore, if a random transition is made from one state of the bedcover to another, because there are more "disordered" states, it's much more likely to end up in one of those "disordered" states than in one of the "ordered" states, even ignoring proximity.#: Posted by Jan Theodore Galkowski on 02/08 at 12:46 AM -
How about the ten cell layers of the retina so perfectly placed that the image coalesces into a conscious image. The incredible design is in the fact that the thing actually works.
Hey coturnix beat me to it, but why not. Bomp, why does God love the cephalopods more than us? -
Here's my thing on Behe, sent to the Times. They won't publish it, for it's too long, but I wanted to get it on the record.
'Unintelligent physical forces'
Sir--
Michael Behe's "Design for Living" (NY Times Op-Ed, February 7, 2005) asks why shouldn't the principle in which he has invested a book be co-considered with evolution and natural selection, a principle he dubs "intelligent design", and presumably taught in science classes. There are many critical responses. I offer one.
Behe claims "we can often recognize the effects of design in nature". How? Quantify it so I or anyone else can unambiguously test and determine an arbitrary feature of nature was designed. If it cannot be done, then what is he talking about? And why should it be science?
Although "design" is the keystone of Behe's point, he apparently cannot recognize it himself.
Behe claims "unintelligent physical forces like plate tectonics and erosion seem quite sufficient to account for the origin of the Rocky Mountains". What is more regular, structured, and beautiful than crystal lattices or the dynamic chemistry of the solid state, particularly under high pressure? If such mechanism and regularity is not seen as design and it suffices to drive tectonics and the Rocky Mountains, then why should it pertain to biology? What is the difference between a rock and a duck, after all? They are startlingly different in superficial appearance, but appearances are not science. Science seeks unifying principles. Science is the study of how ducks and rocks are similar. Science is chemistry.
Is Behe saying biochemistry is so different than non-biochemistry? If so, why not say specifically what that chemistry or force or element is which so makes the biological need intelligent intervention but the poor Rocky Mountains be derived from "unintelligent physical forces"? Are the electrons of a duck different than those of a rock?
If "intelligent design" were a scientific hypothesis, it would be a decidedly bad one. It is untestable and so not falsifiable. It does not allow a a means of constructing experiments or making specific predictions. Articles involving biochemistry appear in Science nearly every week in which principles of evolution are used to make tests and predictions and explanations. Not a jot would be aided by observing "Oh, this bit here, that's 'intelligent design', but that bit there, that's not".
Indeed, Behe is not arguing for any kind of science at all but a kind of uncommon natural sense. His court is not the hard-nosed Galilean crucible of experiment and rigorous observation but, as he says, "the public", free of scientific fetters, which "overwhelmingly, and sensibly, thinks that life was designed", at least in the polls to which he pays attention.
His book and related ideas may have social value, but it is not value that can be redeemed in our schools.
-- Jan Theodore Galkowski,
Endicott, NY.#: Posted by Jan Theodore Galkowski on 02/08 at 12:56 AM -
The difference was that Darwin left God/The Designer(s) to religion, and didn't try to fit his teories to fit that being(s) into it. Behe can say that he believes in evolution all he wants, but his arguments clearly shows that he doesn't - evolution is not a field where you can pick and choose what you want to believe in (I'll take one micro, but hold back the macro please). It's a collected theory, where there are some reasonable debate about the exact methods invovled in some stages, but where the general pattern is clear.
If a real biologist will explain it more clearly, please feel free - this is just a layman's impression.#: Posted by on 02/08 at 01:13 AM -
Apparently Creationism is speciating again. Trojan Horse needs its own Trojan Horse:
http://brightline.typepad.com/law_evolution_science_and/2005/01/creationism_spe.html -
-This is where he first pulls the rug over the reader’s eyes. He claims the Intelligent Design guess is based on physical evidence, and that he has four lines of argument; you’d expect him to then succinctly list the evidence, as was done in the 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution FAQ on the talkorigins site. He doesn’t. Not once in the entire op-ed does he give a single piece of this “physical evidence.”-
It’s hardly fair to criticize him for not including in such a short op-ed piece the physical evidence that contradicts the claims of neo-darwinism. He has done that elsewhere, where he argues that the existence of irreducibly complex systems satisfies the conditions which Darwin himself set forth as necessary for disproving evolution. The evolutionists keep shouting “that’s been refuted!” But they can’t actually show where or how Behe’s arguments have been refuted, and most of you haven't examined Behe's arguments for yourselves. You just think someone out there has done so, and has refuted them. If someone gently asks, “where is this refutation?”, the reply is, “you can’t understand it, you’re too dumb. Only biologists can understand it, but just trust us, it’s been refuted.” This dogmatic pandering is much more akin to the methods of the Spanish Inquisition than to the scientific method.
-He then tells us that Mt Rushmore is designed, and the Rocky Mountains aren’t. How is this an argument for anything? Nobody is denying that human beings design things, and that Mt Rushmore was carved with intelligent planning. Saying that Rushmore was designed does not help us resolve whether the frond of a fern is designed.-
Nor does Behe say that the fact that Rushmore was designed proves that a fern was designed. It is the total argument that must be considered. In a court of law it is customary to allow the whole case to be presented, and not dismiss it after the first line of argument.
-No, this is controversial, in the sense that Behe is claiming it while most biologists are denying it. Again, he does not present any evidence to back up his contention, but instead invokes two words: “Paley” and “machine.”-
Really, most biologists deny that life gives an appearance of design (which is all Behe is claiming in this second point)? Then why did Richard Dawkins publish “The Blind Watchmaker?” His entire argument was that the appearance of design in nature is only appearance, and not actual design. You have engaged in your own dishonesty. Behe never said that Crick and Alberts believed in intelligent design. He said that they recognized that there is an appearance of design in living organisms. You have not refuted this point at all, and in fact did not even address it.
-Similarly, declaring that some small minority of scientists, most of whom seem to be employed by creationist organizations like the Discovery Institute or the Creation Research Society or Answers in Genesis, does not make their ideas correct. Some small minority of historians also believe the Holocaust never happened; does that validate their denial? There are also people who call themselves physicists and engineers who promote perpetual motion machines. Credible historians, physicists, and engineers repudiate all of these people, just as credible biologists repudiate the fringe elements that babble about intelligent design.-
This is a really neat argument. Rather than arguing based on facts and evidence, let’s argue based on how many scientists believe which theory. You say that a minority of historians believe the holocaust never happened. What on earth does that have to do with anything? You might also mention that at one time the majority of scientists refused to accept the Big Bang theory because of it’s apparent implication that the universe had an origin, and, therefore, a creator. There are many other instances where the majority of scientists have been wrong in the past. Thomas Kuhn, the self-referential incoherence of his relativistic paradigm notwithstanding, has certainly demonstrated as much. Unfortunately, most scientist
