Commonly Employed Arguments Against ID

Uncommon Descent has a web page devoted to frequently cited but weak arguments against Intelligent Design. Anyone involved in these debates for very long will recognize some of the arguments. The topic 27] The Information in Complex Specified Information (CSI) Cannot Be Quantified is appropriate for a blog identified to a great extent with William Dembski.

39] ID is Nothing More Than a “God of the Gaps” Hypothesis may be the most common anti-ID argument. This from the link:

ID is not proposing “God” to paper over a gap in current scientific explanation. Instead ID theorists start from empirically observed, reliable, known facts and generally accepted principles of scientific reasoning:

(a) Intelligent designers exist and act in the world.

(b) When they do so, as a rule, they leave reliable signs of such intelligent action behind.

(c) Indeed, for many of the signs in question such as CSI and IC, intelligent agents are the only observed cause of such effects, and chance + necessity (the alternative) is not a plausible source, because the islands of function are far too sparse in the space of possible relevant configurations.

(d) On the general principle of science, that “like causes like,” we are therefore entitled to infer from sign to the signified: intelligent action.

(e) This conclusion is, of course, subject to falsification if it can be shown that undirected chance + mechanical forces do give rise to CSI or IC. Thus, ID is falsifiable in principle but well supported in fact.

Distinguishing Ditches

Telic Thoughts commenter Zachriel introduced the puddle-logic argument into one of the blog threads. From Zachriel's comment:

The CSI of the puddle's hole is huge. It's not that the shape of the hole is merely complex. It's that it matches so precisely the shape of the puddle. It's highly specified!

William Dembski dealt with this type of objection to CSI in his book Intelligent Design. Dembski used the example of an archer shooting an arrow at a wall. If the wall is large and the archer blindfolded he can shoot an arrow in the general direction of the wall and hit it. If the spot of impact is subsequently encircled someone who did not observe the event might conclude that the archer hit the bullseye. That's essentially the puddle CSI argument. The specification criteria is faulty for the puddle.

One might construct a legitimate specification criteria that distinguishes a puddle, formed by random ground and weather conditions, from water lining an irrigation ditch; thereby avoiding the blind archer problem. That was alluded to in a separate comment.

Scientific Consensus: The Refuge of Weakness

In the Viewpoint article Scientific Consensus RLC refers to a Casey Luskin article at Evolution News & Views. Luskin's article notes the views of science fiction writer Michael Crichton who passed away recently. RLC quotes from a Crichton piece titled Aliens Cause Global Warming which appeared in the Wall Street Journal on November 7, 2008. The quote:

"I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.

"Let's be clear: The work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

"There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period....

"I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way."

Consensus arguments are intrinsically weak. If you have confidence in your argument you do not need to cite the fact that most people go along with your argument. You can be the only one in a room holding a viewpoint and still be right.

RLC goes on to make this remark:

"Darwinian processes" means that only physical mechanisms have been at work in the creation of the diversity of structures, functions, and operations found in living things. In other words, Darwinian processes (e.g. natural selection and random mutation) exclude any role for mind and intention, and it's simply untrue that all real scientists embrace the exclusion.

Antibiotic Resistence

Dr. Michael Egnor authored the blog entry titled Dr. Larry Moran, Darwinism, and Vicious Personal Invective at Evolution News and Views. Some personal invective from biochemistry professor Larry Moran is the focal point. The initial barrage was aimed at Dr. Jonathan Wells, who dared to suggest that recent research, related to bacterial resistence to antibiotics, was made independently of Darwin's theory. Egnor was also a target. The rhetoric can be viewed at the link. The insults were laced with predictable but unimaginative verbiage like "Idiots" and "lying for Jesus." So what else is new?

What do Moran, Myers and other wannabe tough guys get out of their poddy mouth antics? The approval of their readers? Promotion of the jackbooted image? And why is it so important to them to liken design to ignorance when ignorance is the byword aptly describing empirical supporting evidence for a non-design origin of life theory?

There is a practical effect of denigration that is worth noting- it tends to freeze fence sitters. Humans possess a herd instinct. Most of us do not like to buck popular opinion particularly when its spokesperson is an authority figure. Who is likely to say of another: "He raises a good point."- if the he is being demonized by one's college professor? Few have that kind of moral courage.

Here is Egnor's description of what Wells said from the linked blog entry:

…Darwinian evolution had nothing to do with [the research]…some bacteria happen to have a very complex enzyme (acetyltransferase), the origin of which Darwinism hasn’t really explained…And although an understanding of genetics is important when dealing with antibiotic resistance, Darwin’s theory of the origin of species by natural selection is not…they were not guided by Darwinian evolutionary theory [Emphasis mine] Dr. Wells pointed out that research on antibiotic resistance wasn’t guided by Darwinian evolutionary theory. That evolution occurred — that is, that the population of bacteria changed over time — is obviously true, and obviously was relevant to the antibiotic resistance research. Dr. Wells made the observation that the research owed little to Darwin’s theory that all biological complexity arose by natural selection without teleology.

Intuition

Go With Your Gut -- Intuition Is More Than Just A Hunch, Says New Research- the title of an article from Science Daily addresses a topic that a commenter at Telic Thoughts brought up yesterday. An ID critic alleged that ID inferences were drawn from intuition. As the linked article points out there are some in the science community who have ridiculed intuition and likened it to pseudoscientific practices like parapsychology and phrenology. Of course that's all the incentive needed for an ID critic to utilize the term in lieu of point by point discussions.

Research results published in the British Journal of Psychology indicate that intuitions are real and hunches should be taken seriously. Why? Because intuition is said to result from the manner by which brains subconsciously process, store and retrieve information. More specifically, researchers believe that a feeling that something is right or wrong occurs very quickly as the brain combines cues from past experiences and external circumstances and uses this as a basis for a decision. Rather than being irrational or emotionally based there appears to be a very logical and sound basis for hunches whose compressed time frame and unconscious level of decision making are distinguishing characteristics. Time pressure and information overload are associated with intuition according to researcher and Professor Hodgkinson.

A specific example involving a race car driver was used to illustrate how the driver saved his life with an instantaneous decision later analyzed to have resulted from his awareness of out of sync crowd behavior.

Both conscious and non-conscious thought are needed by humans if good decision making is the desired result.

Anti-ID Propaganda

Chuck Colson authored the linked article with the title, What Darwinism Can't Do, which begins with these two paragraphs:

The intelligent design (ID) movement has been accused of a lot of things over the years. Among the mildest of those accusations is that ID is just religion masquerading as science.

Anyone who could seriously think that, cannot be paying attention. Intelligent design, as defined by the Discovery Institute, teaches simply “that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected [random] process such as natural selection.” That’s it. It does not attempt to define or describe that cause. Most scientists who subscribe to intelligent design do believe in some form of evolution. And some of them are not even believers in the Bible—they are secularists. They simply believe that Darwinism does not have all the answers, especially about how life originated. (Darwin himself never pretended certainty on that.)

The religion masquerading as science charge sometimes arises from opportunism and other times from ignorance. The arguments used by IDists are based on scientific data related to biological organisms, their cells, cellular systems and biochemicals. The arguments arrayed against ID positions similarly reference the same things. When one examines actual ID position papers and critical reactions to them, one thing one does not find is exchanges over religious principles. That is telling. Although the religion card is played often, actual concepts advanced by IDists such as irreducible complexity, front loading, CSI and design arguments based on the coding nature of DNA, spark intense scientific debates rather than exchanges over religious issues.

The best forum for exchanges between IDists and their detractors is Telic Thoughts and it is also an internet site which features the comments of a number of scientists who believe in evolution and intelligent design but not necessarily in the Bible. Yet the worn out and discredited charges about religion persist. Propaganda machines have a momentum of their own.

Eviscerating an Anti-ID Argument

A member of Telic Thoughts named Mark Frank commented about detecting design in this thread. Frank also mentioned having authored an article at the Talk Reason website. An article by Frank entitled, An account of how we detect design, is the focus of this blog entry.

A remark referencing the World Trade Center Twin Towers is quoted from the article.

"Suppose the twin towers had been hit not by planes but by two meteors, large enough to seriously damage the towers, and for the purposes of this fantasy suppose the meteors had no physical connection that we could discern -- they were from different sources and were following unrelated trajectories. Such meteor strikes are less frequent than commercial airplanes flying into buildings -- remember Schipol. So the probability of two such meteors striking the same location in the same day is even smaller than two planes striking the same location. Yet we would hesitate to ascribe the two meteors to design."

This is reasonable. Read the intervening part up to this remark which follows:

"In the second case of the meteors we are much less inclined to accept the design explanation -- even though the likelihood of it being accidental are even smaller -- because the idea of a designer who can control meteor strikes is so wildly implausible. We cannot conceive how they could do it."

First, control of a meteor is not as implausible as Frank would have you believe. It should be a possibility for a species like our own with access to a future technology. But what Frank has presented is a classic argument from personal incredulity. He cannot conceive of a designer having such a capacity and is eager to dismiss a design option based on that. Suppose instead of two meteors it had been four or eight. At what point does personal incredulity give way to empirical observations? There was a time in history when the idea that rocks fell out of the sky was ridiculed. It seemed so counter intuitive. Quantum physics, predictions of relativity and multiple universes seem counter intuitive to many as well. Let's look at this next quote:

"ID concentrates on just one thing: the improbability of the outcome given that the cause is chance." It does not address the likelihood of the rival causes existing (chance or design)."

This is clearly erroneous. As evidenced by ideas promoted at Telic Thoughts and elsewhere, it is our knowledge of the nature of existing systems that leads us to impute design. The above also would lead one to believe that Darwinian theories can be assessed based on selected chance events or deterministic causal factors. While an evolutionary process would allow an assessment based on this, an abiogenesis scenario would not. Darwinists simply do not have a theory of origins characterized by causal specificity. Unlike an evolutionary scenario, containing fully functional organisms and a natural selection paradigm as a key theoretical component, the origin of life has no natural mechanism known to generate cells. This is a critical point for, unlike the Twin Towers example, we have no identifiable cause empirically demonstrating an option that could be labeled counter design.

In addition we do have an identifiable property of cells that quacks like a designed duck- the symbolic encoding sequences of nucleotides found in DNA. Codons represent amino acids as well as the command sequences (initiate transcription, stop etc.) as a consequence of a genetic code that allows assigment of symbolism. The coding system parallels symbolic encoding systems known to be intelligently generated. The next comment merits a response as well.

"It goes even further than that. It explicitly forbids any exploration of design as a cause because it refuses to be drawn into who or what the designer is or how they implement their design."

Also untrue. IDists will go as far as evidence suggests to identify a designer. You simply do not need an exact identity to infer a designed event. What is inferred in the case of DNA is an intelligent cause because that is consistent with the nature of the information storage nucleic acid.

There is one more point needing mention. Anti-IDists have gone to considerable efforts to impose legal consequences for designer IDing that infers a deity. In the United States the separation clause is the weapon of choice. However, while on the one hand critics seek government enforcement of a no God option, with the other they call attention to an alleged reluctance to identify a deity. It's a good strategy if you can get away with it.

A Sad Saga

Both Telic Thoughts and Uncommon Descent featured posts about the denial of tenure by Iowa State University to Guillermo Gonzalez, an assistant professor. Gonzalez was known to believe in intelligent design. Here are some comments at the two sites:

http://telicthoughts.com/keep-the-thought-police-on-alert/#comment-103737

http://telicthoughts.com/keep-the-thought-police-on-alert/#comment-104069

http://telicthoughts.com/keep-the-thought-police-on-alert/#comment-104261

http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/habitable-zone-astronomer-guillermo-gonzalez-denied-tenure/#comment-120923

Discrediting the Faulty Use of Randomness and Selection

Michael Egnor's 'Pseudo-Darwinism: A Theory for All Seasons' is worth reading. The following quotes are taken from it. Color code: red=Reed Cartwright and blue=Michael Egnor.

"Now the biotech industry is founded on the application of Darwin’s theory of natural selection. Selection is an essential part of the process that creates transgenic organisms, like bacteria that produce human insulin. Humans are unable to create transgenic organisms directly, instead they use recombination DNA technology, which randomly creates transgenic organisms from building blocks provided by the researcher. The result is a population of organisms, in which a small minority contains the desired transgenic trait. The researcher then uses Darwin’s mechanism, selection, to evolve a population that is enriched for the desired trait. And voila [sic], with what to someone like Dr. Egnor must seem like wizardry, a population of bacteria can now produce human insulin, enriching and saving the lives of millions, all thanks to Charles Darwin."

"Dr. Cartwright is mistaken. Darwin asserted that all natural biological complexity arose by random undesigned variation and natural selection. The intentional alteration and intentional selection of microorganisms is a nice example of designed variation and artificial selection. Dr. Cartwright's application of Darwin's theory to intentional design and breeding of bacteria is pseudo-Darwinism."

Excellent response Michael Egnor. You identified the faulty logic behind the exhaltation of Darwinian theory. Kudos.

"Pseudo-Darwinism—in this case, the attribution of Darwin's theory to design and artificial selection—is the antithesis of Darwin's theory. Crick and colleagues chose variants to study and artificially selected them. Their work was carefully planned. It wasn’t random and it wasn’t natural. The biotech industry breeds bacteria, combining molecular biology with ancient principles of breeding. Darwin learned from breeding; he didn't invent it or any of its principles. Darwin's theory is not a theory of design by artificial selection. It's a theory about biological change without design and without intentional selection. It has nothing to do with Crick's experiments or with the biotech industry."

No wonder Darwinists are upset by Egnor. This guy has a knack for concisely knocking down faulty arguments. The other side presents examples of intelligent design and tries to sell them as evidence for selection and randomness. Michael Egnor deftly delivers the knock out blow.

Allowable Thoughts

Deconstructing Darwinese: Delighting in Ignorance contains commentary on views expressed by science writer Ben Shaberman in the April 2007 issue of Sky and Telescope. Shaberman's piece contains the usual disavowel of intelligent design as an explanation for the universe itself; or perhaps the multiple universes existing in Shaberman's mind. The bottom line: this universe of ours worked out just right as far as conditions favorable to life are concerned. It came down to luck. That's where anti-IDers are willing to go, if necessary, to avoid an intelligent design explanation. The commentary of the Creation Safaris writer is a lot of fun. So let's examine it.

"Darwinese is more than just a language foreign to the majority of people who live by common sense and know an intelligent cause when they see it. No, Darwinese is a complete communication system that includes a set of protocols. One requirement is the secret handshake. This is the motion of sweeping away creationism with a wipe of the hand, and putting “intelligent design” in scare quotes. In evolutionary parlance, it is taboo to actually consider the arguments of these dimwits. The structure of Darwinese, as in 1984, actually inhibits formulating thoughts contrary to Darwinese protocol. Whatever celebrates Darwinian ideas is goodthink; whatever attributes validity to intelligent design is crimethink. The syntax and semantics force thoughts into naturalistic molds – except when Christian terms are borrowed temporarily to get around difficulties (e.g., 07/15/2005)."

The scare quotes, restrictive protocols and good versus bad themes parallel Orwellian thinking depicted in 1984.

"A second requirement is to reinforce the false dichotomy between design/creationist views and “scientific explanation.” The word science must never be used in the same sentence with intelligent design. It is a word reserved strictly for Darwinian materialists, even when the context appeals to mystery, the unknown and the unknowable. Claiming to know the answer is design, and being able to prove it, spoils all the fun of remaining ignorant. He said, “That hour-long lunch helped me appreciate the beauty of the mysterious world we live in.”

"A third requirement in Darwinese is to pretend to be honestly curious and to demean certainty while actually maintaining a dogmatic position. To prove that Shaberman is an accomplished Darwinese speaker, ask him if evolutionary theory itself is up for debate. Imagine what would happen if an interlocutor were to argue that invocations to unknowable Big Bangs and multiverses constitutes a tacit appeal to the supernatural. The Darwinese protocol in such instances is to chant Evolution is science! Creation is religion! as long as necessary to get the interlocutor to leave. News reporters watching on the sidelines will promptly report that the Darwinese speaker achieved a great victory against ignorance and superstition."

Anything that can reinforce supernatural concepts are out of bounds for Darwinists. If multiple universes were a biblical prediction it too would be considered illegitimate.

"A feeling of awe and wonder at things too big to be understood does have its share of euphoria. Mystery can spur one on to seek an explanation. In that sense, it can be a good thing. But mystery is not an end in itself, lest it become a mystery religion. Shaberman just preached a little sermon for the Cult of Lady Luck, one of the denominations of Charlianity. Darwin would be pleased to know that his doctrine of contingency has been extrapolated all the way back into prior worlds of the imagination. This completes his systematic theology: ultimate origins, the present, and ultimate destiny. He is gratified that his completed system produces such warm feelings in the hearts of his disciples. Now that he controls the Ministry of Truth, having ruled all competing ideas out of bounds, he happily pays out his lottery winners in monopoly money. Whatever keeps his devotees hooked enraptured in the realms of eternal ignorance is not too high a price to pay."

Truth is thought of as subjective in western cultures except when objectivity is attached through scientific proclamation. Retaining control of scientific labels signifies power and influence. Many objections to intelligent design could be leveled at beliefs in multi-universes. Since the supernatural is not one of them the multi-universe paradigm remains safe from being ostracized.

The Religion Card

Denyse O'Leary's blog entry entitled Darwinism proponent now simply avoids ID arguments? reveals another tactic utilized to counter intelligent design. Comments of David Rice III about Eugenie Scott are examined. O'Leary describes what seems to be the playing of a religion card which involves disengagement from substantive discussions about intelligent design in favor of talking about religion. The next paragraph quotes Rice:

"Scott used to be (in my opinion) a somewhat respectable foe. But she has not bothered to really engage in the arguments for ID and this radio appearance is one more example of that. The only time the words "intelligent design" leave Scott's mouth is at the 24:48 mark where she said "Actually before I mention intelligent design, I also had a thought regarding that last call...." and then it is never uttered there after - she DIDN"T address intelligent design. This schtick is just not going to work."

And Denyse's comment follows:

"No, it is not going to work. How can it possibly work when major Darwinists spent last year on an "anti-God" campaign? The fact is, Darwinism has always been promoted as the creation story of materialist atheism. No spin aimed at foolish or disaffected clergy is going to change that, nor is Scott going to succeed in characterizing the inevitable blowback from traditional religions and non-materialist philosophies as a form of aggression."

I don't believe it will work either and also notice that it is primarily the Eugenie camp that brings up religion time and time again. She has evidently made up her mind that engaging IDers on scientific matters can backfire and opts for a very unproductive meme instead. Too bad.

The Rational Nature of a Belief in a Designer

The following was written recently by an anti-IDist during an exchange in an internet discussion group:

"If we can say nothing substantive about a notion, because we cannot do actual experimentation in the real (i.e. gather data, take measurements. ..) world, then that notion cannot be said to be part of our scientific understanding."

and then shortly thereafter he wrote:

"Which gods, fairies, godmen, goddesses, or intelligent designers can we say have passed any of these requirements?"

This illustrates a common ploy by anti-IDists. The wording varies and at times includes references to ancient Greek gods but the message is the same. In an attempt to ridicule both a viewpoint and the one holding the viewpoint, the anti-IDist will introduce an element of absurdity to infer that an ID position is irrational and contrary to good science. Accordingly there could be no intelligent design because imputing ID could imply a deity and a deity was akin to fantasies like fairies.

The first sentence is another textbook ploy inferring the necessity of "supernatural experiments" when what IDers argue for are positions entailing the testing of natural phenomenon.

At Telic Thoughts Steve Petermann authored the blog entry 'Religion Irrational? Ask a Preeminant Logician', which documents the rational nature of philosophical inferences about God. Specifically referenced was the great mathematician and logician Kurt Godel who is noted, among other things, for his ontological proof. This is the logical formalization of an argument for the existence of God; specifically Saint Anselm's ontological argument.

Of course many others, both before and after Godel, have made rational arguments inferring the existence of God as well. Alvin Plantinga, who has written 'God and others minds. A study of the rational justification of belief in God' is another eminently rational and logical thinker.

Even a brief acquaintance with papers and books addressing the existence of God is enough to show the juvenile nature of the fairies tactic as contrasted with the classics of some of this culture's most brilliant minds.

Exposing a Common Fallacy

Some very good information and analytical insight is found in the comment section of posts made at Telic Thoughts. A frequent complaint leveled at ID is that it is nothing more than a Trojan Horse for religious doctrine, particularly that of Christianity. A commenter known as Analyysi referred to the book 'Living with Darwin: Evolution, Design and the Future of Faith' which is authored by Philip Kitcher. Analyysi referred to this quote noting a logical point ot two.


"Advertising intelligent design as independent of religious doctrine is accurate in one important sense. To claim that some kind of organisms are products of intelligent design does not logically entail any conclusion about the existence of a deity, let alone any specific articles on Christian faith." (p. 6)

"Although there are grounds for suspicion, I shall treat intelligent design as its leaders characterize it, as a hypothesis put forward to identify and account for certain natural phenomena. The sociological fact that the hypothesis is welcomed by a significant number of Christians, and by some religious people of other faiths, does not make it an intrisically religious doctrine. A proposal about natural world need have no specifically religious content to be more combatible with particular religious ideas than its equally naturalistic rivals." (p. 7)

Source:
Philip Kitcher, Living with Darwin:
Evolution, Design and the Future of Faith
(Oxford University Press, 2007)

Well said Philip Kitcher. An excellent rebuttal to a common misconception.

The "It's About Religion" Canard

In a BreakPoint Commentary titled 'A Passion for Truth' Chuck Colson wrote:

"A couple of years ago on this program, I had this to say of the book Doubts about Darwin by my friend Thomas Woodward: “The motivation for [the] . . . founders of the [intelligent] design movement to instigate this ‘reformation within science’ is a passion for intellectual truth-telling.”

Woodward displays this passion for truth-telling yet again in his marvelous new book, Darwin Strikes Back: Defending the Science of Intelligent Design. What Woodward wrote about just a few years ago is even truer today. Amid a firestorm of criticism and abuse from committed Darwinists, the intelligent design movement continues to press forward, gaining scientific credibility and even grudging respect from some evolutionists. But as Woodward shows, there’s still a long way to go.

Because the more respect intelligent design gains, the more alarmed the Darwinists become. Their thinking goes something like this: It’s one thing for those religious people to talk about a creator God—that’s religion; but now they are talking about science—so, they figure, “Let’s label it religion.” Woodward writes, “These sentiments were echoed in public declarations, verbally and in print, by Darwinian defenders, warning . . . that Intelligent Design is religion, not science . . . This statement,” Woodward continues, “emerged as the number-one talking point for Intelligent Design opponents [over the last few years].”

Use labeling rather than reason. Assert the plausibility of abiogenesis, in spite of the paltry evidence for it. Then ignore physical phenomenon like sequential properties of functional DNA that make it more amenable to purposeful, intelligent causal explanations. And what's religious about this?


"The idea makes for a great sound bite, as the popular press is well aware. But it has no ground to stand on, and that’s becoming increasingly obvious if you spend any amount of time researching the issue. Intelligent design theorists come from all backgrounds and creeds; some of them aren’t “religious” at all. What they have in common is what Woodward calls a “scientific paradigm” that allows for design in any natural mechanism that can’t be explained simply by chance or purely natural causes. His meticulously researched book clearly explains the scientific reasoning behind this paradigm.

Ironically, it’s the anti-intelligent design forces that are fully committed to a religious dogma—a dogma whose foundation is starting to show dangerous cracks. Their religion is materialism, and some of them even admit it, like Harvard geneticist Richard Lowentin. Woodward quotes him as saying: “We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs . . . because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.”

Well said. The standard bearers for the status quo are not without extra-scientific values that determine how they view nature. We all bring metaphysical views to the table. It's time ID opponents acknowledge this.

The Flat Earth Tactic

A new blog link has been posted to this site. It is David Anderson's 'The British Centre for Science Education: Revealed.' This particular blog will focus on one of David's blogs entitled 'The BCSE And The Recycling Of Anti-Christian Mythology.' It deals with a common tactic that has been employed against both advocates of intelligent design and Christians who deviate from orthodox norms. It seeks to link the belief in a flat earth to those in the forementioned groups. The following italicized quote is taken from David's linked blog:

The fact that the earth is not flat has been known for over 2,500 years. In fact, in 276BC, one astronomer (Eritosthenes) made a calculation of the size of the earth, to within an impressive degree of accuracy (either within ½% or 17% of the modern value, depending on the question of how his units translate to modern ones).

And contrary to modern mythology, nobody tried to dissuade Christopher Columbus from travelling round the world because of the danger of falling off the end. Columbus' critics and Columbus both acknowledged that the earth is spherical - but protested that the world was too big for him to reach his intended destination by sailing west. As one author writes, " The common impression that Columbus proved that the world is round is completely destroyed when one realizes that he probably never sailed farther west than Cuba, falling far short of circumnavigating the earth." (http://www.creationresearch.org/creation_matters/97/cm9711.html)

That the earth is not a flat piece of land is also implied in the Bible. Indeed the book which may be the very oldest book in the Bible states that the earth is suspended in space:


[God] stretches out the north over empty space; He hangs the earth on nothing.

Job 26:7 - http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Job%2026:7&version=50


So if the belief is not documented in the Bible why even allege it? Of course the motive is to discredit people whose views do not accord with their own. When you see the flat earth ploy you find evidence that those bandying about the phrase would rather mud wrestle than engage in sincere dialog, avoid thinking in favor of flame throwing or maybe just indulge their juvenile impulses.

A Fundamentally Flawed Analysis: Part 2

This is the second of a series of blogs on a book review by James Robert Brown entitled 'Fundamentally Mistaken.' The review is of a book authored by Michael Shermer titled 'Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design.' This appeared in the linked review:

Behe's most famous example, the flagellum of a bacterium (the little tail that propels the cell), could not have come about by any Darwinian process, he claims, because every part is needed in its current form; alter any bit and the whole collapses like a house of cards.

There are problems galore with this and other such arguments for the existence of an intelligent designer. First, even if no Darwinian process that can explain the flagellum is known at present, it does not follow that no such process exists.

But that is exactly what needs to be scientifically determined rather than assumed. Since no empirically verified pathways exist the causal issue is an open question. In response to Behe proposals have been made. One scenario invokes the type 3 secretory system as having been an ancestral precursor system to the flagellum motor. Don't assume anything either way. Rather leave the matter open to interpretations drawn from further testing. Test results can confirm or negate competing hypotheses so it is premature to claim that there are problems galore with Behe's irreducible complexity concept. IC is not negated through conceptual pathways either. Arguments are not the means by which this issue should be settled. More from Brown's review:

This "god of the gaps" reasoning is a sham.

Brown jumps from an empirically unsettled matter to a knee jerk cliche without a pause. The God of the gaps phrase is an example of ParaSpinning Behe. The one flinging the phrase is asserting that a) a gap in knowledge exists, that when filled, will show how unknown pathways explain x; in this case the flagellum and b) that skeptics are needlessly invoking God as the cause because of a lack of understanding.

To the extent that we are unable to depict a pathway with reasonable specificity a gap exists. Existing evidence explains how we fix causality. Brown and Shermer believe that selected genetic changes alone explain the evolution of the flagellum. Incidental to this is a concurrent, but rarely enunciated belief, that the selection process itself reveals nothing suggesting purposeful or intelligent influence on the course of events. Unfortunately for them the details of the process are obscured and may never be clearly delineated so as to verify the claim. Also problematic is the insistence on the need for geologic time frames which effectively rules out many empirical approaches. What remains is the identification of homologous genes and their proteins and a presumption that the selection paradigm is sufficient to take it from there.

The sufficiency of a selection based explanation is called into question by irreducible complexity. It is not an all out assault on selection but rather insists that molecular homology arguments lack the required rigor. Historically, countering design hinged on the integrity of selection based arguments. Paley's argument was rational and only countered by showing theoretical pathways driven by selection. IDists remind us that purpose and intelligence remain rational alternative explanations when selection falls short or, as Gene and Krauze at Telic Thoughts have suggested, when the selection concept itself reveals a telic quality.

Dissing ID

Opponents of ID have an array of weaponry at their disposal unrelated to scientific evidence. One of them is scorn spawned by intellectual arrogance. Two blog entries, one by Mike Gene of Telic Thoughts and the other by William Dembski from Uncommon Descent illustrate the point. Gene's blog is a humorous response to raging fulminations. From the source inspiring the Telic Thoughts blog:

"Scientists tend to get angry when confronted by what they see as the
gross distortion of truth promulgated by Intelligent Designers. This
has come across badly in 'balanced' debates in the media. As was the
case with arguments over the MMR vaccine, the scientist when provoked can unwittingly appear to be a fulminating zealot. By contrast, many of the proponents of Intelligent Design (ID)) have contrived to appear to be in favour of free speach. Aren't those scientists empurpled with rage and crying "nonsense" the very picture of a threatened Establishment? On this platform the evolutionary scientist rather than the ID enthusiast can be seen the less reasonable of the two."

This illustrates the rage approach that attempts to depict IDers as untruthful because they advocate a position that mainstreamers are unable to refute.

Dembski's blog, J. Scott Turner in the Chronicle of Higher Education- ID is asking the right questions! contains a comment in reaction to an attempt to belittle IDers. The italicized quote is followed by the comment in bold.

“Their intellectual pedigree might be suspect, their thinking might be wrong, but at least they are asking an interesting question: What is the meaning of design of the living world?”

I keep having to remind myself that it takes intellectual pedigree beyond reproach to believe in a theory of origins that like alchemy lacks causal specificity (sound familiar WD?). And of course only an Untermensch would doubt that unguided natural forces are capable of generating sequentially ordered and functional nucleic acids on prebiotic earth. Don’t even bother to ask if any genetic information, fortuitously acquired, would survive environmental damage occassioned by natural forces in the absence of genomic repair mechanisms. If you start taking such issues seriously your intellectual pedigree will be challenged. Keep the faith.

The dissing tactic masks the bluff and bluster behind the opposition's case.