The Consensus of Scientists

_{Gil Dodgen

August 1, 2010

Intelligent Design}

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Some people have concluded that the hideously complex, functionally integrated information-processing machinery of the cell — with its error-detection-and-repair algorithms and much more — is best explained by an intelligent cause. But this idea is only held by superstitious religious fanatics who want to destroy science and establish a theocracy.

That’s the consensus of “scientists” in the academy.

The other consensus of “scientists” in the academy is that random errors screwing up computer code can account for everything in biology.

Who is thinking logically here?

I have no interest in arguing with people who can’t think and don’t want to follow the evidence where it leads, because it’s a lost cause from the outset.

Comments

@kairosfocus (#29) Kairosfocus, It seems you're having difficulty seeing the forest for the trees. Again, I'm focusing on the form of the theory, rather than arguing any specific claim. I'm suggesting it's very structure makes it a bad explanation. This is due, in part, to the absence of an underlying principle that explains the specific biological complexity we observe. An intelligent agent might represent the actual cause to why biological complexity exists, but the actual theory currently presented by ID lacks this principle which makes it insufficient to reach this conclusion. To clarify, let's list the similarities between the second engineer in my analogy and biological ID… + Uses a "evidence" of a probabilistic barrier to assign the cause to an unobserved designer with special, yet unobserved abilities + Implies the inability of human beings to exceed said probabilistic barrier as "evidence" that nature could not perform the task but some abstract designer did (if we can't do it in the lab, how can nature?) + Accepts virtually the same empirical observations + Invalidates the prevalent theory's explanation without providing one of it's own + Fails to provided an underlying premise that explains the specific biological features we observe: check In my analogy, the underlying principle presented by the first engineer explains much of the entire aeronautics industry as Darwinianism explains much of the specific biological features we observe. The second engineer invalidates the underlying principle of flight provided by the first which results in the aeronautics industry simply no longer making sense; just as ID invalidates the underlying principle that explains why we should find several variations of specific features that appear to be organically developed. ID just throws up it's hands and says "That's just what the designer wanted" For example, given the observation of eyes with significantly different structures, ID and darwinism present two different explanations. Darwinism suggests that eyes were so useful that they evolved via different paths. This includes the vertebrate eye, which exhibits a backwards retina and is obscured by layers of blood vessels and ganglion cells. Evolution selects traits and structures that are "good enough" despite being sub-optimal. On the other hand, ID implies a intelligent agent that could traverse the space of 10^300 folding geometries to produce specific functional proteins would end up creating an eye with a backwards retina. Again, ID simply isn't interested in explanation why this would be the case. "That's just what the designer wanted" Of course, I don't want to put words in your mouth. Could it be that ID actually has an explanation that I'm just not aware of?veilsofmaya_{August 4, 2010
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@William J. Murray (#52) You wrote:
“God did it” was never an explanation. It was a heuristic. If it was an explanation, why did Newton go on to explain, in mathematical terms, the effect of gravity on mass? why not just stop at “god did it”?
William, There are predictions and explanations. The mathematical terms that Newton developed provided a means to predict observations. But we use these predictions, along with those from other theories to build explanations of phenomena, such as the orbits of planets and apples falling, etc. Predictions are only part of the problem solving process as any theory can make any prediction. As such, we compare explanations behind the predictions to determine which is the most tenable. While Newton's predictions are accurate enough to remain useful in many situations, we know it's much more incomplete than Einstein's model of space-time physics and general relativity, which is far more accurate. However, even then we know that this model is incomplete as it fails to scale down to what we observe at the subatomic level. We must switch to a different model when dealing the the strong nuclear force. The lack of a unified theory of everything is a clear indication that our understanding is quite incomplete. Yet, it's still commonly said that the existence of gravity is "true" in the context of a tenable scientific theory which we use to explain specific phenomena we observe.
Sagan and others are ideologically excommunicating the design framework from being utilized and included in scientific research and explanation not because it doesn’t provide the physical processes and mechanisms and mathematical theorems describing behavior; but because those theories and descriptions and explanations are arrived at via an unacceptable heuristic: the view that these things are not the happenstance occurrences of bumping molecules, but rather the ordered artifacts of a deliberate intelligence..
First, it seems your putting the cart before the horse. That these things are not the "happenstance occurrences of bumping molecules, but rather the ordered artifacts of a deliberate intelligence" represents an intuitive response to what you observe. However, we know that our intuitions and "common-sense notions" break down at the scale of the very large, small and complex. History has shown this to be true time and time again. Furthermore, we know human beings demonstrate cognitive bias and continue to see optical illusions despite having been shown they are false. Remove the ruler from an illusion of scale or dimensions and the illusion returns as if it had never been there in the first place. Again the full quote from Lewontin clearly indicates this sort of "heuristic" is problematic as it invites drawing an arbitrary line by which nature can be ruptured and miracles can be inserted at will. Second, the "supernatural" is poorly defined and often represented by conflicting claims from various religious factions. Given any particular instance in a particular scenario or phenomena, one particular definition or theology may "support" supernatural intervention, while another may "invalidate" it due to how the particular 'nature" of the agents supposedly involved or the particular historical claims surrounding them. However, in many cases, the characters can be interchanged as necessary since most supernatural interventions and theologies were designed to account for a wide variety of past and present observations. This easy variability regarding action or inaction by various forces or beings makes the supernatural a bad explanation. In scenario Z, God X would or did act, while God Y would or did refrain from interfering until some later time or perhaps not at all. It all depends on the particular theologies that surround them. To use an example, according to Christianly, human suffering did not exist until the fall as they were perfect creations. As such this would necessitate an initial physiology significantly different than the human beings we observe today. However, according to Islam, no such curse was issued. LIfe is hard because Allah chose to use suffering to differentiate between earth and paradise as a test. Furthermore, Allah supposedly "designed" the lifespans of each and every offspring of Adam. Clearly, such differences would have significant implications regarding the initial design of human beings, the timelines in which specific features appeared, etc. Did our hips start out wider, only to be narrowed by an intelligent agent at some point in the future to make childbirth more painful? Or where narrow hips part of the original design? This would depend on how you defined God and the particular theology attributed to him. Given God's abilities, an omnipotent and omniscient being could be the "best explanation" of all unsolved murder cases. However, It's likely you would exclude him from being the cause in these particular situations because of how you define God's nature. What about Satan? Again, you'd likely exclude him as being the murderer as his traditional role in monotheism is to account for evil by tempting and manipulating human beings, not killing them in an overt manner. Otherwise, human beings are victims rather than tempted co-conspirators, which undermines their accountability in monotheistic theology. If these supernatural entities are going to continue to account for good and evil, which appears to be the roles they were designed to play, they must stick to the script. This results in their exclusion of a cause despite their supposed supernatural abilities. In the light of these problems, it's unclear how supernatural agency could be used to determine if a specific intervention occurred as part of an explanation of any specific phenomenon unless you assume one particular theology or religion is right, while others are wrong. This is clearly problematic. Of course, I've only focused on monotheism. Adding eastern religions would only make the problem much worse.veilsofmaya_{August 4, 2010
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-"Science, as the only begetter of truth" Is that a scientifically verified proposition? Of course not. It's a self-refuting statement. -"it’s not designed to support our biases or presuppositions" This is an illusion. To claim otherwise is to pretend that it's not humans that are doing science but science somehow magically does itself.above_{August 4, 2010
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Petrushka: I note to you, that you are indulging in the inference from the false dichotomy, natural vs supernatural; distracting from the serious alternative, nature vs art. And, you have again -- on track record, sadly, unsurprisingly -- chosen loaded cases, which you have conveniently juxtaposed distractivley with issues over evolutionary materialism vs the inference from dFSCI in cells to the empirically warranted signified: design. The relevant issue here is not natural vs supernatural, but nature vs art. To examine that contrast, there is actually an existing, well-known routinely used procedure that has been summarised in the explanatory filter on which the signs of necessity point us to look for natural law, the presence of credibly undirected stochastic contingency leads us to examine the patterns of that distribution and statistical laws, and where signs of design lead us to infer to design as cause. Once design is a credible causal factor, we may then proceed to reverse engineer, and to seek identification on circumstantial details etc. Indeed, such methods are as well known and well trusted as the familiar courtroom decision on mischance of accident, suicide or murder in light of evidence. So, to outrageously push imaginary issues over astrology or the like into the case as though the choice is between superstition and materialism, is both false and utterly without justification. (Onlookers, I invite you to look here, on issues of warrant of knowledge claims in general, and here and here on the question of reasonable grounding of worldviews and consideration of evidence in general towards well-warranted and consistent approaches to knowledge. In short, the sort of dismissive superciliousness in tone on display above is at best ill-informed.) We have excellent grounds for rejecting astrology as claimed science -- or more fundamentally as a serious pursuit of knowledge on credible premises of warrant -- without having to resort to a priori evolutionary materialism by the backdoor. A materialism that is in itself inherently and inescapably self-referentially incoherent and necessarily false. When it comes to the question of UFOs, there have always been unidentified flying objects; the question is what they are. So far, we know enough to disregard all but a small fraction of cases, but for some of those cases we simply do not have enough credible evidence to come to a solid conclusion as to what they are; thus an open-minded agnosticism is well warranted for such cases. To do that sort of serious thinking and open-minded but critically aware restraint on conclusions, we do not need to impose ideological evolutionary materialism by the backdoor as a censoring criterion. Yet another fallacy of false alternatives. Paranormal phenomena is of course a loaded term on an over genralised issue, too often dripping with ideological contempt. Is the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth with over 500 witnesses and record within 25 years with most witnesses still alive a paranormal phenomenon? Is the accurate predictive prophecy of that resurrection 700 years beforehand in Isaiah 53? Is the transforming encounter with the risen Christ that has played a key role in millions of lives and has had impact for the good on world history for 2000 years [let's just call names like Pascal and Wesley and Wilberforce and Booth the founder of the Salvation Army as cases in point], a dismissible paranormal phenomenon? Is the testimony and experience of a living relationship with God that is a part of the lives of millions around us simply dismissible with prejudice and arrogance? Surely, we can do better than that! And so on. When it comes to quack medicine, the term is again predictably loaded. At any number of junctures, there are non-mainstream and folk treatments that can have good warrant on investigation, so much so that there is a movement to preserve patents for first peoples to the herbs and similar materials they use in traditional treatments. So, while there are ill-founded quack claims and there are frauds out there, the issue is by no means the simplistic contrast between accepting imposed materialism by the backdoor and uncritically accepting fakery and quack remedies. In short, by their maliciously loaded strawmen shall ye know the ironically insufficiently skeptical unrepentant selective hyperskeptic. (Yup, to be selectively hypreskeptical and closed-minded against certain things one does not like, one has had to already swallow other things hypercredulously, like the tendency StephenB comments on to dismiss the law of non-contradiction, the tendency to try to escape the principle of causality, and the refusal to entertain uncomfortable evidence that does not sit well with evolutionary materialism, in general.) G'day GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{August 4, 2010
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Further, it is about the self-acknowledged a priori and absolute imposition of ideological materialism into the definition and praxis of science, on the excuse that the supernatural is inherently chaotic and absurd, indeed irrational.
You can see what happens when methodological materialism is dropped in the fields of paranormal phenomena, UFOs, quack medicine. Evolution is not the only battleground.Petrushka_{August 4, 2010
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CD: I just make the note that often, warranted [in the Plantinga-like sense] credibly true belief is what "knowledge" refers to, given issues over Gettier counter-examples and the common use of fallible and open-ended knowledge claims. Gkairosfocus_{August 4, 2010
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5 --> Further, it is about the self-acknowledged a priori and absolute imposition of ideological materialism into the definition and praxis of science, on the excuse that the supernatural is inherently chaotic and absurd, indeed irrational. 6 --> That is -- on the charitable reading -- a blatant example of inexcusable historical and philosophical ignorance that props up the prejudices of our day. For, as van easily be seen from not only newton's Optics Query 31 [which gives the prototypal definition of the generic scientific method insofar as that is possible at popular level] but from say his General Scholium to Principia that the founding era scientists understood the Intelligent Creator to be a God of order and system, not chaos; so science was an exercise for them of reverse engineering the design of the world: thinking God's creative and sustaining providential thoughts after him, for the benefit of humankind. (And yes, my link is to App 5 my always linked, i.e. it was just a click away at any time, for your enlightenment.) 7 --> As for the Russell 5-minute universe paradox, I first point you to the place in my online course notes on phil methods and epistemology where I address it, in the immediate context of addressing the epistemological strengths and limits of scientific methods. Here are my key remarks:
Lord Russell's 5-minute old universe argument shows that empirical evidence, records, perceptions, memories and the reasoning that depends on such can never amount to proof beyond all rational dispute or doubt. For, it is always in principle possible to find a way to construct a skeptical argument that [if we were to accept it] could lead us to doubt any belief-anchored system of thought -- and that inevitably includes any worldviews that implicitly assume the general quality of the testimony of our senses, reasoning faculty [including language capacity] and memories etc.
8 --> Now, an underlying issue is plainly what you seemingly are objecting to is my point that science at its best seeks to be an unfettered (but ethically and intellectually responsible) progressive pursuit of the truth about our world, based on empirical observations, experiments, reasoned [especially logical-mathematical] analysis and discussion among the informed. 9 --> That is the challenging ideal, and an indictment of imposition of Lewontinian a priori materialism as a censoring constraint on science. 10 --> Further to all of the above, it is now a commonplace -- someone above indulges in it -- to insinuate that the alternative to "natural causes" [interpreted in the sense of chance + mechanical necessity]is "the supernatural," which the very choice of terms like superstition, astrology and demons shows is being dismissed with extreme prejudice. 11 --> But in fact honest and informed thought would at once see that natural vs supernatural is a false, rhetorically loaded dichotomy. Ever since Plato in The Laws Bk X, the contrast relevant to design theory as a scientific project has been on the table: nature vs art, or design. (Cf the Weak Arguments Correctives on this, onlookers. There is no excuse for raising this canard at this stage; much less compounding it with willfully malicious slander. I will get to that part in a minute . . . ) 12 --> In fact, this is as close as the ingredients list of your friendly local box of cornflakes or the like: natural vs artificial flavours, etc. And, design theory is about inference to design from the empirically tested, credible signs of design, such as digitally coded functionally specific complex information [dFSCI], in a context where through the expanded view of the scientific methods known as the explanatory filter, aspects traceable to mechanical necessity and/or chance have already been identified through their characteristic signs. (Cf the introduction and summary :a href = "http://iose-gen.blogspot.com/2010/06/introduction-and-summary.html">here for an overview and context.) 13 --> Now, for years, interlocutors have been invited to discuss with design theory proponents at UD on the merits of issues such as the above. We have even provided a glossary, a definition of ID, and correctives to commonly met weak arguments that often trace to Darwinist anti-ID rhetoric. 14 --> These may be seen at the top of this and every UD page. 15 --> So, I must ask you the onlooker to explain why it is that habitually we meet a pattern of distracting red herrings, led away to ad hominem-soaked strawmen, set alight with incendiary rhetoric to cloud, choke, confuse, poison and polarise the atmosphere for discussion? 16 --> In this case, I draw attention to the pushing into my mouth of ideas about astrology that do not belong there, as I have emphasised above in the cite from VOM. 17 --> And so I explicitly address VOM in the name of basic broughtupcy and common decency:
Kindly stop the and unwarranted outrageous ad hominems, that so arrogantly pushed words in my mouth that do not belong there. In doing that, you went utterly beyond the pale of civil discourse into willful slander.
___________ VOM, You owe me an apology, not that I an holding my breath. Onlookers, let us see if we can deal with serious matters seriously on the merits instead of through the antics of the trifecta atmosphere poisoning fallacy and the politics of polarisation. G'day GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{August 4, 2010
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VOM: Pardon, but given your outrageous language in 49 [as excerpted below], I will be fairly direct: You can drop the pretence that I am stirring up unnecessary controversy, because instead of explicitly saying that I have quitemined, you quoted context irr4elevant to the force of the point Lewontin made in the part I cited; as though that were corrective. At UD we all know the context for objections that insist on providing "context" for the Lewontin remarks in his 1997 NYRB review article -- namely the ill-founded and misleading, commonly encountered talking point that the cite I made from Lewontin in 46 [and commonly at UD etc, and in my always linked note] is out of context and misleading. And indeed it is now explicit that that is your objection:
VOM, 49: Let me ask, why should we search for truth and avoid falsehoods? What axiom supports this premise? After all, the truth can be counter intuitive, absurd or even painful. This is the key point being made in this passage. Science is not compelled by intuition, common-sense or what makes us happy. it’s not designed to support our biases or presuppositions . . . . While you may wish to return to the days when Astrology was a “science”, those days have past. Science does not use “God” as an explanation as he could have created everything 5 minutes ago and we’d be none the wiser.
Now, let me first hold myself back from immediately rebuking you as you deserve on your outrageous insinuation about astrology as I bolded in my excerpt. So, let me take this in steps: 1 --> First, the relevant point in the passage from Lewontin where he acknowledges the injection of a priori materialism as a censoring constraint on science, often disguised under the term, methodological naturalism stands on its own as a telling acknowledgement:
. . . to put a correct view of the universe into people's heads we must first get an incorrect view out . . . the problem is to get them to reject irrational and supernatural explanations of the world, the demons that exist only in their imaginations, and to accept a social and intellectual apparatus, Science, as the only begetter of truth . . . . To Sagan, as to all but a few other scientists, it is self-evident that the practices of science provide the surest method of putting us in contact with physical reality, and that, in contrast, the demon-haunted world rests on a set of beliefs and behaviors that fail every reasonable test . . . . It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. [[“Billions and Billions of Demons,” NYRB, January 9, 1997. Bold emphasis added.]
2 --> My already linked discussion shows that it is not just a personal idiosyncrasy but a major ideological commitment backed by institutions such as the US National Academy of Science. 3 --> So, manifestly, the issue is not at all merely "all about" how scientific results may be counter-intuitive, which has been evident ever since Aristotle and Eratosthenes among others inferred form empirical data to the spehericity and circumference of the earth, the distance to the moon and its diameter, as well as a first estimate for the distance to and size of the sun. [Cf my discussion here in the context of grounding scientific research methods at first introductory level, FYI.] 4 --> No, it is about the notion that "science is the only begetter of truth," which is a blatantly self-referentially incoherent fallacy: it is unwise to make a philosophical knowledge claim to deny implicitly the capability of philosophy to beget knowledge. [ . . . ]kairosfocus_{August 4, 2010
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Hello Mike(v6), Thank you for your response and may I say that it does you great credit that you are participating in a forum such as this one in the first place. First of all, may I ask: do you consider there to be a third way or, do you agree with what I said originally: it all made itself or was it all made? Secondly, knowledge of how the designer operated is utterly irrelevant to the two competing worldviews I’ve described. After all, we have no evidence of how the Stonehenge designer operated but no-one thinks it made itself. I agree, ID hasn’t identified the designer, nor does it make any attempt to. When I talk about disbelieving atheists, I’m talking about the fact that they will disbelieve the knowledge yielded by observation and experimentation if they need to in order to cling onto their atheist beliefs. Atheists need to believe that it all made itself, regardless of where the evidence leads. Mike mentions pro-ID atheists. Let’s talk about theistic evolutionists too. I personally believe that both of these positions are self-contradictory, though both positions are closer to the truth than atheistic evolutionists are. The existence of pro-ID atheists is very revealing though. It tells us a lot about how unconvincing the evolutionist position has become (and how persuasive the ID argument is). Most theistic evolutionists do not believe that the Creator was surprised by His creation… on the contrary, most theistic evolutionists believe that evolution was all part of the plan. True evolution cannot be reconciled with a plan. Whether you are a pro-ID atheist or a theistic evolutionist the all important question is: did it all make itself or was it all made? Questions of identity, methods and compromise are much less important at this stage. I’m surprised that Mike is questioning the influence of atheism in many important institutions. Is Mike an American? That might explain it. I’m British and there really is no doubt that schools, universities, the media, the government, businesses, etc are all fully in the grips of atheist thinking. Religion is still tolerated, but evolution is actively promoted along with many other secular notions. Mike also seems incredulous that positions of authority and influence can be held by people who share a minority worldview. I would say that this is nothing new. Finally, Mike misunderstands me when he suggests that I assign (divinely) “revealed knowledge” to ID. Maybe he was thrown by the expression “justified true belief”. Let me assure him that I use that expression to refer to knowledge in itself, not how it came to be learned in the first place. Has Mike read Stephen Meyer’s “Signature in the Cell”? And has he read “Signature of Controversy” a collection of responses to critics of “Signature in the Cell”? If so, can he identify the strongest case for ID from the former and do a better job of handling it than the critics dealt with in the latter? Then we have a discussion on our hands.Chris Doyle_{August 4, 2010
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mikev6: I didn't. I used the terms God and demons; I never said that such entities were beyond the means of science to usefully and practically describe in terms of what they affect and how. It is mainstream science, however, that applies the vague term "supernatural" to anything which it wishes to dismiss or avoid considering. Before germs/bacteria/viruses were discovered, illness and disease were largely considered to be caused by supernatural entities. Should anyone who believed that illness might be caused by invisible (at the time) entities that moved from person to person through breath or contact have been soundly dismissed by the scientific community for such "supernatural" beliefs? Should their work be ignored? Should we ignore the work of Newton who explicitly assigned the architecture of the physical laws of the universe to a god, and used his understanding of that god as a rational, solitary, elegant entity to inform the parameters of his research and theory to search for universal, elegant, rational equations? If god(s), demons, superstrings, other dimensions, or anything else appears to be the appropriate explanation for a phenomena, the response to such a theory shouldn't be "well, it can't be that, because we commonly define that thing as supernatural, and science cannot explore that possiblity by definition". Then all one is doing is using semantics to preclude by fiat a potentially truthful explanation that is certainly open to attempts at scientific discernment. The only reason to adhere to such semantics in avoiding these considerations is ideological.William J. Murray_{August 4, 2010
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William:
Who said anything about the supernatural?
Sigh. I'm assuming the response "you did" is going to elicit a flood of allegory or a war of competing dictionaries. But go ahead.mikev6_{August 3, 2010
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So, it this how it goes? a flock of sheep a murder of crows a slime of lawyers a consensus of scientists?Ilion_{August 3, 2010
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mikev6: Who said anything about the supernatural?William J. Murray_{August 3, 2010
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@veils -“This is because ID is intentionally incomplete”. Are you saying that darwinism is complete? It merely accounts for what we observe, rather than explains it… it invalidates the explanations provided by Darwinism.” So are you saying that darwinism is not descriptive but explanatory? How so? “In other words, ID’s explanation is limited to explaining away darwinism.” Actually, it’s the other way around. Not only explaining it away but barring it altogether. “Being “right” for the “wrong reasons” is still wrong. This is how science works.” Being right is being right. End of. If that’s how “science” works then it needs to be re-worked. Here’s a question for you… Let’s assume simply for argument’s sake that darwinism is wrong and ID is correct. Do you think it’s logical to divorce science from reality simply based on a priori assumptions as per the definition of science? Now unless you’re an anti-realist I fail to see how you can endorse such act as logical.above_{August 3, 2010
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GilDodgen, I share your sentiment regarding the "idiots" in science, and there are too many in the academia nowadays. I am sure many of us had to suffer reading trough the books or arguments of people like Monod, Teilhard de Chardin, Dawkins, even Darwin, and many other such "brights". In one sense it is the fate of the "wise" to suffer the fools, and to suffer them gladly. (See 2 Corinthians 11:19) However, I think there is a disclaimer in this. One can gladly suffer the "great" fools, (see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffer_fools_gladly ), but it is an altogether different thing to suffer "simpering gutless fools", as Barry Arrington put it in the previous post on Dawkins. These twisty arrogant "small" or "small-minded" in-your-face logically inconsistent fools are hard to suffer, and I suppose that is why they used to burn them at the stake, like Giordano Bruno. (Who was another simpering gutless fool, one of the last to be actually burned.) We are presumably more civilized today, (if not necessarily wiser), and we don't want any Inquisition or punishment for stupidity, but we should at least demand an equal playing field and consistent laws of the game or of the engagement. We have no other choice but to suffer these fools or fight them the best we can, and call their foul play, even if it is often just an exercise in futility from our limited point of view. And we should often remind them, even with a scorn, what schmucks these small-minded fools really are. If for no other reason, but because that is the kind of game these fools like Dawkins and his ilk really want and force us to play.rockyr_{August 3, 2010
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The next time someone trots out the worn-out "scientists agree" argument, I'm just going to stare at them like they're speaking a Martian dialect. "Consensus" isn't even real when the deck has been stacked the way it has in the present academic environment. Real scientists, with real evidence and principled scientific arguments are simply being marginalized by being ruled out as "non-science"--not on the basis of the evidence or arguments they present, but on the basis of the conclusions their evidence points to. What kind of consensus is it when every one of your dissenters' votes isn't counted? Time to call in the U.N. election fraud investigators!stringsinger_{August 3, 2010
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William J. Murray:
Gods, demons, and whatever else must not be excluded from scientific inquiry on an a priori basis for any reason
One will get different answers from different people as to why this exclusion happens. I tend to take a more pragmatic view that including gods, demons, etc. hasn't been very successful. But this could be ignorance on my part. Do we have any examples where including the supernatural has produced repeatable verifiable results?mikev6_{August 3, 2010
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veilsofmaya: "God did it" was never an explanation. It was a heuristic. If it was an explanation, why did Newton go on to explain, in mathematical terms, the effect of gravity on mass? why not just stop at "god did it"? Sagan and others are ideologically excommunicating the design framework from being utilized and included in scientific research and explanation not because it doesn't provide the physical processes and mechanisms and mathematical theorems describing behavior; but because those theories and descriptions and explanations are arrived at via an unacceptable heuristic: the view that these things are not the happenstance occurrences of bumping molecules, but rather the ordered artifacts of a deliberate intelligence. IOW, Sagan and his ilk are saying that if we find a person lying dead with a knife in their back and their hands tied, we must proceed from the perspective that there is a natural explanation - period. No other explanation is acceptable. And, that we must regulate science strictly to this view in order to avoid "a demon haunted world" ... as if Newton, Bacon, Kepler, etc. were incapable of scientific discovery and advancement because they pursued science from just that very same "demon-haunted" perspective. As an adddendum: if demons do exist, and haunt us, how exactly is science going to account for it, if we must at all costs avoid it? Gods, demons, and whatever else must not be excluded from scientific inquiry on an a priori basis for any reason, least of all for the purposes of sticking with such a problematic, self-refuting perspective as materialism.William J. Murray_{August 3, 2010
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Chris:
When it comes to Intelligent Design, most of them don’t even dare to try and tackle it head on.
I, for one, would be more than happy to spend more time on ID evidence and less time discussing evolution, or Darwin and morals, or atheists and morals, etc. Although the number of references to atheists in this comment alone does not bode well for that.
Quite simply there are only two competing worldviews here: it all made itself or it was all made. There is no third way.
Umm, you don't have any evidence of how the designer operated. There are plenty of examples of human designs that incorporate random components or behavior. It's certainly possible that the 'bio-designer' did the same.
Always keep in mind that even if belief in evolution was universally acknowledged to be false, and acceptance of ID became widespread, there will always be die-hard atheists. Even if they paid lip service to ID, deep down many of these die-hard atheists will spend their entire lives disbelieving.
My understanding is that ID hasn't identified the designer, so what does belief have to do with it? Also, I understand from Ms. O'Leary that there are atheists that currently support ID. Perhaps you'd care to contact her and work out the discrepancy?
At the moment, atheism is enjoying the fact that atheist ideas strongly influence many important institutions. For most of our history, this has not been the case and it is unlikely to remain so for much longer.
Care to enumerate these "many important institutions"? And what 'atheist' ideas we're talking about? And how this can happen without the support of non-atheists who make up a much larger proportion of the population?
In the meantime, don’t be discouraged by those who have closed their minds, even if they’ve got a day job doing science. Be thankful that your mind is open and guided by justified true belief.
ID claims that it is guided by evidence, not revealed knowledge. Did I miss something along the way?mikev6_{August 3, 2010
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Your post is not entirely clear to me. Do you (still) want to change that consensus? If yes, is this blog a means to do so? And what other means are used or could be used? If no, do you think the consensus is going to change on its own? That could take a long time.second opinion_{August 3, 2010
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@kairosfocus (#47) You're attempting to manufacture controversy were none exits. Let me ask, why should we search for truth and avoid falsehoods? What axiom supports this premise? After all, the truth can be counter intuitive, absurd or even painful. This is the key point being made in this passage. Science is not compelled by intuition, common-sense or what makes us happy. it's not designed to support our biases or presuppositions. It's about applying a methodical process to solve problems. While you may wish to return to the days when Astrology was a "science", those days have past. Science does not use "God" as an explanation as he could have created everything 5 minutes ago and we'd be none the wiser. One could arbitrarily draw the line at any phenomena and claim we simply can't explain how it occurred because "God did it" and his ways are incomprehensible. You just so happen to have drawn the line at biological complexity. Others, such as theological evolutionists, draw the line farther back in time. Furthermore, limiting explanations to a material causes wouldn't rule out aliens or some other intelligent form of life that existed 3.4 billions years ago. If the universe is 13.75 billion years old, it would be naive rule out such a possibility. However, such a theory lacks a sufficient means, motive and opportunity to actually explain the specific feature we observe in comparison to Darwinism. In other words, we have a process that we've already observed making changes to the genome. Furthermore, we know there is much we do not understand about how all of the components of the genome result in biological features. Given that we're only in our infancy, it seems short sighted to say process X cannot do Y when we don't understand process X in the first place. If ID really is agnostic about the designer, then it's unclear how this "problem" is really irrelevant.veilsofmaya_{August 3, 2010
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kairosfocus:
The problem with sense 1 is that it is a fallacy. Only the merits of claimed facts, their representativeness of the material truth, the credibility of underlying assumptions, and the quality of logic involved can properly warrant a claim.
Sure, but humans are strangely able to behave in certain ways regardless of logic. Design researchers are no different from other humans and are susceptible to the same flaws. If ID gains the consensus it seeks, it remains to be seen what type of consensus it eventually builds.mikev6_{August 3, 2010
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oops on linkkairosfocus_{August 3, 2010
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VOM: And so? How does the above remove the below from being a reasonable and substantially representative excerpt showing the fundamental claim, a priori assumption and argument being made? (I note as above and below, because there is a suggestion out there that the excerpt following -- which is longer than the ones often seen elsewhere -- somehow quotemines and materially distorts the message of Lewontin. In fact, it shows the substantial structure of his argument and its key a priori.) __________________ >> . . . to put a correct view of the universe into people's heads we must first get an incorrect view out . . . the problem is to get them to reject irrational and supernatural explanations of the world, the demons that exist only in their imaginations, and to accept a social and intellectual apparatus, Science, as the only begetter of truth . . . . Sagan's argument is straightforward. We exist as material beings in a material world, all of whose phenomena are the consequences of physical relations among material entities. The vast majority of us do not have control of the intellectual apparatus needed to explain manifest reality in material terms, so in place of scientific (i.e., correct material) explanations, we substitute demons . . . . Most of the chapters of The Demon-Haunted World are taken up with exhortations to the reader to cease whoring after false gods and to accept the scientific method as the unique pathway to a correct understanding of the natural world. To Sagan, as to all but a few other scientists, it is self-evident that the practices of science provide the surest method of putting us in contact with physical reality, and that, in contrast, the demon-haunted world rests on a set of beliefs and behaviors that fail every reasonable test . . . . Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen. [“Billions and Billions of Demons,” NYRB, January 9, 1997] >> ___________________ The excerpt just above is of course the verbatim text of the excerpt I have in Section E of my always linked note, excerpt that I have put the source at the end here. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{August 3, 2010
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To put the quote posted by Kairosfocus in context...
"With great perception, Sagan sees that there is an impediment to the popular credibility of scientific claims about the world, an impediment that is almost invisible to most scientists. Many of the most fundamental claims of science are against common sense and seem absurd on their face. Do physicists really expect me to accept without serious qualms that the pungent cheese that I had for lunch is really made up of tiny, tasteless, odorless, colorless packets of energy with nothing but empty space between them? Astronomers tell us without apparent embarrassment that they can see stellar events that occurred millions of years ago, whereas we all know that we see things as they happen. When, at the time of the moon landing, a woman in rural Texas was interviewed about the event, she very sensibly refused to believe that the television pictures she had seen had come all the way from the moon, on the grounds that with her antenna she couldn't even get Dallas. What seems absurd depends on one's prejudice. Carl Sagan accepts, as I do, the duality of light, which is at the same time wave and particle, but he thinks that the consubstantiality of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost puts the mystery of the Holy Trinity "in deep trouble." Two's company, but three's a crowd. Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen."
- Richard Lewontin, 1997. Billions and billions of demonsveilsofmaya_{August 3, 2010
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ME6: The problem with sense 1 is that it is a fallacy. Only the merits of claimed facts, their representativeness of the material truth, the credibility of underlying assumptions, and the quality of logic involved can properly warrant a claim. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{August 3, 2010
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I completely understand the frustration that GilDodgen expresses. Surely most people with an anti-evolution, pro-ID stance feel it too. Many have already offered an antidote to this frustration, the latest of which is by William J Murray when he says: “Each well-made argument refines the points, polishes the delivery, softens resistances, develops new lines of reasoning, pushes the conceptual envelope, and shines a light on ideas not even thought of before.” Quite right. I would add that we can draw great encouragement from the fact that evolutionists are barely putting up a scientific fight any more. Their search for evidence to support their beliefs is becoming increasingly desperate and self-defeating. When it comes to Intelligent Design, most of them don’t even dare to try and tackle it head on. In this debate, most evolutionists spend most of their time trying to sling as much mud as possible at anyone who questions their beliefs. If you enjoy debating this subject, then those rare informed evolutionists that refrain from mud-slinging are to be valued indeed! Quite simply there are only two competing worldviews here: it all made itself or it was all made. There is no third way. Take encouragement from the fact that we can not only expose the errors of believing that it all made itself, but also provide compelling reasons to believe that it was all made. The more time and resource you have been afforded to make these points, the more you should make them. Don’t neglect the opportunities that arise: they may only have arisen for this very purpose! Always keep in mind that even if belief in evolution was universally acknowledged to be false, and acceptance of ID became widespread, there will always be die-hard atheists. Even if they paid lip service to ID, deep down many of these die-hard atheists will spend their entire lives disbelieving. At the moment, atheism is enjoying the fact that atheist ideas strongly influence many important institutions. For most of our history, this has not been the case and it is unlikely to remain so for much longer. Paradigm shift is coming. In the meantime, don’t be discouraged by those who have closed their minds, even if they’ve got a day job doing science. Be thankful that your mind is open and guided by justified true belief.Chris Doyle_{August 3, 2010
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kairosfocus:
You are conflating two very different senses of “consensus.”
Quite possibly, although I see a more complex world where both these can operate at different levels at the same time. Regardless of the nature of the consensus, the fact remains that ID still seeks it, because consensus == power.
If in say 50 years, design thinkers start to play by the tactics of 1, they would be just as wrong
Problems with consensus spring from human nature, not the specific ideas under discussion. I see no special characteristic of current design thinkers that would mark them as immune from the normal foibles of human discourse and behavior.mikev6_{August 3, 2010
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WJM: Very well said indeed. Gkairosfocus_{August 3, 2010
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ME6: You are conflating two very different senses of "consensus." 1: Appeal to establishment as authority, which may well be coercive [appeal to the stick] or the fallacy of ill-founded appeal to modesty in the face of claimed authority 2: Particular paradigm that is in place at a given time. The first prevails just now, as the Lewontinian confession amply documents. The latter is a horse of a very different colour, as it is open tot he point that paradigms are open-ended and authoritative claims are no better in the end than their underlying facts, reasoning and assumptions. At this juncture the design inference and emerging paradigm premised on it hold to 2. Unfortunately, the current institutionally dominant paradigm too often hews to 1. If in say 50 years, design thinkers start to play by the tactics of 1, they would be just as wrong as those who all to plainly do so now are. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{August 3, 2010
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