First some good news. Efforts to put a stop to the gerrymandering which is running roughshod over our republic. Here, here! Hear, hear!
Second, Michael Behe explains the intelligent design hypothesis. Hint: It’s not religious and it wouldn’t really supplant the teaching of evolution if properly applied. (Of course, though, it is being invoked by those who would remove evolution from the curriculum altogether.) In general, I think it’s an idea that is misunderstood and is being abused (on both sides, actually).
Finally, Bob Herbert with disturbing reports dribbling out of Gitmo. Most interesting (and well substantiated) is the story of Shafiq Rasul, who admitted to things that he could not have done under conditions which must be described as psychological abuse. That this is being done in my name makes me almost physically ill.
A grammatical hangup of mine. The phrase is “hear, hear!” not “here, here!” As in “this is a very good idea, so listen up.” This distinction is discussed on this site.
Otherwise, good articles…
Actually, I wondered about that while I was typing, but I didn’t take the time to check it out. Thanks.
Some rebuttal to Behe and ID, for starters: http://dailykos.com/story/2004/12/28/124656/45 including evidence at Behe’s Discovery Institute that it is most definitely a front for creationism to be used as a wedge issue. “Governing Goals
To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies.
To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and hurnan beings are created by God.” (from: http://www.public.asu.edu/~jmlynch/idt/wedge.html)
And, of course, since a logical assumption would be that a designer must be more “complex” than the designed – who designed the designer? And turtles… as the Feynman story goes, turtles all the way down….
The links you posted are enlightening regarding Behe’s motives. And I’m willing to concede that ID may not meet the criteria for a scientific theory in that it may not be testable. But I have never been convinced that evolution fills in all the gaps, either.
The Kos article has a short section which notes: “The admission that evolution exists puts ID directly at odds with the core of creationist sentiment. The fact that it bothers them so little is an indication of how intellectually unserious they are.” I’ll readily admit that this makes those who are pushing the idea for political gain intellectually unserious, but it doesn’t necessarily follow that the creators of ID itself are unserious.
I have a very good friend who is almost finished (for some definition of almost) with a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology at Cornell. He’s also a Christian, which makes him unique indeed. I’m going to ping him and get his thoughts, since I’m not qualified to talk seriously about evolution as a scientific theory, anyway.
The Feynman story is one of my favorites. I have a ready comeback, but I’m not prepared to open this up to a debate on the existence of God just now.
I have not yet heard back from my friend, but I have read more and pondered more.
I suppose the crux of the matter is this: I believe in ID in the sense that I believe that the universe was designed by an intelligent being (aka God). I am agnostic as to whether or not such a belief can be supported scientifically, but I’m definitely skeptical. That having been said, though, attempting to find scientific and experimental evidence for ID is, in my opinion, a legitimate scientific endeavour.
My web searching seems to indicate that Behe himself has basically been above board: For example, he has written past articles in the NY Times opposing laws which limit the teaching of evolution to school children. There is some evidence, however, that he associates with people and groups who want to use ID to try to drive the teaching of evolution from the schools, and that is unfortunate, as relationships with such groups do call into question Behe’s motives. In addition, I find it odd that Behe doesn’t condemn those who abuse his theory for political gains in stronger terms. In general, though, I try not to delve too deeply into people’s motives, and I haven’t seen anything really damning in Behe’s writings.
And just for the record, my opinion: As long as evolution remains at the center of biological thought, it ought to be taught in the science classrooms. In addition, all scientific classrooms should teach a healthy dose of skepticism (about evolution, and ID, and Newton’s theory of gravity, and Einstein’s relativity, and everything else). Should ID be a staple of the scientific classroom? Not unless it becomes a staple of scientific thought. But is it worth thinking about scientifically? Sure, why not?
That is all.
“But is it worth thinking about scientifically? Sure, why not?”
That strikes me as almost tautological. What criteria would something have to satisfy to not be worth thinking about “scientifically”?
Yes, it is a tautology, at least to some of us… And I suppose that’s exactly the point.
I believe I said it because I find the post on the Daily Kos to be dismissive. Does adequate emperical evidence currently support ID, as its proponents claim? No. Does that merit dismissing the whole idea as “not a scientific theory?” I don’t think that it does. It may be a lousy scientific theory, and it may need lots of work in order to produce verifiable hypotheses, but that doesn’t really refute its claim to being a scientific theory.
In their early stages, it is very difficult to generate testable hypotheses from most scientific theories. Imagine everyone in the world believes that the earth is flat. If you theorize that the earth is round, is it obvious how your belief will generate testable hypotheses? I think not. So I don’t think the fact that it currently appears impossible to generate emperical results supporting ID implies that ID is “not a scientific theory.” (Just as the fact that Behe believes that a mousetrap is irreducibly complex does not imply that it is.)
And I don’t understand, at all, the claim that ID is a fraud because it is “not anti-evolution.” Shouldn’t that make it less fraudulent, rather than more fraudulent? I think the whole argument in the section titled “The Two Frauds: Not Scientific, Not Anti-Evolution” is flawed.
I’ll wade in here on the side of Allen…
The linked Kos piece has two glaring logical inconsistencies.
a) ID and testable hypotheses
Paul asserts tha ID produces no testable hypotheses. Then states that it is a hallmark of good science that it produces testable results (I concur on this point), and says that “Of course, it is perfectly acceptable to revise a theory that has been falsified. This is the very essence of science–we learn from our mistakes, rather than hiding from them and denying them.”
Then Paul writes, “As implied above, Behe has made a number of specific claims about “irreducible complexity” which have then been withdrawn when they have been disproven.”
But then this irreducible complexity claim must have been a testable hypothesis for it to have been disproven. (Side note, I don’t buy Behe’s irreducibly complexity examples)
b) ID and evolution As Allen points out, Paul suggests that ID is a fraud because it doesn’t exclude evolution. Well relativistic phyiscs doesn’t exclude Newtonian physics in the every day setting (outside of GPS satellites). It’s scientifically ok for one theory to refine and fill in the holes of another theory.
That being said, while I believe that the universe and Man were intelligently designed, I find the current incarnation of ID and irreducible complexity to be a pretty lousy theory other than in the example of the Big Bang (which really isn’t a testable hypothesis anyways) and would prefer that it stay out of the science classroom for now.
As a little disagreement with Allen, we’ve pretty much always known the world was round and had testable hypotheses for the earth’s roundness. For example see Erastothenes http://astrosun2.astro.cornell.edu/academics/courses//astro201/eratosthenes.htm (links weren’t embedding properly).