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The Pseudoscience of Intelligent Design
Posted by
Hemos
on Mon May 02, 2005 08:08 AM
from the mixing-things-that-shouldn't-be dept.
from the mixing-things-that-shouldn't-be dept.
Mime Narrator writes "An article over at Kuro5hin discusses the controvery over the Intelligent Design movement. The Dover, Pennsylvania school board recently adopted a policy requiring that high school science teachers teaching evolution tell their students that evolutionary theory, a theory that has been shown to explain the origins of life time and time again, is flawed, and that intelligent design is a valid alternative. The ACLU, along with the AUSCS (Americans United for the Separation of Church and State), and 11 parents, are suing the school board, accusing the board of violating the separation of church and state. "
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Evolution is intelligent design (Score:5, Interesting)
This means that all signs of evolution also will be signs of intelligent design, simply because evolution is a form of intelligence.
So, instead of the intelligence reciding in the metaphysical head of a super
natural being called God, it resides in DNA and their interactions with the
world through life and death.
All this according to the Kolmogorov Complexity definition of intelligence.
Intelligence is the process of rationally building and testing theories about
the world, and then using those theories for useful stuff. DNA is mutated,
recombined, merged through sex, and otherwise changed. These changes are
hypotheses about the world, in the form of new life forms trying to survive
there. Thus life forms which do not reproduce are falsified hypotheses. The
useful stuff is survival.
As for those people preaching intelligent design:
They are all religious, and do not know what theories or evolution are. They
just pretend and believe they know. Remembering this, they are easily exposed,
as long as you yourself really know what theories and evoution are.
Kim0
Next by Hemos: Man Travels by Train! (Score:5, Funny)
What next? "Serious Doubts About Pyramid Schemes"? "Scientist Uses Paper to Wipe Ass"?
Don't call it pseudoscience because it isn't (Score:5, Insightful)
Intelligent design essentially reduces to this:
Fact 1. The universe is extremely intricate and complicated
Fact 2. We design things such as automobiles or aircraft that are intricate and complicated.
Which leads to the conclusion:
Conclusion 1: Everything that is intricate and complicated must have a designer.
Conclusion 2: Conclusion 1 indicates that the universe requires a designer.
Conclusion 3: God is that designer.
(Western) Conclusion 4: This designer is the God as described in the Holy Bible.
The real failure of the argument is in Conclusion 1. It amounts to saying "I have absolutely no idea why the universe is complicated, therefore God did it." When a person studies physics, Conclusion 1 becomes even more untenable. There are many very simple systems that give rise to very complex behaviour. Consider the Newton-raphson method for finding roots of a polynomial. The method goes "pick somewhere close to the root and then start iterating and the iteration will take you to a root". If you're brighter than I was at school, you might have asked: "Okay, but how can I guess where the root is mathematically so I can start the process." The answer is far more http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/newton / [slashdot.org] ">complex than you think.
And besides, if Conclusion 1 is true then surely God is intricate and complicated and thus needed a designer. To which the theist replies: "God doesn't need a designer, It's God". To which I respond: "If God doesn't need a designer, why does the universe? Why not just cut out God and proclaim that the universe is undesigned? And there in is the true failing of intelligent design.
Another argument comes from the fact that the universe seems fine tuned to life. This a bit premature. First of all, we can't even show life is possible in our universe from first principles; that is, taking the complete set of the laws of physics and using it to simulate life at the atomic level on a super-computer. How can we be so sure life couldn't exist in some form with different laws of physics? My second objection is that we should expect life to depend heavily on physics. As an example, the proteins that deal with the replication of DNA are quantum optimised, the speed at which they move down the DNA is the minimum allowed by quantum mechanics. There is also evidence that the machinary uses quantum mechanical tunnelling to halve the error rate during copying. I'd argue that the fact that life depends so heavily the laws of physics being exactly right is a product of selection - there is a distinct advantage in exploiting the physics of the universe. In the begining of life, the instruments of life were probably a lot cruder.
As an atheist, I am alarmed when people try to mark religious belief as science. I don't mind you having religious belief, but if the US wants to remain a technological super-power you've got to make sure your children are taught cold, hard science. By letting the cherrished beliefs of a few cloud the judgement of the youth on an entire nation, everbody loses out. As a scientist, I enjoy having the key theories questioned but it becomes annoying when such a throughly discredited theory as Intelligent Design is peddled again and again without the proponents bringing any new ideas to the table.
Simon
Re:Don't call it pseudoscience because it isn't (Score:5, Interesting)
"I have absolutely no idea why the universe is complicated, therefore God did it."
Exactly. It's an argument through ignorance. It's just like many other things in the past which weren't explained by science, and have since been been explained by science. Well, not really, becasue we already do understand how complexity can arise from evolution, so it's even worse than that.
As an atheist, I am alarmed when people try to mark religious belief as science.
As a Christian, I am too.
-Rob
Parent
Re:Don't call it pseudoscience because it isn't (Score:5, Insightful)
That said, evolution is a science. You can test it. You can attemp to prove it wrong. Because of this it belongs in a SCIENCE class room.
Intelegent Design and Creationism aren't sciences. You can't test them or prove them wrong because you're dealing with a "creator" that is omnipitant. As such, no test can be concocted that could ever prove the "theory" false.
Thus Intelegent Design and Creationism are NOT sciences are thus do NOT belong in a science class room.
If parents want to teach their kids about these ideas then they can do so outside of the public schools. I'll teach my children that the creation of the Universe is poorly understood if anything and that, ultimately, every event has a cause. At some point we come back to the fist event and God is the only logical cause of that event.
But I realize that what I'm saying then is a question of faith, not science, and that no science can ever justify my faith. As such, I would not want that belife tought in the schools because not everyone belives what I do. I no more want them forcing their belifes on me and my family then they want mine on them and theirs.
Fair enough?
Parent
Re:Don't call it pseudoscience because it isn't (Score:5, Insightful)
As a Christian, do you agree that ID should be taught in schools, or that (at the risk of making it a loaded question) church and schools should be separate?
ID should not be taught in science clases, any more than should any other religion's creations story.
However, the whole creationism/intelligent design movement in the USA is certainly a valid and fascinating and even important topic for a sociology class. I don't know whether it belongs in high school or not (now that we've got all those annoying standardized tests that limit the freedom of teachers to discuss other interesting and important topics).
Indeed, the Bible ought to be taught in schools-- as literature and (with caution) history. So much of the literature of western civilization makes allusions to the Bible that if you aren't at least passingly familiar with it as an extremely influential work of literature, it's hard to say that you've got a good liberal-arts education.
What should not be taught in schools is religion as religion. The sort of stuff you get in Sunday School does not belong in our public schools. That's where church and schools should be kept separate.
-Rob
Parent
Proof (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Proof (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
That's just silly (Score:5, Insightful)
I teach physics. Every theory in physics is most likely flawed. In fact, every theory in natural science is flawed. Should I have to point it out again and again?
Re:That's just silly (Score:5, Insightful)
If for no other reason than to make sure that your students have an understanding that not everything that is spoonfed to them should be 100% believed.
God or no God... science or creationism... the biggest gift you can give a person is that of a flexible and inquisitive mind.
Who knows... maybe someday one of your students will fix one of those flaws.
Parent
Not Enough Philosophy in Science (Score:5, Insightful)
We need to be teaching kids about the scientific method, the scientific process. Popper etc. The importance of skepticism and falsifiability.
If they still have the impression that the fact that Evolution is a theory represent a weakness, not a decisive strength, then how can we win?
European school (Score:5, Interesting)
In biology we spent a lot of time learning about evolution. When those classes where over, the teacher said he was obligated (well, don't know by who actually. School or govn.) to mention intelligent design. It took him no more than two minutes, and the entire class had a good laugh.
At the time I was surprised that he had to mention it, though.
Re:European school (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Compromise doesn't always work (Score:5, Insightful)
The idea that there can be some sort of fair time given in science classes to religious theories is flawed.
If a religion posits that "number theory is only a theory", and comes up with some religious alternative, then should math classes give them equal time?
What determines the validity of an alternative viewpoint? Popularity?
Though it may seem otherwise, anti-intellectualism and the desire to subvert bodies of knowledge to preconceived notions is really no more prevalent than it ever was. That is the problem. Aren't we supposed to be advancing?
I wish there were Secular Humanist [secularhumanism.org] organizations exerting more influence on our school boards.
The K5 article (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems that the author knew about one specific area of research and set out to write an article that was beyond their capbilities.
Too bad, as I.D. is a deeply flawed effort, but every attack against it that I've seen outside of the highly technical have been arm-waving affairs that can be easily shot down.
Real problems with I.D.:
- It applies Occam's Razor in reverse. That is, it starts with a conclusion, and for every complex question resolves that the simplest explanation is not to deviate from the conclusion.
- Evolution is not linear. One thing that many people looking at existing species forget is that many of their traits are the result of FAILURES as much as success. An example of this would be marine mammals, which have many structures that are so different from other sea creatures that you could conclude that they could not have evolved naturally. And yet, when you factor in land-mammals the features of sea mammals are easily explained: they are the vesiges of a (as far as marine mammal evolution is concerned) failed attempt to adapt to land.
- Evolution and design are seen as radically seperate topics because of the nature of the initial assumptions, and yet the idea that evolution could progress from some initially designed state is equally (im)plausible.
- Evolution and natural selection are often conflated incorrectly
These are just thoughts off the top of my head, and I'm sure that there are many other excellent examples.You can't spell "idiot" without ID. (Score:5, Insightful)
In summary, if a highly improbable pattern of events or object exhibits purpose, structure or function and can not be reasonably and rationally explained by the operation of the laws of physics and chemistry or some other regularity or law, then it is reasonable to infer that the pattern was designed. - the product of a mind. Based on the above it is reasonable to conclude that design is the best explanation for the complexity of the postulated ancestral cell.
(see for yourself) [intelligen...etwork.org]
As William Saletan over at Slate.com has observed, [msn.com] this argument is absolutely idiotic - "It offers no predictions, scope modifiers, or experimental methods of its own. It's a default answer, a shrug, consisting entirely of problems in Darwinism. Those problems should be taught in school, but there's no reason to call them intelligent design. Intelligent design, as defined by its advocates, means nothing. "
Also, ID fails to account that human knowledge is constantly expanding. It may be true that we cannot presently describe some things by "the operation of the laws of physics or chemistry or some other regularity or law," but that does not mean that someday we will not be able to do so... but until then (and perhaps for some time thereafter) people will insist on calling it "intelligent design."
Of course, appealing to the public's ability to engage in rational thought is another issue altogether.
More fundamental - what is Science? (Score:5, Insightful)
Quite simply, and I know I'll get flamed for some simple mistake in this explanation, science is:
Studying the universe around us, trying to learn about it and how it works. One aspect of this i a theory. If you have an idea about what something is and how it works, that's a hypothesis. You take your hypothesis, and figure out further implications of it, and propose tests and experiments that can test it. You hypothesis needs to make predictions that were previously unknown, and can be verified by tests and experimentation. If a hypothesis survives some amount of this process, it "graduates" to be a theory.
But the most important ingredient is an open mind. A hypothesis or theory may be rejected or modified based on experiments and/or facts, and a scientist should always be prepared to do that.
The early Muslim empire was one of the most enlightened the world has ever seen. Muslims, Jews, and Christians lived together prosperously and happily in the Holy Lands. Science was advanced as, "understanding God's works," and for Pete's sake, we still use Arabic numbers. Eventually religious conservatism took over. The US seems bent on following that path, today.
Re:Another giant step backward... (Score:5, Insightful)
A belief that God would punish those who use their intelligence is contradicted by the Bible. Those with brains, talent, looks, creativity, etc. etc. who do not use their gifts are considered sinful.
What would really be funny is if a fundamentalist who believed such about the fossils being a 'test' also complained about people 'picking and choosing' about which parts of the faith they believed in.
Parent
Re:Another giant step backward... (Score:5, Funny)
Only 2?!
Oh, I forgot. It's Monday. You must be pressed for time.
Parent
Re:Another giant step backward... (Score:5, Insightful)
Two, regarding the wider scope of Intellegent Design, why does that necessarily have to conflict with the established theory of evolution? This is like saying that a particular statue could not have possibly been carved by ancient man, because it is clear that it was in fact carved with a stone tool. Can't the ID folks consider the possibility that evolution is the tool God used to create us? Evolution does not disprove the existence of God.
Indeed, well stated. I like the using a 'book' analogy: If you understood everything there was to know about printing, binding and reproducing books, that knowledge and understanding still wouldn't tell you anything about how to write a good one.
Parent
Re:Another giant step backward... (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Another giant step backward... (Score:5, Interesting)
If you look at the original Hebrew, the word translated "day" in Genesis has the same meaning as if I said "In my fathers day, automobile fuel was 35 cents a gallon". It refers to a time period. The references to "morning" and "evening" are the same. If this was not the case, there would be no way to count the days until the 3rd "day", since thats when the sun and moon became visable on the surface of the earth.
The earth is several billion years old. The universe is much older. Those who think that the bible claims the earth was created in 6 literal days simply have not done enough research on the matter.
Parent
Re:intelegant design != God (Score:5, Insightful)
Good point. If we assume that the designer is not a God, how do we explain the evolution of the designers?
The problem with ID as far as I can see is that it seems to violate Occams Razor. Now, theres no hard and fast rule, that the simplest theory is the correct one. But by including a designer I think ID is adding a whole lot of complexity based on assumnptions which don't seem to be very valid.
The alternate approach is to admit that we don't know everything about how evolution works. Fine with me - it just means we have to do some more work to find out what its all about.
Not pass the buck of onto some God figure
(Thats always something that has bugged me a little about religion [I'm atheist]. People prefer to be able to blame/pass the buck of onto something/somebody else rather than just say 'I don't know'. But then again, thats their choice)
Parent
Re:intelegant design != God (Score:5, Insightful)
I would say we don't know much about evolution or ID. But, to presume one over the other and attack the other side is both wrong for anyone.
You don't know much about evolution.
Humanity as a whole, however, does.
You speak from ignorance. Your points are all well-taken, except that you assume that nobody else knows more about evolution than you. They do. Which means that your whole post is "wrong" by your own definition.
-Rob
Parent
Re:intelegant design != God (Score:5, Informative)
We all know the problem with antibiotics: If you use them, and you are not reaching every single lifeform you want to wipe out with a deadly dose, some of the lifeforms might survive long enough to have offspring, which in turn might survive the antibiotics too. They even might be able to survive a low dose of antibiotics without any harm, so if you use the antibiotic again, they survive all competing lifeforms, which die due to the antibiotic, making the field free for a growing population of the slightly antibiotic resistant lifeforms.
In the end your antibiotic is not able anymore to harm the resistant lifeform, and all that happens if you use it: You increase the growing of the species, because the antibiotic helps battling all those other lifeforms once competing.
This is evolution at work, and there are enough antibiotics which are not effective anymore, because there are lifeforms resistant to them.
It does not only work for bacterias and other single cell organisms: Exactly those evolutative mechanisms were at work when coca plants grew resistant to RoundUp [wired.com]: The spraying of RoundUp on Columbian coca plantages had a strange effect: Because spraying from an airplane is quite incorrect, and you can't make sure that all plants you want to hit are hit with a full dose, and the one's you don't want to hit aren't, the coca growing pawns in Columbia faced a strange problem after a spraying attack: Most of their crops, coca and other crops, died. Most tomatos, most corn, most vegetables and fruit, and most coca plants.
But some survived, having only got a low dose and were able to survive.
Coca plants are mostly multiplied by the pawns by cutting small twigs and planting them into the earth rather than sowing the coca seeds. After a spraying attack almost the complete plantage of a pawn is destroyed, and only the coca plants which have survived can be used to plant anew, just cut some twigs and regrow your crops. Most cultural plants need to be grown again from seeds, and you have to wait until the RoundUp is washed out of the earth. In the end the whole coca plantages once attacked were replanted with twigs from coca plants that survived a RoundUp attack. And they were growing faster than before because the weed normally growing with the coca plants was suppressed by the RoundUp remains in the soil.
Within four years a coca plant was covering large areas which was completely immune against RoundUp. No genetic engineering (a.k.a. intelligent design) was necessary to outwith the DEA and Monsanto: Just having evolution go its way and taking the survivors of RoundUp attacks and replant the field with them.
You might love or hate Darwinism. But evolution is all around you every day.
Parent
Re:intelegant design != God (Score:5, Insightful)
There's no description of the process, as there is with evolution. There's no observable current phenomena which can illustrate that process, as there is with evolution. There's no specific evidence that such a thing even happens, as there is with evolution.
At best, you could call Intelligent Design a "conjecture" or perhaps a "hunch."
Also, regarding evolutionary notions of the Descent of Man: It's not really enough to say "there are many flaws"... certainly not in this crowd. Kindly point a few of them out.
Personally, I don't think either theory runs afoul of Hebrew/Christian concepts of God. After all, the scriptures don't say: "And The Lord made light." The say: "And The Lord said, 'let there be light.'" It almost makes it sound like the creation of the universe was pretty much the tacit act of allowing it to come into existance.
Parent
Re:intelegant design != God (Score:5, Insightful)
That's just because they're not being honest. They all actually believe God did it. There's simply no other reason to adopt such a hackneyed theory to the extent that you feel you have to prevent eveloution from being taught in schools.
Don't attack it based on how religious organizations use the theory but on it's merits
It has no merits as a scientific theory, and the religious thing is the only thing it's ever used for, and its sole reason for existence.
I'm not saying [evolution] isn't true but as it is stated and follwed, there are many flaws.
No there aren't. It doesn't claim to be the comlpete and final answer, it claims to be the furthest and most likely we can see so far from available evidence. ID does not even come close to fulfilling that criteria.
Parent
Re:intelegant design != God (Score:5, Insightful)
In areas of research that do deal with Intelligent Design (forensics and archaeology), determining design can actually be quite tricky. I could walk through a field strewn with Mousterian tools, and not know it. But these sciences ask questions about the designer, who were they, what was their intent, where did they manufacture the object or event, and most importantly how did they do it.
ID, in fact, intentionally tries to shove these questions under the table. It is nothing but Creationism in disguise, an attempt to get God in the classroom. It's a dishonest legal fiction, and most importantly, it isn't science.
Don't believe me, go ask all the great ID advocates why they have no theory or no lesson plan, and why ultimately they want to push for teaching the weakness. When the Dover school board announced they were going to teach ID, mark how the professional IDers in the Discovery Institute backpedalled like nuts. They know they've got a pile of nothing, but they sure don't want a court to stomp them down.
Parent
Re:intelegant design != God (Score:5, Insightful)
Thank you. It never fails to amaze me how many Christians believe that the Bible must be taken literally while Christ taught many of his lessons by telling symbolic stories.
Parent
Seems that the Christian Right got mod points (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Another giant step backward... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want it to be accecpted as a scientific theory it needs to have a falsifiable test that we can run.
The problem is, when we point to evidence that creationists or IDers disagree with, they say "God put it there to test our faith" or "It's the work of the Devil."
Those are supernatural phenomina. You can't disprove them because they aren't falsifiable.
Parent
Re:Another giant step backward... (Score:5, Insightful)
Except that ID is not a dissenting viewpoint to anyone with any scientific background. No one in the scientific community actually believes that ID could be "the right answer." (And actually, quite a few Christians believe in a literal interpretation of the bible, they're called Southern Baptists [wikipedia.org]).
There was a phenomenal Penn & Teller's Bullshit! on exactly this topic. I'll skip the details and go with the highlight reel.
First off, the term 'evolutionary theory.' Evolution is a theory, and not a fact. Much in the same way that 'gravity' is a theory and not a fact. It's true! People have come up with corollaries and conjectures and lemmas that all expect gravity to be fact, but it hasn't been proven. It's been demonstrated, tested, peeked, poked, prodded and is generally accepted as fact. But it is still a theory. So when people talk about the 'theory of evolution,' as though it should somehow be less valid... In science, the term 'theory' doesn't mean wild guess. It actually means this is the best guess I have that fits with all the pieces that are available.
Which brings me to my next point. In science, once a theory is widely accepted, it is rarely thrown out as completely wrong. One piece being incorrect generally doesn't invalidate the entire theory. The theory will be adjusted to accommodate the new information, and will be stronger for the change. This is in stark contrast to a literal interpretation of the bible. What Christian fundamentalists find so threatening about evolution is that a literal interpretation of the bible forbids it. To them, if evolution were valid, the book of Genesis couldn't possibly be correct. But because the bible is infallible (the word of God), that would threaten their belief in the entire book. They fear that their faith would fall like a house of cards.
ID is nothing more than a sham to try to work around that pesky "separation of search and state" thing that our forefathers were bright enough to put into that pesky "Constitution." It's creationism with a new name to try to stay under the radar. And frankly, it isn't going to work.
Parent
Re:Another giant step backward... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, I hope you take a moment and inform them! Thomas Aquinas debated vigioursly the idea of inspiration, and how it applies to the bible. How does God work with inspiration?
There can be a few ways, according to Aquinas - really the preeminent Christian thinker - he can dictate it or phsyically write it (aka, stone tablets). In Islam, the Prophet recieved dictation from God. Therefore, for them, their holy book and the parts shared with the Bible, are exacting literal. It is the literal word of God. Another theory of inspiration is that God speaks to a person, and the person runs from that point. It's a figuritive kick in the pants. The same way a beautiful painting might inspire a poet to write a lovely poem. Another theory - one that most Christians would agree with - is that God breathes motivation and direction to the instrument to communicate what he wants communicated at that time.
From what I'm seeing, we're living in a society that is growing more conservative and backwards in its thinking about God and science, not the other way around.
I disagre with you based on my own experiences, but I think we'll have to just disagree on this!
One last point - the Sunday school I went to as a child focused on the creation story as being VERY important. And it drew no distinction whatsoever between the old and new testaments in regards to validity or accuracy.
I think is a big problem with many, many Christians! Your education as a Christian shouldn't start and end as a child! The creation story is great for children! It is instructive about the nature of God, and can be easily understood by small minds. If you stop your education at that level, don't be surprised if you have a child-like understanding of God and Christian faith!
I think really what we disagree about is who is a Christian. A Christian in demographic terms is a person who says he believes in Jesus as more than historical figure. For me, that's not a Christian.
Believing in Jesus is not enough! People who stop their learning about the faith at sunday-school level are missing what the true essense of being a Christian is about.
Parent
Re:Another giant step backward... (Score:5, Insightful)
Where do you live, anyway?
Let's break it down, shall we?
Catholics: Do not believe that the entire Bible is the literal word of God. Believe in Evolution.
Lutherans (all major Synods in America): Do not believe that the entire Bible is the literal word of God. Believe in Evolution.
Episocpals: Do not believe that the entire Bible is the literal word of God. Believe in Evolution.
Methodists: Do believe that the entire Bible is the literal word of God, but most do not believe that Evolution contraticts it.
Baptists: Mostly believe that the Bible is the literal word of God. Most (not all) Baptist denominations consider Evolution to be contrary to their beliefs.
I think I hit most of the major ones.
The thing about Fundamentalism is, it's fairly unique to the United States, and even then, it's fairly unique to the Deep South, and even then, it's fairly unique to only a handful of denominations.
Another thing about Fundamentalism is, it's a relatively new trend, and is actually a sort of neo-Catholicism. I'll explain what I mean (if you will pardon a long-winded tangent)...
Catholics believe that the Bishop of Rome (the Pope) is the ultimate spiritual authority on all things related to God in the world. Each pope is selected by a council of bishops, and Catholic dogma teaches that God's Holy Spirit works through these men to lead them to select the right leader for the Church. This (and the fact that anybody even considered is somebody who has dedicated a lifetime to studying Christian theology) is where the Pope's authority derives from.
Fundamentalists believe that the ultimate spritual authority on all things related to God in the world is the Bible. The Bible is not a single book, but a collection of many books. Which books were included in the Bible was determined by the Council of Nicea... a group of Church fathers, not at all unlike the groups that choose Popes these days, who came together to determine which Gospels, which letters, and which prophesy text(s) should be included, and which should be omitted. Fundamentalism rests on the idea that these men were guided by God's Holy Spirit to make the right choices. That (and the fact that they were about seventeen hundred years closer to the events in question) is where the Bible derives it's authority from.
Sound at all familiar?
Personally, I don't entirely embrace either idea, but if one is to take Christianity seriously at all, one should be loathe to completely dismiss the ideology of either sect... yet oddly enough Catholics and Fundamentalists often scoff at one another openly, and sometimes each question whether the other is actually part of the Christian Church.
This tiresome division is one of the reasons why "non-denominational" Evangelical churches are popping up like wildflowers all over America. People have better things to do with their lives than fret over whether the folk in the church across the street are "real" Christians or not.
Parent
Re:Of course there will be lots of comments! (Score:5, Insightful)
Further, going one step lower, your argument could be used as a question to show that Legos don't have to be intelligently designed. They could just exist by themselves.
Except of course, that Legos and the designers of Legos are part of the universe, whereas creationists contend that the creator created the Universe and is NOT part of it.
Parent
Re:Of course there will be lots of comments! (Score:5, Insightful)
What you're talking about is philosopy and reasoning. If someone believes in Intelligent Design, this may not be through reasoning it out, it may be from faith.
Your question also puts humans a little higher up than some others do - some consider the gulf in intelligence between them and their God to be so vast as to make comparisons like that meaningless.
Parent
Re:Summary = [-1, Flamebait] (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, it's apples and oranges. Intelligent design is not science. It's religion. It doesn't belong in a science class. It might be a nice idea, but it's not a real theory in the sense of the word as used by science.
Intelligent design is not a viable alternative to evolution. It is a viable alternative to young-earth creationism, perhaps. But it's not something for which there is scientific evidence.
Having a good academic discussion which debates the merits of Intelligent Design as a scientific theory would be on the same level as a good academic discussion that debates the merits of the Apollo's chariot model as a scientific theory for the observed motion of the Sun across the sky.
-Rob
Parent
Re:Summary = [-1, Flamebait] (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it isn't. One of the key factors (or, according to some people, the only key factor) which distinguishes a scientific theory from a superstition is the notion of testability and falsifiability. How can you test the doctrine of intelligent design? Don't say that it's not important -- if you can't test it, then it doesn't belong in science.
Parent
Re:Summary = [-1, Flamebait] (Score:5, Insightful)
So then what you're saying is that string theory, multiple universe theory, the theory of evolution and a good deal many others are superstitions because they can't be tested?
That's just stupid. A lot of the work on stuff such as string theories which you mention is precisely to design tests so as to verify or infirm it. That's why we spend billions building particle accelerators and launching research satellites, etc.
I.D., on the other hand, cannot ever have any tests. You can't test its predictions, since it doesn't predict anything. Or when it does, it's already proven wrong by mountains of evidence.
Parent
Re:Summary = [-1, Flamebait] (Score:5, Insightful)
So then what you're saying is that string theory, multiple universe theory, the theory of evolution and a good deal many others are superstitions because they can't be tested?
Your listing evolution in with those other two is unfair. It can and has been tested, repeatedly. Not by lab experiments, but by predictions of what we might find in the fossil record. Astronomy works the same way -- we don't do lab experiments, we go out and look in the Universe. (And thanks to the finite speed of light, we're always looking at the past.) Yet there are predictions of future observations that have been borne out.
So evolution isn't a superstition by any means, because it can and has been tested.
As for the other two: lots of scientists would agree that it's philosophy rather than science. String theory is hot at the moment, and lots of Physicists don't think it's good science. Those who think that but understand something about it think that it's good mathematics, so it's still worthy. But is it science? Myself, I'm more on the fence. I can see that one day, string theory could well produce predictions that we could test, but they won't get there if they don't do the development they're doing now. So I want to see them continuing. String theory does show promise of explaining things that our current understanding of Physics at the extremes can't explain, so it's worth pursuing.
As for the many-worlds interpretation--- that's a different matter altogether. That's a philosophical interpretation of how things in quantum mechanics work that you don't really need in order to employ the full predictive power of quantum mechanics. Maybe, perhaps, one day there will be predictions of the many-worlds interpretation that are different from other interpretations, at which point we could test it. But right now, it's really more a matter of how you like to think about Quantum Mechanics rather than a theory unto itself.
So all three things you list are not comparable things, and they are all in very different states of being well-designed and well-understood scietific theories vs. being mathematics or philosophy.
-Rob
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Re:Summary = [-1, Flamebait] (Score:5, Insightful)
Evolution is a fact. The theory of evolution by natural selection is a theory, supported by cell biology, DNA analysis, geology, and probably all other hard science. It also makes localised predictions on the variation of alleles within a genome, as well as the traits of offspring generations of species (ones within a lab environment at any rate).
Intelligent design produces no models, makes no predictions, and explains no currently understood phenomena. It is neither theory, nor fact.
-Tez
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Re:Summary = [-1, Flamebait] (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Summary = [-1, Flamebait] (Score:5, Insightful)
Wrong. People love to think that evolution is the complete explanation of life as we know it, and want to teach that as "science" and as fact. However, we still have so little true understanding about the origins of life. Assumptions are made about the first instant of life, but it cannot be recreated in a lab.
You're mixing your apples and your oranges up.
Evolution doesn't explain how life started. It doesn't even address that. It explains how more life changes over time. It explains how more complex life may arise from simler life. It explains how one species may fade away in favor of another. But it says nothing about how it all started.
It's also not a "fact", in the scientific sense of the word. It's a theory. Just like the theory of gravity. Facts are the basic observations, from which we build connections and understanding in order to put together a viable theory.
Evolution represents our best understanding of the development of life. Modern biology does not make sense except in the context of evolution. It's a big topic that schoolkids aren't going to be able to fully understand in high school science classes, no more than they will fully understand Newton's theory of gravity (never mind General Realtivity). But that doesn't mean it shouldn't be taught, and that it shouldn't be taught as "the" answer.
If we really want our kids to have a clue about science, we need to teach the process of science, and our best understanding today of how the natural world works. Insisting that creationism (whether you call it that or ID) be taught alongside evolution as a viable alternative is tantamount to insiting that you teach the Aristotlean "everything has its natural place" as a viable alternative to gravity to explain why things fall down.
Is it closed-minded to teach kids in science that Aristotle was wrong? Is it closed-minded in science to teach kids that the world is round rather than flat? Is it closed-minded in science to teach kids that the Earth orbits around the Sun, and that the Ptolemeic model is wrong? No! Because all of those things represent our best understanding today of how the world works, and to teach the kids otherwise would be to trick them with false understanding. As far as science is concerned, Creationism is on the same level as all of those things. Evolution is what we should be teaching in science classes, because it represents our best understanding of how the world works.
-Rob
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Re:Summary = [-1, Flamebait] (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:"Nothing for you to see here. Please move along (Score:5, Insightful)
it is a theory people. Theory. It still has holes, giant unexplainable holes.
This also describes gravity.
General Relativity is a theory, in the same sense of the word as evolution is a theory. So is Newton's theory of gravity.
We know Newton's theory of gravity is "wrong" because in places where it makes divergent predictions from GR, observations show GR to be right. Of course, Newton's theory is a limit of GR, and the fact that it is "wrong" doesn't stop us from predicting the motions of planets or of spacecraft.
We know that GR is "wrong" because it makes nonsensical predictions in areas where it must be mixed with Quantum Mechanics (another well-tested and well-verified scientific theory). But, once again, it works extremely well where it works.
So you could say that our theory of gravity is full of holes, giant unexplanable holes, and you would be right. But that doesn't mean that I can't succesfully predict that if I drop my keys, they are going to go down. It doesn't mean that I can't explain the formation of stars through the gravitational collapse of molecular clouds.
We don't know everything, but we know something!
In fact, although we can make far more precise predictions with our theory of gravity than we can with our theory of evolution, in some sense evolution is on less shaky ground than our current theory of evolution. After all, we don't have very strong evidence that the theory of evolution is wrong somewhere, but we do for gravity!
You ID and Creationism. advocates need to get over this term "just a theory" that you use. It just shows ignorance. You need to realize that the popular use of the word "theory" (to mean "speculation") is extremely different from the scientific use of the word "theory" (to describe an explanation of natural processes which may be extremely well tested and well understood).
-Rob
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Wrong.... (Score:5, Insightful)
The point of separation of church and state is to ensure that no one religion, including the atheistic ones take over.
The school board is teaching a science class and is teaching the fact of evolution. Evolution has a tonne of evidence supporting it - evidence that continues to grow, not shrink. "Intelligent Design", on the other hand, has NO evidence supporting it and is simply the latest incarnation of Creationism - a belief based not on facts but on the creation myth of a particular religion, Christianity. As many posters have pointed out, ID takes a conclusion ("God created the Universe" or "We appear to be designed so there must be a designer" etc) and try to find evidence to support it (I can't give an example of this becasue apart from the sophistry of "Irreducable Complexity" ther is none). This is not the scientific method and thus not science.
I would not want the Christian creation myth taught as fact in a science classroom, no more than I would want the Native American one taught, or the Autstailian Aboriginal one taught or the Buddhist one taugh. Like it or not they are not fact. ID can be taught in Comaprative Religion classes or Philosophy even, but not in science because it is not science.
Now perhaps some day some real evidence supporting ID will come along. The beauty of science is, if that unlikey day ever comes along, science will re-evaluate and change it's stance to better fit the observable and experimentally verifyable facts. In this instance ID will become part of the science class then. Ironic that ID proponents don't do the same - despite all of the evidenced to the contrary the refuse to change their view and cling desparately to a myth.
Whether you like it or not, teaching something as fact, based not on evidence but on a strong belief in the Judeo-Christian creation myth, is not science. Teaching this in a public school is the state actively endorsing as fact the mythology of a single religion - Christianity. This is a clear violation of the separation of Chruch and State. Would you like it if the school in question was teaching the "Earth was created by a Dream" Australian aboriginal myth or the Pagan\Ancient Greek version in science class? I doubt you would. And non-Christians don;t want your version taught as fact either.
If you want ID taught as fact in a science classroom, prove it. Provide evidence. Until then, it belongs in mythology class.
Philosphy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned.
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I'M AFRAID OF AMERICANS (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Nutbag developing world theocracies: Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia
2. The United States of America
I would say on recent form I would rather have my education system run by the average developing nation than the USA. At least the China-Japan textbook dispute, for example, is easily understood in terms of racial and historical tensions. They're not, for example, trying outlaw logic and reason.
Seriously guys. The joke's over. OVER. We're all getting very, very afraid of you. I'm starting to be a lot more comfortable with the notion that China and India may soon be superpowers. I'm actually *glad* Russia still has a massive arsenal of nukes: Putin may be a dictator-by-proxy, but AT LEAST HE'S NOT INSANE.
Since the end of the Clinton era:
- fundamentalists have begun winding back your education system to around the 700-800AD mark
- 'faith based' programs have become legitimate government policy
- it has become abundantly clear that the Whitehouse is controlled by a man who does not understand science but does fervently believe in a very particular type of capital-G God
- you have waged war on two moslem nations
- religious voters have become the dominant force in national US politics
- Americans have apparently accepted on faith the ridiculous argument that there is 'no evidence' of global warming
- America has closer ties to other religious-fundamentalist states (e.g. Israel, Saudi Arabia) than it's secular, liberal-democratic former allies in 'old europe'
Now all this would be fine, except that the religious nutcases that seem to have taken over your country are made incredibly powerful by... why yes, by SCIENCE. That logical, agnostic, provable, testable system we all know and love. Well, those of us outside the US know and love, anyway. SCIENCE has made you rich. SCIENCE has made you powerful. SCIENCE has, unfortunately, given you the weapons to destroy the entire world or precisely targetted bits thereof at the press of a button. Could stealth bombers fly from Missouri to any point on the globe and deliver laser guided bombs based on the teachings of Christ? Why, no - that would be SCIENCE we have to thank for that.
Let us take, as a comparison, Italy. A very religious country, by all accounts, rabid devotion to the Vatican, everyone in sight attending church regularly. Yet the Pope effectively outlaws contraception, but Italy's birth rate is startlingly low. Why? Perhaps Italians are so religious that they really do what they're told? Or perhaps Italians are religious but they understand the difference between faith and allegory on the one hand, and logic and reason on the other. They're not noted for their chaste ways, in any event, and I'm sure Durex and Ansell make hefty sales over there.
So how about we cut a deal? I'll even give you two choices.
1. You let your country go back to theocratic-totalitarianism, by all means. Hound down anyone who uses logic and reason to explain the world. Only, hand over everything that's been developed with science before you do so. Give up all those wonder drugs, all your DVD players that allow you to watch 'The Passion of the Christ', all your giant auditoriums with 100 metre high video screens where you go along to sing your Christian songs. We'll look after them in 'old europe' and the antipodes if you like, and you can burn each other at the stake until the cows come home (only the cows will probably be dead because you rely on science for farming these days).
2. You forget the dogmatic crap and listen to the parts of the bible that actually matter, such as *turn the other fucking cheek, *do unto others, *beams and motes, *the good samaritan, *the FUCKING MONEYLENDERS IN THE TEMPLE YOU STUPID FUCKS. FUUUUUUUUUUCKKK!!!!!!!!!
And if you're not a religious nutcase but you are in the U.S., don't fucking apologise. DO SOMETHING. You are to blame for letting these rabid fundamentalists take over. YOU have to stop them.
Ok, I'll now be modded into oblivion, but I feel slightly better.
####THIS POST BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE WONDERS OF SCIENCE####
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yee-frickity-haw! (Score:5, Interesting)
A cogent argument sir (or madam). Now where are those mod points i threw away yesterday.
And if you're not a religious nutcase but you are in the U.S., don't fucking apologise. DO SOMETHING. You are to blame for letting these rabid fundamentalists take over. YOU have to stop them.
I agree absolutely with this. Hey intelligent Americans - TAKE BACK YOUR FUCKING COUNTRY! We are sick of this shit and many of us are tiring of NOT lumping you all in the same bunch. You are burning serious karma.
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Nah (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Intelligent Design != Creationism (Score:5, Insightful)
And the difference is...?
In evolution, it is assumed a priori that random mutation is the only factor.
Please try to understand evolution before making false statements like this.
In evolution, ALL structures are assumed to be achievable by random mutation alone.
This is incorrect. First, mutation is not "random." The driving force is genetic diversity within a population, filtered through natural selection. The process of genetic diversification is not fully understood, and this leads a *lot* of otherwise-intelligent people to assume there is something fundamentally wrong with the theory of evolution through natural selection.
Secondly, the filtering via natural selection is hardly random either. There are definite driving forces behind the selection, but they are not "intelligent."
Life is a structure of the universe, guided by nothing more than other expressions of mathematics within the universe. Claiming divine intervention in the creation of life is like claiming the mostly-elliptical orbits of the planets, or the statistical decay of subatomic particles, are proof of God.
The platelet thing has been debunked so many times, I'm not going to repeat it here-- just look for "platelet behe." Or, here's a decent link [talkreason.org].
But I would urge those ranting and raging to consider whether their oppositions to Intelligent Design is founded in a considered evalution kof the theory, or in a knee-jerk reaction against your perception of where it will lead?
My problem with intelligent design is that it relies on something more preposterous than random chance: it presupposes a divine being guiding the universe. Our inability to fully understand something does not necessitate a divine being. The existence of God is about a quadrillion times more unlikely than platelets evolving, fer crying out loud.
Finally, and I cannot scream this loud enough, ID IS NOT SCIENCE!!! There. I'd try to make it louder, but I'm in a library. ID enters into the argument with an agenda-- to "prove" the existence of God. In science, if God became a necessary part of the explanation, a scientist would think of certain necessary predictions based upon the existence of God, and design and perform experiments based upon those predictions.
Since God cannot be tested for in the universe, God is outside the realm of science. For all I know, there is a divine hammer in the universe. But, since I cannot test for God, nor can I make predictions based upon the "knowledge" of God, it is outside science altogether.
Saying "irreducible complexity is proof of Good" is just as cirular as saying, "The bible is proof of God." Just because we don't understand something doesn't mean God had a hand in it. It just means we're limited in either our knowledge or our capacity to understand.
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