New at Reason

David Weigel | September 13, 2006

Kenneth Silber talks about how 9/11 changed... no, wait. Kenneth Silber reviews a new documentary that asks whether evolutionists are going the way of the dodo - and works hard to prove that they won't.

Comments

|9.13.06 @ 12:56PM|#

The only thing that would convince the I.D. folks that their pseudo-theory is wrong is if God himself came down and said there is no I.D. Yeah, that stupid.

|9.13.06 @ 1:21PM|#

What I find funny with the christians pushing ID in schools is that if violates the 1st Commandment. You can't teach the christian god in schools, so you would have to present it as some "other" intelligent being. The 1st Commandment forbids the acceptance of "other" gods. Teaching that we were created by a being other than god would be a sin.

I guess they are more concerned with forcing kids to turn away from evolution than they are with following the 10 Commandments.

|9.13.06 @ 1:23PM|#

oops,

it not if violates the 1st Commandment.

|9.13.06 @ 1:27PM|#

I.D. proponents don't always understand what exactly evolutionists believe.

They understand well enough, it has nothing to do with a lack of "savvy in public relations." The misrepresentations are either out of ignorance or malice. It does not take much to assemble a good straw man.

The disdain among some evolutionists for engaging in debate probably has helped I.D. gain momentum in public opinion in recent years.

That is no doubt true but show a little sympathy. These are the Paris Peace Talks and the best the I.D. crowd can do is argue over the shape of the table. Or the eyeball, whichever.

|9.13.06 @ 1:33PM|#

Perhaps what happened is that scientists didn't figure they'd still have to be explaining evolution to flocks of creationist dodos some 80 years or so after the Scopes trial, so they didn't spend much time on their sales skills while studying biology in college.

Although I haven't spent much time investigating it, I.D. explanations always come across as a humorous mix of Christianity and Scientology--basically old-time religion with a bunch of science-ish sort of words thrown in to make it look smart.

|9.13.06 @ 1:41PM|#

ID is an interesting topic for philosophy/metaphysics.

Any person who advances it as science should have their ass whipped.

Oh yes, they say, what about the precambrian explosion?

Fuck you. Just because Newton has been superceded in the area of theoretical physics doesn't mean we still don't learn Newtonian mechanics to understand the behavior of fluids and other important engineering principles, does it?

|9.13.06 @ 1:52PM|#

The problem for the Evolutionists is that they want to frame the debate in terms of a formal scientific debate, while the ID types frame it as a political campaign.

As each is interested in their own constituency, there is no chance there will be a common "rules of debate" agreed to.

|9.13.06 @ 2:08PM|#

Meanwhile, the evolutionists continue their work...

Here is a nice discussion...

http://edge.org/3rd_culture/barcelona06/barcelona06_index.html

|9.13.06 @ 2:20PM|#

Aresen is incorrect:

There are no constituencies in this "debate." The question is, is ID science?

Since there is no possible method to create an empirical test for the existence of God, and the ID people presuppose that God is the first principle, then ID can't be science.

Can't. Can not. No fucking possibility.

|9.13.06 @ 2:37PM|#

The evolutionists (can we just say 'scientists' instead?) should get together with the global warming alarmists and take notes. If the eco-alarmists can convince the country of AGW then they should have no problem convincing the country of something that actually has scientific evidence supporting it.

|9.13.06 @ 2:37PM|#

It is interesting to ask the question: "did God design life to change?". It seems to me life being able to adapt and change is evidence of a more "intelligent" design than one that cannot change.

I am inclined to believe evolution is more intelligent of a design than ex-nihilo creation. If a computer program can continually improve itself by adding features and removing bugs, without the hand of the original programmer, isn't that something a heck of a lot more impressive than the programmer continually manipulating the code? (In fact, we might say the evolving program is a system that has "Artificial Intelligence").

Evolution describes how life works very well. It even provides clues as to how certain norms and morals and ethics have come to be (societies that pick "good rules" will survive with more and better offspring).

But evolution does NOT describe well the motivating forces of why the Big Bang happened. It does not explain fundamental mysteries of where all the matter and energy came from. These are mysteries so awe inspiring that just calling the whole motivating force "God" is good enough for me.

|9.13.06 @ 3:02PM|#

Since there is no possible method to create an empirical test for the existence of God, and the ID people presuppose that God is the first principle, then ID can't be science.

That's why the ID exists: creationism presupposed a being for which there could be no scientific test. That got shot down in the courts. So now the claim is merely that "an intelligence" designed life forms or at least some elements of life forms (of course, they still mean God, in one of the most transparent end runs in history). If by "scientific" we mean something like "able in principle to be investigated fruitfully by empirical test," then the claim that "life was designed by an intelligent being or beings" is as scientific as "The Pyramids were designed by an intelligent being or beings." The problem, of course, is that when these claims are put to the test, the latter turns out to be true while the former (ID) fails miserably.

I can imagine a situation where ID would turn out to be true though: suppose we were to genetically engineer some animals and put them on some other planet to see what happened. Suppose we die off but the experimental planet lives on. The animals evolve into intelligent beings who then proceed to investigate their origins. For them, ID would not only be scientific, it would be true. Our IDists, however, have provided no evidence that we are like those animals.

So, even if you let ID squeak in as a scientific hypothesis, it is terrible science, and should remain outside the classroom, alongside flogiston, the aether, spontaneous creation, and phrenology.

|9.13.06 @ 3:17PM|#

Bubba

?

Of course there are constituencies. If everyone agreed, there would be nothing said.

I am not saying that ID is science. What I am saying is that Evolutionists are not arguing on the same terms as the IDers. Although some Evolutionists may understand that IDers are presenting a polemic rather than a logical case, they disdain to argue in those terms. IDers, on the other hand, are arguing to the hearts of their supporters and have no wish to enter into a scientific debate - or, indeed, any understanding of what constitutes a scientific argument.

bubba|9.13.06 @ 3:39PM|#

The fundamental problem is that the ID side isn't really arguing what they believe, so there can't be a fair fight. The ID side believes that God created things as they are. Since that's not allowed in schools, they create a pseudo-Creationist creed that they don't quite believe. Neither does the audience.

So, when you punch a hole in their pseudo-theory, they don't care. If you argue against Biblical Creationism, they correctly point out that this is not the topic.

Meanwhile Scientists have always had a low regard for the intelligence of their fellow man, so they don't really care if the entire population of Kansas believes that the Earth is perched on a turtle.

What is the motivation for the expert Evolutionary Biologists to learn how to refute the bogus arguments for ID? The NIH doesn't fund that.

Personally, I think that degradation of scientific education provides additional competitive opportunities for my own offspring. I am a true "Evolutionist."

And, if you really care, the National Academy of Science has put together its own primer on the topic.

http://newton.nap.edu/html/creationism/

|9.13.06 @ 6:02PM|#

The reason ID exist is they are having trouble selling the old school. Time will fix all this without defense. It is self-evident (unless the rapture happens first;-).

|9.13.06 @ 6:26PM|#

This settles the issue. [An oldie but a goodie.]

http://www.thepaincomics.com/weekly041229a.htm