Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Textbook Watch: Did ID folk invent Marx, Freud, and Darwin as the “textbook triad” of materialism?

Categories
Intelligent Design
Share
Facebook
Twitter/X
LinkedIn
Flipboard
Print
Email

Discovery Institute notes the following from Douglas Futuyma’s Evolutionary Biology (1998, 3rd Ed., Sinauer Associates), p. 5:

Darwin showed that material causes are a sufficient explanation not only for physical phenomena, as Descartes and Newton had shown, but also for biological phenomena with all their seeming evidence of design and purpose. By coupling undirected, purposeless variation to the blind, uncaring process of natural selection, Darwin made theological or spiritual explanations of the life processes superfluous. Together with Marx’s materialistic theory of history and society and Freud’s attribution of human behavior to influences over which we have little control, Darwin’s theory of evolution was a crucial plank in the platform of mechanism and materialism…

This is especially interesting in view of the sometimes-heard claim that ID advocates invented the Marx-Freud-Darwin triad of materialist influences. That was unlikely in principle because, in order to communicate with a broad audience, the ID advocates had to riff off an already accepted cultural pattern. But this instance of the usage by a prominent pro-Darwin and anti-ID source demonstrates that the claim is incorrect. Which doesn’t mean you won’t hear it again and again – and again. I would be interested to know if this paragraph appears unaltered in the just-released 2006 edition, but Toronto Public Library seems to have nothing later than the 2nd edition.

Comments
The super-natural or non-natural is just irrelevant and is to be ignored, since it cannot be tested for. Which gets to the heart of the debate, once more illustrating why materialism is the epitomy of irrationality. The goal should be to find the truth. If God exist, it is beyond bizarre to say He should be ignored. Now, this is not putting restrictions on someone seeking a natural explaination for some event. This does require, however, that said natural explaination be found and demonstrated before thus claiming there is one.tribune7
November 12, 2006
November
11
Nov
12
12
2006
01:51 PM
1
01
51
PM
PST
Dave, you are, of course, right that the designer doesn't have to be supernatural. But, how would we ever know? After detecting design, ID doesn't seek any information about the nature of the designer. It is unfortunate that ID scientists call it good right when they get to the really interesting question.rrf
November 12, 2006
November
11
Nov
12
12
2006
01:03 PM
1
01
03
PM
PST
PaulV "You said that in response to paulm's comment about the supernatural being untestable. How can you test the untestable? " What makes you think the designer must be supernatural? I should think we first have to determine that the designer isn't a natural intelligent agency. After all, we know that natural intelligent agents who can manipulate DNA exist. That would be us. Has it been demonstrated we're the only intelligence the universe ever produced? If you can point out something about life that requires a supernatural designer I'll agree with you. I've asked this question a million times and the best response I get is that it just seems like the designer must be supernatural. That doesn't cut it. Near as I can tell nothing about life here on earth defies any physical laws or requires creator-of-universe type powers to cobble together.DaveScot
November 12, 2006
November
11
Nov
12
12
2006
12:34 PM
12
12
34
PM
PST
“Why is it that those who support Darwinism—which makes no predictions other than that survivors survive and which has contributed absolutely NOTHING to science—why is it that they want ID to start making deterministic predictions like the physicists and suddenly cure cancer?” Rude MET does not say survivors survive. It says the more fit survive to reproduce in greater numbers than those that are less fit. Otherwise known as differential reproduction or natural selection. Actually, I do not want to get into defending MET. I will leave that to scientists. Are you admitting that there is no predictive power to ID? If so, you have just admitted that ID is not science. Please provide examples of ID testing, accessible to the layman.paulm
November 12, 2006
November
11
Nov
12
12
2006
09:59 AM
9
09
59
AM
PST
Jehu, That's great from Newton. I have his book on Daniel and the Revelation—great stuff too. Paul M., Why is it that those who support Darwinism—which makes no predictions other than that survivors survive and which has contributed absolutely NOTHING to science—why is it that they want ID to start making deterministic predictions like the physicists and suddenly cure cancer?Rude
November 12, 2006
November
11
Nov
12
12
2006
08:24 AM
8
08
24
AM
PST
"So, tell me one article, just one, not an overly technical paper, that lays out an ID hypothesis and shows me the test that was used to try to falsify it." I'd also be interested in seeing this. I would expect that more working scientists would be prepared to read something that was stated in the typical methodology or language that they are used to at work anyway. And that's what you want, right? If it does not convince, at least it's been read rather then dropped straight away simply because it's stating a different conclusion. Davescot, you said "So why is it not possible for science to consider intelligent agency?" Again, how would science via expermentation test for this? It's not clear to me currently. You said that in response to paulm's comment about the supernatural being untestable. How can you test the untestable? Is this the fundamental contradiction at the heart of ID?paul verbatam
November 12, 2006
November
11
Nov
12
12
2006
08:02 AM
8
08
02
AM
PST
“Humans are intelligent agents. Humans are a natural phenomenon. Therefore intelligent agency is a natural phenomenon. So why is not possible for science to consider intelligent agency?” I did not say that intelligence cannot be considered. Of course it can. But there is no evidence that ID is trying to establish intelligence as a factor in biology or any other science through scientific tests. Every time I ask for an example of a scientific test for ID, I get a series of evasions. Not once has anyone given me a straight forward example of original research based on an ID hypothesis. Not once. The only responses I ever get are to: 1) give me an example of non-ID research, reinterpreted to conform to ID; 2) Attempts at debunking MET. For once, I would like an example of original ID research, in a form that a layman can understand. If I want to, I can look up any number of articles in Scientific American and find something that explains science to the layman. They tell me the hypotheses that were used and the tests (either experiments or field studies that were used in making those tests. For example, when I asked about the whole pre-Cambrian problem, I was directed to an article about some of the new Bilaterns that were found in China, bridging an important fossil gap. There is a wonderful article I read on the transitionals to the modern whale.). I do not have to pull teeth with the so called Darwinists. They tell me exactly where to go to find the tests that confirm or falsify a particular hypothesis derived from MET. So, tell me one article, just one, not an overly technical paper, that lays out an ID hypothesis and shows me the test that was used to try to falsify it. And please no Dembski. He does not do scientific experiments and is overly technical.paulm
November 12, 2006
November
11
Nov
12
12
2006
05:01 AM
5
05
01
AM
PST
PaulM The super-natural or non-natural is just irrelevant and is to be ignored, since it cannot be tested for. Humans are intelligent agents. Humans are a natural phenomenon. Therefore intelligent agency is a natural phenomenon. So why is it not possible for science to consider intelligent agency?DaveScot
November 11, 2006
November
11
Nov
11
11
2006
05:44 PM
5
05
44
PM
PST
Darwin showed that material causes are a sufficient explanation not only for physical phenomena, as Descartes and Newton had shown, but also for biological phenomena with all their seeming evidence of design and purpose.
I shudder when they claim Newton as a founder of their materialistic world view. This Newton on athiesm:
Atheism is so senseless and odious to mankind that it never had many professors.
Newton continues, making a case for intelligent design in nature by a single designer:
Can it be by accident that all birds beasts and men have their right side and left side alike shaped (except in their bowels) and just two eyes and no more on either side the face and just two ears on either side the head and a nose with two holes and no more between the eyes and one mouth under the nose and either two fore legs or two wings or two arms on the shoulders and two legs on the hips one on either side and no more? Whence arises this uniformity in all their outward shapes but from the counsel and contrivance of an Author? Whence is it that the eyes of all sorts of living creatures are transparent to the very bottom and the only transparent members in the body, having on the outside an hard transparent skin, and within transparent juices with a crystalline Lens in the middle and a pupil before the Lens all of them so truly shaped and fitted for vision, that no Artist can mend them? Did blind chance know that there was light and what was its refraction and fit the eyes of all creatures after the most curious manner to make use of it? These and such like considerations always have and ever will prevail with man kind to believe that there is a being who made all things and has all things in his power and who is therefore to be feared.
Jehu
November 11, 2006
November
11
Nov
11
11
2006
05:38 PM
5
05
38
PM
PST
“Darwin showed that material causes are a sufficient explanation not only for physical phenomena, as Descartes and Newton had shown, but also for biological phenomena with all their seeming evidence of design and purpose.” He starts off fine. Natural phenomena are explained by natural phenomena. “By coupling undirected, purposeless variation to the blind, uncaring process of natural selection, Darwin made theological or spiritual explanations of the life processes superfluous….. Darwin's theory of evolution was a crucial plank in the platform of mechanism and materialism..” I think here he goes wrong. It would have been better for him to say that “By coupling processes without evidence of direction or purpose to the process of natural selection - which shows no evidence of sight or caring, ….” The remark that Darwin makes theological explanations superfluous was unnecessary since theological explanations just have no place in science, which is strictly naturalistic. Even if naturalistic explanations are inadequate, theological explanations cannot take the place of natural explanations because theological explanations are always inadequate in science. The super-natural or non-natural is just irrelevant and is to be ignored, since it cannot be tested for. Do you have a test of non-material phenomena? Darwin's theory of evolution made the important step of freeing biology from it's creationist assumptions and putting it within the boundaries of naturalist science where it belongs. What is wrong with that? I believe that most scientists reject Freud now because he was not sufficiently materialistic. That is he did not test his theories empirically. At least according to Frederic Crews.I like modern biology has moved beyond Darwin, modern psychology has moved beyond Freud.paulm
November 11, 2006
November
11
Nov
11
11
2006
04:25 PM
4
04
25
PM
PST
Freud wasn't so much a materialist than a reductive determinist. His mental states weren't exactly material. But what I would like to know is why is it that psychology has been able to learn from but mostly reject Freud, and economics has learned from but mostly rejected Marx, why can't biology do the same with Darwin?Collin
November 11, 2006
November
11
Nov
11
11
2006
12:45 PM
12
12
45
PM
PST
1 2

Leave a Reply