Cornell’s IDEA Club Counters Hunter Rawlings

Markus It was quite useful reading, found some interesting details about this topic. Thanks.Culture Club

November 27, 2006

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Thanks DaveScot for your compliment. And for your point about word usage! I have a few pet peeves myself.PjB

October 27, 2005

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PjB That was an AWESOME letter! FYI - sorry for the nitpickery but you should avoid using the word "irregardless". Properly it's either "regardless" or "irrespective". Just a pet peeve of mine.DaveScot

October 27, 2005

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The IDEA clubbers should write in the Cornell Review: http://www.cornellreview.organteater

October 25, 2005

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Cornell Professor's John Sanford's testimony at Kansas. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/kansas/kangaroo4.html#p1705 By all means, let's do what Rawlings suggested: "we need to be engaging issues like evolution and intelligent design both internally, in the classroom, in the residential houses, and in campus-wide debates, and also externally " The IDEA chapters are definitely game for that!scordova

October 25, 2005

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I posted it in the other thread, but I think it bears mentioning again: Cornell faculty member John Sanford, a geneticist, testified at the Kansas hearings in favor of ID. So this yet another possible targetting of both facutly and students at Cornell. This open, public vilification by a university president of students and faculty at his own university is unprecedented. http://www.nysaes.cornell.edu/hort/faculty/sanford/scordova

October 25, 2005

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Here is an email I sent to Dr. Rawlings: Dear Sir, I recently read your State of the University Address online. Whereas I can agree with the vast majority of the content of your address, I have a few observations. You ask the question, “What would constitute evidence of a conscious or intelligent designer of the universe?” as a legitimate question that should be asked in this dialogue. Would not irreducible complexity, if that should be proven to exist, be such evidence? I also have to ask, is not this a scientific question? Should not biologist Michael Behe’s irreducible complexity be studied as a scientific hypothesis instead of being dismissed out of hand? Should scientists put a time limit on this study (you quote Alan Orr as if 10 years is enough time)? If it is a scientific question, how is it that intelligent design, which purports to look at this question, is not to be considered scientific? You quote Orr as an authority when you write “Orr notes that in the 10 years since one of the I.D. movement’s chief theorists, biochemist Michael Behe (pronounced Bee-Hee), offered arguments about the irreducible complexity of cells as evidence for ‘intelligent design,’ I.D. has inspired no nontrivial experiments and has provided no surprising insights into biology.” I would say that the existence of irreducible complexity itself would be a surprising insight into biology to a reductionist, either atheist or theist. Regarding nontrivial work in the field, there has been at least one peer reviewed analysis of the concept of irreducible complexity [1]. David Chiu at the University of Guelph in Canada looked at polynucleotide sequence data taken from biological systems and analyzed them in light of the Dembski’s design inference [2]. Stephen Meyer published a peer-reviewed article in the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington that specifically argues for intelligent design in the origination of the Cambrian fauna [3]. Douglas Axe claims that certain types of enzymes are unevolvable by Darwinian means [4] [5]. There are probably more, but I am familiar with these. My point in providing these references is simply that nontrivial scientific work has been performed and will probably be performed in the future: statements by Orr, who is writing a book on the origin of species, aside. I would certainly not call this junk science as you did in your article, once again quoting Orr. It may be incorrect science, but it is definitely not junk. Having written all of this, I agree with you that intelligent design should not be taught in the public schools. All of this is very new and new concepts should be covered modestly in any science class lower than a graduate level course. Besides, I doubt very seriously that most high school students could grapple with the subtleties of the issue. As a matter of fact, I doubt that most well educated people can grapple with them. People tend to be very simplistic in their thinking on this topic, irregardless of the side they take. As far as I can tell, intelligent design proponents believe in evolution, they just don’t believe it is unguided. They also throw in irreducible complexity and specification, the validity of which is still being evaluated. Most theistic evolutionists, of whom I happen to be aligned, would see irreducible complexity as unnecessary and its absence does not change our axiomatic metaphysics, although it would impact our higher-level concepts of divine action. However, it would have a huge impact on our fundamental physics. An atheist would find the whole thing untenable. This is why the whole thing is primarily a cultural battle, a point you make in your article. It seems to be fundamentally a battle between atheistic scientists and theistic scientists. Furthermore, it is only a battle between those individuals who have a substantial investment in their metaphysics. For instance, Richard Dawkins, who conflates his atheism and his methodological naturalism in science, is very heated on the topic; whereas Michael Ruse, who is much more modest in his philosophical claims, is very congenial towards intelligent design proponents. Having agreed with you that this is a cultural war, I do not believe intelligent design to be the menace you suggest. Neither do I think it is wise to try to discredit it without good scientific arguments. And these are very difficult to follow for those unschooled in math and science, especially probability and biochemistry. In the end, categorically dismissing a powerful, and popular, idea always makes it more popular. The fuels that give this whole movement energy are the legitimate weaknesses of the neo-Darwinian synthesis and the unwillingness of so many un-nuanced Darwinists to acknowledge them. An open dialogue between science and theology, and between science and science, is the only real solution to the problem. Demonizing one another is not a solution. And most of all, young people will definitely not be cowed by authority away from it. From your article, I believe you agree with me on this point. Trying to define something out of existence as a science probably won’t work either; unless, like creationism, there is a definite and obvious religious bias. There does not appear to be this kind of obvious religious bias in intelligent design, and most people can see that. Besides, if it is not science, why are so many scientists trying to ascertain its validity by either trying to prove it, or trying to disprove it? No scientist spends any time trying to prove (or disprove) that astrology is not a science. I believe that time will reveal the true nature of this field of thought. If papers continue to be written on the topic, pro and con, then it will continue to be a viable field of study. If speeches are made against it, it will probably grow. The best way to deal with this topic is to let the researchers do it. If it is useful, it will remain. If it is not, it will pass away. Thank you for your valuable time, 1. R. H. Thornhill and D. W. Ussery, “A Classification of Possible Routes of Darwinian Evolution,” Journal of Theoretical Biology 203 (2000): 111–116. 2. D.K.Y. Chiu & T.H. Lui, “Integrated Use of Multiple Interdependent Patterns for Biomolecular Sequence Analysis,” International Journal of Fuzzy Systems, 4(3) (September 2002): 766–775. 3. S.C. Meyer, “The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories,” Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, 117(2) (2004): 213–239. 4. D.D. Axe, “Extreme Functional Sensitivity to Conservative Amino Acid Changes on Enzyme Exteriors,” Journal of Molecular Biology, 301(3) (2000): 585–595. 5. D.D. Axe, “Estimating the Prevalence of Protein Sequences Adopting Functional Enzyme Folds,” Journal of Molecular Biology, 341(5) (2004):1295–1315.PjB

October 25, 2005

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