Charles Krauthammer on ID

_{William Dembski

August 1, 2005

Evolution, Intelligent Design}

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Krauthammer, thoughtful and critical in other areas, continues his reflexive acceptance of Darwinism and dismissal of ID: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/printout/0,8816,1088714,00.html

Comments

Krauthammer got his MD 30 years ago and he only practiced medicine for 3 years afterwards and it was psychiatry not internal medicine. His bachelor's degree is in politics. But that's irrelevant as his lack of scientific knowledge is demonstrated in his writing.DaveScot_{August 4, 2005
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I think Charles Krauthammer's comments are unfornunate and probably owing to the fact that he hasn't thought seriously and objectively about ID. But it is not true that his "knowledge of science" is "minimal at best." He does have the MD from Harvard and worked as a psychiatrist for years.Luke_{August 3, 2005
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Charles Krauthammer in TIME Magazine, Contra ID He's on very slippery ground when he says, "Well, if you believe that science is reason and that reason begins with recognizing the existence of an immanent providence, then this is science. But, of course, it is not. This is faith disguised as s...Thinking Christian_{August 2, 2005
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Speaking of wanting to hurl (see comment 3), I feel that way about the God-of-the-gaps argument that Krauthammer also trotted out for us. Someday people are going to realize that that one has been killed. I'm also optimistic, though, for dead ideas eventually stay dead; they give up even gasping for air. The time will come.TomG_{August 2, 2005
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OFF TOPIC I noticed on Panda's Thumb (where I've been banned from commenting) that email addresses of commenters no longer appear. I guess they couldn't stand me making personal email replies to the commenters either. It's amazing the lengths the administrators of PT will go to in their quest to maintain a facade of being an open forum while deviously closing it off to determined, informed dissenters. Now I can't even cherry-pick objective-appearing commenters for one-on-one dialogs about ID via email. Also off topic - Panda's Thumb appears to have scooped all the other blogs I read on this item: http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2005/08/bush_endorses_i.html#comments it seems our president and CinC has driven a stake in the ground regarding ID in the classroom. I read one comment in that thread where the commenter said GW was one of, if not the single, most narrowly elected presidents in history. How ignorant. Bill Clinton won by a plurality (43%) of the popular vote when he ran against the elder Bush. Bush at least had an honest-to-God majority that voted for him. Had I not been banned I would have corrected that factual error. No one else bothered even though I'm sure many know it to be erroneous. Alas, I couldn't even email the commenter to correct the misinformation he posted. Open-forum my ass. PT has become a repository for unchallenged misinformation.DaveScot_{August 2, 2005
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Correction - NAS membership is 71% positive atheist, 22% agnostic, and 7% deist/theist. I made a typo on the agnostic percentage...DaveScot_{August 2, 2005
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Krauthammer is living proof that otherwise smart people have fallen hard for the despicable Darwinist strategy of conflating ID and religion. Especially onerous is their unscientific ad hominem assaults based on guilt through association. The fact of the matter is that some 80% of the U.S. population are Christians and another 10% are Jewish and/or Muslim who believe in the God of the old testament but not the messiah of the new testament. When 9 of 10 randomly chosen people believe in the God of Abraham how can anyone find it unusual or suspect when the vast majority of ID proponents happen to be Christians? That's what happens when the vast majority of potential proponents are Christians. Indeed, what would be unusual and suspect would be to find a vast majority of proponents of any particular science in the U.S. to NOT be mostly Christians. Consider the National Academy of Science where the membership is 71% positive atheists and 12% agnostics leaving only 7% who are deists and theists. It's highly suspect when that particular group denies any theory of origins involving intelligent agency. The Academy's unscientific religious bias is glaring. If there's any smoking gun pointing to a religious agenda (or anti-religious agenda) it's the anti-ID crowd that's guilty of it. I prefer to consider just the ideas regardless of the person who holds it - that's objectivity and it's one of the most important things for any scientist to strive for in their professional life. Subjectivity causes nothing but problems in science and engineering. One of things I most admire about Bill Dembski is his ability to partition science, philosophy, and religion. One might expect that of someone with advanced degrees in each subject but if intimacy with each is a requirement for objective partitioning there's a thorny problem indeed. I suspect the inability to remain objective, on both sides of the ID dialog, is the root cause of the hostile polarization that ID engenders. What a pity. I expect subjectivity in non-scientists but I expect objectivity from scientists and, appallingly, I see very little objectivity in the science camp when it comes to ID.DaveScot_{August 2, 2005
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One cannot expect Krauthammer to have appreciation for ID as science. I don't think he is interested in ID content that is being portrayed as creationism. But you at least expect him to have a good grip and facts about Scopes trial. All he does is repeating someone else's, turned backwards, story. Hardly a good journalism.Srdjan_{August 2, 2005
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His ignorance does not stop with science -- his theology is also sorely lacking. The current issue of Time also includes the helpful description of Bill Frist as 'anti choice'bevets_{August 2, 2005
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I like KrauthammerÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s political commentaries, if he would have only ended it there. By allying himself with the Darwinians against ID only shows that when his god is being attacked he must join the jihad. In his article he makes no scientific challenges to ID and after all science is the reason for his criticism of ID, isnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t it? He fails to show even a cursory understanding of ID when he asked Ã¢â‚¬Å“on what scientific evidence?Ã¢â‚¬Â. If he has even a cursory understanding of ID he would have known on what evidence. Has he not read any of BeheÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s book, paper and articles? Has he not read any of WellsÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s, MeyerÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s, or DembskiÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s books and papers? Has he not look at any of the number of internet websites that debate these topics? Is this just sloppy journalism or willful ignorance? His analogy between the current ID vs. Darwinian debate with Fabricius vs. Kepler is even more puzzling. He raise Kepler as the standard of good science. I assume he means Kepler practiced observation and experimentation for his research. Well, this is the position of ID. Darwinian science is the one that demands obedience to their faith absent of any direct observation and experimentation for any genesis of forms. His analogy becomes more ironic when you consider the basis of KeplerÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s scientific work. Ã¢â‚¬Å“May God make it come to pass that my delightful speculation [The Mysterium Cosmographicum] have everywhere among reasonable men fully the effect which I strove to obtain in the publication; namely, that the belief in the creation of the world be fortified through this external support, that thought of the Creator be recognized in nature, and that his inexhaustible wisdom shine forth daily more brightly.Ã¢â‚¬Â Kepler fully believes that his scientific work supports his faith in God. Would Krauthammer suggest that we stop teaching KeplerÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s laws of motion in science classes?teleologist_{August 1, 2005
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That's unfortunate. I agree that Krauthammer is usually much better. We can probably rest assured that his knowledge of science and engineering is minimal at best. If I hear that vapid statement (parroted by Krauthammer) about evolution being the bedrock of modern biology one more time I'm going to hurl. Modern biology is the study of living tissue. Historical biology is the study of rocks. The latter lends no substance to the former. Modern biology is a hard science based on empirical evidence while historical biology is a narrative science based on speculation of things that can never be directly observed or repeated.DaveScot_{August 1, 2005
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Dr. Krauthammer wrote this: "This new attack claims that because there are gaps in evolution, they therefore must be filled by a divine intelligent designer." He obviously knows next to nothing about intelligent design.PaV_{August 1, 2005
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It seems as though Krauthammer is getting his ideas about ID primarily from the Bishop SchÃƒÂ¶nborn article. I think Phillip Johnson was right when he said "the drawback [to the bishop's NYT piece] is that any article penned by a bishop will be viewed as another salvo in the religion vs. science debate. And that's not what we want. We want 'Is evolution good science?' debate."Qualiatative_{August 1, 2005
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