Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Intelligent Design

  • The Freedom to be Dumb

    Well, actually you should have the freedom to be dumb, but not on the public school budget. For all those who wonder why I strongly oppose so-called academic freedom bills applying to the High School science curriculum, see this site.

    Cool, no?

  • Design Language and Evolution

    Charles Jones has a post a Power of Suggestion in which he notes the following:

    But evolution can’t “allow” things, because it’s unguided. And it can’t make any mistakes, because it makes no decisions. Take note: whenever people try to explain how something happens through evolution, they always resort to the language of design.

    Now there are quite a lot of problems with the usage of language that is involved here, one of which is referring to evolution–a process–as an “it[-with-consciousness]” that does or does not do particular things. If we think of evolution as a process, however, without trying to make it into an entity, it’s quite proper to refer to a process “allowing” certain things and excluding others.

    While evolution may not be guided, there are things that work and things that don’t. Body forms develop in certain ways, both because those ways work and thus the possessors of the form in question survive, but also because the possible alterations in a form are limited. Perhaps if some different body organizations had survived the Cambrian, we would have a different set of alternatives now.

    So evolution can “allow” or “disallow” certain options, provided one is thinking not of the conscious decisions of an acting person, but rather the constraints of a process. Think of a simple filter. Let’s consider a box with a mesh covering the bottom. Gravel and sand is poured into the top, and the filter only allows rocks of a particular size to pass through. It doesn’t make mistakes; what happens simply happens because of the constraints–or lack thereof–in the process.

    There are two major ways in which language about evolution gets confused. First, we have a failure to see language in its proper context. The word “allow” has a different sense when used to say, “The mother allowed her son to cross the street alone”, as opposed to saying “the filter allowed the smaller rocks to pass but stopped the larger ones.” The mother may have been mistaken in what she allowed; the filter either works or perhaps some of the wires are broken. But it can’t be mistaken!

    The second, however, can be more dangerous. We have evolved language to deal with things in our more immediate environment. For most people, a year is a long time. Long term planners may think in decades. Few think in centuries. But evolution occurs over the course of billions of years. Thus we start with a problem. We have to move to observing the present and inferring things about the past. We see this confusion regularly in discussions of whether evolutionary theory is really science.

    But even further, we have to look at natural processes that accomplish results. Now at first, as primitive human beings, we would think of events simply as individual happenings. So language to discuss processes would almost always involve an actor. In fact, when we filled our universe with spirits and gods, they very often fulfilled that need of an actor.

    But for a process that simply happens because that’s the way it is, we’re a bit short on words, and we’re often uncomfortable with those that we have invented. Note the insecurity produced by the words “random” or “unguided.”

    Yet as a theist who accepts evolutionary theory, I believe that even the unguided processes are not, ultimately, absolutely unguided. They’re just unguided in the sense in which we are used to using the terms. If there is a God who created the laws of the universe, then the processes that are constrained by those laws are ultimately fulfilling his will, even if his will was only that those processes work in that way.

    Nonetheless, perhaps we need a language to describe action without conscious intervention. Or, on the other hand, we could just realize that the language of design used in describing unguided or remotely guided processes is metaphorical.

    Ultimately, you can see, I don’t believe language makes reality. It just simultaneously makes it possible to discuss something, while also making it a bit confusing. It too evolved with constraints.

  • Ken Miller v. Casey Luskin

    If it were a court case, Luskin would be getting the book thrown at him when penalty time came.

    If any readers of this blog don’t also read The Loom, you should. But in case some of you don’t, make sure not to miss this three part series by Dr. Ken Miller, (part 2, part 3) biologist and author of Finding Darwin’s God and Just a Theory.

    His presentation is masterful and comprehensible, a rare enough combination. We need more of this kind of writing in the creation-evolution debate. Carl Zimmer regularly produces excellent work on science that is comprehensible by outsiders, and this guest series is a special treat.

  • The Imagination Stopper

    Carl Zimmer has a post on the Loom that discusses irreducible complexity along with some examples. I found it very interesting how we start with a bicycle as irreducibly complex, a claim of an intelligent design (ID) advocate, and then see how the irreducible is reduced through the magic of Google.

    There are many ways in which ID is less irrational than young earth creationism. For example, ID requires one to deny things that are much nearer the cutting edge of science, whereas young earth creationism requires one to deny well established theories from a wide variety of disciplines.

    But there’s one area in which I think ID has managed to be more destructive to sound science than young earth creationism, and that’s in causing atrophy of the imagination. Because ID provides an answer to many things that are not known, or purports to do so, it tends to make people quit looking or quit trying to imagine what might be. This atrophy of the imagination winds up with ID advocates not even checking to see if the problem they propose has already been solved.

    This is simply one instance of a more general problem: Satisfaction with existing answers. There is nothing like being satisfied with the answers you have to prevent you from finding new and better ones. This satisfaction often manifests itself in the “insurmountable problems” attack on any form of new technology. “It doesn’t work now and it never will,” the critics announce with great solemnity. The answer to which, of course, is to overcome the problem.

    Similarly, the attack can come in the form of damning with faint praise: “Sure, that will work, sort of, but it won’t solve the whole problem.” In the creation-evolution debate, this argument is repeated over and over in stages.

    “There are no transitional fossils.”

    So paleontologists find one.

    “There are not enough transitional fossils.”

    So paleontologists find dozens more.

    “Well, you found a few, but there are still not enough.”

    It doesn’t end.

    Now ID advocates could turn this argument against me, or more purposefully against scientific opponents of ID. Are we too satisfied with current answers? Are we damning with faint praise? Well, I think we’re all safe from the “faint praise” accusation. Successful prediction #1 has yet to be made so that it might be praised faintly and thus damned.

    But is there the possibility that satisfaction with current answers is preventing progress? This one is more difficult to tell. The absence of any new answers to actual questions is a bad indicator for ID, but I wish they would go ahead, spend some time in the laboratory, and attempt to produce such an answer so that it could be criticized. Since the beginning of discovery, the proper answer to the critic who says it will never work, or will never provide a satisfactory answer, is to go out and make it work or provide that answer.

    As it is, it is the ID crowd who are trying to make us satisfied with an existing answer, and are trying to prevent us from finding a new one.

    I’m not a scientist. I don’t work in the natural sciences. But I do read a wide variety of materials from various fields, and I have to say that the field of evolutionary biology looks nothing like the static sort of field stuck in a 19th century theory that hasn’t changed which is described by some (see the Dispatches comment on Steve Fuller.) It isn’t a field that is blocking discovery or trying to defend an entrenched orthodoxy. It is a field that is constantly producing new ideas. In fact, one of the great resources of its critics is the criticism of existing ideas produced within the field.

    The ID critics perform an interesting sleight of mind when they both use quotes from various working evolutionary biologists (normally taken out of context, but still!) to show how the whole theory is falling apart, while at the same time say that the whole field is static and is blocking new ideas. That very active criticism and reexamination is the sign of a healthy field of science, involved in serious discovery and growth.

    And just what have the ID advocates produced to match? What I see is defense after defense of a static position, one that is much, much more deserving of the epithet “18th century social theory” than is the theory of evolution.

  • Academic Freedom and Creationism in SciAm

    Glenn Branch and Eugenie Scott have an article in Scientific American titled The Latest Face of Creationism in the Classroom, detailing the latest approach to getting creationism in the classroom.

    Since I touched on this briefly in two previous posts, I thought I’d link to this longer article so people can get the context. I really don’t have the patience for detailing these legislative strategies, so I’ll let others do it.

    Enjoy!

  • The Arrival of a Creationist Troll

    Someone calling himself “island” has arrived to comment on my previous post (Teaching Evolution in Florida).

    He has descended to calling me a liar for the liberal agenda, which I will gratefully add to my other titles, and gotten there all within one day. Head over to the thread if you wish to talk. As is my usual policy, I don’t censor comments, but once I regard a conversation as a waste, I simply drop it.

    Don’t feed the trolls? Or do, as you wish. Or perhaps other trolls will join!

  • Albert Mohler Steps in It on Evolution

    There are some basics about what evolution is and is not, and what the various positions of both creationists and evolutionists are, that everyone who steps into the debate should know. Some examples include the difference between a young earth and an old earth creationist. I’ve seen a few discussions in internet fora in which someone explains the age of the earth in great detail to someone else who actually agrees.

    Then there is the difference between an intelligent design (ID) proponent and one of the more specific types of creationist. An ID proponent might be young or old earth, or might even accept most, but not all, of the features of biological evolution, as does Dr. Michael Behe.

    Someone of the stature of Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr. should be aware of these things. I don’t mean he has to agree with anyone else’s position. Merely that he should be aware of what those positions actually are. Pretending that alternative views don’t exist strikes me as just a bit deceptive.

    Nonetheless, Dr. Mohler writes, in The End of Evolution (article, not book), writes in his introductory paragraph:

    The evolutionist is locked into an intellectual box from which there is no rescue. Evolutionary theory is naturalistic by necessity – everything must be explained in purely naturalistic terms. Only nature can explain nature, and there is no other source of meaning or truth. Thus, in the end the theory of evolution – and the theory of evolution alone – must explain everything about humanity.

    Now I could fisk the entire article, almost word by word, but I’m just going to touch on three paragraphs. You see, there may be a few people out there who believe that evolution explains absolutely everything, but there are very few of them.

    What evolution does is explain, within the bounds of science, how live diversified on planet earth. It would also propose how life may well diversify anywhere. It is not merely evolution that is naturalistic by necessity, but science itself. That’s for a rather simple reason: Science is designed to explain the natural world. It is ill-equipped to explain the supernatural, because the supernatural does not function as the natural world does. That’s why we call it supernatural.

    Now one may not believe there is a supernatural, but if one does believe in something supernatural, it would be extremely odd to also believe that the supernatural followed natural laws. If it did, we would simply call it natural. On the other hand, if it does not follow natural laws, how would a method designed to study things that follow natural laws study it?

    Imagine the lab experiment for chemistry (the only science I took in college). Careful instructions are given as to temperature, what chemicals one is to combine, how, and when. Then the teacher announces, “Then, if God wills it, the whole thing will light on fire!” It’s silly. I think everyone knows it’s silly.

    Here’s the problem. Many Christians living in western culture are so thoroughly convinced that science is the best way of knowing that they want to put their faith, the most important thing in their life, on a foundation of science, somehow.

    But faith is not science, and God is not a proper object of scientific investigation. Oh, we can see what God has done via science. I would suggest that if a miracle actually takes place, the scientific evidence for the physical event should be present. But even so we do not see a miracle. Rather, we see the results of the miracle. We simply have an event for which we lack an adequate natural explanation.

    If you can’t accept that there are other ways of knowing than science, then you probably shouldn’t be a Christian, because science is never going to make a scientific theory of the Christian faith. It cannot because of its nature and because of the nature of science itself.

    When Christians say evolution is naturalistic, they are quite correct. But when they treat that as some special thing about evolution as opposed to all other branches of science, they are in serious error, both scientifically and theologically (from the viewpoint of orthodox Christian theology). Scientifically, they try to examine a phenomenon that is by definition not available to scientific inquiry. Theologically they try to put God in a box, regulated by natural laws. The god that they can fit in that box is not God.

    A bit further on Mohler says:

    Evolutionary theory cannot possibly explain the totality of human experience, much less the reality of human origins. Evolutionists – if consistent – believe that every human experience, every emotion, every physical attribute, every hope, and every fear is simply a feature developed by means of natural selection.

    Of course, looked at from the Christian point of view, evolution cannot explain the totality of Christian experience. It’s not supposed to. As a Christian, I believe the totality of human experience involves origin from God and an experience with God, neither of which are defined in a way that science could even investigate.

    But neither can any other scientific theory explain all those things that it does not purport to explain. Now there is a great deal that evolution can explain. In fact, I think what evolution can explain would make Dr. Mohler very uncomfortable, and so he has to make a broadside attack on something he clearly does not understand. Evolution can explain a great deal. (See my earlier notes on the book Random Designer: Created from Chaos to Connect with the Creator for more information.)

    Finally, I want to address this paragraph:

    That’s a cold theory, and it just doesn’t make sense to the vast majority of Americans – and it shouldn’t. The Christian worldview offers a far more satisfying, true, and understandable account of human origins and human existence.

    As a minor point, let me note that the majority of Americans are not really equipped to evaluate the evidence for biological evolution. It requires certain skills which the majority of us do not possess. I’m a well-read layman on the subject, yet I would refer you to others to discuss the science, while I discuss Biblical and theological issues.

    But as for it being a “cold theory,” it’s also a cold fact that a hurricane will follow it’s proposed course and there’s nothing I can do about it. Shall I reject it because it’s cold, inexorable, and so incredibly NOT warm and cuddly? The fact that the Christian worldview, or rather Dr. Mohler’s particular version of it, is satisfying doesn’t make it any more true. In theology we would have things such as legalism, the notion that one can earn one’s salvation. One can construct such a system that will be quite satisfying. But assuming Dr. Mohler is a good Southern Baptist, he would not accept the satisfying argument as a demonstration of their validity. He would argue that one can’t earn salvation, that it is God’s gift.

    Which leads to the word “true.” If we are to determine whether evolution is true we have to go right back to that place that Dr. Mohler apparently wants to avoid–natural, and naturalistic, science. Methodologically naturalistic, of course, which simply takes note of the fact that science studies the natural world, not the supernatural.

    The facts do not adjust themselves to our convenience and comfort. Whether I like the idea of evolution or not is quite irrelevant to whether it is a valid theory.

    Meteorology is a cold theory. But whether I accept it, or replace it with an alternative theory of lovingly God-guided hurricanes, that hurricane is still coming. It cares not in the least how comfortable I am.

  • Idiocy and Firing Michael Reiss

    I realize that journalists write confused stories and that headline writers produce stupid headlines to go with them, but I would think that academic or scientific organizations, irrespective of subject, should be able to be more sensible.

    It may not be so. “Firing” is, of course, my own overblown headline, provided you regard essentially forcing someone to resign as substantially different from firing them. In this case, I think the difference is entirely in framing.

    Reiss advocated responding in a reasonable and rational manner to the objections of children in school who are creationists. He didn’t advocate teaching creationism as equally scientific as the theory of evolution. His view is actually mainstream in his views.

    As an advocate of the theory of evolution I hope that the folks on our side will be clear here on what we do advocate (sound science in the science classroom) and what we don’t (suppression of all discussion).

    I’d commend to you Nick Matzke’s post on the Panda’s Thumb, which covers the scientific and educational point of view. Supplement this with and Doug’s post at MetaCatholic which deals with the religious aspects more fully.

  • Methodists and Evolution

    I reported some time ago that the United Methodist General Conference had passed some resolutions in support of evolution and opposing teaching faith based ideas in the public school science classroom. There’s a story in the Fort Wayne, Indiana Journal-Gazette about how this happened and the role of a local church member.

    I have observed some people trying to get resolutions passed at annual conferences or occasionally at General Conference and the process is somewhat difficult and I know that the individuals involved put a lot of work into the process. It’s nice to see people willing to be that involved. I do note that it seems that resolutions from general conference have little weight in practice.

    I would say that in the four congregations of which I have been a member, for example, the social principles only played a noticeable role in the most recent, and even there many members would probably be surprised to learn that there are social principles. (For non-UM folks, let me note that the social principles are only one area in the Methodist discipline which I’m using as an example, not the full statement of our doctrine and polity.)

    Perhaps it would be a good idea for Methodist pastors, teachers, and church leaders to refer to the social principles and other portions of the Discipline and Resolutions even when we don’t particularly like what they say, as will inevitably happen.

    Two early experiences of mine in the United Methodist Church come to mind. First, after I had read the relevant portions of the United Methodist Discipline prior to joining my first Methodist congregation, I asked the pastor about the social principles. I pointed out certain ones with which I could not agree. “Oh, the social principles,” he said, “we don’t really pay that much attention to those here.”

    The second was teaching in the same church, when I was asked to teach about the Wesleyan doctrine of Christian Perfection. I was raised Seventh-day Adventist, and SDAs have a substantial bit of Wesleyan in background and doctrine, so I was acquainted with Wesleyan theology. I looked up what we had in the Discipline, and included it on slides for the class. I found that of those attending (perhaps 40 or so), only the pastor and I were aware that there was such a thing as the doctrine of Christian perfection.

    It’s the Methodist doctrinal position with which I am probably least comfortable, but I would have thought more people would be aware of it. My guess is that pastors know their members are not comfortable with “perfection” in just about any form and just prefer to let that one slide.

    And just to get back to the topic in the title, I suspect evolution comes under the same heading. Why get into the debate if you don’t have to?

  • Of Double Standards and Cesspools

    Steve Matheson at Quintessence of Dust notes regarding Dembski’s Uncommon Descent blog:

    Uncommon Descent is a moral cesspool, a festering intellectual ghetto that intoxicates and degrades its inhabitants. . . .

    C’mon Steve! Don’t hold back! Tell us how you really feel!

    While I lead with the controversial (and I agree with him about UcD), Matheson makes some excellent points in this post, all of which may be controversial. Besides my own distinction between behavior that I regard as rude and inappropriate (that’s what I think of what both PZ Myers and one poor college student at the University of Central Florida did), and what should be illegal or worth firing someone for, there is the distinction between what one can and should say about one’s own group, and what one can and should say about others.

    Earlier, Matheson notes:

    The sickest crap at UD isn’t the usual dishonesty and shoddy pseudoscholarship. It’s the religious propaganda, a toxic mix of normal everyday bullshit (about “Darwinism”) and the pearls of our lives as Christians: scripture, our confessions, even the name of Jesus, the chief cornerstone. What’s worse, I ask: Myers’ desecration of a piece of matter that he reckons a mere cracker, or Bill Dembski’s malicious use of Christ as a lame polemical device? I’m sure you already know where I stand.

    Just so. My stand is the same, though the language is a bit intense for me, I think. When Christians behave inappropriately in a public way, other Christians may have the duty to call them on it. I’m not calling for every Christian to speak up in every case, but in a case like this, public Christians, such as bloggers, need to comment on other public Christians who are bringing disrepute on Christianity.

    Anyone may be wrong. I have occasionally had someone stop by here and question my vocabulary or the way I expressed something. Others have questioned my beliefs. That is a good thing. When that happens I need to do a recheck on what I’m doing and correct such actions.

    Which is my own additional point about UcD. My friend Peter Kirk is very intense about blogs that don’t allow comments, and I mostly agree with him, though I continue to read a number of blogs that do not allow comments. What I find reprehensible is a blog that appears to allow comments, but then weeds the threads in order to make themselves look better. That is the case at UcD when comments are suppressed, not because they are obscene, libelous, or spam, but rather because they annoy the writers there.

    At least one knows when a blog closes off comments. Nobody can comment, and you know that the blog is not totally open to discussion and correction. When a blog is censored other than according to precise standards, that presents a lie to the world. It says that discussion is welcome, while at the same time presenting a skewed view of the resulting discussion.

    PS: My own policy on comments is that I will remove posts with excessive language, i.e. likely to get this blog in trouble as family friendly, or when such comments are actually libelous assuming I can identify them as such, or when they are clearly spam. I have removed one comment under the first point in the history of the blog that I recall, none under the second, and of course thousands under the third. If your comment either doesn’t appear, or disappears under other circumstances, you are welcome to call me on it here publicly in a comment, and I will check it out.