New at Reason

Tim Cavanaugh | July 20, 2005

When there's nothing standing between you and a whole universe of evidence except a book written thousands of years ago by nomads who believed in sea monsters, how long can you keep arguing? Pretty long, as Ron Bailey finds out at the Creation Mega-Conference.

Comments

|7.20.05 @ 6:12PM|#

Ron Bailey,

So do you get a medal for attending this conference? :)

|7.20.05 @ 6:20PM|#

Two New at Reasons for the same article?

|7.20.05 @ 6:24PM|#

Herman,

I think Julian was just tired of Tim taking all the fun ones and thought he'd play a little Neil to Tim's Buzz and 'shoulder him out of the way' so to speak.

|7.20.05 @ 6:25PM|#

Brian,

Does that mean that Mr. Bailey is made of cheese?

|7.20.05 @ 6:28PM|#

OK, I know it's pointless to argue against creationist faith, but I've been reading selections of the AiG website and it seems to me that they are contradicting themselves all over the place.

A good example is on this page which discusses "Joshua's Long Day": http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v19/i3/longday.asp

At least they reject a geocentric universe. But check out the conclusion:

"Miracles rest on testimony, not on scientific analyses. While it is interesting to speculate on how God might have performed any particular Biblical miracle, including Joshua�s long day, ultimately those claiming to be disciples of Jesus Christ (who authenticated the divine record of the Bible) must accept them, by faith.9 There is not one logical, scientific reason to claim that, given a God powerful enough to create a universe in six days, Joshua�s long day �could not have happened�. Those who balk at this account are almost invariably those who have already rejected 6-day creation through compromise with evolution �s fictitious long ages, and have thus rejected the authority of the Bible."

I have two questions.
(1) If miracles rest on testimony, not scientific analyses, and the Creation is a miracle, then why spend all this effort making "scientific" analyses?
(2) If man wasn't created until the sixth day, on whose testimony can one base knowledge of the events on days 1-5? The apes, maybe?

|7.20.05 @ 6:28PM|#

Brian Courts,

An internal struggle over the means of production here at Reason? :)

|7.20.05 @ 6:33PM|#

JMoore,

Because they realize the explantory power of science and want to cloak their ideas in pseudo-scientific language. Practitioners of other crackpot ideas (e.g., Feng Shui, penis pumps, fad diets, etc.) do the same thing.

Of course the problem with Genesis is that there are two - yeah two - wholly independent creation stories.

|7.20.05 @ 6:34PM|#

"(2) If man wasn't created until the sixth day, on whose testimony can one base knowledge of the events on days 1-5? The apes, maybe?"

The testimony of the "Big G" Himself. You have to recall that the first five books of the Bible were purportedly dictated to Moses by God: http://ma002.urj.net/dtbchukotai03.html (see third paragraph)

|7.20.05 @ 6:35PM|#

And before anyone says "God's testimony revealed to the Prophets" or something similar, please tell me where in the book of Genesis the character God ever says "I created the Universe."

One might also note that, when he first identifies himself to Moses through the burning bush in Exodus, he does not say "I am your Creator." He just says "I am the god of your fathers..." That doesn't even sound like a claim that he's the only god.

Q: If you had just made a universe, wouldn't you put that at the top of your resume?

|7.20.05 @ 6:39PM|#

SR - I just knew someone would say that! :)

I shouldn't get too worked up over this, I know.

|7.20.05 @ 6:39PM|#

I always love the fib of Joshua's long day.

Consider: The only method in that day for telling time was the sun. If the sun stood still, how do they know for how long it stood still.

Classic error trap.

|7.20.05 @ 6:40PM|#

An internal struggle over the means of production here at Reason? :)

Hakluyt,

I was just about to say I was thinking a little like one of those old Kremlin behind-the-scenes power struggle showing through. Hadn't seen a post from Julian in a while... when I see his post has now been removed! Is that like Trotsky being airbrushed out of the official photos?

|7.20.05 @ 6:51PM|#

BTW, I don't mean to knock Genesis. It really is one of my favorite reads. (No sarcasm)

I mean, it's chock full of sex, rape, incest, murder, rape, slavery, murder, polygamy, murder, tyrannical governments, rape, mass murder, insanity, rape, blood spurting all over the place, slavery, wife-beating, incest, murder, torture, murder, rape, murder, rape, incest, and all the other things which make a wonderful bedside book.

(Maybe a little sarcasm)

|7.20.05 @ 6:55PM|#

My take on it all.
If we assume:
1. There is a supernaturual
2. Part of that supernatural is an all powerful being.
3. That being is interested in us
4. He-She-It wants to communicate with us.
Then pretty clearly the message is to be found in science. All things work by the laws of physics and chemistry. (Caveat, I am open to having that statement disproved).
Another assumption in Christianist theology:
5. Part of the supernatural is The Devil, who seeks to lead humans astray.
Since science and the scientific method lead to greater understanding, and since faith in the bible etc do not, then clearly faith and all works of faith are of the devil.

|7.20.05 @ 6:55PM|#

It's fun to make jokes at the expense of the fundies, but I think the sad fact is, critical thinking skills escape the majority of Americans anyway. After watching Leno's Jaywalking a few times, you can't help but wonder how stupid the average American is.

I think creationism is a byproduct of a era that no longer exists. It's probably an attempt to recreate the "morality" of one's childhood.

I don't think they believe everything in the bible should be espoused, otherwise they wouldn't eat lobster or pork.

Mr. Bailey, question for you: what's the average age of the attendees?

Brian Hawkins|7.20.05 @ 7:08PM|#

Does that trouble anyone here? The idea that God.. might be.. fuckin' with our heads? I have trouble sleeping with that knowledge. Some prankster God running around: "Hu hu ho. We will see who believes in me now, ha ha."

--Bill Hicks

|7.20.05 @ 7:08PM|#

Lisle also offers "gravitational time dilation" as a possible solution to the distant starlight problem. He claims that the Milky Way might really be the center of the universe and thus at the bottom of a deep universal gravity well. In which case time would pass much more slowly in our galaxy - perhaps only thousands of years elapsed on earth while billions of years of physical processes occur in the universe.

I love it when creationists and their ilk try to debunk what they call wacky scientific theories with even wackier scientific theories.

|7.20.05 @ 7:13PM|#

"After watching Leno's Jaywalking a few times, you can't help but wonder how stupid the average American is."

I think (hope...pray...) those folks aren't average Americans. I've wondered a few times how many of those little interviews he has to do to get half a dozen complete morons.

But yeah, there are a lot of stupid people running around. Who was the comedian that said something like "Think of how stupid the average person is, then think about the fact that half of them are stupider than that" (this particular comedian obviously wasn't a mathematician).

|7.20.05 @ 7:14PM|#

One might also note that, when he first identifies himself to Moses through the burning bush in Exodus, he does not say "I am your Creator." He just says "I am the god of your fathers..." That doesn't even sound like a claim that he's the only god.

Originally, the cult of Yahweh was henotheistic, i.e., it was never claimed that no other gods existed, just that none except Yahweh were worthy of worship. If early Judaism were truly monotheistic, the first commandment would be "Don't worship those false gods" rather than "Have no other gods before me." There are a ton of other indications. And for the record, intellectually honest Christians don't by and large believe that Moses wrote the first five books; I think that most moderate-to-liberal Christians accept textual analysis, if they think about it at all. I know in my study of theology I've not run across many who believe anything other than the New Criticism, or various improvemnts thereupon.

|7.20.05 @ 7:15PM|#

Interesting to see that C-decay theories are making at least something of a comeback. (The last time I checked in, the neo-precopernican Milky-Way-centric universe theory was nearly orthodoxy among young universers, and C-decay dismissed as another false path...)

|7.20.05 @ 7:16PM|#

That Leno skit makes me fear my country. :)

Shannon Love|7.20.05 @ 7:23PM|#

I was formally educated as a biologist and consider myself a rabid darwinist but I must confess I have developed a certain fondness for creationist as fine examples of American cultural anti-authoritarianism and plain orneriness.

Most people who accept evolutionary theory have no better understanding of it than does your average creationist. They do not accept the theory because they really understand it but rather because they trust the scientific authority figures who promulgate it. Others, like your hard core Leftist, like evolution because it undermines traditional religious based authority but they vehemently reject using evolutionary theory to illuminate human behavior or as a basis for political theory. They pick and choose the bits and pieces of the science they find palatable and discard the rest.

Creationist, goobers that they are, have the virtue of refusing to be cowed by authority figures. I do have to respect that.

The Wine Commonsewer|7.20.05 @ 7:28PM|#

Fun to watch everyone throw rocks at the ID crowd when you can drive a frikkin Humvee through all kinds of wormholes in the Theory of Evolution, yes folks it is still a theory, despite being pronounced on these pages by Mr. Bailey as fact.

The Wine Commonsewer|7.20.05 @ 7:29PM|#

Disclaimer:

I've said it before, but just in case, I AM NOT A CREATIONIST.

|7.20.05 @ 7:33PM|#

Shannon, I actually agree with you on that point.

I can't stand nutty ideas, but I do have a certain fondness for nuts themselves.

|7.20.05 @ 7:35PM|#

"Of course the problem with Genesis is that there are two - yeah two - wholly independent creation stories."

Well, that's your opinion, based either on your comparison of what appear to be the differing styles and vocabularies of Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, or (if your Hebrew isn't all it could be) on comparisons made by scholars whose conclusions you accept on authority. Personally, I prefer to believe that the Yawhist account evolved naturally from the Elohist one.

|7.20.05 @ 7:35PM|#

Grylliade, thanks for the info. I just learned a new word. Now my day is complete & I can go get drunk. (On what day was beer created?)

|7.20.05 @ 7:36PM|#

Shannon Love,

Yes, imposing authority figures don't exist in creationist circles!

Sorry, there is no reason to admire people who believe in stupid things. Its a bit like arguing that because people believe in "alternative medicine" there is something admirable about their willingness to stubbornly deal with reality.

TWC,

Some of those "wormholes" are?

BTW, this isn't the ID crowd; and if you had been paying attention you'd know that. These are by and large young Earth creationists. You do grasp the difference, right?

Special and general relativity are "just theories" too.

|7.20.05 @ 7:37PM|#

TWC-

However big the gaps in evolutionary theory might or might not be, creationism really has nothing going for it.

I mean, what it comes down to is this:
1) The earth is old
2) There are these layers of fossils that show, more or less, a pattern of descent with modification
3) Population genetics more or less supports that picture
4) On shorter time scales of recorded history there is evidence of animals and plants adapting to their environment by natural selection acting on random mutation.

Put it all together and the picture becomes pretty clear. The big question then becomes whether the details work as well as the big picture, and so far the answer seems to be yes. The evolutionary biologists have made a lot of progress.

When the big picture and the small picture jive like that, the only real objection left is philosophical: "But, how do we know that it wasn't created 6,000 years ago and made to look like that?"

|7.20.05 @ 7:38PM|#

Holy shit, TWC... I had no idea.

So tell me, what do you think of the theory of DNA.

|7.20.05 @ 7:39PM|#

the Theory of Evolution, yes folks it is still a theory

Christ on his throne! Can we once and for all do away with the statement "it's just a theory" objection???

Everything is a theory in science. We all know that. Saying it's just a theory is an utterly and completely meaningless truism. If your point in saying that is anything else, such as: it's no better than any other "theories" like ID (which isn't a theory but an assertion of fact) then you're just being silly. If it's to point out one more time that science is made of theories, then I think we got that one, thanks.

|7.20.05 @ 7:41PM|#

"you can drive a frikkin Humvee through all kinds of wormholes in the Theory of Evolution"

What exactly do you think those holes are?

|7.20.05 @ 7:42PM|#

Science needs better PR. Most people don't understand the term of art "theory."

Maybe it should be called "presumptive fact" or "highly-substantiated explanation" or something really impressive.

|7.20.05 @ 7:43PM|#

"Think of how stupid the average person is, then think about the fact that half of them are stupider than that"

I think Ivan Stang said that in the forward to High Weirdness By Mail.

BTW, my favorite bit of crackpottery has always been hollow earth theory and now there's a book coming out on its history by David Standish. Here's the Amazon description:

Beliefs in mysterious Underworlds are as old as humanity. From the ancient Sumerians to Incas to modern Christians, nearly every culture has had its special version. However, the idea that the earth has a hollow interior where strange lands, creatures, and civilizations may exist was first proposed as a scientific theory in 1692 by Sir Edmund Halley (of Halley's comet fame). Since then, it has been used as a popular literary motif by writers as varied as Edgar Allen Poe, Jules Verne, Lewis Carroll, L. Frank Baum, and Edgar Rice Burroughs, to name a few. Hollow Earth traces this notion through the centuries and cultures, exploring how each era's relationship to the notion of a hollow earth reflected its particular hopes, fears, and values. Lavishly illustrated-including Bosch's inspired surreal nightmares of Hell, seventeenth-century maps and diagrams of the interior, illustrations from early Jules Verne editions and other novels, pulp art from World War I through the 1940s, plus movie posters and much more-this unique book will appeal to readers of many sorts: those interested in the history of science, religion, utopian fiction, and real-life experiments; science fiction fans, film buffs, and those intrigued by the remarkable evolution of ideas over centuries.

|7.20.05 @ 7:45PM|#

JMoore,

Shannon doesn't have a point because creationists aren't anti-authority; they worship authority figures like Dobson and Falwell.

Seamus,

Yes, that lame excuse is made by many apologists. They nevertheless remain two different creation stories. Its obvious that Genesis was an amalgamation of varying earlier traditions, stories, etc., and that is reflected in these two very different stories. What I find funny is that translations like the NIV try to hide the evidence of dual creation stories. Its not the first time a version of the Bible has been used in this way; Jewish and Christian versions of the text have often tried to hide unpleasant portions of the Bible by either expurgation or false wording.

|7.20.05 @ 7:47PM|#

"Others, like your hard core Leftist, like evolution because it undermines traditional religious based authority but they vehemently reject using evolutionary theory to illuminate human behavior or as a basis for political theory."

One reason they might reject using evolutionary theory to illuminate human behavior - or at least doing so with an eye toward any sort of public policy - is that it's exceptionally hard to do anything more rigorous than come up with plausible-sounding stories. Human behavior is so much more complex than that of any other species we know of, and we can't ethically perform the sorts of experiments on humans we regularly do with other animals. A lot of the early "science" of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology was crap, and the stuff that wasn't didn't make very strong claims. There's not much of a basis there for public policy.

|7.20.05 @ 7:48PM|#

You know, I have to wonder if the rise of Creationism in the last few decades is an unintended consequence of Arthur C. Clarke's observation that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

After all, as science and technology continues to become more specialized it's harder for even an intelligent layman to grasp what may be going on.

If a person can't distinguish between science and magic, what's to stop them from believing in a mystical explanation?

After all, to them the scientific and mystical explanation are equally mysterious and unexplainable.

Does that make any sense, or am I just rambling aimlessly?

|7.20.05 @ 7:51PM|#

Hakluyt, maybe I should clarify. It's their sheer hard-headedness and refusal to go along with the crowd that I find mildly endearing...in a comic sort of way. Like the people who sell devices over the net which can tap into zero-point energy to power your home for free forever, they are totally crack-pot, yet somehow amusing.

with one caveat: the fact they have some measure of influence in politics is disturbing

|7.20.05 @ 7:56PM|#

Mediageek, I think you might be on to something. Personally, I think the impetus to believe creationism derives from a combination of fear of an impersonal universe, a need to have some irrefutable source for a rather restrictive moral code, and intellectual laziness.

That last I can almost understand. Understanding modern science and technology is hard brain work. Who doesn't want just to veg out now and again?

Problem is, in attempting to maintain their simplistic cosmology, they do seem to expend a helluva lot of effort.

|7.20.05 @ 7:59PM|#

Ahh Shannon, you respect the willfully ignorant because they won't be cowed by authority. That makes zero sense. Are all creationists doing research that "debunks" modern science or do they simply listen to different authorities? Where in the Bible does the 6000 year old number come from? How about the fact that mountains and continents were formed by the flood? What's more authoritarian than listening to a guy telling you what a book written by desert nomads thousands of years ago, in a language you don't understand, means?

In SAT analogy form:
Creationist:anti-authoritarian::
Goth kid dressed in all black:non-conformist

Why not just be honest and say they piss off lefties and you grok that?

|7.20.05 @ 8:01PM|#

JMoore,

Yes, I can see that in terms of your second example. Some of those crackpots are quite entertaining. But in the creationist case, I fail to see how they refuse to go along with the crowd. They go along with the religious crowd telling them what to believe. Doesn't seem very anti-authoritarian or hard-headed to me at all, which is the point I think Haklyut was making. And if you look at the polls discussed yesterday, they are the crowd.

|7.20.05 @ 8:02PM|#

Oops, forgot the quote I was referring to:

their sheer hard-headedness and refusal to go along with the crowd that I find mildly endearing...in a comic sort of way.

|7.20.05 @ 8:02PM|#

Mo,

Well, the idea that they are anti-authoritarian is about as ludicrous as people claiming that Christians are persecuted in the U.S.

|7.20.05 @ 8:05PM|#

I come from a creationist, fundamentalist protestant background. The religion I was raised in puts more emphasis on creation than most other protestant religions, I'm sure. ...and I swear, those people are truly convinced that if scientists were honest and just looked hard enough, they'd find all the evidence they need to prove that life on this earth was created in seven days. ...I don't think the lay people are tryin' to trick anybody, I think they really believe it.

...and, for many of them, the basis of their faith in creation is of even deeper and more experiential in nature than their faith in a literal interpretation of historical events in the Bible. If you showed them evidence that the walls of Jericho never fell down, they might accept that the story in the Bible was merely a metaphor, but the creation story for them is different. ...I think an existential moment comes to them when they ponder the meaning of their consciousness, and that experience for them is staggeringly real.

...They look at their dog as it lays in the corner staring back at them, they consider their goldfish as it swims in circles and they wonder how the random forces of nature could have brought such a disparity of awareness into being. They look in the eyes of their children, feel the profoundness of their children's importance to them and decide that there must be a conscious logos behind it all.

...I've seen this sort of putting the cart before the horse--even outside of religious contexts--all my life. How many of us disregard evidence that doesn't fit our own views?

P.S. I agree with Shannon.

|7.20.05 @ 8:07PM|#

Yep. I meant "crowd" more in terms of the general populace.

Yet it would seem they are becoming the crowd after all.

Still, I don't worry too much about the genesis literalists too much. I think most believers fall into the ID-type groups. This mega-conference is an extreme; in fact, I'm really surprised they accept that the earth moves.

Anyway, I think I've been shot down. Nothing admirable about them. Just ridiculous.

|7.20.05 @ 8:08PM|#

We all acquiesce to authority of one sort or another.

:-/

|7.20.05 @ 8:15PM|#

New Conspiracy Theory

The Mega-Conference and the Answers In Genesis organization are secretly funded by the Church of Scientology.

Why would they do such a thing? Because it makes them look good by comparison :)

|7.20.05 @ 8:19PM|#

We all acquiesce to authority of one sort or another.

Not me. Now, if you'll excuse me, my girlfriend is expecting me to take her to dinner tonight so I better run... she doesn't like it when I'm late.

Tim Cavanaugh|7.20.05 @ 8:35PM|#

Shannon may overstate her(?) "fondness" for shock effect, but she(?) is undoubtedly correct about the mass of believers in evolution. I've never finished The Origin of Species, I'd have an easier time keeping up with Darryl Dawkins than Richard Dawkins, and when that supposedly shocking poll says a third of Americans say they don't know enough to say whether they agree with the theory of natural selection, I say "Big whoop, if I were honest I'd have to answer the same thing." I accept it because it's easy to believe and it's what the smart people seem to think, but one of those obsessive creationists (and as far as I can tell, they're all obsessive) could argue circles around me. Have you ever argued with these people? They've got a million and one answers to everything-all of them wrong, I'm sure, but that's still a million more answers than I've got.

|7.20.05 @ 8:36PM|#

Ron quotes a guy that says,

"If the history in the Bible is not reliable, then its morality and theology are not reliable."

WHY?!?!?! This makes absolutely no sense. Our idea of factual history didn't make itself known until what, the Renensaince? They had no concept of history as we know of it today. As any 8th grader can tell you, the ancients had a much more interesting way of keeping track of history. It was oral for the most part, and took the form of stories. This is what Homer did with the Illiad. He gave a quasi-historical account of the Trojan War. The first couple chapters where he lists names and ships and crap is boring as hell and was included for historical purposes, but was there an actual Trojan Horse? No, probably not.

There is absolutely no reason that the Bible should be held to a factual historical account. That's not its purpose.

Argh. I grew up in a church that held that view and it bothered the hell out of me. It wasn't until college until I figured out why.

|7.20.05 @ 8:40PM|#

Is this conference spawning any media coverage outside of Reason? Only stories I've seen about it are here.

|7.20.05 @ 8:43PM|#

Creationist, goobers that they are, have the virtue of refusing to be cowed by authority figures. I do have to respect that.

Except, you know, unproven deities. And ministers. But sure, aside from that.

|7.20.05 @ 8:46PM|#

Yogi,

The notion of history as we know it today only really started in the 19th century and came out of Germany, where they created the seminar, etc.

|7.20.05 @ 8:46PM|#

The most ridiculous concept ever perpetrated by H.Sapiens is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of the Universes, wants the sacharrine adoration of his creations, that he can be persuaded by their prayers, and becomes petulant if he does not recieve this flattery. Yet this ridiculous notion, without one real shred of evidence to bolster it, has gone on to found one of the oldest, largest and least productive industries in history. [Robert Heinlein]

|7.20.05 @ 8:47PM|#

The very basis of the Judeo-Christian code is injustice, the scapegoat system. The scapegoat sacrifice runs all through the Old Testament, then it reaches its height in the New Testament with the notion of the Martyred Redeemer. How can justice possibly be served by loading your sins on another? Whether it be a lamb having its throat cut ritually, or a Messiah nailed to a cross and "dying for your sins". Somebody should tell all of Yahweh's followers, Jews and Christians, that there is no such thing as a free lunch.[Robert Heinlein]

|7.20.05 @ 8:54PM|#

Starting with Origin... would not be a good idea. There are lots of recently published lay texts out there on evolution.

I checked out Origin... from my highschool library when I was seventeen and read it in order to piss off my creationist parents. :)

|7.20.05 @ 8:57PM|#

An invaluable resource for refuting creationists can be found at:

http://www.talkorigins.org

All your answers regarding the evidence for evolution can be found here:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

|7.20.05 @ 9:06PM|#

Why take six days? Why not do it in two and take the rest of the week off? Clearly this God is very, very powerful, but not all-powerful.

Praise Bob!

|7.20.05 @ 9:36PM|#

Hakluyt,
I see your name here more and more often.
I'm sure others here would join me in saying we'd be more comfortable with your presence if we knew how to pronounce your name.

Are you any relation to Joe Btfsplk of Al Capp's Li'l Abner fame?

bigbigslacker,
BOB!
Now there was a god.
And could he do a tasty hamburger! mmmm
BOB!
May he R.I.P.

|7.20.05 @ 9:59PM|#

Had a teacher back in the day say something like, even if she found out that nothing in the Bible was true, she would still believe in it, because of all the good it's done for so many people.

Hey, you can't argue with that.

|7.20.05 @ 10:01PM|#

I almost feel sorry for Dr. Lisle. As a trained astrophysicist he knows the facts about the age of the universe, but as a fundamentalist he is trapped in a universe that is only about 6000 years old. So he has to contort his brain into a pretzel to try to reconcile the unreconcileable. I don't quite get why he accepts some of the miracle of creation, but rejects the mature universe explanation.
(Arguing from a fundie viewpoint...) why couldn't god have created a universe that looks 14 billion years old? I've seen people make brand-new 'distressed' furniture that looks 50 years old. I never understood why they do that, nor can I understand why god would make the cosmos look 14 billion years when it's only 6000. It makes more sense to me to say the bible was written by some bronze-age poets as a pleasant creation myth. I think they'd be embarassed today to think how much damage their stories have caused.

Regarding Halton Arp -- his theories about galaxies and quasars go back to the late '70s and are pretty much debunked these days. The evidence indicates that quasars are the nuclei of early galaxies that contain black holes, and that they really are very far away. He was not treated well by his fellow astronomers here in the US, who tired of his ideas. I think he is in Europe somewhere.

|7.20.05 @ 10:32PM|#

OK, I know this thread isn't really about ID, but it's the closest thing we have and I just had an interesting idea while exercising:

First, the disclaimers: I agree that the ID camp hasn't produced (and in all likelihood will never produce) any really good science. I agree that philosophically their argument is unoriginal. And I agree that their movement isn't about the search for truth, but rather a wedge to promote young earth creationism. So there's no need for a certain poster to jump all over me for what I'm about to say next.

There is still an interesting philosophical question, and I think I came up with a possible realistic scenario where that question might be more than academic.

The question is: What would constitute evidence of a designer? Gaps aren't good enough because gaps can be filled over time. Inconsistencies in the evidence (and by that I mean BIG inconsistencies that grow wider instead of smaller as new evidence is found) would be better, but they wouldn't exactly prove anything, all they'd do is shoot holes in evolution. But that wouldn't really say anything about the alternative except that we'd need to take a second look.

Is there anything that could point to the existence of a designer, in the same way that a gasoline can and matches might point to the existence of an arsonist rather than an accidental fire?

I used to think that this was a purely hypothetical question, since evolution is so well supported. But consider this:

What if a deadly viral outbreak occured, and the virus was something that nobody has ever encountered before, either in nature or in weapons labs? What if nobody claims responsibility for it, and the patient zero is never identified? Would there be a way to tell whether the virus was engineered (i.e. the work of malice) or simply the result of somebody going into the wild and encountering something previously unknown?

Now, maybe there would be some way to deduce it from the pattern of infection. Maybe they'd discover spores in a hotel ventilation system, and the highest concentration of spores is in the basement, implying that the outbreak started there as the work of human hands. Or maybe all of the initial cases would be from people who were in a safari group.

But leaving aside those options, is there a way that an organism could be identified as having features that were genetically engineered by an intelligent agent?

I'm not sure that the answer is yes. Maybe the question would be fundamentally unanswerable if the only evidence is the organism itself rather than the pattern of infection.

Or maybe the question is answerable, but only because there is already independent evidence for a God of the Gaps. Namely, we've encountered examples of humans who engineer deadly diseases, so if we encounter a gap (i.e. a feature that can't be easily ascribed to random mutation) we have a viable candidate for the Designer.

But what if we go a step further and want to take the organism itself as evidence for a Designer, without invoking other information? Is it an intellectually tenable position?

Anyway, before a certain poster jumps all over me, I want to make it clear that I'm not trying to give the ID crowd any credit for intellectual relevance here. They haven't really demonstrated any serious interest in going beyond the God of the Gaps, nor any real interest in contrary evidence. They are assuming an answer to the question rather than seeking an answer, which makes them rather unqualified to approach this question.

OK, I'm ready for a certain poster to go after me.

|7.20.05 @ 10:56PM|#

why couldn't god have created a universe that looks 14 billion years old?

Why would you want to believe in a God that deliberately tries to deceive everyone? If God lying about that, is hell just a big lie too? If bearing false witness is a sin, wouldn't God being sinning here? etc., etc.

I went through a period of thinking this was feasible too until a philosophy prof in college moved me off of it.

Warren|7.20.05 @ 10:59PM|#

thoreau,
I think you should get a cold drink and lie down for a while. I read that post twice and I still can't tell what you are rambling on about. I sometimes don't agree with you, but have always found your posts to be thoughtful and coherent� until now. Even if I was convinced an organism was the result of intelligent design, it would be much harder to convince me the designer was other than human.

But if you want a way to convince me we are not the improbable result of a prehistoric galactic craps game, I'm still looking for Slartibarfast's signature to show up in the fjords, or the Hubble to beam back an image of "Sorry for the inconvenience" blazing across the vacuum of space.

|7.20.05 @ 11:05PM|#

Why libertarians put up with being in a political party controlled by the creationist loons is entirely beyond me.....

|7.20.05 @ 11:10PM|#

I was struck the same line as Yogi: If the history in the Bible is not reliable, then its morality and theology are not reliable

The history, morality, and theology must each be evaluated separately. Even if the history is bogus, the morality seems serviceable (although rarely followed rigorously).

When thoreau wrote, "Put it all together and the picture becomes pretty clear." my thought was that the picture didn't change, just our way of looking at it did. We've got a very robust theory, more than the creationists do, but maybe their theory works in areas where scientists don't look. Like, Creationism is great for keeping your life simple and mind uncluttered with doubt, but not so good for predicting the development of fruit flies after exposure to various compounds. It all depends on one's goal.

|7.20.05 @ 11:16PM|#

Thoreau-

There was an ID film released awhile back called "The Priveleged Planet" that sorta-kinda touched on what you're talking about. The basic gist of it was that they played up the fact that for nature to work the way it does, the rules of how physics, chemistry and biology are pretty much fixed as is, and that since life couldn't arise without a system that is at least somewhat organized that this was proof of a designer. Basically they point out everything from the location of Earth being a great vantage point to study the universe to fractal mathematical patterns found in nature as evidence of a rational designer who wants us to explore the universe and learn about it.

I don't buy the arguments presented. After all, if natural systems were so random and chaotic as to prevent life from arising then we wouldn't be having the debate in the first place. But compared to the nutters at this conference, Priveleged Planet looks like an entry from a scholarly journal.

The Wine Commonsewer|7.20.05 @ 11:21PM|#

Hak, yes I understand the difference between ID & Creationism. Call my comments dramatic license.

Thow-row, my objection is not philosophical. It is evolutionary agnosticism. I respect your answers just as I respect Bailey's work.

KMW: I am fine with the Theory of DNA

Brian: Same as my response to Hak, yes, most of science is theory, again, dramatic license.

In general, I'm skeptical of True Believers, be they Scientologists, Objectivists, or otherwise.
Further, there is nothing irrational or un-libertarian about saying "we, as a culture, don't really know as much as we think we do".

Certainly rational scientific inquiry is preferable to drawing straws, burning incense, or prayer and fasting. But science isn't a be-all end-all either. Just the 180 degree swing in the nature v nurture wars since I was in college is ample illustration of that (not to mention that eggs got out of cholesterol jail after a groundless thirty year sentence).

And you may argue that science learns from its mistakes and we move on from there. And you would be right. But that is an equally good reason to maintain a healthy skepticism about these things as well.

Unless, of course, it is the SCIENTIFIC FACT that red wine is good for you.

Mrs TWC thinks I'm a nutcase about this. :-)

Sorry I tweaked you guys.

|7.20.05 @ 11:23PM|#

Warren-

I guess my point was this:

1) The philosophical point: Is there some objective criterion that could be used to determine whether an organism (or some feature of an organism) was the product of design rather than evolution?

2) The practical point: If so, then this criterion could be applied to viruses and bacteria, some of which have indeed been shaped by intelligent designers.

One reason why my post was so rambling is that I focused on a very hypothetical case, and when something is hypothetical it tends to involve a lot of speculation and disclaimers. But here's a more concrete way to test it:

The ID crowd could design a computer algorithm that takes in information on an organism and then spits out "designed" or "evolved." We could give this computer algorithm information on, say, natural strains of smallpox as well as strains from the US or Soviet (or Iraqi? :) weapons programs and see if it can tell which is which. Or give it information on natural strains of a plant (i.e. a strain that hasn't even been selectively bred by humans) and a genetically modified version and see if it could tell which is which.

Even if this is actually possible, why should anybody care?

1) Obviously there might be applications in distinguishing between biological warfare and natural outbreaks. The difference might not matter for containment procedures (either way you have to quarantine patients, etc.) but it does matter for whether we respond by bombing a terrorist camp or sending microbiologists into the wild to identify the original host animal.

2) I regard this as a way to move the ID discussion beyond the tired "God of the Gaps" debate. They need to either put up or shut up. And here's a way to put up: Do what good scientists do and demonstrate that your ideas work for a simple and useful system.

I don't know if that makes any more sense, but that's my attempt to clarify.

|7.20.05 @ 11:24PM|#

Thoreau,

Here's my question... If we assume there is ample evidence for decent with modification, how do we arrive at a human with a soul from eukaryotes without one. (I'm assuming everyone agrees amoebas don't have souls.) Since the the only explanation would be a designer, what authority or evidence do we point to quantify this? How can we quantify this?

Thus far, from my vantage point, all attempts to define a soul are arbitrary and man-made; and philosophical rather than biological. Philosophical ponderings gave us the bible in the first place.

I hold you in the highest regard, and I'm not trying to deconvert you. It's just these unanswered (and perhaps unanswerable) questions seem to pave a road away from a plausible deity.

The Wine Commonsewer|7.20.05 @ 11:26PM|#

Why libertarians put up with being in a political party controlled by the creationist loons is entirely beyond me.....

Ted, I may be just dense, but I don't think that the LP is controlled by creationist loons.

Second point, most of the libertarians around here tend to distance themselves from the party, except to cast the ballot every four years.

|7.20.05 @ 11:29PM|#

Lisle also offers "gravitational time dilation" as a possible solution to the distant starlight problem. He claims that the Milky Way might really be the center of the universe and thus at the bottom of a deep universal gravity well. In which case time would pass much more slowly in our galaxy - perhaps only thousands of years elapsed on earth while billions of years of physical processes occur in the universe.

I actually like this idea; it reminds me of Vernor Vinge's universe found in A Fire Upon The Deep.

|7.20.05 @ 11:32PM|#

Lisle also offers "gravitational time dilation" as a possible solution to the distant starlight problem. He claims that the Milky Way might really be the center of the universe and thus at the bottom of a deep universal gravity well. In which case time would pass much more slowly in our galaxy - perhaps only thousands of years elapsed on earth while billions of years of physical processes occur in the universe.

Gasp! And I thought that the religious right was upset that the left was full of relativists!

Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week.

|7.20.05 @ 11:33PM|#

mediageek-

A good friend of mine, a very devoutly religious person, went to an ID conference and gave a technical talk on why the privileged planet hypothesis is bunk. He's an astrophysicist, so he tackled the astronomical and planetary science aspects of the hypotheses. He was surprisingly well-received, probably because the privileged planet hypothesis isn't a pivotal part of their program. They're more interested in, say, bacterial flagella.

|7.20.05 @ 11:36PM|#

TWC sez:

KMW: I am fine with the Theory of DNA

That was somewhat of a joke. You do realize, however, that the same DNA testing that can verify the relationship between you and your father can also be used to verify the relationship between you and a chimp? Unlike 30 years ago, when all we had were fossils, we can now prove by DNA analysis that man and apes had a common ancestor.

We can be 99.999% sure that evolution did happen. How and why may be a little sketchy still.

|7.21.05 @ 12:47AM|#

(I'm assuming everyone agrees amoebas don't have souls.)

I'm not expert, but I think Buddhists would not agree with that.

On another note, the similiarities between Buddhist philosophy and quantum mechanics is almost spooky. Any who hasn't seen the recent movie "What the Bleep Do We Know?" really should. As a physics grad student, some of it is bunk and some is misrepresented, but overall, it does a good job showing these similiarites.

Sam Grove|7.21.05 @ 1:25AM|#

Due to marital relationships and ensuing obligation, when we were in Japan recently, we had to attend an English speaking, fundamentalist, missionary church near Nara.

Much to my surprise, I learned that demons haunt Bhuddist shrines in order to recieve the energy given off by idol worship!

Hooda thought?

|7.21.05 @ 1:42AM|#

Ron:

Hartnett concludes, "We're seeing God's creative process right now. We're looking back 6,000 years ago in time." Huh? Even a close quasar is 600 million light years away?to see it means that we're looking at light that left it that many years ago, which is a considerably longer period of time than 6,000 years

Hartnett is indeed wrong of course, but quasars aren't good evidence to use here as to why since they are the subject of Arp's contention that they are actually associated with and in physical proximity to galaxies that are much closer than 600 million light years away (but still far further than 6,000 light years though).

In some of Arp's examples, filamentary material appears to be connecting the galaxy to the Quasar. As Ron notes, it has been contended that these example are optical illusions. But researchers are finding for the reality of the connecting material. I cite this article where granted, the author is questioning the statistical sampling techniques of researchers who are claiming a connection, as an example of some researchers that are indeed finding for Arp's hypothesis:

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/astro-ph/pdf/0004/0004226.pdf

Although it won't help creationists and young universe folks, if these researchers and Arp are right, it's a most certain death knoll for much of the dominant cosmological paradigm and probably bye bye to the Big Bang. (The Big Bang was a pejorative name given to that theory by Fred Hoyle who over the years mounted strong arguments against it):

http://www.cambridge.org/uk/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521662230

I believe that we are witnessing a paradigm shift, ala Kuhn right now, and that this revolution in cosmology in picking up steam. Too many observation that do not jibe with Big Bang cosmology are necessitating too many ad hoc theories to stay consistent the Big Bang cosmology. Check out the recent popular literature: Astronomy, (Theories which "rescue" the Big Bang) Sky and Telescope, (General Relativity looking shaky.) Sci. Am, (the current issue, addressing problems with the nature of the back ground radiation and its fit with the dominant cosmological models.)

Hang on, scientific revolutions are groovy fun as they change our way of thinking about aspects of the universe or in this case, the universe itself!

|7.21.05 @ 2:05AM|#

thoreau,

To answer the first part of you question, a manmade microorganism could most likely be distinguished from a natural one. Any technique used to create a novel organism would leave behind clues that that could demonstrate that the organism was manmade.

This however, does not have any implications for ID theory because, other than determining that a specific technique was used, it should be impossible to find any sign of intentional design in an organism. Because any organism with the same biochemical properties as the life on Earth, is subject to constant and random mutations. Any organism that was designed by some intelligence would quickly be altered by mutation in ways that are completely random.

Random mutations and the effect of non-random natural selection create a system where any logic or pattern in a given organism that appears to be informed by some sort of higher intelligence can be explained as having occured naturally.

|7.21.05 @ 2:32AM|#

I'm not expert, but I think Buddhists would not agree with that. [Amoebas and souls.]

Well then, if each cell possesses a soul, do each of us have trillions of souls? And what exact process manufactures all these new souls as cells divide and multiply? How did we get from one soul-bearing entity billions of years ago to untold trillion trillions now? And how can cells have souls but not brains? The questions are endless.

Evolution holds that life started extremely simple and grew more and more complex. Almost all non-naturalistic beliefs hold the world to be static, which it is not. Buddhism has logical inconsistencies, just as all other religious beliefs.

There are portions of the bible that can be twisted to mean something highly scientific, but was never originally intended. Buddha had a cyclic view of the world, which is fine for a myth, but doesn't reflect reality. I mean no offense, and I think Buddhism is the closest a religion can come to scientific accuracy. I just can't personally accept it.

|7.21.05 @ 2:37AM|#

Tim Cavanaugh writes: but [Shannon] is undoubtedly correct about the mass of believers in evolution.

Perhaps in some general sense, but when Shannon says:

They do not accept the theory because they really understand it but rather because they trust the scientific authority figures who promulgate it.

I would have to respectfully disagree.

I don't think it is a trust in the authority figures that promulgate it at all. That would require some knowledge of an authority figure's identity, would it not? Yet most the people I know who would profess a "belief" in evolution couldn't name a single authority figure in evolutionary biology much lest trust in that authority. What they implicitly trust, if you will, is the scientific process that led to the theory. When that process leads an overwhelming majority (and by overwhelming I mean pretty much not a single non-religious dissenter and not a single non-religious alternative theory) of experts to the consensus that evolution is the best explanation for what we observe, then people may reasonably choose to expend less effort to check out the details for themselves. After all time is scarce and we can't all be experts in everything - not even Hakluyt :)~

To illustrate, do people fly on airplanes because they trust in the authority of aeronautical engineers who promulgate the science of aerodynamics? Or do they trust the science behind aviation (again, perhaps implicitly) because of its long and well tested success in explaining what we observe? Yet I doubt they know any more about aerodynamics than about evolution - probably much less. But if someone's faith teaches them to believe in flying carpets, should those without engineering degrees refrain from expressing their disdain at such a silly notion for fear of essentially being labeled a hypocrite? I think it demeans (and clearly misunderstands) the nature of science and the scientific process to imply that acceptance of evolution without a PhD in biology is really no different than a belief in creation or ID simply because, in either case, you're just trusting someone else. Nonsense.

|7.21.05 @ 5:11AM|#

Pre-dawn logic patrol (dispassionate, no dog in this fight):

[Re: Amoebas and souls.] Well then, if each cell possesses a soul, do each of us have trillions of souls?

Ameobas are one-celled animals. An assumption that amoebas have souls would not posit that each cell on Earth possesses a soul, but that each individual entity possesses a soul, whether that entity is composed of one cell or trillions.

(Of course, right after I wrote that I remember slime molds. Which, if I recall correctly, are composed of a type of amoeba that can function as a one-celled individual, or join up with others in colonies that function as a single organism. So I guess your point is still valid for slime molds.)

|7.21.05 @ 7:04AM|#

Quite late for this post, but since I'm up early thanks to the throbbing pain in my nose--the result of having tripped in the bathroom last night and smashing my face into the doorframe--I may as well kill some time and practice my typing.

Has anyone ever noticed the strange obsession with geology among the "big three" monotheist religions? All the creationists' talk of sedimentary rocks and mountain building reminded me of what I'd observed years ago: Jews, Christians, and Muslims all worship rocks. Consider...

Jews built their temple on an outcropping of holy rock which the Muslims now claim as their third holiest site (the Dome of the Rock). Since the Jews can't get at their holy rock anymore, they now make pilgrimages to a nearby wall made of rock.

Muslims are obliged to make a pilgrimage to Mecca to touch a black rock (which used to be white according to some) encased in a small rock building. The black rock is said to be the right hand of god.

Christians do not have a particular holy rock, but they have a special fondness for metaphorical rocks. The first pope was Simon, whose Latin nickname was Petrus (Peter) which means rock (or Rocky as one of my irreverant professors told us years ago). Jesus himself is referred to as the "Rock of Ages," and he once famously declared that a key reward for being good is that you get to throw rocks at those who aren't. You remember, "Let he among you who is without sin cast the first stone."

There are some other religions which promote geology as well, albeit in lesser ways.
- Shinto priests tend lovely little gardens of sacred rocks, as do Zen monks.
- Professional wrestling faithful worship a messiah named The Rock.
- One sect of the illegal drugs church is devoted to rock cocaine, while another sect worships by "getting stoned."
- Devout Hindus would rather starve than eat one of the millions of cows which idly stroll throughout India, so clearly their heads are full of rocks. Ditto the Sri Lankan Buddhists I saw on the Discovery channel who allow cobras to slither across their back yards where their children are playing.
- Mormons venerate "seer stones" which were used to translate the Book of Mormon (see the South Park episode "All About Mormons" for a complete and accurate recounting of the story).
- And millions of Americans who are members of the loosely-organized "Fitness Cult" proclaim their undying devotion to the pursuit of rock-hard abs.

Clearly we humans have a built-in attraction to spiritual geology. Ergo, god is a lump of coal.

Thus endeth the lesson. I must get back to worrying about this purple thing between my eyes.

|7.21.05 @ 8:35AM|#

"Mortenson once again explained why creationists are so eager to overthrow evolutionary theories, "If the history in the Bible is not reliable, then its morality and theology are not reliable.""

Even though I don't consider myself a Catholic anymore, I am very respectful how they teach the Old Testament.

I remember in Catholic high school going over endless passages and interpreting symbolism. For example, there was never a snake, an apple, or any of that nonsense. This is just a simple story about how otherwise decent human beings can become corrupted and turn away from God.

Also, I was taught by priests that the "flood myth" is a very, very old story, that predates the time of Noah by thousands of years. We were taught the myth of Gilgamesh, and drew correlations between that and Noah.

That being said, there is still reverance towards these stories because they reveal basic moral truths that even a child can understand. However, to believe that these events actually occurred, and that the bible is merely a historical document, totally misses the point. It's exactly like those Yangs in that old Star Trek episode. Where's Captain Kirk when you need him?

|7.21.05 @ 9:03AM|#

Evil Eye Ruthless,

Its pronounced something like this: Haack-loot.

Its a Welsh name and it is most famously associated with Richard Hakluyt, whose writings were instrumental in ramping up of English colonization in North America.

|7.21.05 @ 9:05AM|#

Mr. Nice Guy,

Presumably helping to bury Scotty. :(

|7.21.05 @ 9:09AM|#

Lisle also offers "gravitational time dilation" as a possible solution to the distant starlight problem. He claims that the Milky Way might really be the center of the universe and thus at the bottom of a deep universal gravity well. In which case time would pass much more slowly in our galaxy - perhaps only thousands of years elapsed on earth while billions of years of physical processes occur in the universe.

This brings up something I've never gotten about the whole "6 day theory." It's definitely true (testably so) that time moves differently for different observers. So what the hell is "6 days 24 hour days?" I mean even accepting this silly gravitational well theory even on earth things had to be moving at different velocities and good created the heavens too so there's another problem. Not that creationism needs any more debunking but the point is that given the current laws of physics (which are fundamental to all science) there's no way to "literally interpret" the bible. So creationists are asking for more than just a dismissal of of few theories but are trying to stop science in general.

gaius marius|7.21.05 @ 9:24AM|#

"We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ."

i think it would be more useful for this board, instead of snidely sniping or teasing with logic from a position of presumed superiority (not that everyone is, of course), to examine what the social and moral conditions were that would not only make saint paul write these words but allow him to found a wildly successful evangelism upon their concept -- and which again makes these words resonate with meaning for people to the degree that they'll attend a conference that is so apparently ridiculous.

gaius marius|7.21.05 @ 9:26AM|#

there is still reverance towards these stories because they reveal basic moral truths that even a child can understand. However, to believe that these events actually occurred, and that the bible is merely a historical document, totally misses the point.

i don't think a lot of people understand anymore the importance of exegesis, mr nice guy, in imparting higher meaning to the words of that text.

|7.21.05 @ 9:30AM|#

Mr. Bailey shoots (Jesus) fish in a barrel so eagerly I fear his forearms will evolve into firearms.

gaius marius|7.21.05 @ 9:30AM|#

But science isn't a be-all end-all either

amen, mr twc. ;)

|7.21.05 @ 9:32AM|#

Hakluyt:

Nope. Kirk is still under a pile of rocks and Scotty is wandering around in a borrowed shuttle.

(Though Shatner hinted that Kirk is actually still in the Nexus.. but really, do we need another wax dummy Kirk iteration?)

doinkicarus|7.21.05 @ 9:33AM|#

To paraphrase comedian David Cross:

Go outside and look around, look at how many stupid, dumb, ignorant people you come across in the course of your daily routine, and then consider that the Bible was written thousands of years ago by people who were even dumber than we are today

gaius marius|7.21.05 @ 9:37AM|#

Too many observation that do not jibe with Big Bang cosmology are necessitating too many ad hoc theories to stay consistent the Big Bang cosmology.

as i understand it, mr barton, the primary reason for doubt is the discovery that the universal expansion evidenced by the doppler shift is, apparently, accelerating -- meaning that the universe isn't, as i was taught when younger, starting from a solitary impulse and slowing under the force of gravity to one of three possible states (perpetual expansion, statis or recollapse) but is being shaped by active forces, possibly from without the universe. this is one of the bases of m-theory, as i understand it, in which our universe is the product of interacting higher-dimensional branes through which gravity transits.

but that's all speculative, of course.

The Wine Commonsewer|7.21.05 @ 9:44AM|#

I know it's early (6:40 am) but this is the funniest thing I've heard today:

Mr. Bailey shoots (Jesus) fish in a barrel so eagerly I fear his forearms will evolve into firearms

Dam, Dave, that's good.

|7.21.05 @ 9:44AM|#

Does that trouble anyone here? The idea that God.. might be.. fuckin' with our heads? I have trouble sleeping with that knowledge. Some prankster God running around: "Hu hu ho. We will see who believes in me now, ha ha." --Bill Hicks

Well, let's see how this prooves out:
1. Bill Hicks was a prankster who fucked with ppl's heads (in a good way).
2. Bill Hicks was a man.
3. Man is made in God's image.
4. QED: God is a prankster who fucks with ppl's heads.
5. Comment: Bill, there was a different thing you should have been worried about at nite.

|7.21.05 @ 9:48AM|#

"To illustrate, do people fly on airplanes because they trust in the authority of aeronautical engineers who promulgate the science of aerodynamics? Or do they trust the science behind aviation (again, perhaps implicitly) because of its long and well tested success in explaining what we observe?"

They fly on airplanes because they've seen them take off and land (for the most part) safely. You can't make a comparable claim for their acceptance of evolution. They've never seen one species evolve from another (except possibly for trivial examples such as one species of fruit fly being evolved in the lab), so they accept on authority that, e.g., organisms with gills can evolve into organisms with lungs.

|7.21.05 @ 9:48AM|#

You do realize, however, that the same DNA testing that can verify the relationship between you and your father can also be used to verify the relationship between you and a chimp?

kmw,

A creationist might use an analogy to a clay cup and plate, both created for different purposes but from the same basic substance.

The Wine Commonsewer|7.21.05 @ 9:57AM|#

kmw,

You do realize, however, that the same DNA testing that can verify the relationship between you and your father can also be used to verify the relationship between you and a chimp?

Actually I was aware that humans and primates share somewhere between 97-99 percent of the same genetic makeup. But your comment is intriguing in that it implies new knowledge of which I am unaware.

So I suppose my question would be, hmmm, is there new knowledge? Or are you just making sure that I realized the genetic similarities between chimps and your side of the human family. :-)

(come on, it was funny when my aunt said stuff like that).

|7.21.05 @ 10:01AM|#

"I'm assuming everyone agrees amoebas don't have souls."

Actually, Aristotle would have said that every living organism has a soul (Gk. psyche; Lat. anima), because that's what *makes* them living. He'd have agreed with you that amoebas don't have *rational* souls, however.

(And when you ask, "Well then, if each cell possesses a soul, do each of us have trillions of souls?," the answer is no, because what Aristotelians (and presumably Buddhists) believe is that each *organism*, not each cell, has a soul. (I don't know about Buddhism, but from what I recall of Hinduism, Hindus might try to tell you that when you get down to it, it's all the same soul in every organism.))

The Wine Commonsewer|7.21.05 @ 10:10AM|#

Seamus,

They fly on airplanes because they've seen them take off and land (for the most part) safely

Exactly. And, once again, I think the simplest explanation.........Occam et al

And it isn't just that people accept that organisms with gills evolved into organisms with lungs, they accept that heterotrophic bacteria ultimately evolved into organisms with gills......

I was going to go with "bleach" evolving into organisms with gills but decided to skip the dramatic license that got me in hot water yesterday.

gaius marius|7.21.05 @ 10:10AM|#

I think it demeans (and clearly misunderstands) the nature of science and the scientific process to imply that acceptance of evolution without a PhD in biology is really no different than a belief in creation or ID simply because, in either case, you're just trusting someone else. Nonsense.

it does, mr courts, but then...

science, in its heyday (16th-17th c), was the activity of a close network of european gentlemen who were in constant communication by post and societies. the integrity of science was easier to enforce just as morality is easier to enforce in a small community.

the scientific community now is not that way -- it is large, impersonal, industrialized and commodified. there is far less reason to believe the edicts of a scientific/industrial complex on the grounds of ethical integrity and close peer review one could have in the 17th c.

eventually, an institution of its great sway -- is there anyone in the west who isn't partly under the spell of scientism? -- is going to be coopted in many ways for all manner of political and social purposes that have nothing to do with the search for physical truths.

and, really, hasn't the concept of physical certitude eroded significantly since hume?

this is a complex topic.

drf|7.21.05 @ 10:13AM|#

Jmoore: feel better. sorry about the schnoz.

about "questioning authority". just as the liberals tried coopting language in the PC era, we see the same from big government (theocratic?) conservative types. by claiming such words, people who don't pay attention will be more sympathetic to their sound bites.

but it is wholly absurd to say that people who follow an imaginary friend around and have these absolutely fucking insane "proofs" and whose local cultures present "uncertainty avoidance" like it's nobody's business -- but to say these people "question authority" is a bigger fucking joke than Republicans who claim they represent the party of limited government, personal responsibility (what other kind is there), and individual liberty.

Warren - what are you pouring? It's 9:13. Time to start.

mein gott...

|7.21.05 @ 10:22AM|#

gaius-

Are you seriously trying to romanticize the old scientific establishment over the modern one?

Let me tell you, the scientific community is still governed by elites, but admission to that elite is very meritocratic. Yes, there's politics involved, as in any human endeavor, but it's very meritocratic overall. The scientific community is still in constant communication. Indeed, the pace of communication and level of expertise that can rapidly be brought to bear on a problem is better than it was once upon a time.

I'm not here to claim that the scientific community is above reproach in all of its endeavors, but are you seriously claiming that we're less trustworthy now than we were once upon a time?

I mean, the past certainly had its cool aspects, but that doesn't mean it was superior in every regard. Really!

|7.21.05 @ 10:36AM|#

science, in its heyday (16th-17th c)

For the record, I am second to none in my admiration for Newton. But, I mean, come on. You've got to be joking now.

We've sent a person to the fucking moon. We've got antibiotics. We can solve partial differential equations numerically to simulate real materials. We can send information around the world almost instantly. We have a truly baffling but fascinating theory of light and atoms. We can peer back in time with telescopes and rock samples. We've got the human genome available in digital form. We transplant organs. Freakin' organs!!!! And we even found a way to destroy civilization in the name of national security! (OK, that last one is a rather mixed bag, but it proved once and for all that the geeks are truly the ones to be feared, not the jocks!)

I mean, this is where it's at. You ask any of those 17th century geeks whether they'd rather be doing their thing today or once upon a time and it's really no contest.

vache folle|7.21.05 @ 10:37AM|#

What strikes me most about the evolution versus creation debate is that it really doesn't matter which is true. Only about 1% of us will ever use evolutionary theory, and only about 25% of us will ever have any comprehension of it and its uses. Moreover, about 75% of us feel a need to have a concrete absolutist basis for our morality such that a belief in evolutionary theory might lead us to adopt nihilism and go off on a serious bender. If you need to believe in a young earth to get you through the day without going on a murder spree, belive away.

|7.21.05 @ 10:38AM|#

gaius:
It's an old trope to accuse any human endevor as corrupt and self serving.
Modern science, though human, is very much reality based. Old ideas are being knocked down and better theories taking their place.
It is that process that stands so strong against the faith based.

|7.21.05 @ 10:42AM|#

Thoreau,

I sometimes wonder if gaius' ideal society is akin to the caste system. I'm not sure he believes in individual talents, or aptitudes. If he does, he seems to place cultivating abilities at a lower importance than being born into, living, and dying at a fixed position culturally, religiously, and socially. All in the name of order.

|7.21.05 @ 10:42AM|#

Evolution may still be just a theory, but at least it allows itself to be acknowledged as one, and leaves its itself subject to scientific analysis to be proven or disproven.

Creationism is not put forth as a theory, but as fact beyond the need for proof. It merely states that "this is it, no further need for examination, it's all in this little book and you either believe it or you don't."

On that basis, I am unable to take it, or its proponents, seriously.

|7.21.05 @ 10:44AM|#

I almost forgot the most important advances of all:

If a geek does get a date somehow, there are technologies to ensure that she won't get pregnant.

And for those who can't get dates, technology provides easy access to photographs and videos of women doing all sorts of interesting things. None of that in the 17th century, last I heard.

Face it, today's geeks are in a much better position than their 17th century predecessors.

|7.21.05 @ 10:45AM|#

Vache, you're probably right. True, whether dinosaurs lived thousands or millions of years ago has little impact on my daily endeavours.

But, I suspect, the real danger of these young earth people is that they strive for poltical power. People with closed minds in one area are likely to have closed minds in others; and if they can influence national politics, they can be frightening. They may try to ban things, like stem-cell research, which might upset their vision of "God's Natural Order."

|7.21.05 @ 10:47AM|#

What strikes me most about the evolution versus creation debate is that it really doesn't matter which is true. Only about 1% of us will ever use evolutionary theory, and only about 25% of us will ever have any comprehension of it and its uses. Moreover, about 75% of us feel a need to have a concrete absolutist basis for our morality such that a belief in evolutionary theory might lead us to adopt nihilism and go off on a serious bender.

If your figures are correct, then it sounds like 76%, not just 1%, of us use evolutionary theory (or lack thereof). Some for scientific inquiry. Some as an excuse not to go on a serious bender. Others as an excuse to go on a serious bender.

The ELF and secular Marxists terrorists have gone off on some serious benders from time to time. They need to learn to handle their nihilism a bit better methinks, rather than queering up evolutionary theory for the rest of us.

Then again, I have a hard time following this because I don't think the evolutionary phenomena we are capable of observing, or even merely colorably positing as theory, have anything to do with morality of the non-existenz of God.

|7.21.05 @ 10:52AM|#

"What strikes me most about the evolution versus creation debate is that it really doesn't matter which is true."

It might not matter in the daily lives of most individual people, but it does matter on a broader scale. Probably most importantly, evolutionary principles inform various aspects of medicine such as the development and testing of drugs and the genetic epidemiology of infectious diseases. They're also important in dealing with a range of environmental and agricultural issues. Most people don't directly deal with those issues, but they enjoy the benefits.

On a somewhat less concrete level, it seems potentially very harmful in the long term to treat evolution and creationism as equals from a _scientific_ standpoint, or to treat creationism as more scientifically valid and emperically testable. It's one of many things in society that undermine development of critical thinking. That might seem a bit overdramatic, but at the very least it ain't good.

|7.21.05 @ 10:56AM|#

Proof that human life was either not designed or the designer was an idiot:

The human body is so poorly engineered that it can easily trip on a bathmat, smash a vital sensory organ into a wall, and continue to spurt blood all over the place hours later.

I think even I could come up with a design which is just a little bit better balanced and/or less vulnerable.

|7.21.05 @ 11:02AM|#

If anyone's interested, here's an essay by a famous evolutionary biology (now dead) named Theodosius Dobzhansky, written about 30 years ago in response to rising "scientific creationism." It's the source of the often-quoted line "Nothing in biology makes sense except in light of evolution."

http://people.delphiforums.com/lordorman/light.htm

It's probably not going to convince anyone who's strongly set against the notion of natural evolution, but then not much will. Too often they incorrectly (at least in my opinion) infer moral or ethical lessons from evolution/natural selection, then decide they don't like those false ethical implications so the empirical evidence can't be true.

|7.21.05 @ 11:09AM|#

Proof that human life was either not designed or the designer was an idiot

It is the evolutionists, not the creationists, who think survival was the overarching imperative in our design.

When people get real glib about evolution, this is the kind of thing I wonder about. Sure, I can get all Pinkeresque and make up a story about why survival of the species absolutely required our design to be as it is. But, does that count as science or a form of mythmaking?

|7.21.05 @ 11:16AM|#

JMoore:

...whether dinosaurs lived thousands or millions of years ago has little impact on my daily endeavours.

On the contrary, you've probably used oil that used to be dinosaurs because they lived millions instead thousands of years ago. Or am I wrong, because it only takes thousands of years for dinosaur biomass to become oil?

|7.21.05 @ 11:19AM|#

Good point! I hadn't thought of that. How does a young earther explain petroleum? (Don't answer that)

|7.21.05 @ 11:27AM|#

JMoore,
Duh, God put it there and it didn't come from dinosaurs.

Shannon Love|7.21.05 @ 11:27AM|#

1) The philosophical point: Is there some objective criterion that could be used to determine whether an organism (or some feature of an organism) was the product of design rather than evolution?

No. In principle if you found some configuration of matter that could not possible occur, even by super-improbable chance, via natural forces then you could claim that its impossibility indicated that some intelligent agent broke the rules of reality to create it. Creationist often try this argument.

The problem is that you can never tell whether the configuration is actually impossible or just results from processes of which you are ignorant. All scientific knowledge begins with ignorance. At any particular point in history there has always been phenomenon science could observe but not explain. Had we tried to paper over our ignorance by saying, "god did it" we wouldn't have any science at all. Historically, the great mysteries have been solved one after another. There is no reason to believe that anything we can observe today is any different.

In order to use scientific method to include or exclude supernatural influences you would have to have a perfect description of all natural law. We aren't going to have that anytime soon.

2) The practical point: If so, then this criterion could be applied to viruses and bacteria, some of which have indeed been shaped by intelligent designers.

You could never be absolutely sure. You could in some cases prove that an organism was engineered but I don't think you could ever prove that it wasn't. The problem is much the same as above. If a configuration, in this case of genes, is permitted by natural law then there is no means of determining whether the configuration arose by chance or intent unless the designer leaves "toolmarks" of some kind.

Practically, you could determine the probability that something was natural or artificial. If you found the gene for a myelin component in a flu or small pox virus, for example, the most probable explanation would be engineering not natural evolution because neither virus is a retrovirus that we would expect to pick up human genes accidentally. A herpes virus could capture such a gene because it is a retrovirus that infects nerve cells.

|7.21.05 @ 11:33AM|#

"Sure, I can get all Pinkeresque and make up a story about why survival of the species absolutely required our design to be as it is."

One argument you often hear in support of natural evolution is that we're _not_ optimally designed due to limitations imposed by evolutionary history, developmental constraints, available genetic variation, etc. For example, humans' evolution from quadripedal ancestors to bipedalism has supposedly resulted in a higher indicence of problems ranging from hemorrhoids to back problems to problems during childbirth.

|7.21.05 @ 11:38AM|#

I cannot stay away from any thread on religion/creationism.

Mo - I believe the age of the earth (6000 years or so, give or take a few NBA seasons) was calculated by adding up the life spans of the early leaders. Some of them lived for more than 700 years, so they must have had an excellent HMO.

Ted - I bet that very few libertarians belong to the Libertarian Party. This highlights the ultimate weakness of our cause. We abhor any form of collectivism, despise all authority and "leadership", and will not take shit from anybody. This will prevent us from making headway in the political cesspool. You are wrong that we are controlled by creationist loons. We will not stand to be controlled by anybody. Were you possibly referring to the Republican Party???

Thoreau - I suspect you got your hands on some powerful interstate commerce last night (and possibly joe's bubbler).

The fundies will frequently fall back on the old standby "What would Jesus do?" The analog on Hit and Run would be "What is the libertarian take on this?" I'll take a stab at that.

There are a lot of very intelligent people posting on this site who are sharing their insights on evolution, religion, metaphysics,etc. No matter how much we believe in God or the absence of God(s), we all wonder from time to time what life is all about. I applaud the effort of the posters here to share their innermost thoughts on this subject. The libertarian take is that we should not attempt to throttle or steer these efforts; or even to judge others' beliefs. Believe anything you want, share it if you like, but please make no attempt to force your belief system on me.

PS: recommended reading - HL Mencken's "Treatise on the Gods" (1930) Mencken is a true libertarian. He explores the evolution of religion, priests, and dogma from a cynical perspective. He also wrote some delightful dispatches from the Scopes trial. One of his quotes echoes Grylliade's earlier post...

"Why assume so glibly that the God who presumably created the universe is still running it? It is certainly perfectly conceivable that He may have finished it and then turned it over to lesser gods to operate."

Once you get lost in Mencken you might never come back.

|7.21.05 @ 12:05PM|#

The problem is that you can never tell whether the configuration is actually impossible or just results from processes of which you are ignorant.

I suspect you're right.

You could in some cases prove that an organism was engineered but I don't think you could ever prove that it wasn't. The problem is much the same as above. If a configuration, in this case of genes, is permitted by natural law then there is no means of determining whether the configuration arose by chance or intent unless the designer leaves "toolmarks" of some kind.

You're probably right here as well.

Practically, you could determine the probability that something was natural or artificial.

Exactly. That probability could dictate whether resources are preferentially allocated toward finding bad guys with expertise in molecular biology, or preferentially allocated toward figuring out who went into what jungle and stumbled upon some previously unknown virus in the wild.

Anyway, the ID camp is putting forward a notion: That it is possible to examine an organism and tell whether that organism bears features that were the result of an intelligent entity intervening. I share Shannon's philosophical doubts about this (how do we know there isn't some natural mechanism that we didn't consider?). But philosophical doubts only take you so far in science.

So their notion should be tested: If there really is a way to tell whether an organism was intelligently designed or modified or whatever, then prove it with organisms that we know were intelligently modified: Design an algorithm that can figure out which berry was picked from the wild and which berry was genetically modified by scientists (or even selectively bred by farmers). Design an algorithm that can tell which deadly virus spontaneously emerged in the wild, and which deadly virus was genetically modified by scientists.

Anyway, that's my challenge to them: I take only scientific ideas seriously when the proponents demonstrate results. If they can design the algorithms that I'm proposing, then I'll give them a second hearing on the issue of evolution. (Doesn't mean I'll just roll over and agree with them, but I'll hear them out.) But until they do that, until they demonstrate the validity of their ideas in a simple case, I'm going to ignore them.

So, to the ID crowd: Go out and give me a proof of concept for your basic idea. Do something more than hold up examples of a God of the Gaps. Show me that your ideas work in a simple case, and then we can start talking about crazier notions. But until then, please leave us alone.

I think it's better to meet them with a challenge than to meet them with mockery. If they refuse to confront the challenge, then mock away!

|7.21.05 @ 12:08PM|#

Commonsewer - lemme clear up a confusion we (biologists) detest:

1. Evolution is a fact. Species change (which is the definition of "macroevolution", if you choose to adhere to this division), and that change has been directly observed (e.g., Woods Hole worms accidental experiment).

2. To account for such change, a number of theories has been proposed; Darwin's theory (descent with modification + natural selection) happens to be the model that most adequately describes the reality. Incidentally, it is NOT the only one out there, however, the next runner-up, Lamarckian theory (exercise of traits and inheritance of acquired characteristics) has not been taken seriously for, oh, over a 100 years now, efforts of Comrade Lysenko notwithstanding.

|7.21.05 @ 12:19PM|#

There's one more advantage to my approach:

As long as the ID crowd presents something that amounts to "God of the Gaps warmed over", the response will always be to confront them with more data: Show them examples of intermediate forms, challenge their naive statements about molecular biology, etc. And that's a good scientific approach. But, as Tim Cavanaugh said:

Have you ever argued with these people? They've got a million and one answers to everything�all of them wrong, I'm sure, but that's still a million more answers than I've got.

Prove them wrong on the bacterial flagellum and they'll turn to blood clotting. Prove them wrong on that and they'll find something else. A debate carried out on those terms will never end.

So change the terms of the debate: Tell them that if their theory is right then they should be able to tell the difference between genetically modified organisms and naturally occuring organisms. Give them a task to do, and then ignore them until they accomplish it.

Of course, one could simply ignore them right now. But in the court of public opinion they can always win sympathy by saying that the scientists are being closed-minded and refusing to consider scientific challenges. Giving them a challenge turns the tables: If they are really so interested in science and so confident in their theory, why don't they go and do something that should be eminently achievable if their theory is right? If it's really so easy to tell whether an organism was intelligently modified or designed, why don't they go do it for a simple case like biological weapons or gen-mod food?

|7.21.05 @ 12:36PM|#

thoreau,

Dembski and others have been challenged on a number of times along these lines. They just tend to come up with excuses about their unwillingness to meet the challenge (e.g., not their field, not important, grandstanding, etc.).

|7.21.05 @ 12:38PM|#

One argument you often hear in support of natural evolution is that we're _not_ optimally designed due to limitations imposed by evolutionary history, developmental constraints, available genetic variation, etc. For example, humans' evolution from quadripedal ancestors to bipedalism has supposedly resulted in a higher indicence of problems ranging from hemorrhoids to back problems to problems during childbirth.

Why does evolutionary history have limits?

It seems a tautology to say that all features of living things can be explained by: (1) evolutionary processes; or (2)the failure of evolutionary processes.

One of the above poster said that evolution is a fact. I don't disagree, but I think it is more accurate to say that evolution is a fact, except in cases when we run up against those (euphemism alert:) "limits of evolutionary history."

|7.21.05 @ 12:46PM|#

Dembski and others have been challenged on a number of times along these lines. They just tend to come up with excuses about their unwillingness to meet the challenge (e.g., not their field, not important, grandstanding, etc.).

Interesting. Can you point me to any articles describing the challenge and/or the excuse for weaseling out? Cuz the next time there's an ID thread on this forum, instead of giving my detailed critique I'm simply going to describe the challenge and point to where the ID proponents declined to meet it.

Another thought: The ID crowd claims that unresolved problems in biology are sufficient reason to abandon evolution. If we apply that same standard of evidence to ID, then shouldn't we disregard it until they rise to the challenge I've described above?

I'd be interested in seeing the details of a challenge put to the ID crowd. I'm a very new biophysicist, so I can only outline the basic idea of the challenge. An experienced biologist can no doubt make it more precise: Given such-and-such species (be it a plant, animal, virus, bacteria, or whatever), and such-and-such genetically modified strain of it, construct a test that only uses the following information to tell which was genetically modified...

|7.21.05 @ 12:53PM|#

thoreau,

I've seen such challenges discussed at The Panda's Thumb: http://www.pandasthumb.org/

|7.21.05 @ 12:56PM|#

Curious if anyone, especially gaius, has read Max Weber's 'Science as a Vocation' (1918) and, if they have, what they think of it. Relevant quote from it:

Scientific progress is a fraction, the most important fraction, of the process of intellectualization which we have been undergoing for thousands of years and which nowadays is usually judged in such an extremely negative way. Let us first clarify what this intellectualist rationalization, created by science and by scientifically oriented technology, means practically.

Does it mean that we, today, for instance, everyone sitting in this hall, have a greater knowledge of the conditions of life under which we exist than has an American Indian or a Hottentot? Hardly. Unless he is a physicist, one who rides on the streetcar has no idea how the car happened to get into motion. And he does not need to know. He is satisfied that he may 'count' on the behavior of the streetcar, and he orients his conduct according to this expectation; but he knows nothing about what it takes to produce such a car so that it can move. The savage knows incomparably more about his tools. When we spend money today I bet that even if there are colleagues of political economy here in the hall, almost every one of them will hold a different answer in readiness to the question: How does it happen that one can buy something for money--sometimes more and sometimes less ? The savage knows what he does in order to get his daily food and which institutions serve him in this pursuit. The increasing intellectualization and rationalization do not, therefore, indicate an increased and general knowledge of the conditions under which one lives.

It means something else, namely, the knowledge or belief that if one but wished one could learn it at any time. Hence, it means that principally there are no mysterious incalculable forces that come into play, but rather that one can, in principle, master all things by calculation. This means that the world is disenchanted. One need no longer have recourse to magical means in order to master or implore the spirits, as did the savage, for whom such mysterious powers existed. Technical means and calculations perform the service. This above all is what intellectualization means.

|7.21.05 @ 1:02PM|#

"Why does evolutionary history have limits?

It seems a tautology to say that all features of living things can be explained by: (1) evolutionary processes; or (2)the failure of evolutionary processes."

A better choice of words on my part would have been "evolutionary constraint" or "evolutionary trajectory". The basic notion is that, once a certain evolutionary pathway is chosen, it may be difficult or impossible to switch to another pathway even if the other pathway would be more optimal. The fitness of some sort of intermediate form necessary may be too low, or developmental mechanisms may be too set to allow a dramatic change, etc.

This isn't a "failure of evolutionary processes" (I'm not entirely sure what that would mean anyway). It just reflects the reality that evolution can only work with what it has available as a result of past evolution.

maestro|7.21.05 @ 1:26PM|#

What do you think of this: that the seeming perfection of mathmatics might be a testament to the fact that there is a higher power. If so, would this not be his/her's/its language? How is it that we can look at problems in physics, geology, chemistry, etc and find that certain principles appear to be true all the time, i.e. 1 + 1 = 2 and all equations derived from that.

|7.21.05 @ 1:36PM|#

They fly on airplanes because they've seen them take off and land (for the most part) safely. You can't make a comparable claim for their acceptance of evolution.

That?s not the point. We can debate what psychological process allows people to get on a plane, but that simply picked that as one example. If you wish, pick any number of new technologies that people have not seen and have no idea of its workings yet they have no problem relying on because the scientific process behind it (with all its transient flaws, to be sure) has, over time, proven to produce reliable results.

The point is that seeing how science has resulted an indisputably better understanding of many of other natural phenomena it is entirely reasonable to accept that this will be the case with evolution as opposed to supernatural explanations. Choosing to place some reliance on that process without researching every detail for yourself is not the same thing as simply relying on authority. It is silly to equate this with someone who simply accepts a religious authority or shaman or soothsayer?s word. To do so is, as I said, nonsense (and as pointed out in the quote from mtm, one can in principal learn the details supporting the claim, which one cannot do with creationism since there is nothing but a ?book written thousands of years ago by nomads who believed in sea monsters? as Tim said).

|7.21.05 @ 1:38PM|#

This isn't a "failure of evolutionary processes" (I'm not entirely sure what that would mean anyway). It just reflects the reality that evolution can only work with what it has available as a result of past evolution.
Comment by: J at July 21, 2005 01:02 PM


Or evolution has already met that barrier and broken it by arriving at homo sapiens. The fact that we can adapt our surroundings to us, rather than be forced into evolving into a different form to accomodate our environment is testament to that - then again, we haven't exactly been around very long, merely a spec in terms of evolutionary periods. Basically, by arriving at us, it has expanded on those limits.

|7.21.05 @ 1:39PM|#

My experience with creationists is that they only have a couple of basic "arguments"; when you debunk one they simply recycle it and bring it back, slightly modified at a later date.

Ron, I commend you, buddy. You obviously have a strong stomach.

|7.21.05 @ 1:39PM|#

Oops, sorry for the messed up quotes... using a different computer and forgot to preview :) Was responding to Seamus and the first paragraph is a quote.

|7.21.05 @ 1:53PM|#

I don't think that the LP is controlled by creationist loons.

No...the creationist loons are all circle-jerking over at Lew Rockwell's website...

|7.21.05 @ 2:06PM|#

Ron Bailey,

The skeptic they mentioned is likely Jason Rosenhouse.

|7.21.05 @ 2:20PM|#

Apparently Liberty University requires loyalty oaths of its professors; they must swear that they are creationists, etc. This is rather ironic in light of the fact that Falwell and his ilk claim that science "intellectually rigid," lacks freedom, etc. But hey, according to Shannon Love, isn't this just part of their anti-authority mindset? :)

|7.21.05 @ 3:06PM|#

TWC,

My previous posts were at the end of a very long day, and re-reading my comments, it looks like they can be construed as being insulting. That was definitely not my intent.

I should have used my family instead of yours in the example. If you felt any offense towards yourself or your family, a thousand pardons.

Also, the percentage I listed was the probability, not the percentage of similarity. Thus, we can be 99.999% certain that we share 98.4% of our DNA with chimps. Again, sorry for not clarifying.

drf|7.21.05 @ 3:31PM|#

GG:

as you probably saw, SL's claim to the punk rock with gawd's blessing (questioning authority) is similar to the euro-universities with their "social critic" ideas. they are willing to question everything other than their own views.

when you have such rocket science proof as "cuz i said so. nayh nayh. prove that my invisible friend doesn't exist", you're gonna fight a losing battle. that's why thoreau's plan seems like a good one. or they should show why it's their imaginary friend and not, say, someone else's.

|7.21.05 @ 3:41PM|#

Hey, read it again.
I wasn't asking why god could not create a 6000 year-old cosmos that already looks 14 billion years old, I was asking why Dr. Lisle would have trouble accepting that idea. In for a penny, in for a pound as the Brits used to say. He acknowledges the universe appears to be as old as most astrophysicists say it is, but nevertheless clings to the notion that it is only 6000 yrs old. Yet somehow doesn't want to accept the notion that god created it so that it already looked old. So what's left?

Maybe he thinks god created a 'distressed' Earth -- one that is 6000 yrs old but looks 4.6 billion years old -- and then placed this into an already-existing, 14 billion-year-old universe. Perhaps he thinks the bible is correct that god created the universe in 6 24-hour days, and after creating the Earth god went back in time to create the big bang; then inserted the Earth into the time-stream at just the right instant. LO! Let there be light! ("We join this universe already in progress.")

Ha! This could be fun. Kind of like James P. Hogan's "Cradle of Saturn" Velikovskian pseudo-biblio-science fiction. Meaningless but fun.

gaius marius|7.21.05 @ 3:53PM|#

For the record, I am second to none in my admiration for Newton. But, I mean, come on. You've got to be joking now.

utterly not, mr thoreau.

We've sent a person to the fucking moon. We've got antibiotics. We can solve partial differential equations numerically to simulate real materials. We can send information around the world almost instantly. We have a truly baffling but fascinating theory of light and atoms. We can peer back in time with telescopes and rock samples. We've got the human genome available in digital form. We transplant organs. Freakin' organs!!!! And we even found a way to destroy civilization in the name of national security! (OK, that last one is a rather mixed bag, but it proved once and for all that the geeks are truly the ones to be feared, not the jocks!)

let's not confuse the advance of technology with the advance of science -- two veyr different things. the fundamental laws (or approximations thereof) of the universe were discovered by experiment at extraordinary pace in the 16-17th c. does that happen today? not really. we live in the aftermath of science's golden age.

sending a man to the moon is techne. explaining gravity is science. developing antibiotics is techne. discovering the existence of viruses is science. mapping a genome is techne. discovering the mechanism of genetics is science.

increasingly, the people we mislabel scientists are, in fact, technicians -- people who apply what is known in new ways, rather than discover what is not known.

which is why it's legitimate to discuss the end of science, as has periodically arisen since the late 19th c. that is not to say nothing remains to be discovered -- au contraire! -- but simply that the deterministic method of science may be close to expending its usefulness in explaining our universe.

to take astrophysics, for example, where the explanations of the origins of the universe are increasingly philosophical, esoteric and religious. john horgan wrote an interesting book on the subject, which maybe you've read.

|7.21.05 @ 3:57PM|#

Whenever I read a post from gaius marius, in my mind's eye, I see The Architect from the second and third Matrix films.

|7.21.05 @ 4:09PM|#

god wanted us to see stars from the get go because they look pretty. He didn't want them to be only a few light minutes away because then they would incinerate us. Thus he took the "distressed furniture" approach.

|7.21.05 @ 4:12PM|#

My main problem with creationists isn't so much their use of junk science, it's their strict adherence to the notion that the teaching of evolution is responsible for virtually every social ill that they perceive.
My sister's family (that I have mentioned in previous posts) truly believe that evolution theory is at least partially responsible for drug abuse, teen pregnancy (out-of-wedlock, of course), communism and the popularity of Heavy Metal music.Once you understand that, lengthy discussions of scientific merit seem like overkill.
Not that I haven't been edjimacated by reading this thread. Thanks to everyone.

|7.21.05 @ 4:15PM|#

gaius,

It's certainly true that science and technology are different, but you seem to think that technological advancements occur in a vacuum as far as science is concerned. The development of antibiotics was based on a scientific framework that began in the 17th century, but continued to be built very actively through the 20th century. It certainly didn't end with the discovery of the existence of viruses or the development of germ theory (which itself occurred in the late 19th and early 20th centuries). Another example you give of honest-to-god science, "discovering the mechanism of genetics," didn't even begin until the 19th century, didn't begin to really take off until the 20th century, and is still occurring at a very rapid pace today (with the help of such technological developments as the ability to sequence complete genomes).

I can speak best for biology, and specifically evolution, since that's my area of expertise. Both scientific and technological developments in this field have occurred through the latter half of the 20th century and continue today at a pace that was probably hardly imaginable in the 16th and 17th centuries.

|7.21.05 @ 4:16PM|#

Ooh, funny shapes in my post! The science of cutting and pasting continues to advance!

gaius marius|7.21.05 @ 4:22PM|#

This means that the world is disenchanted. One need no longer have recourse to magical means in order to master or implore the spirits, as did the savage, for whom such mysterious powers existed.

i've not read that work of weber's, mr mtm, but he correctly analyzes this modern mindset -- and the name for it is scientism, the faith that everything in the world is rational and discoverable.

it isn't true, of course -- it's a simple mindset, and hume poked a lethal hole in it two hundred years ago on the smallest level. the increased understanding of chaos, complexity and particularism has ended (or is ending) the old deterministic worldview of the enlightenment, ending us close to where we started, i think.

that's a really interesting bit, though, mr mtm. thanks.

|7.21.05 @ 4:47PM|#

the fundamental laws (or approximations thereof) of the universe were discovered by experiment at extraordinary pace in the 16-17th c. does that happen today? not really. we live in the aftermath of science's golden age.

I'm going to give a physicist's perspective on your statement. Other scientists could obviously correct the deficiencies and omissions:

If the discovery of fundamental laws is your criterion for a golden age then the golden age of science reached its crescendo with the development of quantum electrodynamics, and is still going on. QED is the most precise physical theory known to mankind, and from a reductionist perspective it is the foundation of almost everything in chemistry, biology, and materials science. It is far from complete; there are very open questions regarding the interpretation of quantum theory, but those questions are being probed experimentally and leading to fundamental advances in things like quantum information theory. The notion that there is a deep connection between information processing and fundamental laws of matter is a surprising and deep one.

What we've discovered since then in regard to fundamental (from a reductionist perspective) physical laws is less earth shattering: The Standard Model of quarks and leptons doesn't have much direct impact on chemistry, since all we need to know for most practical purposes is the mass, charge, and spin of a nucleus. But it is every bit as fundamental.

Quantum gravity is, admittedly, at a bit of a standstill with regard to providing insights. Oh, sure, lots of work is done on it, but how much insight are we getting? Open question there.

Moving beyond the four forces, in the past 30 years there has been a great deal of insight gained into statistical mechanics and phase transitions, phenomena that underlie much of what we observe in nature. These ideas extend far beyond commonly known phase transitions such as melting ice and magnetizing iron (two trivial examples).

Going to things as simple as motion: The basic laws of motion (at speeds much slower than light and over length scales much larger than atoms) were admittedly understood centuries ago. But nonlinearity and chaos theory have given us new fundamental insights. These insights go way beyond just being able to solve the motion of a complicated system with a big computer. These insights involve universal phenomena exhibited by large varieties of systems irrespective of their details. That's pretty darn fundamental.

Moving on to biophysics, my new specialty: The genetic code was figured out a few decades ago, long after your alleged golden age. Now we're seeing that not all biological phenomena can be easily understood in terms of genetics. Yes, as a physicist I remain a reductionist on some level, but even if biology is in the end encoded in the genes, the phenomena frequently only manifest on longer length scales than a single cell. I'm studying the properties of blood vessel networks: How they form in response to signals between cells, and their universal properties as networks. In recent years fascinating work has been done to show that many biological networks (e.g. blood vessels, bronchi, etc.) in just about all animals (and even many plants) form in accordance with universal laws.

Really, gaius, that's just off the top of my head. This is a golden age. And technology is the fruit of that golden age. Every fruit sprouts from a tree. When the harvest is abundant (e.g. the examples I gave earlier), that usually means that the tree is fluorishing.

|7.21.05 @ 4:50PM|#

I wouldn't say that everything in the world is rational and discoverable, but I would say that unexplainable does not necessarily mean inexplicable.
Splitting hairs, I know.

|7.21.05 @ 4:50PM|#

Dave W.:

I responded to your questions (presumably not rhetorical) in the previous thread/post on this topic.

|7.21.05 @ 5:00PM|#

There has been a lot of fundamental (oh, there's that word again) science discovered since the 17th Century. To name a few things: the structure of the atom and the laws of chemistry, statistical mechanics, quantum mechanics which includes a huge range of sub-topics from wave theory to particle physics to nuclear physics to quantum-chromodynamics to solid state physics, relativity which includes cosmic rays, black holes, cosmology, and more, solar and stellar physics and stellar evolution. And on and on, and that's just a sampling from fields I am aware of. Then there's geology, biology...

Yes, there were a lot of discoveries made in the 16th and 17th centuries, but--not to put them down--those discoveries were the 'low hanging fruit'; easy pickings so to speak.

gaius marius|7.21.05 @ 5:01PM|#

The development of antibiotics was based on a scientific framework that began in the 17th century, but continued to be built very actively through the 20th century.

which is, mr j, kind of my point. techne -- the accumulation of technique -- is "built". but science and discovery is once. once the immune system as a concept is discovered, there it is -- and everything after is just filling in the details. you see the difference, i'm sure.

while advances in technique have come at ever faster pace, science has slowed dramatically, i think it's pretty clear. and there's a lot to be said for that, culturally -- technique is best understood as the substitute for creativity in a society that has shifted from growth to decline. an attempt to manage civilizational problems which can no longer be solved, as it were.

gaius marius|7.21.05 @ 5:24PM|#

If the discovery of fundamental laws is your criterion for a golden age then the golden age of science reached its crescendo with the development of quantum electrodynamics, and is still going on

i understand what an advance qed is in explaining the microdynamics of the world. but of what importance is it, mr thoreau?

i don't ask this to be provocative. let me say that i speak as one who holds a b.s. in chemical engineering. i'm not a technophobe.

but plainly, science has become ever more abstract, diminutive and esoteric since the 18th c -- to the point where questioning the relevancy of a lot of research isn't beyond the pale. even as we apply our knowledge in ever more resourceful ways -- this is a golden age of technique, i agree -- science, it seems to me, increasingly struggles to find big questions it *can* answer.

to borrow an analogy, let's take your work in blood vessel networks. the cartographer long ago mapped the continent; it's left to us to chart the tributaries of a river basin. when that's done, what will there be?

you must admit, mr thoreau, that while particles may be discovered, et al, the mechanism of qed may be "it". we may flesh it out, but the discovery of a more fundamental system of physicality that has anything to do with experimentation is unlikely to come -- physics began to encounter its fundamental limitation with heisenberg's principle.

it's also no sin to admit that science is severely limited by definition -- much theoretical propositioning at science's cutting edges is now beyond experiment and always will be. m-theory in astrophysics springs to mind.

that's not to say that no more will be learned -- pish to that. but it is to say that science is reaching its limitations, and the rapid scientific advances that materially affect the way we see and interact with the world are probably behind us.

|7.21.05 @ 5:25PM|#

Shall we continue this discussion in the newest Creationism thread?

|7.21.05 @ 5:28PM|#

gaius:

Another way of looking at it is that Newton and company had the luxury of working on obvious problems. They solved the most obvious issues because we were just on the other side of natural theory by deism. Newton was a titan, don't get me wrong, and he holds a special place in science because he explained almost the whole of the world that we actually experience. What you are noting is that connection between common experience and the explanatory powers of Principia.

No single scientist after Newton has been as culturally transformative, but that is not to say that the aggregate of science isn't much more profound these days.

|7.21.05 @ 5:28PM|#

i understand what an advance qed is in explaining the microdynamics of the world. but of what importance is it, mr thoreau?

Computational chemistry? Lasers?

|7.21.05 @ 5:32PM|#

gaius-

How much of the science you learned as a ChemE was figured out in the 16th and 17th centuries? Draw distinctions between engineering and science if you like (I think the boundary is incredibly blurry), but answer the question. You must have learned some science.

BTW, I specifically chose computational chemistry and lasers because you're a ChemE.

Other neat things: Relativity makes it possible to understand magnetism. With Maxwell's equations the magnetic field was simply, well, there. But if you start with relativity and Coulomb's Law, you can derive Maxwell's equations and the existence of a magnetic field. Not easy, but it can be done. See Purcell's book. Or Schwartz's more advanced E&M book.

|7.21.05 @ 5:49PM|#

"No single scientist after Newton has been as culturally transformative..."

I'm probably a bit biased since he's the father of my field, but I think Darwin fits into that category. The scientific and cultural effects of the ideas presented in "Origin of Species" have been pretty profound.

gaius marius|7.21.05 @ 5:55PM|#

Computational chemistry? Lasers?

i appreciate your consideration in picking out somethign closer to home for me -- but these are technique, mr thoreau, not science -- the novel application of principles, not the discovery thereof. "we" engineers are technicians, as are a large proportion of "you" scientists these days. :)

How much of the science you learned as a ChemE was figured out in the 16th and 17th centuries?

all of it -- which is to say, more nebulously, the basic laws for all of it were revealed long ago (let's fuzz the particular dates, shall we).

as an example, the book i learned heat and momentum transfer from was written in 1962 -- and will never need to be rewritten substantially. a new chem-e in the year 2205 will use essentially the same book.

and that book could have been written earlier, theoretically -- but it took time for the examination of the laws which had already been discovered to catch up. the principles of thermodynamics were being laid down as early as leibniz and newton.

|7.21.05 @ 6:06PM|#

gaius,

"which is, mr j, kind of my point. techne -- the accumulation of technique -- is "built". but science and discovery is once. once the immune system as a concept is discovered, there it is -- and everything after is just filling in the details. you see the difference, i'm sure.
while advances in technique have come at ever faster pace, science has slowed dramatically, i think it's pretty clear. and there's a lot to be said for that, culturally -- technique is best understood as the substitute for creativity in a society that has shifted from growth to decline. an attempt to manage civilizational problems which can no longer be solved, as it were."

If your definition of scientific advancements includes the requirement that they cannot further develop or alter previous scientific advancements - that they only happen once, so to speak - that's a very strange definition, to say the least. Science is built up over time just as much as technology. To use your example of the immune system, our understanding of the immune system today is not only much more detailed, it's radically different from the understanding of the immune system when the concept was first discovered. And that didn't result simply from improved technology - it resulted from experiments resulting in very significant discoveries and conceptual advancements leading to further experiments in completely unexpected directions. Needless to say, that's a lot more than "just filling in the details."

Various scientific fields are no doubt in decline; I imagine most if not all fields follows a qualitatively similar sort of life cycle of rapid expansion, maturity, and decline (although I'm sure the time scale varies widely). But I'll repeat what I said in my last post: various fields of biology, including evolutionary biology (a field which didn't even exist in anything even remotely resembling its current form until 200 years after your golden age of science), are making _scientific_ as well as technological advancements at a rapid rate. And these advancements (speaking specifically of evolution) are having/will have important applications in conservation, numerous areas of medicine, agriculture, etc.

gaius marius|7.21.05 @ 6:20PM|#

i might agree in some respects, mr j -- but it is nonetheless racing toward that end which other fields may already have encountered. to steal some commentary from mr horgan:

And the same way in biology--I realized sort of reading between the lines of books written by biologists and listening to them carefully that they?re really saying that, that Darwinian evolution and modern genetics, DNA-based genetics, created again this basic paragon within which all future knowledge would be placed.

and horgan's comments on the denial of the oncoming end of science were extremely insightful -- wonderfully historical in their perspective, i thought.

what I try to show is that the reasons that people reject what I?m saying is it?s more often wishful thinking than what I think is a very careful analysis where science is right now. For scientists in particular, science is what has made their lives meaningful. In a personal sense, I think many of them probably believe, as I do, that science is the most wonderful, marvelous creation of ... humanity. It?s provided direction to history, and it?s ... enriched our lives -- it?s made our lives much more comfortable, and they just can?t accept that there might be an end to it, even though their own theories often imply that.

this is a very sensitive human perspective on the issue.

|7.21.05 @ 6:22PM|#

What about String theory?
Or the discovery of how proteins interact and rotate with genetic material?

Of course all of the big, easy stuff was done centuries ago, but this is like saying that there's no new art because they haven't discovered any new colors.

|7.21.05 @ 6:36PM|#

gaius-

You mean to say that they knew the second law of thermodynamics in the 16th century? Fascinating!

You mean to say that the laws of electricity and magnetism (which I assume you learned in the 16th century) were known back then? Fascinating!

As to lasers and computational chemistry: Um, well, lasers have literally shed light on so many chemical and physical mysteries that I don't know where to begin. Yes, they are a "tool" but the idea is that we learned something about light, we made a laser, and then that knowledge of light enabled the acquisition of more knowledge.

Computational chemistry? Um, well, they're tackling studying the interactions of biological molecules to understand the processes of life. That seems like the acquisition of fundamental knowledge to me.

I know you think that our social and political and economic situation is in decline, but science too? Please.

|7.21.05 @ 6:53PM|#

Stevo Darkly: An assumption that amoebas have souls would not posit that each cell on Earth possesses a soul, but that each individual entity possesses a soul, whether that entity is composed of one cell or trillions.

Given ...
(1) that every cell of your body contains mitochondria that possess their own DNA and the machinery to manufacture their own RNA and proteins
(2) the likelihood that mitochondria originated as prokaryotic endosymbionts of an entirely distinct species
... please provide a rigorous definition of "individual entity."

Perhaps we have two overlapping souls, one residing in our nuclear DNA and one in our mitochondrial DNA.

Well, three, because our bodies are also colonized by a variety of bacteria. Um, four, because all human cells integrate snippets of viral DNA. Better make that five, because some unfortunate people carry prions. Okay, six or more souls, because mothers contain living cells from each child they have carried.

This of course will give rise to a new consumer marketing opportunity: keeping up with the Joneses. He Who Dies With The Most Souls, Wins.

|7.21.05 @ 7:17PM|#

thoreau: You [Gaius] mean to say that they knew the second law of thermodynamics in the 16th century? Fascinating!

C'mon, Thoreau, if cave men could ride dinosaurs like horses, then what'd prevent 16C scientists from understanding that S=klnW or that dU/dt=d2U/dx2? Or understanding the electromagnetic field tensor Fik=dAk/dxi-dAi/dxk?

Duh. ;-)

(Well, apart from not understanding logarithms or derivatives or fields or tensors, of course...)

Thoreau: How much of the science you learned as a ChemE was figured out in the 16th and 17th centuries?

Gaius: all of it ... the basic laws for all of it were revealed long ago

As a physicist who had the privilege of meeting some of the first-generation quantum theorists such as Wigner, I can only gulp and stammer in amazement. Sigh. I had composed a reply to Gaius citing the continued discovery of really surprising things that force us to think about the world in new ways (e.g. Prusiner's discovery of prions, WMAP's discovery that only 4% of the universe is made of normal matter, etc.) but I give up.

|7.21.05 @ 7:18PM|#

fizzy goodness,

That was my point exactly.

|7.21.05 @ 7:18PM|#

gaius,
Based on you standards, the person that first noticed when you drop something, it always falls was the original science, Newton was technique. When someone noticed that when you exert force on an object it moves, he discovered the science. Newton's law was merely technique. So by your definition of science, the golden age of science is when humans first developed pattern recognition of the physical world.

|7.21.05 @ 9:27PM|#

Mo, since you're Egyptian I'm surprised you're not insisting that the golden age of computing was when the abacus was invented ;)

gaius marius|7.22.05 @ 5:08PM|#

I know you think that our social and political and economic situation is in decline, but science too? Please.

maybe a more insightful quesiton i could pose to you, mr thoreau, would be: is there any limit on what science can reveal to us about the nature of things?