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Having been at the federal courthouse for three days watching Kitzmiller vs. Dover unfold from the press side of the gallery, let me just say that this is so accurate it isn't even funny.
On the first day I spotted biologists Kenneth Miller and Michael Behe, expert witnesses for the two sides of the lawsuit; they were approached now and again by some member of the media. But who was this, during the break, mobbed by cameras and reporters outside the courthouse? Some Nobel Laureate called in to testify for the ACLU? Philosopher Antony Flew fetched over from England to testify for the defense? Who could this slight, intelligent-looking older man possibly be to generate such excitement?
It turned out he was a theologically conservative Baptist minister from the area. He was just an observer, but he fit the science vs. religion boilerplate and Behe didn't.
Today CSC Director Dr. Stephen Meyer debated Dr. Eugenie Scott of the NCSE on MSNBC. Dr. Scott claimed that there have been no peer-reviewed science articles which support intelligent design. This claim has also been made by plaintiffs' expert witnesses at the Dover trial. MSNBC host Dan Abrams had also been misled into believing this false claim.
Meyer, who authored a peer-reviewed science article supporting intelligent design, made a clear rebuttal. Yet Scott persisted in saying that his article did not support intelligent design. Meyer should know--he wrote the article. Judge for yourself.
Here is what Meyer's article actually says: "An experience-based analysis of the causal powers of various explanatory hypotheses suggests purposive or intelligent design as a causally adequate--and perhaps the most causally adequate--explanation for the origin of the complex specified information required to build the Cambrian animals and the novel forms they represent. For this reason, recent scientific interest in the design hypothesis is unlikely to abate as biologists continue to wrestle with the problem of the origination of biological form and the higher taxa."
Stephen C. Meyer, "The origin of biological information and the higher taxonomic categories" in Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, 117(2):213-239, 2004 (emphasis added) Click this link for a PDF version of Meyer's article with text directly discussing and trying to support design theory highlighted in red. This is primarily at the end of the article where Meyer lays out the case for intelligent design as a better explanation than Darwinian evolution.
UPDATED 9.29.05/5:38pm (by Rob Crowther): Interestingly, we recently stumbled across this surprisingly prescient interview with Dr. Forrest, and in light of her recent notoriety due to her "expert" testimony for the Dover trial we thought that readers would like to read the transcript.
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Two weeks before the Dover trial began, the Judge in the case skewered the "expert" witness report submitted to the Court by Louisiana professor Barbara Forrest, a long-time board member of the New Orleans Secular Humanist Association. Forrest's report is mostly a rehash of the innuendos and conspiracy-mongering found in her book with Paul Gross, "Creationism's Trojan Horse." While Forrest's potpourri of smears and overheated rhetoric is typically accepted uncritically by reporters, Judge John Jones has put the ACLU on notice that significant portions of Prof. Forrest's expert report may be declared inadmissable in his court of law. Here's an account of the amazing dressing-down the Judge gave the ACLU according to the official transcript of the hearing on September 9:
THE COURT: ...Within Ms. Forrest's testimony, I see repeated references to quotes that were apparently derived from magazine articles and third persons that look to me to be inadmissible hearsay...
...if... we're going to have Ms. Forrest take the stand, or Professor Forrest, I should say, I guess, take the stand and if she is going to rely on hearsay, extracted hearsay statements from articles or narratives, I think we have a problem.
That's not to say that she can't testify as to -- if, in fact, we get to this point and if I find it relevant, and that's another issue altogether, and I don't think we have to address it here -- that's not to say that she couldn't testify if it's otherwise relevant to what the scope of the report appears to be, which is a -- sort of panoply of what intelligent design has been over the course that she's looked at it or the course that she examined it. But these extracted statements by individuals I think are problematic. Tell me why they're not if you view it otherwise.
MR. ROTHSCHILD: I do, Your Honor. First of all, what she is basically doing is a history of a --and I say this reluctantly -- an intellectual movement.
THE COURT: Well, and it read like a magazine article to me. I might find it interesting and others might find it even entertaining, but for the purpose of an expert report, I'll bet she hasn't probably testified many times, if at all, as an expert witness.
And the fact it has these quotes, that it is rife with these quotes, which not only present hearsay issues but also could be taken out of context and could otherwise be objectionable, I'm simply putting you on notice that either you've got to contour the report to -- contour her testimony, not the report, to address that, or I think you're going to get repeated objections.
And I think, unless you come up with something that is pretty remarkable, those objections could be sustained to the extent, again, not as to the general scope of her report, but as to these extracted quotes by individuals from unverified sources.
They're not from treatises. A lot of them were taken out of news articles, it appears to me, magazines, other things. Why isn't that hearsay?
Methodological Materialism and What If
The third morning of Kitzmiller vs. Dover found philosopher of science Robert Pennock testifying for the plaintiffs that science is a search for natural explanations of natural phenomena--a limitation known as methodological naturalism (or methodological materialism).
Pennock presented this as the definition of science, and said proponents of intelligent design are “trying to overturn" it, but later he conceded that there was a controversy among philosophers of science concerning whether methodological naturalism was essential to the definition of science.
Earlier in the trial, the ACLU led its first expert witness, biologist Kenneth Miller, through some counterfactual (or “what-if”) reasoning, an investigative tool often used by philosophers. I wish one of the attorneys had led Pennock through the following ‘what if” scenario (in this case, a counterfactual that might be actual): What if something in the natural world was the product of design--say, the origin of the first life, or the fine tuning of the physical constants for life?
Now, a materialist might respond, “Well it wasn’t,” as if the mental exercise is some sort of sneaky, schoolyard trick: “Will you pretend for a minute that I’m cooler than you?” “All right, why?” “Ha! You admit it. I’m cooler than you.”
That’s not the point of this exercise. The purpose is to shed light on methodological materialism. Scientists have thus far failed to uncover a purposeless, material cause either for the fine tuning of the physical constants of nature, or for the simplest self-reproducing cell. Further, both the fine tuning and the simplest cell have the hallmark of designed systems, a truth we know from long and detailed experience with human designs.
Return now to the “what if.” Setting aside for a moment what you believe about the origin of fine tuning and the first cell, temporarily assume they arose from a designing intelligence. Will methodological materialism assist or impede a scientist seeking the truth about their origin? Obviously, methodological materialism would stand like an iron curtain between the scientist and the truth.
Methodological Materialism: Helpful Until it Isn’t
Now, of course, that doesn’t prove these two things were designed. We temporarily assumed this to clarify something else: Methodological materialism doesn’t work if we’re considering something that actually had an intelligent cause; thus, methodological materialism would only be consistently fruitful if nothing in nature were designed.
But surely that's an open question. To insist that methodological materialism is always preferable in scientific investigation merely begs some central questions: Is anything in the natural world the product of intelligent design? And if something was designed, could we tell?
Of course, we know that many things in nature spring from material causes. We will no doubt uncover more. But it doesn’t follow from this that all things in nature originated from material causes. Scientists should be free to follow the evidence to the best explanation.
Counterfactual Reasoning and the Slippery Slope Fallacy
Interestingly, Miller and Pennock each invoked a counterfactual in their defense of methodological materialism, so in the interest of aesthetic balance, let’s consider their argument. They said an omnipotent designer could have made the universe a few minutes ago and given us all false memories to make us think it was old. Thus, someone could entertain any sort of design scenario for anything and everything. But where would science be if everybody thought that way. The solution they offered? Methodological naturalism.
But this is the slippery slope fallacy: If we let a designing foot in the door, then before you know it our brains will turn to jelly and we’ll be invoking design at the least drop of a hat.
The best cure for one form of irrationality isn’t to flee into the opposite irrationality. The founders of modern science--e.g., Copernicus, Kepler, Newton--were open to evidence of design, and clearly their brains didn’t turn to jelly. Between the unreasonable extremes of hyper-skeptical illusionism on the one hand and unbending methodological materialism on the other lies the path of reason. One can remain open to the possibility of design and go right on being rational and measured, go right on looking hard for new and more elegant regularities in nature that were previously a mystery. In some cases, the researcher will do both at one and the same time, as when astrobiologist Guillermo Gonzalez and philosopher Jay Richards elucidated a cosmic correlation between habitability and discoverability, and from this inferred intelligent design.
Science teachers should be free to discuss with curious students contemporary design arguments. The ACLU disagrees, exhibiting a feverish interest in banning the mere mention of such ideas in the science classrooms of our public schools.
You can now read the transcript of the opening arguments in the Kitzmiller v. Dover case on Discovery Institute's website here (the transcript is posted as an Adobe pdf document). The opening statements provide a good snapshot as to what each side is intending to show in the case. In its opening statement, the ACLU makes clear that it is essentially trying to prove two things: (1) The Dover School Board acted for religious reasons; and (2) Intelligent Design is part of a nefarious religious plot to pass off religion as science and therefore must be banned from science classrooms by the courts. The school district, meanwhile, is going to try to show that the Dover School Board acted for legitimate secular reasons, and that intelligent design is a valid part of the scientific debate over evolution. Civil libertarians who normally support the ACLU should cringe over the overbroad position taken by the group in the present case. Going much further than simply trying to invalidate the Dover policy, the ACLU is attempting to use the case to shut down even voluntary classroom discussions of intelligent design. The ACLU is also trying to get the federal judge to decide by court order the very nature of science, essentially telling scientists what ideas they may or may not research and discuss as a part of legitimate scientific inquiry. Efforts to get the government to shut down free inquiry used to be called censorship. One would hope that at least someone at the ACLU is embarrassed by this effort to stop debate in science by judicial decree.
The major media coverage of the lawsuit against the Dover School District is predictably thin on content. So as a public service, Evolution News and Views is going to try to post selected transcripts from the trial so that you can read for yourself what's going on at the trial, unfiltered by the reporters and pundits. (Of course, we're going to continue to offer our own analysis of what's happening at the trial!) Because of the prohibitive expense in purchasing transcripts, we unfortunately won't be able to provide a complete daily transcript of the trial. But we are going to try to post transcripts for some of the highlights.
Today at the Dover Trial, plaintiffs’ expert witness, philosopher of science Dr. Robert Pennock, focused on 4 topics: (1) methodological naturalism, (2) methodological naturalism, (3) his Avida paper, and (4) methodological naturalism. Additionally, he also talked about methodological naturalism and his Avida paper. Today I will address only two of these many topics: Dr. Pennock’s Avida paper and in another post, methodological naturalism (MN).
First I will address the Avida Paper
The “Avida paper” was published as “The Evolution of Biological Complexity,” in Nature, 423:139-144, by E. Lenski, Charles Ofria, Robert T. Pennock, and Christoph Adami (May 8, 2003). Pennock and his other co-authors claim the paper "demonstrate[s] the validity of the hypothesis, first articulated by Darwin and supported today by comparative and experimental evidence, that complex features generally evolve by modifying existing structures and functions" (internal citations removed). Today in court, Pennock discussed the paper today asserting that it was a “direct refutation” of irreducible complexity and a “general test” of Darwinian theory.
One of the last questions asked of Pennock during his direct examination today was whether this paper was intended to be a rebuttal to ID and irreducible complexity. You know, just in case the Court might get the wrong idea that ID is worth critiquing in a science journal. That's a common strategy on direct examination: it's better for a friendly attorney to ask potentially touchy questions so you can explain your answer with more freedom. Pennock conspicuously denied that the paper was intended as a rebuttal to ID, with a very brief and extremely rushed answer (usually Pennock was more than willing to be articulate about his answers). I'm skeptical.
As noted, while on the stand, Pennock himself called the paper a “direct refutation” of irreducible complexity. Nonetheless, the Avida paper carefully omits any citations to works by ID proponents, lest they be legitimized by critique in a journal like Nature. Of course, my conspiracy theory could be wrong: perhaps Pennock just loves to co-author papers in scientific journals on the origin of biological complexity, and he was not thinking at all about ID when he wrote the paper. Pennock has an impressive C.V., but it seems to indicate that he has never authored any other technical research papers in a science journal other than the Avida paper in Nature.
I can think of no reason why a philosopher, who otherwise never authors technical papers in scientific journals, whose career specializes in rebutting ID, should be a co-author a technical research paper in a top technical science journal on the evolutionary origin of biological complexity, a claim which ID challenges, unless that paper somehow required some expertise on ID. Indeed, this paper now appears strategically arranged: is it mere coincidence that this paper appeared as a primary exhibit in the first trial against teaching ID? The reality is that Avida study, in which Pennock was third author, has much to do with strategically rebutting ID.
For a detailed discussion of why Pennock's "Avida Paper" does not explain the evolution of irreducible complexity, but rather demonstrates that irreducible complexity cannot evolve, see:
Evolution by Intelligent Design: A Response to Lenski et al. by Casey Luskin (off site)
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** “Vida” means “life” in Spanish.
Harrisburg, PA -- At the end of yesterday's testimony in Kitzmiller vs. Dover, the plaintiffs' team highlighted for reporters a key plank of their argument against the Dover Policy calling student's attention to a book in the school library about intelligent design.
Plaintiffs reiterated evolutionist Dr. Kenneth Miller's testimony that whereas design theorist Dr. Michael Behe's irreducible complexity argument is testable and, therefore, scientific, "Irreducible complexity is just a negative argument against Darwinism, not a positive argument for design." Thus, while irreducible complexity is a scientific hypothesis, the design inference supposedly is not. Miller insisted this holds for all intelligent design hypotheses. None of them, Miller argued, contains positive evidence for design.
But in fact, design theorists do provide a "Positive Case for Design."
Additionally, Dr. Miller alleged that Of Pandas and People does not provide a positive case for design. Yet Miller's statement on the witness stand strains all credibility in light of documentation provided here.
Scrappleface.com is bravely bucking the trend to stay mum on the shocking opening to the Dover intelligent design trial.
Harrisburg, PA -- The plaintiffs in the Kitzmiller vs. Dover trial are arguing that intelligent design sprang up in the wake of the 1987 Supreme Court decision against creation science, and the National Center for Science Education's Nick Matzke is repeating the talking point to reporters: "Intelligent design is just a new label for creationism," Mr. Matzke noted. "It is just the latest legal strategy for creationism. It evolved in 1987 right after the Supreme Court ruled against creationism and said that that was unconstitutional."
The assertion is demonstrably false. The idea of intelligent design reaches back to Socrates and Plato, and the term “intelligent design” as an alternative to blind evolution was used as early as 1897. More recently, discoveries in physics, astronomy, information theory, biochemistry, genetics, and related disciplines during the past several decades provided the impetus for scientists and philosophers of science to develop modern design theory. Many of the central ideas for the theory of intelligent design were already being articulated by scientists and philosophers of science by the early 1980s, well before the Edwards v. Aguillard decision.
Read the full essay here, beginning after the asteriks.
Harrisburg, PA – In the second morning of testimony in the ACLU’s lawsuit against a Dover, Pennsylvania school district, Darwinist Kenneth Miller conceded that in one sense he was a creationist, since he attributed the laws of physics and chemistry to an “author of all things, seen and unseen.”
He read back a portion of the testimony he gave when he served as a fact witness in the Cobb County, Georgia textbook sticker case, in which he defined creationism in its narrow, contemporary sense as a view arguing for a young earth (6-10,000 years) , six 24-hour days of creation by a supernatural being, and a geological record largely explained by a global flood. In this morning’s testimony, Miller conceded that biochemist and leading design theorist Michael Behe’s arguments contained none of these elements.
Under questioning from the defense, Miller said that in his biology classes he directs students to his website for additional resources, which includes material written by him about intelligent design. He said that he felt it was good pedagogy to offer his students resources for answering questions they might have about intelligent design.
The defense attorney questioning Miller left the irony of this implicit: The Dover school district’s policy calls for administrators to read a brief statement to biology students indicating that if students want to learn about intelligent design, they can find a supplementary science textbook, Of Pandas and People, in the school library. This is the policy that Miller and the ACLU oppose.
Also, in yesterday’s testimony, Miller called attention to a factual error in Pandas. In today’s questioning, he conceded that the “elephant” edition of his own high school biology textbook contained an error, describing evolution as a “random and undirected process.” Miller said that that wasn’t a scientific statement, and it was removed from subsequent editions.
Good Morning America today aired a story by reporter Dan Harris about Discovery Institute and its role in the national debate over evolution. More than a month ago ABC News approached Discovery Institute with a request to sit down and interview CSC Director Stephen Meyer. We were hesitant based on previous run-ins with other ABC News crews, namely Nightline. They've done rather poor jobs on reporting about evolution and intelligent design in the recent past. So, we spoke at length with the producers about what sort of story they were doing and what their focus was and what Meyer's role would be.
Harris and his producers made it clear that this was a back to school story, the focus would be on what kids would face when they returned to their science classes in the fall. They said they wanted Discovery to talk about its approach to education policy regarding the teaching of evolution and intelligent design. That was it. That was the basis for the interview.
Just a couple questions in and the producers asked a question about how we felt about getting all our money from the religious right. I somehow doubt that what students will face in science class when they go back to school is a list of Discovery's funders. So an interview that was presented as being about education policy was a lie, a sham, a chance to get someone on camera and then ambush them with other issues. That's called bait and switch, and it isn't journalistically ethical in any way shape or form.
We get questions about our funding all the time. Some are legitimate and are dealt with that way. The New York Times was completely upfront about wanting to know about Discovery's funding. They got answers. Dan Harris was not up front, so he did not.
While Harris did mangle the definition of intelligent design, claiming it calls on a higher power (it doesn't), he did discuss teaching the strengths and weaknesses of Darwinian evolution. And while others have mistakenly said that this is what is happening in New Mexico, Kansas and elsewhere he did correctly report what is currently happening in New Mexico. Namely that a local school district, in accordance with state standards, is implementing a policy to allow for teaching both the evidence for Darwin's theory, as well as the scientific criticism of it. They're not teaching intelligent design, and to his credit Harris got that right.
HARRISBURG, PA -- The first day of testimony in the ACLU’s lawsuit against the Dover, Pennsylvania school district ended today with the defense beginning their cross-examination of leading Darwinist Kenneth Miller.
How long has it been since a leading evolutionist subjected himself to cross-examination on the witness stand? In the infamous Scopes Monkey Trial in the 1920s, the Darwinist, Clarence Darrow, used a procedural trick to cross examine his opponent while himself avoiding cross-examination. The vast majority of Darwinists routinely duck full and fair exchanges. Kenneth Miller should be applauded for bucking this duck-the-debate tactic.
Ironically, however, Miller's testimony is not part of an effort to encourage the sort of back-and-forth critical inquiry encouraged by the Dover Area School District's policy of taking one minute to point biology students to a book about intelligent design in the school library. Instead, Miller and the American Civil Liberties Union are bent on protecting Darwinism from critical scrutiny, bent on making sure future Dover high school kids never hear about the competing theory of intelligent design in their class room.
The school district’s policy calls for administrators to read a brief statement to biology students indicating that Darwinism is a theory, and that if students want to learn about a contrary explanation for the origin of living things, they can find a supplementary science textbook, Of Pandas and People, in the school library.
The plaintiff is arguing that intelligent design is merely the creationism that was on trial in the Supreme Court decision, Edwards vs. Aguillard (1987). There the court ruled that Louisiana could not mandate equal-time teaching of biblical creationism. But in my essay here on the history of intelligent design, I show that intelligent design is clearly distinct from creationism and predates Edwards vs. Aguillard by many years.
Miller commented on the witness stand that unlike creationism, the theory of intelligent design does not identify the designer, nor does it attempt to reconcile the fossil record with a Biblical reading pointing to a 6000-year-old earth and the global flood of Noah. Miller added that by not including these elements in its theory, intelligent design is, ironically, less testable than creationism.
In friendly questioning from the plaintiff, Miller asserted that the theory of intelligent design was “not a testable theory in any sense” and so wasn’t science. Later, however, Miller argued that science has tested Michael Behe's bacterial flagellum argument and falsified it, by pointing to a micro-syringe called the Type III Secretory System, and arguing that it could have served as a functional step on the gradual, Darwinian pathway to the full flagellar motor.
Did the journalists covering the trial notice the contradiction? Miller tried to provide a fig leaf for it, but the fig leaf was itself a misrepresentation. Miller said Behe's argument was in every respect a negative argument (and, further, that ALL the leading design theorists' arguments he was aware of are purely negative, with nothing positive anywhere). Miller conceded that Behe's irreducible complexity argument was testable, but said Behe's inference to design doesn't follow from irreducible complexity because Behe was committing the either/or fallacy--If not A (Darwinism), then it must be B (design). Miller said there were, in principle, an infinite number of other possible explanations, so jumping from a refutation of Darwinism to design was illegitimate.
But Behe and other design theorists have offered positive evidence for design repeatedly and for various features of the natural world.
For example, as proof that design uses only negative arguments, Miller confidently proclaimed that the textbook being used in Dover, Of Pandas and People, failed to ever offer "positive evidence" for intelligent design. Yet a cursory scan of the textbook reveals that it clearly makes a positive argument for design:
"If experience has shown that a certain class of phenomena results from intelligent causes and then we encounter something new but similar, we conclude its origin also to be from an intelligent cause." (Of Pandas and People, page ix)
This argument makes a positive case for design based upon our observation-based understanding of how intelligent agents operate. Pandas then goes on to explain how we can make a positive argument for design:
"It has been discovered that the structure of information in living systems is mathematically identical to that of written language. Since both written language and DNA have that telltale property of information carried along by specific sequences of 'words,' and since intelligence is known to produce written language, is it not reasonable to identify the cause of the DNA's information as an intelligence too? (Of Pandas and People, page 57)
There is also positive evidence for design of the bacterial flagellum. Click here and scroll down for a good, brief description and animation of the bacterial flagellum, and here for an enlarged view with its parts labeled. Behe made this little engine that could famous by showing that it was irreducibly complex, like a mouse trap: "If any one of the components of the mousetrap (the base, hammer, spring, catch, or holding bar) is removed, then the trap does not function." With even four of these parts, it's utterly useless. The mousetrap is irreducibly complex.
What does irreducible complexity have to do with Darwinian evolution? Evolution by mutation and natural selection must proceed by one slight, functional improvement at a time. So how can it build an irreducibly complex propeller motor one step at a time if the motor can't propel at all until all of its parts are in place? It can't. Something else built it.
Behe's argument doesn't assume that none of the other parts could ever be used for anything else. The spring on a mousetrap could be taken and used in some other device. The base with cheese on it could feed a mouse. Several but not all of the parts of a bacterial flagellum--while completely useless as a rotary propulsion machine--can be used as a microsyringe. But this hardly provides a credible Darwinian pathway.
Imagine if a boy told a girl that NASA's Mars rover had not reached Mars in a space probe designed by engineers, but had climbed there by a natural ladder extending from earth to Mars? The girl is skeptical, pointing out that nobody on earth has ever found such a ladder; therefore, it's a much better explanation to say that NASA designed a space probe and sent the rover to Mars. The boy screams, "That's an argument from ignorance! Scientists are finding all sorts of new things all the time. Look! The moon! The moon is one step along the way. You see, everything is falling into place." Miller's effort on the witness stand to spin away the clear significance of the bacterial flagellum is strangely akin to this sort of reasoning. Dembski comments:
Darwin's theory, without which nothing in biology is supposed to make sense, in fact offers no insight into how the flagellum arose. If the biological community had even an inkling of how such systems arose by naturalistic mechanisms, Miller would not -- a full six years after the publication of Darwin's Black Box by Michael Behe -- be lamely gesturing at the type three secretory system as a possible evolutionary precursor to the flagellum.
Miller should be applauded for making his argument against Behe in such a public forum where he can be cross-examined. It's particularly fortunate because his argument so very desperately needs to be cross-examined. His critique of Behe's flagellum argument is like the boy convinced of the natural ladder to Mars, who finds the moon and yells "Ah ha! Now who dares to play the skeptic!" Well, design theorists do. Consider this passage from a peer-edited paper by biologist Scott Minnich (also scheduled to testify in the Dover trial) and philosopher of science Stephen Meyer, in which they discuss recent evidence for the delicately orchestrated and information-rich proteins of the bacterial flagellum:
[I]f anything, TTSSs [Type Three Secretory Systems] generate more complications than solutions to this question. As shown here, possessing multiple TTSSs causes interference. If not segregated one or both systems are lost. Additionally, the other thirty proteins in the flagellar motor (that are not present in the TTSS) are unique to the motor and are not found in any other living system. From whence, then were these protein parts co-opted?
Also, even if all the protein parts were somehow available to make a flagellar motor during the evolution of life, the parts would need to be assembled in the correct temporal sequence similar to the way an automobile is assembled in factory. Yet, to choreograph the assembly of the parts of the flagellar motor, present-day bacteria need an elaborate system of genetic instructions as well as many other protein machines to time the expression of those assembly instructions. Arguably, this system is itself irreducibly complex. In any case, the co-option argument tacitly presupposes the need for the very thing it seeks to explain‚ a functionally interdependent system of proteins.
Miller asserted that biologists like himself, Bruce Alberts, and others refer to molecular machines as motors, or the bacterial flagellum as a motor, merely as a convenient metaphor. He never explained what was merely metaphorical about a motor (the bacterial flagellum) that has turned out to be far more sophisticated than our manmade motors.
As Minnich and Meyer note, the discovery of molecular motors is opening a whole new field, where biology and engineering meet:
To paraphrase the original rendition of the Department of Energy's Genomes to Life web site, "the molecular machines present in the simplest cells, produced by evolution, dwarf the engineering feats of the 20th century." The dissection of the complexity and sophistication of ... machines like the bacterial flagellum are indeed a testimony to the power of modern molecular biological techniques. Yet, the elegant structural properties, efficiency, and the highly controlled genetic programming to produce these machines was neither anticipated nor predicted. The potential applications of this knowledge are legion and have spawned a new discipline focused on nanotechnology.
One needn't go far for examples. Here at Physics Today, well trained physicists are standing around this astonishing little machine, the bacterial flagellum, like neighborhood mechanics getting a chance to take apart and learn from a NASCAR racing engine.
Contra Miller, then, there are strongly positive grounds for inferring design from the presence of irreducibly complex machines and circuits. Every time we know the causal history of an irreducibly complex system (like the NASCAR racing engine or an electronic circuit), it always turn out to have been the product of an intelligent cause.
Miller has conceded that Behe's irreducible complexity argument is testable. And we see that Miller's assertion that scientists have tested and falsified Behe's argument is itself false. Finally, we see that Behe and other design theorists like Scott Minnich and Stephen Meyer have offered positive evidence for the design of the flagellum based on standard uniformitarian reasoning, reasoning well established in science. Darwinists like Miller quarrel with these claims and arguments. Behe, Minnich, Meyer and other design scientists respond. It's called a scientific controversy, something Darwinists claim doesn't exist. Now that's what I call faith-based.
Harrisburg, PA -- A question at the heart of the first day of testimony in Kitzmiller vs. Dover is whether it is illegal to teach intelligent design in the public school science classroom. That's the question legal expert Francis Beckwith tackles here.
HARRISBURG, PA -- The ACLU’s lawsuit against a Dover, Pennsylvania school district began today with biologist and evolutionist Kenneth Miller taking the stand as the first witness. The school district’s policy calls for administrators to read a brief statement to biology students indicating that Darwinism is a theory, and that if students want to learn about a contrary explanation for the origin of living things, they can find a supplementary science textbook, Of Pandas and People, in the school library. The plaintiff is arguing that this violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment prohibiting the establishment of a religion because intelligent design is merely the creationism that was on trial in the Supreme Court decision, Edwards vs. Aguillard (1987), where the court ruled that Louisiana could not mandate equal-time teaching of biblical creationism.
The plaintiff argued that the Dover policy fails both of the first two prongs of the Lemon test: that it has both the primary effect and intent of advancing a particular religious viewpoint.
In friendly questioning from the plaintiff, Brown university cell biologist Kenneth Miller asserted that the theory of intelligent design was “not a testable theory in any sense” and so wasn’t science. Later he examined some of the design arguments from Of Pandas and People—blood clotting, genetic similarities and differences among horse/chicken/turtle/frog/tuna, and the information properties of DNA.
To take the instance of blood clotting, Of Pandas and People argues that the blood clotting cascade (a biochemical process that keeps us from bleeding to death from even small cuts) is irreducibly complex. That is, one needs all of the key parts of the intricate system in place or blood clotting simply doesn’t happen. Therefore, it could not have been produced by Darwninism’s gradual, step-by-functional-step process of genetic variation and natural selection. Intelligent agents, however, can and do produce irreducibly complex systems all the time. Therefore, intelligent design is the preferred explanation for the blood clotting mechanism. Miller argued that science has tested this claim and found it wanting, through research on the blood clotting genetics in whales, dolphins and puffer fish.
Miller said that he had never testified in court about intelligent design, and that his first debate over intelligent design was with biochemist Michael Behe in 1995. Behe was in the court room, and also will testify later.
Miller noted that the term “science” was from a Latin word meaning “knowledge,” and is used more generally to refer to any body of knowledge. But natural science, he argued, gives strictly natural explanations for natural phenomena. He added that scientific explanations are restricted to those explanations that can be inferred from confirmable data.
He acknowledged that scientists think about meaning/purpose, but he said these musings lie outside the purview of science. “Explanations that lie outside of science can still be true,” he said, “They’re just not science.” He said this rule also applies to the atheistic statements of Darwinists like Richard Dawkins, William Provine, and Daniel Dennett.
He also differentiated the scientific use of the term “theory” from its use in casual conversation. Theories are broad, powerful explanations and have to make testable predictions.
Miller also said that peer review was extremely important: “Without it you don’t have science.” As the co-author of a leading college biology textbook, he said of the crowded field of biology textbooks, “It’s a free market, a competitive market.”
He added that publishing biology textbooks doesn’t help you get tenure. All that matters is getting scientific papers published and “getting the respect from one’s colleagues in the field.” He said he resisted getting involved in textbook writing at first, but when saw a draft of a textbook he was asked to help write, he said he found the writing boring, in part because it gave “the impression that everything had already been discovered.”
I’ll provide analysis of the rest of his testimony later this evening.
This week the newsmedia converge on Harrisburg, PA for the opening of the Dover School District intelligent design trial. As readers of this blog know already, the ACLU has sued the Dover School District for notifying students about the existence of the theory of intelligent design (ID). Although Discovery Institute doesn't favor Dover's policy (see here for why), we strongly oppose the ACLU's heavy-handed effort to shut down even voluntary classroom discussions of ID through government censorship. We hope to provide daily coverage and analysis of the trial on this blog, and we've dispatched Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Jonathan Witt to Harrisburg this week to file eyetwitness reports. (For complete background information about the Dover case, check the informational web page we've set up here.)
What remains to be seen is how accurately--or not--the major media will cover the trial. As you read the newsmedia reports this week, watch carefully to see how frequently the following myths about intelligent design and the critics of Darwinism are reported as "facts":
1. "ID proponents are trying to require the teaching of ID." In fact, most leading proponents of ID don't want ID required in classrooms. They merely want teachers to be free to discuss it voluntarily free from government censorship. For a good explanation of Discovery Institute's position on science education policy--which calls for teaching the strengths and weaknesses of Darwinism, not alternative theories--see these FAQs.
2. "20 [or more!] states have tried to mandate the teaching of ID." Even staff members of the National Center for Science Education don't make this preposterous claim. I wish reporters would verify their figures before printing them. In reality, there have been only a handful of proposals to require ID (and Discovery Institute has opposed them). Rather than trying to impose ID, states like Ohio and Kansas are merely want students to learn about scientific criticisms of Darwin's theory as well as the evidence supporting the theory.
3. "There is no science behind ID." For a great non-technical summary of the scientific evidence behind ID, check out Dan Peterson's terrific article a few months ago in The American Spectator. For more a more technical version of some of the evidence for ID read Stephen Meyer's peer-reviewed journal article on the Cambrian explosion.
4. "ID is simply repackaged creationism." Read Jonathan Witt's helpful article about the history of ID or my essay about why ID is not creationism.
5. "ID scholars don't publish peer-reviewed scholarship." Not so. Check out the following bibliography.
6. "ID doesn't make testable or falsifiable claims." Wrong again. See "Intelligent Design is Falsifiable."
7. "There are no scientists who doubt neo-Darwinism." More than 400 doctoral scientists, including science professors at many American universities, say otherwise.
Just in time for Monday's thought-crime trial in Dover, Pennsylvania, H. Wayne House has an extensive review here of cases in the U.S. dealing with Darwinism and the public schools: "Darwinism and the Law: Can Non-Naturalistic Scientific Theories Survive Constitutional Challenge?" It's an excellent resource for anyone covering the trial, though I could quibble with a few elements. For instance, if House means to include contemporary design arguments in biology, it would be more precise to say "Non-Materialist Scientific Theories."
The reason? When one infers design from the little cellular motor called the bacterial flagellum, or from the wealth of information in even the simplest cell, one can't tell from these things if the designer was natural or supernatural. One can only tell, and perhaps only in some instances, whether the cause was a material or an intelligent cause. Most Americans think the designer was a supernatural agent named God, but none of them came to that determination by studying cellular motors or genetic information; all those things can tell us is that they were designed.
Darwinists can argue with the design inference in biology, but the ACLU and others should spare us the foggy and paranoid argument that we're covertly trying to establish a theocracy. The evidence in biology uncovered in the last 50 years merely points to design (and not to, say, the Anglican Church), much as design inferences in forensic science, intellectual property protection, and data falsification point merely to design.
If anyone is trying to establish a religion, it's the ACLU. The religion? The dogma of philosophical materialism.
I'll be flying to Harrisburg, PA to cover the Dover trial. It begins in federal court Monday. As Discovery Institute explains here:
In Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, the ACLU is suing the school board of Dover, Pennsylvania for adopting a policy that requires students to be informed about the theory of intelligent design. The ACLU claims that the Dover policy violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment by promoting a religious doctrine.
What does the Dover policy consist of? Administrators read the following statement to biology students:
The Pennsylvania Academic Standards require students to learn about Darwin's theory of evolution and eventually to take a standardized test of which evolution is a part.
Because Darwin's theory is a theory, it continues to be tested as new evidence is discovered. The theory is not a fact. Gaps in the theory exist for which there is no evidence. A theory is defined as a well-tested explanation that unifies a broad range of observations.
Intelligent design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin's view. The reference book, "Of Pandas and People," is available for students who might be interested in gaining an understanding of what intelligent design actually involves.
With respect to any theory, students are encouraged to keep an open mind. The school leaves the discussion of the origins of life to individual students and their families. As a standards-driven district, class instruction focuses upon preparing students to achieve proficiency on standards-based assessments.
It's significant that the ACLU and its cohorts find Of Pandas and People dangerous enough that they believe a policy calling for the barest mention of it merits being dragged into court.
Discovery Institute doesn't support efforts to require the teaching of intelligent design in public schools, but it strongly opposes the ACLU's attempt to censor classroom discussion of intelligent design.
CSC senior fellow Jonathan Witt will be dispatched to Pennsylvania to cover the Dover intelligent design trial that starts on Monday in federal court in Harrisburg. He will attend the opening three days of the trial, but will continue to post reports throughout the trial until its conclusion, sometime in October.
I suspect we will see a slew of articles about the looming Dover ID trial, slated to start on Monday in federal court in Harrisburg, PA. MSNBC's Alex Johnson has one of the best ID related news stories, Dover trial or otherwise. His definitions of the key terms, and his examination of the various issues involved are thorough and accurate. One of the better news reports related to ID.
Next week the case of Kitzmiller vs. Dover School Board goes to federal court in Harrisburg, PA. Here is a page with links to a number of resources. Also, the Federal court has posted this page with information about the trial.
In my "The Darwinist Misinformation Train," post from last week, I explain that there are 2 types of Darwinist critics of ID out there who misrepresent ID:
Type I Darwinists critics: It starts with these Darwinist critics who correctly understand ID and realize that it respects the limits of science and doesn’t try to identify the designer. Yet, Type I Critics then purposefully misrepresent ID to the public (and particularly to scientists) as an untestable and unscientific appeal to the supernatural. This is despite the fact that ID proponents understand the nature of scientific inquiry and have formulated their theory to respect its boundaries. The dubious tactics of Type I critics are effective because it results in many people thinking that ID cannot be science because it makes claims about the supernatural -- beyond the scope of what can be studied using the scientific method.
Type II Darwinist critics: These are the people created by the activities of Type I critics. Type II critics misunderstand ID because they have been told by Type I critics that ID is an untestable appeal to the supernatural. This causes them to think it is makes exclusively religious claims, is not scientific, not empirically based, and not appropriate for the laboratory or the classroom. Type II Critics aren’t necessarily to blame for their misapprehensions because they have been misled. Nonetheless, it would behoove them to pick up some of the scholarship of ID proponents they are criticizing before they speak about it publicly. If they did so, they would realize their misunderstandings.
The Darwinist Misinformation Train
A classic example of Type II Darwinist Critics comes from a recent announcement by a group of 38 Nobel Laureates who wrote a letter to the Kansas State Board of Education denouncing intelligent design, based upon a completely false understanding of ID theory. According to their letter, ID is not science because:
"intelligent design is fundamentally unscientific; it cannot be tested as scientific theory because its central conclusion is based on belief in the intervention of a supernatural agent." (Letter by 38 Nobel Laureates to the Kansas State Board of Education, denouncing the teaching of ID, emphasis added)
So there you have it. According to these critics, ID isn't science because it investigates the unobservable supernatural. But as those who actually read the writings of ID proponents already know, ID theory does not identify the designer because to do so would go beyond the realm of testable science. ID theory thus limits its claims to those which can be established via the scientific method: it limits its claims to detecting the action of intelligence--something which we have observed, and the effects of which we understand quite well. It does not get into metaphysical speculation about the nature or identity of the designer, because to do so would go beyond science. So the reality is that ID theory purposefully avoids the very mistake these Nobel Laureates attribute to it.
Note also how the Nobel Laureates' letter describes evolution:
"evolution is understood to be the result of an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection"
(emphasis added)
Hmmm...so evolution is "unguided" and "unplanned?" What was that about not making untestable metaphysical assertions? Either that, or the scientific theory of evolution has some pretty strong anti-religious implications for these leading scholars.
Didn't these Nobel Laureates get Eugenie Scott's memo? ("don't let your metaphysics slip into your science!"--or is it the other way around?) I can imagine her e-mail tomorrow: "Um, Yeah. If you could just fix that letter, that would be great. Oh yeah--but then don't forget to tell the public, 'No-design is science while actual design is an untestable religious appeal to the supernatural. You can have your Neo-Darwinian cake and eat it too!' And I will go ahead and make sure you get another copy of that memo."
Returning to seriousness, these 38 Nobel Laureates are undoubtedly brilliant individuals. But they have become Type II Darwinists after having been misled by Type I Darwinists who told them that ID theory postulates a supernatural agent. So, once again I'll give a few good quotes demonstrating how ID theory doesn't identify the designer:
"We should recognize, however, that if we go further, and conclude that the intelligence responsible for biological origins is outside the universe (supernatural) or within it, we do so without the help of science." (Of Pandas and People, a pro-ID textbook, pg. 126-127, emphasis added)
"The most important difference [between modern intelligent design theory and Paley's arguments] is that [intelligent design] is limited to design itself; I strongly emphasize that it is not an argument for the existence of a benevolent God, as Paley's was. I hasten to add that I myself do believe in a benevolent God, and I recognize that philosophy and theology may be able to extend the argument. But a scientific argument for design in biology does not reach that far. This while I argue for design, the question of the identity of the designer is left open. Possible candidates for the role of designer include: the God of Christianity; an angel--fallen or not; Plato's demi-urge; some mystical new age force; space aliens from Alpha Centauri; time travelers; or some utterly unknown intelligent being. Of course, some of these possibilities may seem more plausible than others based on information from fields other than science. Nonetheless, as regards the identity of the designer, modern ID theory happily echoes Isaac Newton's phrase hypothesis non fingo." (Michael Behe, "The Modern Intelligent Design Hypothesis," Philosophia Christi, Series 2, Vol. 3, No. 1 (2001), pg. 165, emphasis added.)
These Nobel Laureates have not just been misled about ID theory. They've apparently also been misled into thinking the Kansas State Board of Education is considering putting ID into their curriculum, which makes the whole point of their letter moot. (That's why they denounced ID in the first place.)
Kansas is not considering teaching ID. John West explained back in June that Kansas specifically was not considering teaching ID. West noted how the journal Science misreported the events of Kansas, as the journal wrongly claimed that "Evolution is under attack again, as school boards in Kansas and other states consider whether to mandate teaching of 'intelligent design.'" (Standing up for Darwin, Science, Vol 308, Issue 5730, 1847, June 24, 2005) But that statement was never true.
It is false facts like this which probably led to these 38 Nobel Laureates wasting their time and ink.
Incredibly, the Nobel Laureates wrote this letter despite the fact that the latest version of the Kansas science standards (adopted a full month before the Laureates wrote their letter) says the following which goes completely out of its way to dispell the notion that they were considering teaching ID:
"We also emphasize that the Science Curriculum Standards do not include Intelligent Design, the scientific disagreement with the claim of many evolutionary biologists that the apparent design of living systems is an illusion. While the testimony presented at the science hearings included many advocates of Intelligent Design, these standards neither mandate nor prohibit teaching about this scientific disagreement." (Kansas
Science Education Standards, Draft 2(d), Adopted August 9, 2005)
With such clear disclaimers from the Kansas Board, these Laureates would have better used their valuable time to write a letter to Jacque Chirac to convince him not to invade Iraq.
But this issue is serious. If the Nobel Laureates aren't informed enough to know that the whole message of their letter to the Kansas State Board of Education is moot, then how informed are they about the actual nature of intelligent design theory? I place the blame not at the feet of these undoubtedly brilliant scientists who are Type II Critics, but at the feet of the Type I Darwinists who mislead people about the actual nature of ID theory.
But in the end, it's the public who loses:
![The Darwinist Misinformation Train]( "The Darwinist Misinformation Train")
(Panda graphic courtesy of Panda-monium)
(Thanks also to Xourque.net's excellent collection of sounds from the all-time-great movie Office Space.)
On September 8, 2005, Wesley Elsberry wrote a response entitled "Who Operates 'The Misinformation Train?'" to my prior post on the Evolution News blog entitled "The Darwinist Misinformation Train."
I have now responded to Wesley with a full response posted here. Here is a brief excerpt from the beginning of my full response:
Firstly, I’d like to thank Wesley Elsberry for writing a more-or-less gentle and kindly worded response to my “Darwinist Misinformation Train” article on antievolution.org. I’d also like to say that on a personal level, I have met Wesley and I think he’s a nice guy with some very interesting hobbies. Wesley is the only guy I’ve ever met who owns a bird of prey and takes it hunting. Some might call that eccentric, but I think that’s kinda cool. Anyways, I think Wesley is a decent person who has a passionate desire to see the truth made known. I don’t always agree with him on what the truth is, but I’d like to compliment him because I think that even though we arrive at different conclusions, if I know understand him properly, then I know our hearts are coming from similar places.
Anyways, Wesley used nearly the precise title I was expecting from the first Darwinist responder. As far as his arguments go, however, they are weak and his collection of quotes do not make anything resembling a case against the nature of ID theory. I am well aware that there are ID proponents who have talked about the designer as being “God” and am fully capable of dealing with these quotes. But before I slice and slash at Wesley’s arguments (which I mostly reject), for the sake of argument, I’d like to accept his contentions and see where that leaves the Darwinist Misinformation Train.
[...]
Even if Wesley were right and there were a few instances where ID proponents claim ID theory identifies the designer as God, Darwinists always fail to inform the public of the many (if not an overwhelming majority of) instances where ID proponents make it excruciatingly clear that the designer cannot be identified by ID theory. Darwinists are thus still misrepresenting ID theory to the public because they make statements indicating that ID theory universally identifies the designer as God.
Again, please note that this is just a brief taste of my response which can be read in full at http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?command=download&id=516. Hope you enjoy!
Author Chris Mooney made a politicized attack in today’s Seattle Post Intelligencer that intelligent design bucks the scientific method. Mooney, who is speaking in Seattle about something he calls the “Republican War on Science,” appears to not understand intelligent design theory.
Mooney was quoted saying to the reporter:
"Your buddies there at the Discovery Institute in Seattle, for example (an organization that favors "intelligent design" over standard evolutionary science), are not arguing about evidence that can be tested," Mooney said. "They are attacking the entire scientific method." (Chris Mooney, quoted in Author says GOP is waging war on scientific inquiry, by Tom Paulson)
The funny thing is that whenever I hear this objection made, very rarely does the challenger provide any detailed discussion or reference to validate the claim. Mooney’s unreferenced and undetailed assertion makes me suspect he’s pretty uninformed so that he’s probably just a Type II Darwinist Critic. (Although Type II Darwinist Critics can rack up culpability for their statements if they do a lot of public preaching against ID without having ever read the primary ID literature.)
Anyways, the reporter printed Mooney’s attack on the Discovery Institute without having contacted Discovery to get any kind of a response or perspective on Mooney’s comments. So here goes.
Intelligent design is indeed testable, despite what critics (who incidentally often leave out references or discussions of the details of why ID isn’t testable) say.
Intelligent design theorists begin developing their theory with observations about how intelligent agents act when designing, to help them understand how to recognize and detect design. One of the primary observations made by ID theorists is that intelligent agents tend to take many parts and arrange them in highly specified and complex patterns which perform a specific function. For example, CSC Director and ID theorist Stephen C. Meyer writes:
“Agents can arrange matter with distant goals in mind. In their use of language, they routinely ‘find’ highly isolated and improbable functional sequences amid vast spaces of combinatorial possibilities.” (Stephen C. Meyer, “The Cambrian Information Explosion,” Debating Design, pg. 388 (Dembski and Ruse eds., Cambridge University Press 2004)
"Experience teaches that information-rich systems … invariably result from intelligent causes, not naturalistic ones. … Finding the best explanation, however, requires invoking causes that have the power to produce the effect in question. When it comes to information, we know of only one such cause. For this reason, the biology of the information age now requires a new science of design.”
(Stephen C. Meyer, "The Explanatory Power of Design," in Mere Creation, pg. 140 (William A. Dembski ed., InterVarsity Press 1998))
"Indeed, in all cases where we know the causal origin of 'high information content,' experience has shown that intelligent design played a causal role." (Stephen C. Meyer, DNA and Other Designs)
This ability to think with the “end in mind” and create high levels of information is a common characteristic of intelligent agents, allowing them to choose from a wide range of possible options to find a highly complex and specified solution to a given problem. Thus, intelligent agents can be said to predictably create high levels of complex and specified information when they act.
Such observations about intelligent agents this can then be turned into predictions of what we should find had an intelligent agent been at work in the past. Meyer’s observations could lead us to the prediction that high information content machine-like irreducibly complex structures will be found. (Irreducible complexity is a special case of specified complexity.)
Test for the presence of such irreducibly complex structures in biology is straightforward. “Reverse engineering,” “knockout experiments,” or theoretical calculations all permit one to assess whether irreducible complexity is present in a biological structure. All one has to do is tweak a structure—whether actually or theoretically—and determine if it still works. If it stops working with every “tweak,” then one is beginning to support the conclusion that it is irreducibly complex. If it still works, then one can continue working and possibly discover that there is an irreducibly complex core.
So, intelligent design easily moves from observation, to prediction, to experiment which can test if a structure was designed. In this way, intelligent design uses the scientific method (i.e. observation, hypothesis, experiment, and conclusion) to make its claims:
i. Observation:
The ways that intelligent agents act can be observed in the natural world and described. When intelligent agents act, it is observed that they produce high levels of "complex-specified information" (CSI). CSI is basically a scenario which is unlikely to happen (making it complex), and conforms to a pattern (making it specified). Language and machines are good examples of things with much CSI. From our understanding of the world, high levels of CSI are always the product of intelligent design.
ii. Hypothesis:
If an object in the natural world was designed, then we should be able to examine that object and find the same high levels of CSI in the natural world as we find in human-designed objects.
iii. Experiment:
We can examine biological structures to test if high CSI exists. When we look at natural objects in biology, we find many machine-like structures which are specified, because they have a particular arrangement of parts which is necessary for them to function, and complex because they have an unlikely arrangement of many interacting parts. These biological machines are "irreducibly complex," for any change in the nature or arrangement of these parts would destroy their function. Irreducibly complex structures cannot be built up through an alternative theory, such as Darwinian evolution, because Darwinian evolution requires that a biological structure be functional along every small-step of its evolution. "Reverse engineering" of these structures (often using knockout experiments or theoretical studies) shows that they cease to function if changed even slightly.
iv. Conclusion:
Because they exhibit high levels of CSI, a quality known to be produced only by intelligent design, and because there is no other known mechanism to explain the origin of these "irreducibly complex" biological structures, we can tentatively infer that they were intelligently designed (subject, of course, to findings from further data).
Similar methods can also be used to make predictions for ID in paleontology, systematics, and cellular biology (particularly with regards to studying functionality of DNA). But I’ll leave those discussions for future Evolution News posts when Darwinists repeat this unreferenced claim. (See http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/1156 for a sneak preview).
A final point about how ID uses the scientific method is that ID theory limits its claims to that which can be observed, and thus stays within the scope of the scientific method by refusing to speculate about metaphysical questions, like the identity of the designer. See The Darwinist Misinformation Train for more information on this topic.
I don’t know much about Republicans, but it seems clear that those promoting ID advocate a testable theory which relies upon the scientific method to make its claims.
Any questions?
Darwinists are up in arms over the fact that The Guardian had the gall to do an interview with CSC senior fellow, biochemist Michael Behe and then publish it without letting Darwinists attack him.
The MSM's standard operating procedure is to interview a design theorist and then quote a whole slew of Darwinist "rebutting" him in the very same article. Darwinists are rightly upset that the rules were changed and they weren't informed. By all means they should be kicking and screaming and writing nasty letters to The Guardian for this dispicable display of bias. Imagine letting a pro-design scientist speak for himself. What is the world coming to?
On the other hand, you might write your own letter to reporter John Sutherland, and The Guardian, and thank them for reporting Behe's views about intelligent design. Here are a couple of places to make your own voice heard.
Reader's editor -- reader@guardian.co.uk.
Editors Blog -- http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/editors/
On Sunday, September 4, 2005, the print edition of the Dallas Morning News featured a prominent interview with the inimitable Dr. David Berlinski (who has a brand new book out by the way), noted science writer and CSC Senior Fellow. (For some odd reason, the interview was not posted to the online edition of the newspaper.)
In the interview, Berlinski said that while he is is not a supporter of intelligent design theory, his "inclinations toward members of the design movement are nonetheless what the French call chaleureux. I wish them well. They are clearly on to something. I agree with their criticism of Darwin's theories."
In answer to a question about why "many scientists strongly oppose intelligent design," Berlinski wittily responded: For scientists forever banging their crutches against the trough of public funding, any form of criticism represents an alarming turn of events, the more so when it affects their traditional claims to speak with authority on matters of culture, faith and morals. They are right to be alarmed. A great many people have come to regard Darwinism as tedious, illiterate, uninformed and tendentious. Darwin's theories seem destined to disappear by negative selection, an interesting but rare example of a Darwinian process reaching a sound conclusion. Finally, asked to consider "if intelligent design is true, who do you, an irreligious man, suspect is the designer," Berlinski replied: I have no idea and no suspicions. God alone knows where God is. As a Jew, I have no interest in the identity of the designer, and as a skeptic, I have not been persuaded of his existence. What is interesting is the fact that biological structures and human artifacts share a number of remarkable properties and that these are properties never seen in the physical world. The modern cell is a system in which two immensely complicated sequences (the nucleotides in DNA and the amino acids in proteins) are brought into alignment by a code. There is nothing like this anywhere in the physical universe. Surely, thoughtful people are entitled to comment on this and to wonder.
[Source: "Point of Contact" column, Dallas Morning News, September 4, 2005]
Sports columnist turned news analyst Lloyd Garver normally opines about the morality of the designated hitter in baseball but all too often unsuccessfully attempts to weigh in on weightier matters. Today CBSNews.com published a column that betrays Garver's complete ignorance about anything to do with the debate over evolution.
Garver claims that those "pushing" intelligent design don't know what a theory is, and falls back on the tired old complaint that ID proponents think theory means conjecture. Lloyd, we don't, check it out on the CSC website sometime.
He then lectures on the meaning of the different definitions of theory, which he looked up in his dictionary. "The theory that the line you get into in the supermarket always takes the most time, or that the best way to make it rain is to get your car washed, or that right when you sit down to dinner, the phone will ring may all fit into one of the definitions of "theory" that you'll find in your dictionary — such as conjecture or supposition. But like "intelligent design," they just don't happen to be scientific theories. " If Lloyd had bothered to do a little more than look up one word in his dictionary (is that what passes for research for columnists these days?) he could have informed himself about the development of the theory of intelligent design, the peer-reviewed articles by scientists who are working on intelligent design research, and found that it is indeed a scientific theory.
What else he didn't look up was the word evolution, which also has many definitions. Yet, Garver never volunteers any insight into which definition he means at any give point in time. So you don't know what he means by evolution, and you have no idea whether you agree with him or not.
Opinion writers should do their homework, read up on their subject and present it accurately. What is frustrating is how many columnists attacking ID have such a lack of understanding of what it really is. I respect those few who at least know the subject matter, even when I don't always agree with their conclusions.
Even worse than Garver's uninformed sort of ponderous writing, are the columns that are just out and out pure fabrication such as the poorly written "essay" by Jason Miller, a strident critic of intelligent design as well as any number of other issues.
Miller's piece appears on a New Zealand alternative news site and starts out as if it is about the recent hearings in Kansas about how to teach evolution and includes this near libelous description of Discovery Insitute: "Three moderate school board members and the entire mainstream scientific community boycotted the charade. John Calvert, a conservative Christian attorney who leads the Intelligent Design Network of Kansas, was the William Jennings Bryan of this circus. Calvert questioned “expert witnesses” in a quest to disprove Evolution. Most of the witnesses, who served the purpose of “validating” the board's desire to introduce the concept of Intelligent Design into the public school curriculum for the state of Kansas, were from a think tank. Founded and funded by Christian fundamentalists, this entity called The Discovery Institute was created to advance the so-called "theory" of Intelligent Design. Intelligent Design essentially purports that in merely observing the complexity of the world, one cannot help but conclude that there was an intelligent designer (in other words, God). Evidence, research, and peer review are irrelevant (and non-existent) to the purveyors of the ID “theory”, a thinly veiled form of Creationism." This is wrong on so many levels that could easily have been research that it is obvious Miller is willfully misleading his readers. Let me run through them quickly. First, the majority of those testifying were not CSC Fellows, of the 23 scheduled to testify only five of them were affiliated with Discovery Institute (Thaxton, Menuge, Behe, Wells and Meyer). Second, Discovery Institute was not founded, and is not funded, by "fundamentalists." Third, Discovery Institute was not "created to advance the so-called "theory" of Intelligent Design." Discovery Institute was founded in 1991 as a public-policy think-tank, and that time had nothing, absolutely nothing to do with intelligent design focusing instead on technology and transportation. In 1996 the Institute launched a scientific research program that does indeed advance the theory of intelligent design. Fourth, evidence, research and peer-review are completely relevant --we've never claimed otherwise-- though you wouldn't know it by reading the likes of Miller. Fifth, there are a growing number of peer-reviewed articles on intelligent design, not to mention the scores of peer-reviewed articles that have highglighted a significant number of problems with Darwinian evolution. And, finally, intelligent design is not "a thinly veiled form of Creationism."
And this was all just in the first two paragraphs. Miller's focus --and I use that term loosely-- strays into all sorts of rants about the religious right, diatribes against President Bush, ludicrous claims about 9/11 conspiracies, and a quote from the "wedge document." Again, a little research would have turned up this article and given Miller context for the urban myth that Darwinists have spread about the "wedge document." But research and getting the facts straight aren't Miller's objective. "My Objective According to Finley Peter Dunne, the purpose of journalism is “to comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable.” As usual, I hope I have fulfilled that purpose." I hope that if Lloyd Garver reads this conclusion of Miller's he will get his dictionary out where he'll find: jourˇnalˇism \'jern-el-iz-em\ n (1833) 2 b: writing characterized by a direct presentation of facts or descriptions of events without an attempt at interpretation. -- Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary Keith Woods leads a program on reporting, writing and editing for the Poynter Institute, and says ethical journalism honors the core principles of truth, accuracy, fairness and balance. If columnists are going to present themselves as journalists analysing news and current events --such as the debate over evolution-- then they need to stick to those same core principles as they present their opinions.
A good friend of mine getting his teaching credential to teach public high school called me this weekend to converse about his professor’s response to a paper he wrote supporting the teaching of ID. Apparently his professor disapproved of teaching ID because he felt that ID was untestable science. The professor’s criticism went something like this: “My main problem with ID is that it purports to not identify the designer when everyone knows it's really just God. Intelligent design thus shouldn’t be taught because it is essentially creation science repackaged. Thus, it’s just an untestable appeal to the supernatural. However, if I had to choose, I would actually prefer creation science to ID because at least creation scientists are up-front about who they think the designer is.” This view was also echoed recently in the Seattle Weekly, where a commentator threw in a not-so-subtle, below-the-belt criticism about ID: “[ID is] the notion … that an unspecified creator (who sounds an awful lot like the Christian notion of God) is responsible for the creation and development of everything, including human beings.” Without nitpicking over the many inaccurate details of this description, here again we see the same implicit criticism of ID: "ID proponents say it doesn’t identify the designer, but everybody knows the designer is “God” [at this point, Eugenie Scott adds in her famous “wink wink, nudge nudge” line], therefore it isn’t science."
I found this criticism interesting, because a different article on the same day made the exact opposite criticism against intelligent design: ID isn’t science because it supposedly DOES identify the designer as a supernatural deity. This very point was argued recently by University of Utah bioengineering professor Gregory Clark before the Utah State Board of Education:
“Intelligent design fails as science because it does exactly that - it posits that life is too complex to have arisen from natural causes, and instead requires the intervention of an intelligent designer who is beyond natural explanation. Invoking the supernatural can explain anything, and hence explains nothing.”
These misconstruals are not mere trivialities. In fact, they form the basis for the ACLU's lawsuit against teaching intelligent design in Dover, Pennsylvania ( Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District). As read in their complaint:
"Intelligent design is a non-scientific argument or assertion, made in opposition to the scientific theory of evolution, that an intelligent, supernatural actor has intervened in the history of life..."
So on the one hand, intelligent design fails as science because it does identify the designer as supernatural. On the other hand, intelligent design fails because it doesn’t identify the designer. Both positions can’t be right. But what does intelligent design really say, and can it overcome these criticisms?
The truth about ID:
Had my friend’s professor, or Dr. Clark, bothered to actually read (and / or choose to accurately represent) the writings of ID proponents, they would have found this matter of the designer’s identity to be crystal clear: "Intelligent design is modest in what it attributes to the designing intelligence responsible for the specified complexity in nature. For instance, design theorists recognize that the nature, moral character and purposes of this intelligence lie beyond the competence of science and must be left to religion and philosophy." (William Dembski, The Design Revolution, pg. 42)
"Although intelligent design fits comfortably with a belief in God, it doesn't require it, because the scientific theory doesn't tell you who the designer is. While most people - including myself - will think the designer is God, some people might think that the designer was a space alien or something odd like that." (Michael Behe, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 02/08/01).
"[T]the place of intelligent design in science has been troubling for more than a century. That is because on the whole, scientists from within Western culture failed to distinguish between intelligence, which can be recognized by uniform sensory experience, and the supernatural, which cannot. Today we recognize that appeals to intelligent design may be considered in science, as illustrated by current NASA search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). Archaeology has pioneered the development of methods for distinguishing the effects of natural and intelligent causes. We should recognize, however, that if we go further, and conclude that the intelligence responsible for biological origins is outside the universe (supernatural) or within it, we do so without the help of science." (Of Pandas and People, a pro-ID textbook, pg. 126-127, emphasis added) Reading these quotes from leading ID theorists makes it completely clear that ID theory does not identify the designer, and cannot even really get very far into elaborating upon the nature of the designer. The reason for this is also clear: there are natural empirical limitations to what science can study. If we can’t study the identity of the designer, that’s not ID’s fault, that’s just the nature of the limits of science.
Why then do so many Darwinists publicly criticize ID as if it has the very weakness (i.e. advocating for an explicitly supernatural creator) which it goes out of its way to clearly avoid? The answer is simple: mischaracterizing ID as an appeal to the supernatural places it both outside the scope of science, and also outside legal rules laid down in Edwards v. Aguillard for legitimate origins ideas. But the whole notion that ID does identify the designer as supernatural is false.
The Darwinist Misinformation Train:
I have a 3 step theory for how it comes to pass that many people come to believe that intelligent design is an appeal to the supernatural:
- Type I Darwinists critics: It starts with these Darwinist critics who correctly understand ID and realize that it respects the limits of science and doesn’t try to identify the designer. Yet, Type I Critics then purposefully misrepresent ID to the public (and particularly to scientists) as an untestable and unscientific appeal to the supernatural. This is despite the fact that ID proponents understand the nature of scientific inquiry and have formulated their theory to respect its boundaries. The dubious tactics of Type I critics are effective because it results in many people thinking that ID cannot be science because it makes claims about the supernatural -- beyond the scope of what can be studied using the scientific method.
- Type II Darwinist critics: These are the people created by the activities of Type I critics. Type II critics misunderstand ID because they have been told by Type I critics that ID is an untestable appeal to the supernatural. This causes them to think it is makes exclusively religious claims, is not scientific, not empirically based, and not appropriate for the laboratory or the classroom. Type II Critics aren’t necessarily to blame for their misapprehensions because they have been misled. Nonetheless, it would behoove them to pick up some of the scholarship of ID proponents they are criticizing before they speak about it publicly. If they did so, they would realize their misunderstandings.
- The Public: The Public consists of the people out there who are trying to figure out ID. Some of them may have read books or other literature by ID proponents and know the truth. But, for the most part, the public has been misled by Type I and Type II critics who are telling them that ID is an unscientific appeal to the supernatural, and shouldn’t be studied in labs or taught in science classes.
Though Type II critics are more honest and genuine than Type I critics, both have a common goal: make sure that ID gets construed such that the designer turns out to be a supernatural deity, because then it’s very easy to argue that it isn’t science (and isn’t constitutional to teach). This results in momentum for the Darwinist misinformation train:
Figure 1: The Darwinist misinformation train
Some Darwinists critics want to get the ID train from Point A (reality) to Point B (fiction).
Point A represents the actual nature of intelligent design theory, where ID respects the limits of scientific inquiry and cannot identify the de |
