Coming straight from the arrogant piffle department, the creationists are back. After their attempts to foist Intelligent Design into our schools failed, they have been forced to find new locations to spread their non-theory. In this publication Dr. Karl Giberson recently proclaimed quite boldly that "Intelligent Design's Coffin Is Still Empty." I say 'boldly,' as I was quite surprised by the title. Intelligent Design not dead? It could not be. What had happened in science without my noticing that had given creationism merit? As it turns out, perhaps unsurprisingly, Giberson had nothing new to say. Indeed his article was a rehash of several well-worn gripes that are often worked up to appear supportive of Intelligent Design.
As a quick aside, it is very appropriate to discuss Intelligent Design here in this place of religious dialogue. Intelligent Design, which is creationism, is a religious position. You will never meet a non-religious person who is a proponent of Intelligent Design. Religion does not preclude an understanding and acceptance of evolution, but non-religion does end one's chances of finding any truth in Intelligent Design. Do also note, as we move along, that Intelligent Design is not a scientific theory. It is untestable and unfalsifiable, therefore failing the definition of the word 'theory.' It is not an alternative theory, a competing theory, or anything of the sort. It is a poor conjecture created by religious charlatans to push an anti-science agenda.
Giberson's post had four main points as to why Intelligent Design is somehow in his view still alive (hence the empty casket). We shall take them on one at a time. His first claim is perhaps the most interesting, as science has proved him wrong in a new way since his article was published.
1. The complex designs of many natural structures that have not yet been explained by science. As long as there are ingenious devices and intricate phenomena in nature (origin of life, anyone?) that we cannot understand, there will be ID arguments.
Before I introduce our recent scientific breakthrough, we can dispense with this simply. This is an application of the "god of the gaps" theory, the idea that whatever science cannot explain, god must have done. You can see the fallacy of the idea quite simply. We know more today than yesterday, and thus either god became smaller or he was never there at all. When science was much more ignorant, this sort of idea held more weight.
With respect for the clock we shall move on to our next disagreement with Ginsberg's point, that of abiogenesis. The creation of life was just cracked by science. Not completely, and not well, and only in a laboratory, but we have finally created life out of a pile of matter. Impressive, and completely contradictory to what Ginsberg is attempting to say. He wants you to feel that either science knows everything, or god exists. It's a straw man argument, with the scarecrow being the need to have everything fully explained in this instant.
Science is working as quickly as it can to learn. History has shown it a very dangerous game to bet against discovery's progression. In short, Ginsberg says "Intelligent Design has some weight as it explains things that science cannot," to which we retort, "It actually explains nothing at all and is egregious pseudoscience."
2. The remarkable, finely-tuned structure of the cosmos in which the laws of physics collaborate to make life possible. Many agnostics have had their faith in unguided materialism shaken by this, most recently Anthony Flew.
Ah, the fine-tuning argument. It is impossible to even speak to a person with faith in creationism without their pointing up and saying, "See!" Here Ginsberg is attempting to connect things that do not cross, saying, "Look at the universe! Therefore, god." This is unimpressive to say the least.
I could direct you to a library of material on this matter from the best astrophysicists and theoretical physicists, but that would take time; arguments that show the literal emptiness of the claim are short enough to share here.
When one looks at the universe, and the Earth, and takes note of the machinations that are required to make their particular life possible, it can be quite impressive. "Look what the Lord has provided for me," you might proclaim. That the universe appears to be somewhat designed for you should come as no surprise; after all, you are here. Given that our species has arisen, certain conditions must have been true for several billions of years. The mistake that most people make at this point is to assume the existence of humans as fact, and then to mold the universe to that fact. That is wholly backwards. Humans could just as easily not have evolved. The fact that we are here is a tribute to the universe as it is. We are therefore only a product and component of it, not its culmination.
At this point we must discuss the ego of the living. "But we do exist," shout the creationists, "so there must have been a plan." It is sometimes phrased differently: "We are here, so there must be something more," and so forth. Fine, let us take it as fact just for a moment that there was a plan. To paraphrase several skeptics, if we are a plan, we are quite a bad one. We took an entire universe billions of years to eke out, our species almost died off in its infancy, and even now we fail to feed ourselves. Our single planet is mostly inhospitable to human life, and we find ourselves at the mercy of nature itself far too often. Even more, our planet is doomed. The sun will expand into a red giant soon enough, burning away all water on earth and thus killing off everything alive. Following, in a few more billion years we will collide with the Andromeda galaxy. If god's great grand plan was to bring forth a universe to allow him to craft a broken, generally warlike people on some small rock away from the Galactic core before smacking it with another galaxy, then good on that plan. Just don't expect any logical person to give you a moment of their time when you try and pitch it.
3. The widespread belief that God -- an intelligent agent -- created the universe. The claim that an intelligent God created an unintelligent universe seems peculiar, to say the least.
This is a reason why Intelligent Design is viable? This is merely an example of how uneducated people make mistakes when they are confronted with a discipline that they do not understand. This is not a reason for Intelligent Design to be treated with any sort of respect or dignity; it is merely an exhortation of our school system to improve itself to help prevent mass ignorance.
As to the intelligent god creating the unintelligent universe, he seems to be saying that as so many people believe in creationism, they cannot all be dolts, and as god would not want his creation to be foolish, god created the universe thus validating their view. Logical gymnastics aside, his core point is wrong. Deists believe in just that: that god kicked things into motion and then got out of the way.
4. The enthusiastic insistence by the New Atheists that evolution is incompatible with belief in God. Most people think more highly of their religion than their science. Imagine trying to get 100 million Americans to dress up for a science lecture every Sunday morning -- and then voluntarily pay for the privilege.
Ginsberg makes two points here, the first claiming that as the New Atheists insist that evolution and religion are incompatible, Intelligent Design will live on. He then states that as a country, we put much more emphasis and weight on religion than science; we respect it more.
Again Ginsberg gets his facts in a bunch. In fact we Americans do pay more for our science than our religion. Look at the national budgets for education, and for federally funded scientific research. Now add in private school and university education and research budgets. Finally tack on the expenses of private enterprises working to create scientific breakthroughs not just one day a week but seven. The totals are not even close.
Now are science and religion compatible? Personally, I don't think so. I never managed to pull off the feat when I was religious, but the scientists that I know best disagree with me. Perhaps it is best to say that science and religion can exist side by side. They cannot exist, however, on top of each other. They do not mix. No scientist that I know, or have known, has or will support Intelligent Design. Leave religion and science apart; when they mix, nonsense ensues.
Ginsberg closes by saying that science's attempts to quash Intelligent Design have been an "abysmal failure." Has science really failed? Or is it more the truth that was never any substance for science to crush, that Intelligent Design was always mere puff and fantasy? You know the answer.
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Karl Giberson, Ph.D: How Darwin Sustains My Baptist Search for Truth
I suggest we offer a course in mythologies, probably optional, in high schools to study creation stories from various cultures. One of my favorites is from the Hopi. The purpose of a creation story is the same as any story: to create meaning in that which is beyond knowing. Mythologies abound. The movies offer a constant parade of them. Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Avatar, the Bourne Trilogy... and on and on it goes.
Let's get ID out in the bright light where it can be seen for what it is, the attempted concretization of a myth.
Atheism too is a religious position, but when you control news media and install your coreligionists in abundance, your religion can be defined scientific fact.
Darwin's disciples learned immediately they could not answer their critics in science. They moved on to the political realm. When they say all scientists agree..., it implies the threat you won't be one long if you don't agree. Clout tops reason. If you want truth, you must go to sources and do your own thinking among yourselves.
Is your science still about observation? Darwinism fails. You must first believe and rule out every contrary thought. Hate those who ask inconvenient questions about information content. Of course rocks can write DNA code. If it took consciousness, we wouldn't be here, because...of course ...there is no God. There can be no explanation involving intelligence.
Rocks write, or at least they long to. Kept wet long enough, they can take life to themselves spontaneaously, reproduce and redesign upward. Mere molecules made microbes and men. That's science under the New World Order. All who will not convert must be killed.
"Atheism too is a religious position..." No, atheism is not a religious position, it is a disbelief in deity(s). Of course, to be precise, there is theism and non-theism. At the boundary between them is agnosticism. Within non-theism there are atheists and inconsequentialists (those who do not subscribe to either view. They see the theistic concept as being of no consequence.)
There are many atheist/non-theist religions: Buddhism, Taoism, Humanism (although humanists are divided as to whether they are religious), Ethical Culture... and one interesting religion, Unitarian-Universalism which is deity optional, where love is the core value.
One interesting point of the theory of evolution is its silence on how life began. It's about how life evolved. Another is the agreement as to species classification, but the disagreement as to what biological qualities constitutes a species.
One thing scientists do is define their terms and put findings out in the open for public scrutiny. How about IDers?
Proposed evolutionary mechanisms have some merit, but fall short when the assumtion of purely naturalistic causation (chance and necessity) is held to. Statistical probabilitys of 'chance' occurances is hand waving. While natural selection is in fact NOT random, what selection has to select from is. Therefore, contrary to what Dawkins and others claim, NS from RM is a random process.
The claim that science can only deal with natural phenomenon is true, but 'directed' natural phenomenon can also be included as long as it's factual, and not posited as 'miraculous' (violating natural laws).
The melanin increase constitutes an adaptive modification, existant within the genome to select from, and an example of microevolution (if you accept that terminology). The proposed model for eye evolution, similar to the proposed model for giraffe neck evolution, is not likely to occur for several reasons.
What both proposals do not address are the requisite addition of multiple support mechanisms that would be needed as well. In the case of the giraffe, specialized vascular neck valves exist, as well as other venous and alterial constructs necessary for proper circulation.
"I realized that the question he should have been asking is, "what good is an eye that works half as well?" "
With eye evolution, most of the support systems are codependent, and would not be functional if evolved separately, which exceeds the ability of evolutionary mechanisms to cause them to occur. Eye evolution is highly improbable, and while proposed gradations of 'function' would offer a selective advantage, these 'functional' improvements would simply not occur.
Truth is always in harmony with truth. The notion that there is anyting to reconcile is inaccurate in this case. In your example, two sides of spectrum are just extermes of the same thing. Hot/cold, light/dark, weak/strong. In no way does science preculde religion other than to assert that you can't prove if there is a god since you cant measure it. Religion certinaly doesnt exclude science as "the truth shall set you free" so you better find out the truth - no matter what you believe - in relgion or science. In the end, truth is truth and it doesnt matter how you get there.
"Gilberson"--paragraphs 1 through 3
"Ginsberg"--paragraphs 4 through .....
The argument that 'no designer would do something a certain way' in flawed in several ways.
One, the point made is usually based on proposing an alternate mechanism that would work better, or last longer. The false assumption is that the physical body should function indefinitely.
Two, some points are flawed due to a lack of mechanistic logic, i.e. that your design is truly a better one. I have yet to see a detailed proposal for an improved spinal support system. Anyone care to venture there?
Three, the assumption that the 'designer' is omnicient is a religious view, but one used by Skeptics to support their logic. If they disavow an omnicient creator, why then use that premise to support their conclusion?
And finally, even if omniscient, how can one know if the designer cared one way of the other regarding longevity or a pain free existence? It's entirely possible that eartly life was intended to be challenging (predator v prey, parasite v host), rather than Utopian.
It is pretty simple. ID isn't science, period.
Secondly, NOMA/accommodationism is arguing about *philosophy*, not whether people are capable of accepting both ideas at the same time. Of course they can. That doesn't make them suddenly without contradiction.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14094-bacteria-make-major-evolutionary-shift-in-the-lab.html
So my question is, why is this not evidence of intelligent design? Why haven't Behe and his buddies jumped all over this proclaiming that this is evidence that God acted in the lab?
Does it really matter? Whether there is an intelligent designer, or not an intelligent designer, the world as we observe it would be exactly the same. The very existence of this creator is irrelevant. By occam's razor, it is superfluous AND irrelevant.
If the creator is not a god or gods, than you must ask who created him/her/it/they?And if it is a god or gods, what proof do you have of its existence? And what proof do you have that it is the Christian god?
The ultimate answers to ultimate questions ultimately don't matter.
*You would have
But to make the leap to theocracy is really asinine. it is a stupid assertion.
How do we know the designer is competent? There seems to be a lot of evidence that the design is highlhighly flawed, as any man over 45 with an intact prostate knows every morning at 3:00.
How do we know he isn't malicious? Same citation.
Other designs would be less efficient, take up much more space, and lack clearing functions that are resident in the current design. The epiglottis blocks the trachea, and sometimes doesn't close in time. Granted, there may be other designs to prevent that, but these kinds of arguments do not verify evo processes as causative.
The complexity of bio systems far exceeds the ability of random mutations, however selected upon, to build these complex structures. Study a little eye anatomy to understand my point. These pages define eye anatomy and function pretty well.
http://webvision.med.utah.edu/index.html
Pontificating that "the complexity of bio systems far exceeds the ability of random mutations" leads inevitably to the question - How do you get that and how would you accurately defend that statement? No hand waving, just specifics.
You really don't want to trot out the old chestnut about the eye complexity being beyond the realm of successive adaptation.