A Presentation Without Arguments

Legacy route: /faqs/present_arguments.html Content source: /cs/without_arguments/ A Presentation Without Arguments Mark Perakh evaluates William Dembski's presentation at the CSICOP conference in Burbank, CA on June 21st, 2002. How William Dembski defeats skepticism, or does he? By Mark Perakh [Contributed June 29, 2002, Last Modified July 3, 2002] Starting on June 20, 2002 and through June 23, the 4 th World Conference of Skeptics took place in Burbank, CA. Its main organizer in the USA was CSICOP, which stands for Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. Although the forum in question was designed as a meeting of skeptics, whose participants are all squarely on the side of genuine science and opponents of all incarnations of creationism regardless of the disguises the latter employs (such as Intelligent Design, Irreducible Complexity, etc) one not quite common feature of that meeting's program was that its organizers invited two prominent proponents of modern modifications of creationism, William Dembski and Paul Nelson, to give talks and to defend their views in an open dispute with two opponents of the anti-evolution movement, Wesley Elsberry and Kenneth Miller. I cannot remember a single conference of creationists wherein the opponents of creationism were scheduled to give talks in an open discussion. The proponents of creationism sometimes accuse their detractors of being doctrinaire adherents of anti-religious bias whose motivation is not pursuing the truth but assaulting the religious faith. Although this may be not the most important point, still it seems worth mentioning that both Elsberry and Miller have asserted that they are not atheists. Professor of biology Miller is a faithful Catholic, and Elsberry, while vigorously defending the theory of evolution, has also said that he is a "theistic evolutionist." Hence, both Dembski and Nelson were given a chance to argue in favor of their position using arguments of substance, based on facts rather than on ideology, in a dispute with opponents who had no reason to assault Dembski's and Nelson's religious beliefs In this brief essay I will discuss only the presentation by Dembski. The text of Dembski's presentation [1] is notable by the almost complete absence of any arguments relevant to the gist of the dispute between ID advocates, like he himself, and the opponents of that theory. Indeed, the only instance of Dembski's touching on the substance of the dispute seems to be a paragraph on page 4 in [1] where Dembski mentions his term of Specified Complexity and unequivocally defines it as a synonym for "specified improbability." Of course, there is nothing new in that statement. Dembski's interpretation of complexity as "disguised improbability" was expressed by him in various forms in many of his articles and books (for example, in [2,3]). This interpretation has been criticized more than once as being contrary to logic and to the accepted mathematical notion of complexity (see the partial list of references at the end of this essay). Dembski's statement illustrates once again his disdainful dismissal of all and every criticism directed at his work. Dembski does not bother to offer any reply to the critique of his interpretation of complexity and steadfastly adheres to his concept which is viewed by many critics as deficient. Continuing in the same vein, Dembski repeats his thesis, suggested by him many times before, that what he calls "specified complexity" is a necessary indicator of design. The fallacy of that statement was demonstrated more than once (for example in [4,5]). Indeed, consider an example discussed several times before. Imagine a pile of pebbles found on a river shore. Usually each of them has an irregular shape, its color varying over its surface, and often its density also varying over its volume. There are no two pebbles which are identical in shape, color and density distribution. I guess even Dembski would not argue that the irregular shape, color and density distribution of a particular pebble resulted from intelligent design, regardless of how complex these shapes and distributions may happen to be. Each pebble formed by chance. Now, what if among the pebbles we find one which has a perfectly spherical shape, with an ideally uniform distribution of color and density? Not too many people would deny that this piece in all likelihood is a product of design. However, it is much simpler than any other pebble, if, of course, complexity is defined in a logically consistent manner rather than in Dembski's idiosyncratic way. A logically consistent definition of complexity is given, for example, in the algorithmic theory of randomness-probability-complexity (and is often referred to as Kolmogorov complexity). Kolmogorov complexity of a perfectly spherical piece of stone is much lower than it is for any other pebble having irregular shape and non-uniform distribution of density and color. Indeed, to describe the perfectly spherical piece one needs a very simple program (or algorithm), actually limited to just one number for the sphere's diameter, one number for density and a brief indication of color. For a piece of irregular shape, the program necessarily must be much longer, as it requires many numbers to reproduce the complex shape and the distributions of density and of color. This is a very simple example of the fallacy of Dembski's thesis according to which design is indicated by "specified complexity." Actually, in this example (as well as in an endless number of other situations) it is simplicity which seems to point to design while complexity seems to indicate the chance as the antecedent cause of the item's characteristics. That is about all Dembski chose to discuss in his presentation with regard to the substance of the dispute. Instead, Dembski dabbles in prophecy. His argument in favor of ID mainly boils down to the references to polls which show that the majority of Americans believe in some form of creationism. This may be true. However, Dembski himself gives an example of astrology which is no less popular in America than ID, but this by no means makes astrology plausible. Dembski is not arguing in his presentation that ID will win the minds because it is true. It will win, predicts Dembski, because the American public is predisposed to believe in ID. The same may be true though for astrology and other fads and fallacies he himself listed as being widespread despite their contradicting scientific data. One more argument by Dembski is that young people are inclined to take the side of innovators, and, since ID-ists are the new guys in town, the sympathy of the younger generation will be with them, thus ensuring their victory. Maybe so. What does it have to do with the merits of ID "theory?" If scientific theories were accepted or rejected by a popular vote, or just by the vote of young people, quantum mechanics, the general theory of relativity and a whole bunch of other great achievements of the human mind would never have had a chance to take their legitimate place in the progress of humankind. On page 4 Dembski argues that his ID theory is "not a crank theory (at least not one that is obviously so)." The sole argument Dembski offers in favor of that statement is that Paul Davies "thinks that it's onto something important," thus disagreeing with those who, like Wesley Elsberry, "think it merely codifies the argument from ignorance." This seems to be a rather weak argument, even by Dembski's standards. The reference to Davies can be interpreted in various ways and is far from endorsing ID as a real scientific theory. Moreover, so what if Davies or any other writer has indeed said something which can somehow be interpreted charitably regarding Dembski's ideas? The position whose strength can be sustained only by such ambiguous references is weak indeed and can be suspected of being crank science with a high degree of likelihood. If all Dembski can say in support of his views is that somebody thinks it has "something to it," it raises a suspicion that he has no factual evidence favoring his suppositions. To show that certain ideas or theories indeed belong in real rather than crank science, one has to subject those ideas to merciless tests, wherein evidence supporting these ideas can be reproduced and independently verified. Dembski and his colleagues in the ID "movement" not only did not ever produce such evidence which could be independently verified, but in fact offered no evidence at all despite having a substantial financial support and a substantial fighting force at their Discovery Institute of Seattle. Instead of supporting his theory by factual evidence and arguments of substance, all Dembski was able to do was to resort to a dubious reference which proves nothing and is largely irrelevant. That is the tenor of Dembski's entire presentation. In a similar manner, Dembski plays with other quotations allegedly supporting his thesis, like a quotation from Mencken on page 2, juxtaposed with a quotation from Gould, which, Dembski implies, contradict each other. These two quotations may or may not contradict each other (and actually they were relating to different situations and therefore their juxtaposition was meaningless). It is, however, always possible to mine a host of quotations on every subject and pretend that they prove something even if they are not relevant to each other in any way. Such play with mutually irrelevant quotations confirms the suspicion that Dembski has no real arguments which would be necessary in a talk to an audience not consisting of such ID adherents who would happily swallow anything seemingly confirming their already held preconceptions. One the main points stressed by Dembski in his presentation is the assertion that Intelligent Design, unlike such fringe pseudo-science as astrology and the like, has by now become firmly "mainstream" in science. In this, Dembski depicts the desired as if it is real. So far, the overwhelming majority of mainstream scientists ignore ID as can be seen by searching through the scientific literature. Practically no scientific magazine has published articles by scientists wherein a discussion of ID and related matters could be found. No references to ID can be found in the mainstream peer-reviewed scientific publications. The ID advocates either publish their productions as popular or semi-popular books and collections by non-scientific publishers or in their own periodicals mostly connected to their Discovery Institute. The only exception seems to be Dembski's monograph [2] published by the Cambridge University Press. Even this book, reportedly, was Dembski's doctoral dissertation in philosophy rather than in science. Regardless of how many times Dembski will repeat his mantra about "mainstreaming" ID, the scientific community has not and will not accept the claims by ID-ists unless and until he and his colleagues present real data supporting their contentions. So far no such data have been presented. The overall level of Dembski's acerbic assault on skeptics can be exemplified by his comment that the letters COP in the abbreviation CSICOP are "not accidental." Is this so? In the absence of real arguments, they may be sometimes replaced with attempts at being witty by using irrelevant puns. Dembski wants the readers to believe that the organization of skeptics is like police trying to muzzle its opponents. Somehow he does not notice the absurdity of such an accusation given the fact that he and his cohort Nelson are freely presenting their views at the meeting organized by the same CSICOP which allegedly is out to prevent the IDists from presenting their views. Maybe in his actual talk Demski said something beyond the irrelevant discussion of the prospects for ID versus evolution to win the minds of masses? It does not seem to be the case. According to the reports by the attendees of the conference, in his actual talk Dembski did not say anything beyond the immaterial quasi-arguments of his posted piece [1]. (This can also be verified by viewing the video tape of the session in question, available from CSICOP). Let me list some of the items that were discussed by Dembski's critics (a partial list of critical reviews of Dembki's literary production includes, but not limited to [4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17]). To some of his critics Dembski never replied in any form. To some others he responded (for example in his latest book [3]) with superficial and largely irrelevant arguments, but he never really replied to the substance of a number of points listed below, which constitute essential elements of his theory. Dembski asserted that complexity is tantamount to low probability. This assertion was rebuffed more than by one of the listed critics. Dembski never replied to that critique. Dembski asserted that his Explanatory Filter never produces "false positives." This assertion was rebuffed by several of the listed (as well as by some not listed) critics. Dembski never replied to them. (It can be argued though that in his latest book [3] Dembski by implication concedes that false positives can be produced by his Explanatory Filter after all but he still does not admit this explicitly). Dembski announced a supposedly new important law – the so-called Law of Conservation of Information. More than one critic argued that the law in question does not exist. Dembski never replied to those critics. Dembski widely used a concept of what he called Specified Complexity. More than one critic argued that the concept in question is meaningless in the sense it has been used by Dembski. The latter never replied to this critique. The same can be said about Dembski's concept of Complex Specified Information (CSI). Dembski insists that design can be reliably inferred if low probability of an event is combined with its specification. More than one among the listed critics argued that the specification as defined by Dembski has no reasonable interpretation. Dembski never responded to that critique. There are other items claimed by Dembski, subjected to critique to which Dembski never responded while he continues to promote the same criticized concepts and assertions. In his presentation, Dembski condescendingly suggested a program of action for skeptics if the latter wish to defend their position against ID. In his uncompromising self-confidence Dembski seems not to realize that if he suggests a new, allegedly revolutionary theory, the burden of proof is on him and on his colleagues in the ID camp. It is ID-ists who need to provide evidence, any evidence, in support of their position. It is precisely the absence of evidence for the ID theory that makes skeptics (read: mainstream scientists) to reject ID as an unsubstantiated attempt to overturn the facts established by science. If Dembski or any of his colleagues showed any reasonable evidence supporting their views, then, beyond doubts, scientists would be much more receptive in regard to their theory. So far this has not happened. Therefore, rather than suggesting what skeptics should do to defend their views from the assault by ID, Dembski should better think of how to search for any believable proof of his own so far arbitrary and dubious assertions. By inviting Dembski and Nelson to give talks at the 4 th World Skeptics Conference, its organizers offered Dembski a chance to reply to his critics on the matters of substance and to defend his position in front of a diversified audience, mostly not very friendly to his views. By taking the floor at the conference in question, Dembski put himself in an unenviable position of denying a simple fact obvious to all – he was complaining about skeptics suppressing his views while speaking to the same skeptics who provided to him the forum. Acknowledgements I would like to thank Brian Spitzer, Pete Dunkelberg, and Wesley Elsberry for constructive remarks regarding the initial version of this article. References [1] William A. Dembski, [online], Skepticism's Prospects for Unseating Intelligent Design , http://www.iscid.org/papers/Dembski_SkepticismsProspects_062102.pdf , accessed on June 22, 2002. [2] William A. Dembski, The Design Inference , (Cambridge University Press, 1998). [3] William A. Dembski, No Free Lunch – Why Specified Complexity Cannot Be Purchased without Intelligence , (Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham, Maryland, 2002). [4] Mark Perakh, A Consistent Inconsistency, [online], www.talkreason.org/articles/dembski.cfm , accessed on June 22, 2002 [5] Mark Perakh, A Free Lunch in a Mousetrap, [online], www.talkreason.org/articles/dem_nfl.cfm , accessed on June 22, 2002 [6] Richard Wein, [online], http://website.lineone.net/~rwein/skeptic/whatswrong.htm , accessed on November 22, 2001 [7] Richard Wein, Not a Free Lunch But a Box of Chocolate, [online]. www.talkreason.org/articles/choc_nfl.cfm , accessed on June 22, 2002. [8] Matt Young, [online], www.pcts.org/journal/young2002a.html , accessed on March 10, 2002. [9] Victor J. Stenger, [online], http://spot.colorado.edu/~vstenger/Found/04MessageW.pdf , accessed on January 17, 2002. [10] Robert T. Pennock, Tower of Babel (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2000). [11] Taner Edis, [online], www.csicop.org/si/2001-03/intelligent-design.html , accessed on January 17, 2002. [12] Eli Chiprout, [online], http://members.aol.com/echiprt/dembski.htm . Accessed on July 25, 2001 [13] Wesley R. Elsberry, [online], www.infidels.org/library/modern/science/creationism/dembski.htm , accessed on November 22, 2001 [14] Wesley R. Elsberry, [online], www.talkreason.org/articles/inference.cfm , accessed on June 22, 2002. [15] Thomas D. Schneider, [online], www.lecb.ncifcif.gov/~toms/paper/ev/dembski/claimtest.html , accessed on November 22, 2001. [16] Branden Fitelson, Christopher Stephens and Elliott Sober, Philosophy of Science , 66, (1999): 472. [17] John S. Wilkins and Wesley R. Elsberry, The Advantages of Theft over Toil: The Design Inference and Arguing From Ignorance, Biology and Philosophy, v.16, 711 (2001).


Bottaro's Letter to WNYE

Legacy route: /faqs/bottaroslettertoWNYE.html Content source: /cs/bottaro_wnye_uml_letter/ Bottaro's Letter to WNYE Andrea Bottaro wrote a letter to TV station WNYE about their scheduling of the "intelligent design" propaganda film, Unlocking the Mystery of Life . by Andrea Bottaro The following letter was originally sent to the WNYE PBS station in anticipation of their programmed broadcast of the Intelligent Design "documentary" "Unlocking the Mystery of Life". Eventually, WNYE aired the program with a disclaimer regarding its contents (see the NCSE site for the text of WNYE's disclaimer and other comments about "Unlocking"). Mr. Laing Kandel General Manager WNYE New York Dr. Joe Klein Chancellor Dept. of Education New York Dear Mr. Kandel and Dr. Klein: It was recently announced by the Discovery Institute in Seattle, WA, that the New York Department of Education's WNYE television station is planning to broadcast the documentary video "Unlocking the Mystery of Life" (hereafter, UML) on July 6, 2003. While I realize that the purpose of WNYE is to provide its viewers with the broadest and most diverse information from different sources and points of view, there are a few background issues about this video that I believe you and WNYE viewers should be made aware of. UML presents itself as a well-crafted, purely scientific documentary, while it is factually misleading in many respects, and its main purpose is propaganda for a pseudo-scientific movement known as Intelligent Design Creationism. UML has its (strategically concealed) origins close to religious fundamentalist and Creationist circles, and displays a pattern of poor scholarship, including misrepresentation/omission of key scientific evidence. Ultimately, these result in a misleading picture of the facts and of current scientific knowledge, as well as of the ultimate goals of the documentary itself. (More details about these problems are found in the attachment to this letter.) While as a scientist I fully subscribe to the free dissemination of opinions from any source, I think you owe WNYE viewers that such background information is made available to them, so that they may properly judge the documentary's message. Addition of a disclaimer to the broadcast, explaining that the documentary presents a one-sided view of a fringe, pseudo-scientific idea rejected by the overwhelming majority of scientists, and that its main purpose is religious/philosophical in nature, would probably be sufficient to alert your viewers of the true significance of "Unlocking the Mystery of Life". Thank you very much for your consideration. Please feel free to contact me if you have further questions or require additional information. Sincerely Andrea Bottaro University of Rochester Medical Center Rochester, NY, 6/30/03 UNLOCKING THE MYSTERY OF LIFE - MORE OMISSIONS THAN FACTS The source: "Unlocking the Mystery of Life" is the first and only production of an entity called "IllustraMedia". In fact, "IllustraMedia" is one and the same with "Discovery Media Productions" 1 . Discovery Media is a production company whose previous videos are devoted to evangelical topics, such as "Heaven and Hell" and "The End Times" 2 . While there is nothing wrong with an evangelical video company producing a science documentary, the fact that to do so it was felt necessary to create a "shell" production outfit highlights the aura of ambiguity that pervades the entire enterprise (more examples to follow). Furthermore, the purpose of the video as a propagandistic and religious, rather than scientific/educational tool is underscored by how UML is being publicized within fundamentalist circles. For instance, Mission Frontiers, the Bulletin of the evangelical U.S. Center for World Missions, hails it as "the most impressive evangelistic tool ever made" 3 . The contents: As a documentary, UML is a skillful and sophisticated production, showing some well-made computer animations of cellular processes at the molecular level. In discussing such mechanisms, the video claims that the scientific evidence points to insurmountable difficulties for standard evolutionary theory, and supports instead the hypothesis that a superior intelligence directly intervened to create and/or diversify life (hence the name "Intelligent Design", or ID, Creationism 4 ). The video discusses such purported evidence and devotes much of its time to the historical origins and philosophical underpinnings of the ID movement. The fundamental question is whether ULM conforms to basic scientific standards of adherence to evidence and facts. In this, it fails at several levels. First of all, throughout the documentary mainstream scientific views, supported by the overwhelming majority of scientists, are not even independently presented. Instead, oversimplified, sometime downright scornful presentations of mainstream scientific theories and hypotheses are provided by supporters of ID (as a counterexample, the recent PBS "Evolution" series, though clearly favoring a scientific view, featured the opinions of several prominent representatives of Creationism). In UML, therefore, the viewers are treated to descriptions of scientific evidence and theories that have little connection with what is in fact going on in the science world. For reasons of space, I'll just mention a few examples. The most glaring omission deals with UML's discussion of Origins of Life (OoL) science. The only non ID-based views on OoL discussed in the video are those proposed, in the late '60s, by one of the current ID proponents, Dr. Dean Kenyon. According to UML, those models have been later shown by Kenyon and colleagues to be insufficient to explain key aspects of early molecular and cellular evolution. In fact, most of Kenyon's original views have long been superseded by more thorough, and better empirically supported, scientific hypotheses - indeed, it was those hypotheses and evidence that led to the demise of Kenyon's ideas in scientific circles long before ID Creationism appeared on the scene. Alas, what is arguably the current (and has been for more than a decade now) favored hypothesis about OoL, the so-called "RNA World" model, 5 finds no mention whatsoever in UML. This is not surprising, perhaps, since the objections raised in UML by ID proponents to Kenyon's original theory would not stand against this new model. Thus, the viewer is given the false impression that the current scientific choice is between ID Creationism and its outright miraculous Origin of Life, or Dr. Kenyon's outdated 1960's theory. Of course, our understanding of OoL is still very limited, and highly speculative. Nevertheless, it is far more advanced and scientifically solid than the UML parody would want its audience to believe. Other mistakes in UML include an equally superficial, almost mockingly simplified discussion of cooption, a crucial evolutionary mechanism for which in fact significance evidence exists in the biological world. UML's "experts" even commit a basic error regarding the role of nucleic acids in the cell, which are presented as uniquely involved in genetic information storage and transfer, while it is now well known that they are directly active in crucial molecular processes functionally comparable to those carried out by protein enzymes - a key piece of evidence in favor of the "RNA World" hypothesis mentioned above (and the possible reason why it also went unmentioned). The crucial argument underlying the whole ID philosophy, widely discussed in the video, is the concept of "irreducibly complex" systems, and the purported impossibility of conventional evolutionary mechanisms to generate them. Although it was quickly rejected by biologists on theoretical and empirical grounds, 6 "irreducible complexity" has remained the main staple of ID Creationism. Ironically, this argument was just recently delivered a fatal blow in the prestigious science journal Nature, where a computer simulation based entirely on evolutionary principles (undirected random mutation and selection) was shown to be able to generate "irreducibly complex" outputs 7 . While of course the video cannot be faulted for not predicting the results of future scientific research, this episode serves as a good example of the shaky grounds on which ID reasoning is built. Indeed, not only does scientific evidence continue to accumulate contradicting the ID arguments, but even more damningly, in over 10 years from the onset of the "movement", no single scientific result supporting ID has been published in the scientific literature , despite its supporters continuing claims of the existence of such results. Indeed, even the ID advocates' own journal, the electronically published Progress in Complexity, Information and Design, has failed to publish any experimental result supporting ID 8 . In short, despite the appeals by ID advocates to "let the evidence speak for itself", there is in fact no positive scientific evidence in support of ID, and on the contrary the theoretical arguments of its advocates are constantly being proven erroneous in the professional literature. To avoid facing this lack of evidence, UML resorts instead to systematic distortions of mainstream science theories and omissions of key ideas and pieces of evidence. The people: The experts interviewed for UML, and ID advocates in general, are fond to present themselves as "scientists", often accompanied by the qualifier "a small but growing number of". In fact, most ID advocates are not scientists by any meaningful definition of the term, and their numbers (for which "small" is an overstatement) are anything but growing. Of the experts who appear in UML, 4 can in fact qualify as bona fide scientists: Michael Behe, Scott Minnich, Dean Kenyon, and Jed Macosko. The first two hold tenured positions in Biochemistry and Microbiology, respectively, at mainstream universities, but despite their own research experience and active labs, as discussed above they have failed to produce any evidence in support of the ideas they so eloquently argue for. Dean Kenyon was scientifically active until the mid-'70s, after which he has not published further in the scientific literature (however, he has since co-authored the notorious Creationist school textbook "Of Pandas and People" 9 ). 16 Jed Macosko, whose image is accompanied in UML by the qualifier "Molecular Biologist, UC Berkeley", although a Berkeley graduate and former postdoctoral trainee, in fact is not, or has ever been, on the Berkeley faculty, as that title could suggest. Indeed, Dr. Macosko is apparently not even affiliated with UC Berkeley anymore; if he was at the time of interview, he certainly was there as a junior postdoc trainee, hardly an "expert" in the field by any standards. Currently, Dr. Macosko is listed on some ID web sites as teaching chemistry at the religious La Sierra University in Riverside, CA 10 , although he does not appear on the faculty list there either 11 . Such "generous" use of credentials is not unique in the documentary. One of the leading proponents of ID, William Dembski, is labeled as a "mathematician - Baylor University" in UML, although he is affiliated with Baylor's Institute for Faith and Learning, which focuses on theology and philosophy 12 . Indeed, almost the entirety of Dr. Dembski's vast published opus, with the exception of a mathematics paper in 1990, is about various aspects of theology, apologetics and philosophy 13 (Dr. Dembski holds PhDs in Mathematics and Philosophy, and a M.Div. in Theology). Finally, Jonathan Wells, presented as "biologist" in UML, does hold a PhD in Developmental Biology from UC Berkeley. By his own words, however, he entered the program not based on any genuine interest in science and biology, but following the direction of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, with the expressed goal to "devote his life to destroying Darwinism" 14 . Not surprisingly, there is no record of Dr. Wells performing any meaningful research work after his training at Berkeley, and he has since entirely dedicated himself to anti-evolutionist propaganda (including the book "Icons of Evolution", some editions of which even contained stickers for students to deface biology textbooks 15 ). Thus, the definitions of professional background and academic affiliation used throughout UML are at the very least ambiguous, and clearly result in an inflation of the apparent academic clout and relevant expertise of the participants. In summary, "Unlocking the Mystery of Life" is a depiction of a fringe, at best semi-scientific philosophical movement very close, ideologically and organizationally, to religious Creationism. The documentary misrepresents itself, its goals, the existing scientific evidence and its own experts in several significant ways. While it is your prerogative to air the programs that you believe best suit your audience's needs and interests, it is equally important that your viewers be provided with information that may help them put this product's contents and purpose in the appropriate context. This is necessary not only in the spirit of openness and full disclosure, but also to avoid that your broadcast of the documentary appear as an implicit endorsement of this new form of "stealth" Creationism by one of the largest Departments of Education in the country. Notes 1. Verifiable by a "WHOIS" search for the domain name "illustramedia.com": http://www.networksolutions.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois?STRING=illustramedia.com&SearchType=do Accessed 6/30/03 2. http://www.discoverymedia.org/dm_products_page.htm Accessed 6/29/03 3. http://www.missionfrontiers.org/2002/06/PDFs/Unlocking_Mystery.pdf Accessed 6/28/03 4. For an in-depth discussion of ID Creationism, see "Intelligent Design Creationism and its Critics", Robert T. Pennock, ed, MIT Press, 2001, ISBN 0-262-16204-0; review in http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~cheathwo/Phil100/nytimes.html Accessed 6/30/03 5. http://www.lawrenceroberge.com/RNAWORLD.htm Accessed 6/30/03 http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/21438?fulltext=true Accessed 6/30/03 6. see for instance several articles by Dr. Ken Miller, Brown University: http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/ Accessed 6/30/03 7. Lenski RE, Ofria C, Pennock RT, Adami C. "The evolutionary origin of complex features." Nature. May 8 2003; 423 (6936):139-44 8. http://www.iscid.org/pcid.php Accessed 6/29/03 9. http://63.74.14.138/page/001/PROD/BOFPA1 , reviewed at the National Association of Biology Teachers web site http://www.nabt.org/sub/evolution/panda1.asp Both accessed 6/30/03. 10. http://www.iscid.org/jed-macosko.php ; http://www.lasierra.edu/ Both accessed 6/30/03 11. http://www.lasierra.edu/resources/phonelists/phonename_m-s.html Accessed 6/30/03 12. http://www3.baylor.edu/IFL/ Accessed 6/28/03 13. http://www.designinference.com/documents/05.02.CV.htm Accessed 6/30/03 14. http://www.tparents.org/library/unification/talks/wells/DARWIN.htm Accessed 6/30/03 15. Links to reviews of Icons of Evolution can be found at the National Center of Science Education's web site http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/articles/9855_reviews_of_icons_of_evolution_10_31_2002.asp Accessed 6/30/03 16. Note added July 8, 2003: After this letter first appeared on the NCSE web site, Dr. Kenyon kindly and quickly informed me that he has in fact one scientific publication later than the mid-'70s: "A Comparison of Proteinoid and Aldocyanoin Microsystems as Models of the Primordial Protocell", in Molecular Evolution and Protobiology [K. Matsuno, K. Dose, K. Harada, and D. L. Rohlfing, eds.], pp. 163-188, Plenum Press, 1984. My original statement was based on a search of the main scientific literature databases available: Pubmed, BasicBIOSIS, CSA Biological Sciences, and the Institute for Scientific Information's "Web of Science" Science Citation Index. The book article in question does not seem to appear in any of these databases, nor has it apparently ever been referenced by any other later publication also in the database. Nevertheless, for the record, the existence of Dr. Kenyon's 1984 paper should be noted. Addendum, 8/5/03: Dr. Dembski has recently charged that my critique of "Unlocking the Mystery of Life" misleads readers. He's wrong: Dembski's Compass .


Incompatible Magisteria

INCOMPATIBLE MAGISTERIA By Mark Perakh INTRODUCTION If I were asked to give a brief definition of science, I would have a hard time to come up with

Legacy route: /faqs/magisteria.html Incompatible Magisteria By Mark Perakh INTRODUCTION If I were asked to give a brief definition of science, I would have a hard time to come up with a definition which, on the one hand, would encompass everything that belongs in science, and on the other hand, leaves out everything which is not science. In the paper [1] a descriptive definition of science is offered as “ a human endeavor consciously aimed at acquiring knowledge about the world in a systematic and logically consistent manner, based on factual evidence obtained by observation and experimentation .” O course, as stated in the same article [1] this definition does not pretend to encapsulate in one sentence such a multifaceted and complex human activity as science. It leaves out many important features of science, such, for example, as the question of the quality of evidence or of the proper rules for the interpretation of evidence, and many others. It is just a first-approximation definition made painted with a wide brush. If I were asked to give a definition of religion (which I have never tried) I would have an even harder time finding a brief sentence which would encompass everything that belongs in religion and leave out everything that is not (because there are so many religions and they often are so vastly differing from each other). Be that as it may be, I think that religions, like science, also try to comprehend the world, but using very different means. Philosophy, which is neither science nor religion, hangs in the no-man’s land between them, sometimes leaning toward science and sometimes toward religion. In this article I will omit discussions of philosophy and its place between science and religion (which is briefly discussed in [1]). And of course I will not go anywhere close to theology. I also do not intend to delve into nuances, thus leaving out the many well known variations in the principles and practices of various religions, concentrating instead on the most crucial overall difference between religions in general and science. Therefore some of my statements may sound too categorical, but I believe that, while they ignore many subtle points and can therefore invoke indignation or denials on the part of adherents of this or that faith, they do nevertheless reflect certain real features common to all religions. I will try to suggest tentative answers to two questions: (1) What is the most substantial difference between the ways science and religion approach the task of explaining the world? (2) Why do so many people fervently adhere to a religious dogma even when it obviously contradicts the scientific data supported by experience and reason? “CONTRA EVIDENTIA CREDO” VERSUS “CREDO QUIA EVIDENTIA” The two Latin expressions in this section’s title seem to grasp in a succinct form the principal difference between the attitudes of religion and science to the search for truth. (The first three Latin words translate as “I believe despite the evidence,” and the last three words as “I believe because of the evidence.”) The first maxim reflects the attitude of religions, and the second – of science. Of course, as in the case of science, these are just intentionally simplified generalizing statements painted with a wide brush and ignoring many facets of such a complicated phenomenon as religion, in particular the attempts at rationalizing its foundations. In the same intentionally simplified way, it seems possible to succinctly state the following: Religions are based on faith. Science is based on evidence. Reason seems to favor science. Emotions often favor religion. I can easily imagine the indignation by many a believer at the above assertions. He is confident that his faith is based on evidence and logic. I’ll return to the discussion of the supposed rational foundations of faith a little later, wherein I’ll try to offer a justification for the above general formulation of the basic difference between the approaches of religions and of science to the comprehension of the reality. I could have stopped at that point because there is little of essence that can be added to the above succinct rendition of the principal difference between religion and science. However, many additional questions are vexing in their own right, calling for an elaboration of the above maxims. If reason favors science, why are religions so widespread and so stubbornly persistent even when faced not only with the lack of evidence in favor of their veracity, but also with overwhelming evidence against their tenets? Indeed, another version of the first maxim in the title is “credo quia absurdum,” which has been pronounced by prominent defenders of religious faith [2] and which means “I believe because it is absurd.” Even if adherents of some religions other than Catholicism may deny that they share the above maxim, I believe it applies to a certain extent to all religions, even if not always in such an extreme form. The quoted maxim implies the antinomy between “knowledge” and “faith.” It seems to imply furthermore, that we “know,” for example, from scientific evidence that the earth is billions of years old. However, according to the above maxim, a believer may adhere to the notion that the earth is only about 6,000 years old, not because he “knows” that but because he “believes” in that, however absurd the latter notion may be in view of the contrary evidence; moreover, the very absurdity of the notion in question is claimed by the quoted maxim as the reason to believe in it. Precisely because it is absurd from the rational viewpoint, its acceptance requires belief . Of course, the believers are often confident that their faith has also strong rational foundations, and religious apologists of all varieties work hard to supply alleged proofs of such rational foundations. Christian apologists [3,4] point out the alleged historical evidence supporting the story told in the gospels, for example, quoting ancient writers like Josephus Flavius or Suetonius. Jewish apologists [5, 6, 7, 8] refer to the allegedly uninterrupted tradition forwarded through generations from the entire nation of Israelites witnessing Moses’s receiving the Torah directly from Jehova; or they point out the alleged fulfillment of the prediction made in the Torah in regard to the history of the Jewish people. Islamic apologists [9] developed the so-called Kalam argument allegedly proving the existence of God (in its Islamic version). In our time, Islamic apologists maintain huge websites [10] wherein a variety of allegedly rational arguments are offered for the veracity of the Islamic faith. Various specious rationalizations have also been developed by Hindus, Druses, Bahais, Buddhists, Sintoists, Taoists, etc., (although some of them are much more limited in scope and sophistication). Another form of exegesis which has been practiced mainly by Christian and Jewish writers is devoted to the alleged reconciliation between the biblical story and science by interpreting the former in various metaphorical and non-literal ways [11, 12, 13, 14, 15 ]. However, the existence of various forms of exegesis does not eliminate the prevalent feature of religions – their reliance on faith rather than on evidence. So, why do billions of people adhere to religious faiths even when they contradict facts established by science via a process of a rational investigation based on evidence? Whereas the answer to that question may require an excursion into human psychology, for which I have no taste whatsoever, there seem to be relatively simple ways to survey certain facts relevant to the difference between the scientific and the religious approaches to understanding the world we live in. There are various estimates [16] of how many religions exist on our planet. It is obvious though that their number is in thousands. There are certain similarities between some of those religions, but the differences between various religious systems, often to the extent of complete incompatibility, are much more pronounced. Even those religions which have stemmed from the same root, as, for example, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have developed many more differences than preserved similarities, not only in secondary details, but also in the basic concepts inherent in their foundations. Within each of them there are numerous variations, both in details and in fundamentals. The Baptists have a conceptual framework vastly different from that of, say, the Catholics, and the Mormons from the Pentecostals. The Shiah Moslems do not accept at all many of the firm beliefs of the Sunni Moslems. Druses, Sikhs, Zoroastrians, Buddhists, and a myriad of other sects, sub-sects, and systems of beliefs, vastly differing from each other, each have their own fervent adherents unshakably confident in the veracity of only their faith and denying the plausibility of all other faiths. Of course, if the matter stopped at that and members of different faiths simply adhered to whatever is a commonly accepted belief within their communities, a reasonable attitude to that divergence of beliefs would be to benignly accept this as simply a fact of life. Unfortunately, the peaceful coexistence of various faiths seems to be more of an exception than a rule. Remember the horrifying history of crusades [17]. Overwhelmed with a whipped up religious fervor, the crusaders, on their way to the Holy Land, mercilessly killed uncounted thousands of Jews in Europe. In Northern Ireland, the Protestants kill the Catholics and the Catholics kill the Protestants, both speaking the same language, coming from the same ethnic stock and largely sharing the same history. In Kashmir Hindus kill Moslems and Moslems kill Hindus at every opportunity. Both are of the same ethnic origin, share their early history, and often speak the same languages. Of course there are many factors besides religions which spawn hatred and murders, and it may be equally possible to point to the positive role played by religions in certain historical periods and in certain countries. However, in the above cases it is religious faith that converts those uncounted thousands into murderers. Let us now note the following facts. It is common knowledge that conversion from a religion a person was raised in to some other faith is relatively rare. How many Lindh’s [18] are there in the US and Europe? A very small percentage of the population. How many Moslems have converted to Christianity? A tiny percentage of the Moslem population. However, even these numbers are much larger than a conversion of, say, Moslems or Christians to Judasim, Bahai, or the Sikh faith. Are Judaism, Bahai and Sikh faiths “worse” than other religions? It seems obvious that the conversion caused by a person’s sincere realization of the truthfulness of a religion other than the one he grew up with is a rare phenomenon indeed. A much more potent incentive for conversion seems to be pressure from the social environment. This leads us to the conclusion that adherence to a certain religious faith is caused mainly (albeit not necessarily only ) by indoctrination at an early age. Such indoctrination (or instruction, if one prefers a milder term) creates powerful emotional ties, inextricably connected to the person’s subconscious traces of the impressions gained in the early childhood. Therefore, a person born in Salt Lake City quite probably will grow up and remain a Mormon, a child born in Tel-Aviv, most likely, will be a part of the Jewish community for the rest of her life, and a boy born and raised in Islamabad hardly can be expected to be anything other than a Moslem, and, with a considerable probability, a very fervent one. As was mentioned earlier in this article, religious apologists routinely offer allegedly rational arguments in favor of their beliefs. Even if we will not discuss numerous holes in those allegedly rational arguments, the natural question seems to be: if these arguments are indeed convincing, why are they accepted only within the communities of co-religionists? Why Christians do not seem to be impressed by the Islamic apologetics, and Hindus, by the Christian one? The two indisputable facts – the very existence of thousands of religions with their often incompatible tenets, and the rare occurrences of conversion from a faith one grew up with – make the apologetics of any variety quite doubtful, and with it equally doubtful the supposed rational foundations of faiths. Now, what about science? Isn’t the “knowledge” and hence acceptance of the facts and theories of science also indoctrinated through education and media? Yes, it is. There are, however, fundamental differences between the indoctrination in a religious faith and indoctrination in science. Look, say, at physics, or chemistry, or mathematics, or engineering. Are there many or even a few differing physics, each fervently adhered to in specific countries or parts of the world? No, there is only one “physics,” the same in the USA, Russia, Northern Ireland, Pakistan and Japan. Are there dissenters among the physicists? No, if the basic concepts of that science are in question. Yes, if specific theories or data are under discussion. Does in science the concept of a heretic exist? No. Although heated disputes among scientists happen regularly, they do not usually lead to killing one’s opponent. Differing views are tolerated, and after sometimes prolonged discussions, a consensus is usually reached, accepted in Tokyo as well as in Moscow or Pasadena, CA. What are the criteria usually applied in religious disputes? Appeals to authority. In a religious dispute within a community of co-religionists a proper quotation from the “holy books” of the faith decides the controversy. The authority of a “holy book” is above any other considerations and arguments. What are the criteria applied in scientific disputes? Appeals to facts and reason. In religious indoctrination, assertions are made from authority and one is invited (or, better, pushed) to accept them on faith. As to the allegedly rational reasons to believe, they play a subordinate role in the religious indoctrination, and are designed mainly to bolster the faith of the doubting believers rather than to indoctrinate the young. In scientific indoctrination, statements directed at the uninitiated are also made from authority, but one is invited to accept them for reason and to look for their verification. In a religious indoctrination, doubts in regard to the principal dogmas of the faith are discouraged. In some religions (like the Russian Orthodox faith) even discussion of small details of the rites are not permitted. Even in those religions wherein various interpretations of the sacred texts are common (like in Judaism, where the Talmud is an immense compendium of often conflicting teachings by various early Rabbinic authorities) the main tenets (such as the divine origin of the Torah which is considered the depository of everything that can be known about the world) are out of discussion’s limits. Indeed, here is what one of the most revered Rabbinic authorities, the 12 th century rabbi Moses ben Maimon (Maimonides) wrote in his famous codex Mishneh Torah (Laws Regarding Idolatry, chapter 2, law 3): “Not only one is forbidden to follow idolatry even in his mind, but we are forewarned not to entertain any thought whatsoever which is capable of shattering a person’s faith in one of the main principles of Torah… Thus our Sages said on this matter: ‘<After your heart> means heresy, <and after your eyes> means fornication.” ( The Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot 12b). Of course this partial quote does not reflect Maimonides’s views in all of their complexity and thus may create an unjustified impression of his dogmatic and complete rejection of all and every dissent in the matters of faith. However, even this relatively tolerant and wise religious thinker was obviously not willing to compromise in the “main principles” of his faith. Since the question of what constitutes “main principles” can be answered in many ways, including quite restrictive ones, the boundaries of the matter allowed for discussion and dissent can be (and actually often were) set right at one’s elbow. Faith does not presume the existence of an escape route from the faith’s tenets. An apostate is despised and hated. In a scientific indoctrination doubts are expected and an escape route is always available, while the possibility of change or even of a complete rejection of the existent concepts is always accepted, provided new evidence is discovered. There are mavericks and iconoclasts in science, but no apostates. The worst an iconoclast may expect from other scientists is an ironic condescension, but more often just a cautious reservation until the dissenting ideas have been tested by normal means of scientific exploration. An apostate will never earn respect from his former co-religionists, and normally would be expelled from his former community, and in the extreme cases may be even killed. An iconoclast may become a highly respected authority if his unusual ideas find confirmation in the normal process of scientific inquiry. Science freely admits that knowledge is incomplete and imperfect. However, the established concepts of science more often than not have at least some truth in them, even if it is not perfect, and this truth is the same in New York, Kyoto, Jerusalem, and Canberra. Religions all insist that they possess the ultimate and perfect truth, which, strangely, is very different depending on where it is proclaimed to be such, in a mosque, church, synagogue or any of the multitude of various temples and shrines. ARE THE MAGISTERIA INDEED NONOVERLAPPING? The late biologist Stephen Jay Gould, known equally as a staunch defender of the evolution theory and as an iconoclast in its interpretation, published in 1997 an article [19] (reprinted in 2001 [20] ) titled “Nonoverlapping Magisteria.” The term magisterium, used by the Catholic Church to denote the teaching authority of the Church, stems from the Latin word “magister” meaning “teacher.” Brilliantly written, as most of Gould’s essays were, this article had gained a considerable popularity. Gould’s main idea is that the two “magisteria,” that of religion and that of science, have both legitimate areas of reign and have no reason to overlap and even less to engage in a war. Regarding the conflict between religion and science Gould wrote, “No such conflict should exist because each subject has a legitimate magisterium, or domain of teaching authority – and these magisteria do not overlap…” It is easy to see that Gould’s position has nothing in common with the attempts to reconcile the biblical story with scientific data which are practiced by scores of religious authors (see, for example [10, 11,12,13,14,15]). The goal of the listed writers is to interpret non-literally the biblical story in order to show that its contradictions with science are illusory and disappear if only the Bible (mainly the book of Genesis) is properly understood in some allegorical way. Gould’s thesis is principally different. He is not in the business of reconciling the story told in Genesis with the data from astronomy, physics, and biology. However, although Gould himself claimed to be an agnostic, his position, as expressed in the quoted article, seems to be close to that succinctly expressed by a quotation often attributed to Galileo, “Science tells us how the heavens go, and the Bible tells us how to go to the Heavens.” As befits a brilliant but contradictory man who combined one of the best defenses for the evolution theory with a rather strong attack on some of its commonly accepted parts, Gould wrote, just a few paragraphs later, “… in fact, the two magisteria bump right up against each other, interdigitating in wondrously complex ways along their joint border. Many of our deeper question


Wesley at CSICOP

Legacy route: /faqs/CSICOP.html Wesley at CSICOP ID advocacy at the 4th annual World of Skeptics Conference On June 21st, 2002, "Intelligent Design" advocates squared off against representatives of evolution at the 4th annual World of Skeptics Conference in Burbank, CA. The event was organized by the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP). The two ID advocates were William Dembski and Paul Nelson of the Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based think tank that promotes the teaching of intelligent design. Representing evolution were Ken Miller and Wesley Elsberry. Here, Wesley shares his comments on the day's events. Massimo Pigliucci moderated this session from 9AM to noon on Friday, June 21st. The evolution team, Ken Miller and myself, won the coin toss. We decided to present first and third, with me taking the first position. Massimo gave an overview of the history of intelligent design, starting with Plato and bringing the audience up through Paley to the modern ID movement. There were a couple of minor problems in his otherwise excellent talk. Knowing that Paul Nelson's abstract made the claim that ID advocates were useful in keeping "their mainstream rivals honest", I made a note of these. It was then my turn at the podium. My initial nervousness was not helped by problems with the microphone. However, once I got started, things fell into place. I pointed out that scientists made a habit of correcting each other, and thus noted that Massimo had an incorrect date for Paley's publication of "Natural Theology" and that the figures he showed of the "flagellum" were actually of the eukaryote cilium. This gave a positive example of ID's "mainstream rivals" keeping each other honest. I then proceeded with my set talk. It seemed to go over well with the audience. I have a preliminary version online here , which I will update with more of the quoted material and links to sources as I get time. Paul Nelson then gave his talk. He didn't follow his abstract. Instead, he talked about naturalism and how adherence to naturalism prevented one from finding "intelligent design" in biology even if ID were true. Kind of a "Give ID a chance" talk. Ken Miller went next. Ken proceeded to work over Behe's "irreducible complexity" and Dembski's "specified complexity" with biological examples. For Behe and Dembski's use of the E. coli flagellum, Ken pointed out that parts of the flagellum had functional significance, as demonstrated by Type 3 Secretory Systems, and at least four other functional subsets of flagellum anatomy. Ken again showed that the blood-clotting example used by Behe could withstand the removal of a part, as cetaceans lack Factor XII (Hagemann factor) and are still able to clot blood. My favorite part, though, had to be Ken's use of my web calculator to apply Dembski's formula from NFL p.301 to the Krebs citric acid cycle. Ken found by Dembski's calculation that the Krebs cycle has a probability of less than 10 -440 . Ken then showed that biologists have published an evolutionary pathway for the origin of the Krebs cycle. This provides us with a false positive for Dembski's EF/DI. Dembski presented last. His talk was on "Prospects for skeptics unseating 'intelligent design' in the next 25 years". Mark Todd, who was in the audience, said that the audience was in a good mood after Ken's talk, but that within seconds Dembski had managed to almost completely alienate the audience. Dembski brought up polls to demonstrate that ID was a popular stance, and that skeptics would have a tough time displacing ID in the public. Dembski did note that this could be considered an argumentum ad populum. Dembski's talk was remarkably content-free. He brought up little of his work on "specified complexity". The panel then went into point-counterpoint mode. Paul Nelson led off with a question for Ken Miller, claiming that the paper Ken depended upon for an evolutionary pathway to the Krebs cycle indicated that their work was incomplete, and that there was a "missing enzyme". Why didn't Ken make note of this inconvenient fact? I was watching Ken navigate through folders on his Mac laptop as Paul set up his question. Ken asked to come back to the question in another five minutes in order to get some information from his computer. Paul asked another question of Ken concerning negation of logical propositions and "empirical content". I bought a little time with a discussion of Nelson's approach to this, such that he had extracted one clause of a logical conjunction for separate examination, and asked him how he justified that. Ken then took up that question, while still prepping for the other one. (Amazingly, none of the panel members - not a one of us - caught the very basic blunder in Paul's setup. As Jan Willem Nienhuys pointed out to me the next day, Nelson had failed to apply de Morgan's law when he distributed the negation over the statement. I spoke to Paul about this later, and he said he'll revisit that to see if he still has an argument left there.) Ken finally got a PDF of the paper in question up, hooked up to display on-screen for the audience, and found the passage that Paul was referring to. The paper did not have the phrase, "missing enzyme", but it did say that they assumed the development of an enzyme to alter succinyl CoA. Ken then estimated the size of such an enzyme as about 300 amino acids, and pointed out that Bill Dembski's calculations would show that the probability of such a small protein would be about 10 -40 , well above Dembski's "universal probability bound", and thus readily attributable to the action of natural selection. Ken said that for the evolvability of this protein, his authority was none other than Bill Dembski. Another interesting exchange was when I asked Paul Nelson about what science could exclude. Paul had stated in his talk that empirical evidence made a difference to propositions, and that the evidence presented in the "Skeptical Inquirer" meant that there obviously were no UFOs in the sense of alien visitations. I asked for Paul's reason why in science classes we should avoid mentioning another conjecture shown to be false by the evidence, that of the age of the earth being less than 10,000 years old. Paul said that there was no reason for science to avoid stating that. While I was satisfied with getting that from Paul, both Paul and Bill then got into a discussion of why I would bring up a question that was irrelevant to "intelligent design" and expressing disappointment that the content of their arguments was not being addressed. I responded that a similar question had been posed to Dembski at the AMNH debate in April, and I wanted to see if Nelson was any more responsive than Dembski was. Paul reiterated that he didn't see the relevance of the question. At that point, Massimo stepped in and directed Paul to answer the question of whether Paul personally agreed with the YEC stance on the age of the earth. Paul hemmed and hawed, and Bill objected on the grounds of irrelevance. At this point, there were audible calls from the audience for Paul to answer the question. Paul eventually said that it was well known that he adhered to the YEC view of the age of the earth. Ken said to Paul, "See, that wasn't so hard." Paul said that the only reason to bring it up was to score a rhetorical point, at which point an audience member called out, "It goes to your credibility." Both Paul and Bill denied that. There were various other questions asked. I've bought a copy of the video, so I may add more detail later. Ratings: Ken Miller was the star of the session. If you get a chance to hear Ken talk, make sure to go. Paul Nelson and Massimo Pigliucci gave well-polished presentations. I fear my delivery was marred by my initial nervousness and my relative inexperience, this being my third outing of this sort in the past 5 years. Dembski, though, really failed to connect with the audience at any point.


Quixotic References

Legacy route: /faqs/hunch/IDnotes.html Content source: /cs/qrefs/ Quixotic References [Return to The Quixotic Message ] [1] The claim that scientists by the thousands are joining the ID movement, and that it's just a matter of time before the rest see the light, is a propaganda technique known as inevitable victory , and is frequently employed by the ID movement. Very strange it is then that IDist press releases and newspaper articles keep mentioning the same handful of names over and over again, year after year, particularly Dembksi, Wells, and Behe, as if these guys just happen to be a sample of the thousands who are joining in the movement. (Just for clarity, Behe is the only one out of those three who can fairly be called a scientist.) For numerous examples of IDist/creationist proclamations of imminent success, see The Imminent Demise of Evolution: The Longest Running Falsehood in Creationism by Glenn Morton: "In recent reading of Dembski and other ID proponents I saw them make a claim which has been made for over 40 years. This claim is one that the young-earthers have been making. The claim is that the theo ry of evolution (or major supporting concepts for it) is increasingly being abandoned by scientists, or is about to fall. This claim has many forms and has been made for over 162 years." [2] IDists are very keen to protect their image by claiming that they're not creationists, and that they're not even anti-evolutionists. But then their latest tactic for getting ID into public schools is to "teach the evidence against evolution". Consider the crowing that they've done about a poll in Ohio: Darwin Would Love This Debate : "Which option ("A" or "B") represents your view? "A. Biology teachers should teach only Darwin's theory of evolution and the scientific evidence that supports it." "B. Biology teachers should teach Darwin's theory of evolution, but also the scientific evidence against it." "Only 15 percent of adults nationally, according to a 2001 Zogby poll, agree with "A," while 71 percent agree with "B." (Not sure: 14 percent.) " This is a perfect example of a loaded question, because it makes people think that there actually is evidence against evolution, and if this is true, then how can it be objectionable to teach it? IDists also say that what they want is for "origins science", as they call it, to be taught "objectively". When they say "objective" what they really mean is giving equal weight to ID arguments, as if a truly objective and knowledgeable person would find them legitimate. George Orwell would be proud. In a sense though, they're right about one thing: referring to ID as "the evidence against evolution" is somewhat appropriate, since it really is nothing more than a collection of criticisms, albeit bad ones. [3] There is very little consistency in IDist beliefs, even among the prominent leaders of the movement. Michael Behe, for example, accepts an ancient Earth and common descent, but does not believe that natural processes can account for all of evolution. In contrast, Philip Johnson staunchly denies common descent. Paul Nelson, in further contrast, is a young Earth creationist. Obviously, at least two of these people are seriously wrong about one or more major aspects of their beliefs, yet the ID movement does everything it can to downplay these differences. Amazingly, they claim that drawing conclusions about these scientific issues, which are precisely what they've been arguing about all along, is not even relevant! To the best of my knowledge, Behe is the only prominent IDist who unequivocally accepts evolution (although he heaps praise upon those who argue against it). Most of the others can be safely classified as creationists, or they're much too circumspect for anyone to know just what they believe. But don't call them creationists -- they'll go bonkers and accuse you of misrepresentation. In fact, the ID movement gets a lot of rhetorical mileage out of claiming that they're being stereotyped by "Dogmatic Darwinists" who are trying to persecute and discredit them by linking them to creationism. But not only is it true that most of them are creationists, it's also true that the ID movement uses essentially the same tactics and has the exact same overriding goals as those of the old-school movement: Religious apologetics and "cultural renewal". [4] This is a major part of the "Wedge strategy" formulated by Philip Johnson. The idea is to advocate a scientific theory (or more correctly, an objection to an existing theory) by avoiding the details at all costs, thereby allowing numerous mutually exclusive viewpoints to exist under the same "Big Tent". The details, according to Johnson, can be worked out later, after the Evil Empire has been defeated. Won't that be fun to watch. The Wedge strategy is purely political. A real scientific movement would vigorously debate the differences held among its members, as do evolutionary biologists. The irony is that it's hard to know just what if anything the IDists are objecting to, because they refuse to go into specifics. This has the added benefit of making them extremely slippery in debate. See this interview with Johnson for more: "So the question is: "How to win?" That's when I began to develop what you now see full-fledged in the "wedge" strategy: "Stick with the most important thing"-the mechanism and the building up of information. Get the Bible and the Book of Genesis out of the debate because you do not want to raise the so-called Bible-science dichotomy. Phrase the argument in such a way that you can get it heard in the secular academy and in a way that tends to unify the religious dissenters. That means concentrating on, "Do you need a Creator to do the creating, or can nature do it on its own?" and refusing to get sidetracked onto other issues, which people are always trying to do. They'll ask, "What do you think of Noah's flood?" or something like that. Never bite on such questions because they'll lead you into a trackless wasteland and you'll never get out of it." [5] Creationists and neo-creationists absolutely love the argument from authority, presumably because it fits in well with their authoritarian world-view. The irony is that scientific authority is almost universally against them when it comes to evolution. The Discovery Institute has made a big deal about its 100 scientists, even though the statement that they signed does not mention ID, and it's language is largely noncontroversial: Discovery Institute pdf Doubting Darwinism Through Creative License. (NCSE) Compare their list to a poll of Ohio scientists , or a letter opposing ID sent by 80 scientific organizations . The predictable IDist retort is to claim that the scientific community is too biased to judge things fairly, which makes one wonder why they seek scientific authority in the first place. [6] See Becoming a Disciplined Science: Prospects, Pitfalls, and Reality Check for ID by Bill Dembski. This was a keynote speech of his at the 2002 RADIP conference in which he proposes ways for ID to be become a "disciplined science". His proposals for "scientific research" are nothing more than suggestions on how the ID movement can sharpen its polemical skills: "Building a design curriculum is educational in the broadest sense. It includes not just textbooks, but everything from research monographs for professors and graduate students to coloring books for preschoolers. [...] "Do the same names associated with intelligent design keep coming up in print or are we constantly adding new names? Are we fun to be around? Do we have a colorful assortment of characters? Other things being equal, would you rather party with a design theorist or a Darwinist? "These, then, are my recommendations for turning intelligent design into a disciplined science." To answer his question, I would much rather party with a design "theorist". Anyone who can do what they do with a straight face has got to be good at telling jokes. :-) [7] Time and time again we're told that evolutionary theory is somehow sorely lacking, but when asked how well ID "theory" can stack up to it in terms of explaining the natural world, we're told that ID doesn't have to, because, well, just because. This makes it not only a "different kind of theory" than evolution, it makes it different from any scientific theory, past or present. See this ISCID Brainstrorms thread containing posts by Bill Dembski; many other examples could be given: "You've charged me with moving the goalposts and adjusting the definition of irreducible complexity because I require of evolutionary biologists to "connect the dots" in a causally convincing way. The dots here are functional precursors that could conceivably have evolved into the final system of interest. [...] "As for your example, I'm not going to take the bait. You're asking me to play a game: "Provide as much detail in terms of possible causal mechanisms for your ID position as I do for my Darwinian position." ID is not a mechanistic theory, and it's not ID's task to match your pathetic level of detail in telling mechanistic stories. If ID is correct and an intelligence is responsible and indispensable for certain structures, then it makes no sense to try to ape your method of connecting the dots." [8] Here's an excerpt from The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing but the Truth? by Brian Spitzer, which is a critical review of Philip Johnson's Darwin on Trial : "It is useless to try to explain science to someone who isn't interested in what the facts have to say. And it's useless to try to learn anything from such people. If they are clever, as Johnson is, they can find a way to claim that almost any fact supports their position. If evolutionists agree on something, it's a dogmatic orthodoxy; if they disagree, they're squabbling about every detail of evolutionary theory. ..." This tactic is frequently encountered on debate fora as well, though it's probably unintentional most of the time. An ID advocate will pull out a "maverick" scientist who takes a different view on things, and then claim that this is somehow evidence of evolutionary theory's deficiency. But why are all of these scientists against ID? Dogmatic orthodoxy, of course... [9] The ID movement's claim that Darwinists are driven by religious and/or ideological motivations is so glaringly hypocritical, it serves as its own parody. The leaders of the movement are very careful to do what they can to downplay their own biases, at least for public mass consumption (they tend to be a bit less coy in front of religious audiences). Here are the two specific examples alluded to: Evolving Banners at the Discovery Institute . (NCSE) The Center's Name Change (C(R)SC) [10] Lest anyone thinks this is an exaggeration, simply check out Bill Dembksi's forward to Discovery Institute Fellow Benjamin Wiker's book, Moral Darwinism: How We Became Hedonists . This article is a masterpiece of hypocrisy, even by Dembski's standards. (And the title of Wiker's book should tell you a thing or two as well.): "Understanding this movement [Darwinism] is absolutely key to understanding the current culture war. Believers in God often scratch their heads about western culture's continual moral decline. What was unacceptable just a few years ago is today's alternative lifestyle and tomorrow's preferred lifestyle. Abortion, euthanasia, divorce, sexual preference, and drug abuse are just a few of the moral issues that have undergone massive changes in public perception. [...] "Epicurus's most prominent disciple is without question Charles Darwin. Darwinism is not only the most recent incarnation of Epicurean philosophy but also the most potent formulation of that philosophy to date. Darwinism's significance consists in the purported scientific justification it brings to the Epicurean philosophy. But the science itself is weak and ad hoc. As Wiker shows, Darwinism is essentially a moral and metaphysical crusade that fuels our contemporary moral debates. Furthermore, Wiker argues that the motivation behind Darwinism today is its alternative moral and metaphysical vision rather than the promotion of science. "Wiker's project has nothing to do with scapegoating Epicurus, Darwin, or anyone else for that matter." Sure Dr. Dembski, sure . Blaming the all of the world's problems, real or perceived, on just one scientific theory isn't scapegoating. Nah ... [11] To be fair, disparaging the contradictory philosophies that Darwinian evolution has supposedly spawned has been a long-standing staple of the old-school creationists, and it is far easier to find examples of this coming from them than it is to find it from the neo-creationists. But ID's big tent has welcomed the old-schoolers with open flaps, so the IDists have little right to complain if people have a hard time telling who's who. Furthermore, the type of IDists commonly found in online debate fora, who, unlike the national movement, do not all share a common metaphysical viewpoint, will tend to contradict each other far more often. Thus a far left anarchist type will blame Darwin for contributing to capitalism, while the more common far right types will try to blame Darwin for Communism. Nevertheless, the consequentialist fallacy -- that Darwinism causes "bad things" and thus can't be true -- is high on the ID movement's list of propaganda techniques. It's extremely easy to cull such examples from "regular" creationists or online debaters, but just to be sporting, I've only provided references from leading members of the ID movement: On Liberalism: Nihilism and the End of Law by Philip Johnson. "The primary answer is that modernist thinking assumes the validity of Darwinian evolution, which explains the origin of humans and other living systems by an entirely mechanistic process that excludes in principle any role for a Creator. In the word of the neo-Darwinist authority George Gaylord Simpson, the meaning of "evolution" is that "man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind." For modernist intellectuals, belief in evolution in precisely this sense is equated with having a scientific outlook, which is to say, with being a modernist. The price for denying "science" is to be excluded from modernist discourse altogether. [...] Greenawalt defends a limited role for religious convictions in a jurisprudential culture whose ruling paradigm, called "liberalism," is roughly identical to what I have been calling modernism. Or Benjamin Wiker's article, Playing Games with Good & Evil: The failure of Darwinism to explain morality : "Allow me (since we are going to be playing games for rather high stakes) to lay my own cards on the table. I find this sort of talk absurd. Darwinian game theory is not new but simply a rehash of liberal political theory disguised as cutting-edge science. Give it a few vigorous scratches and we find Thomas Hobbes, the very father of modern political liberalism, back to haunt us from the 17th century. Hobbes was also the father of modern materialism, and his political liberalism was rooted in his mechanistic account of nature and human nature." On Racism : Not Just in Kansas Anymore by our friend Philip Johnson: "In short, Congress contemplated that biology classes should explore matters that Darwinists would prefer to ignore, such as criticisms of classic textbook examples like the faked drawings of embryonic similarities, and even the possible role of Darwinian concepts in encouraging the scientific racism embodied in eugenics programs." More Johnson: Domesticating Darwin . "This explanatory project carried some extremely racist implications, however. Because he was determined to establish human continuity with animals, Darwin frequently wrote of 'savages and lower races' as intermediate between animals and civilized people. Thus Degler observes that it was as much Darwin himself as any of the so-called "social Darwinists" who set the evolutionary approach to human behavior on a politically unacceptable course. 'Thanks to Darwin's acceptance of the idea of hierarchy among human societies,' he tells us, 'the spread and endurance of a racist form of social Darwinism owes more to Charles Darwin than to Herbert Spencer.' "Nor is a scientific grounding for racism the only unsavory heritage of nineteenth-century Darwinism. Degler also cites Darwin's theories about the intellectual inferiority of women, and describes how Darwin's cousin, Francis Galton, employed Darwinian logic in favor of an ambitious eugenics program to improve the breed." (Note also the charge of sexism.) And then there is this truly deplorable letter by John Calvert (of the Kansas "ID Network") to the local paper in response to one written by KCFS (Kansas Citizens for Science) about teaching ID in public schools: What were we fighting against in Bastogne? We were fighting against a Nazi regime that used the philosophy of Naturalism to justify a eugenics program of terrifying proportions. Naturalism is the belief that all phenomena result only from the laws of chemistry and physics and that teleological or design explanations are not valid. Naturalism is not science. It is a belief system. (You can read a reply to Calvert's letter here .) On Capitalism (and other rightist thought): As reported by CBN news : [Philip] Johnson explained, "Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, they loved Darwinism because it said they were right to amass all the money in the world, you know. And if other people didn't have as much money, it was because they were inferiors." Richard Weikart, Discovery Institute Fellow, in The Roots of Hitler's Evil . "Second, since Hitler believed that nothing exists beyond nature, he tried to find his purpose in life in obeying the iron laws of nature. Darwinian biology was especially significant in this regard, as he tried to apply its lessons to politics and society. Darwinism especially forms of it often disparagingly called Social Darwinism today taught him that life is a constant struggle for existence leading to biological progress. Hitler embraced eugenics and racial extermination of allegedly inferior races as means to improve the human species and foster progress." H-Ideas archived post by Weikart: "It is, of course, true that many distorted Darwin's views, but Darwin's own work reflected laissez-faire economic views and propagated racial inequality (he claimed "savages" were inferior mentally and morally)." In fairness, from what little is available from him online, Weikart tends to dispel some common myths about Darwin's link to Social Darwinism, and has himself pointed out that people from completely opposite political viewpoints have tried to find support in Darwinism (much like the Bible, I suppose). Yet he puts more blame on Darwin than traditional scholars, such Robert Bannister, whose 1979 treatise on the subject Weikart calls "revisionist" . The next book he has planned, apparently with Discovery Institute backing, is to be titled, From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Devaluing Human Life in Germany . Given the typical style of books published by the DI Fellows, it will be interesting to see how Weikart presents this one. Regardless of its content, you can bet the DI will use it as an ad hominem against evolutionary theory. Ironically, Weikart's published dissertation is titled Socialist Darwinism: Evolution in German Socialist Thought from Marx to Bernstein , which brings us to... Socialism (and other leftist thought): The most infamous of ID writings is known as the Wedge Document , which is the de facto manifesto of the ID movement, having been unintentionally leaked from the Discovery Institute: "Finally, materialism spawned a virulent strain of utopianism. Thinking they could engineer the perfect society through the application of scientific knowledge, materialist reformers advocated coercive government programs that falsely promi


Legacy route: /faqs/hunch/hunch.html Content source: /cs/quixotic_message/ "The Quixotic Message", or "No Free Hunch" Steve Reuland (aka "theyeti") takes a humorous but well-referenced look at the inconsistencies of the Intelligent Design movement and its advocates. by theyeti * [contributed January 22nd, 2003] [Author's note: This collection of contradictions and absurdities was originally composed and posted to the antievolution.org discussion board. It was later decided to put it up on the web so that it can be exposed to a larger audience. This collection is meant to be lighthearted and funny, though it does highlight some serious issues in the ID debate. If this presents a problem for you, then go read something else. Furthermore, at the urging of several readers, I decided to make a references page to document these inconsistencies. It can be reached by clicking on any one of the numbered references below. If you feel that this would detract from the humor, then feel free to skip it. But as Dave Barry would say, I'm not making this up ...] IDists... On Intelligent Design... ID is whatever we say it is, and we don't agree. Greater and greater numbers of scientists are joining the ID movement, which is why we keep referring to the same three year after year. [ 1 ] ID is not creationism, and can be perfectly compatible with evolution. This is why we're asking schools to teach the "evidence against evolution".[ 2 ] We're not creationists, except for those of us who are, but the rest of us won't confirm that we're not. But if you call us creationists, we'll complain to no end. [ 3 ] The correct stance on issues like an ancient Earth, the common ancestry of organisms, and natural selection can be worked out later, after we've convinced the public that they should be rejecting at least one of these. [ 4 ] ID is a widely accepted theory in the scientific community. Just last year, over 100 scientists signed a statement which does not support ID, but does say that they are "skeptical" of Darwinism. The opinions of tens of thousands of other scientists don't count, because they're all biased. [ 5 ] ID is a program for research into the science of design, nothing more. Part of our research plans are to produce coloring books for preschoolers, and to make ourselves more likeable at parties. [ 6 ] ID is a scientific theory for detecting purpose and teleology in nature. But don't ask us what that purpose is, because that's a religious question that's separate from ID. The Designer could be anything from God to a space alien. But the Raelians, who believe it was a space alien, are being illogical. On Darwinism... Darwinism can't explain the evolution of life in every single detail, therefore it's wrong. But don't ask IDists to explain these things, because that's not the kind of theory ID is. [ 7 ] Mainstream scientists dare not disagree with the monolithic block that is Darwinian orthodoxy. However, here are a number of mainstream scientists who disagree with each other on some issues, which means that they can't agree on anything. [ 8 ] Darwinists are driven by religious and ideological motivations. But since we've removed the picture of God and the phrase "Cultural Renewal" from our website, everyone knows this isn't true of us. [ 9 ] Absolutely everything wrong in society is caused by dogmatic Darwinian atheistic materialists. Including stereotyping, demonizing, and scapegoating. [ 10 ] Darwinists are responsible for both socialism and laissez-faire capitalism. Both racism and liberalism. Both feminism and sexism. Both animal research and the animal rights movement. And Commie-Nazism. [ 11 ] On philosophy... Philosophers cannot agree on exactly where the line between science and non-science lies. Therefore, anything can be considered science if we say so. If a living system looks well designed, it's evidence for ID. If it looks poorly designed, that's just because we have no way of knowing what constitutes good and bad design. Afterall, we can't tell that it's bad design because we have no way of knowing what the Designer really intends. But we do know that ID will revolutionize culture, society, and law, according to what the Designer intends. [ 14 ] Methodological naturalism is an unfair rule that keeps us from considering supernatural explanations. But this would mean that detectives couldn't consider an intelligent agent in a person's death, because as we all know, murderers are supernatural. [ 15 ] A good scientific theory like ID should be vague and ambiguous, and refuse to propose any specific details about mechanism or history. Some unspecified being "designed" something, somewhere, at some point in time, somehow, is a perfectly good explanation. The argument from design is not a theological argument, because we aren't necessarily talking about God. But any rebuttal of the design argument is theological, because it requires us to say "God wouldn't do it this way", and this is not legitimate. [ 16 ] On the Evidence... Since the peppered moth case has been proven problematic, natural selection is disproven. The other 1,582 studies of natural selection in the wild, as well as the numerous laboratory studies, don't count. [ 17 ] And peppered moths don't rest on tree trunks. The actual datasets of moths found in natural positions in the wild, off but also on trunks, are irrelevant because researchers have captured thousands of moths over the years in their moth traps, and not once has a moth in a trap been found on a tree trunk. [ 18 ] Since moths don't rest on tree trunks but instead higher up in the branches, this means that birds can't get to them, because there is a magic barrier preventing birds from visiting tree branches. As demonstrated above, moths don't rest on tree trunks, which means that the photographs showing the contrasting conspicuousness of moths on tree trunks found in textbooks are FRAUDS, FRAUDS, FRAUDS. All the other staged animal photos in textbooks are however unobjectionable. The fact that more inclusive groupings, such as phyla, appeared before more specific groupings, such as genera, is evidence against evolution. Likewise, the fact that Europeans first appeared before Tony Blair is evidence against shared human ancestry. [ 19 ] Evolution can't produce novel information, because any change to an enzyme that increases substrate specificity reduces the reactivity of the enzyme with other compounds, which is a loss of information. Similarly, any change which increases the enzyme's generality is a loss of information because the enzyme has lost some specificity. [ 20 ] Life could not come about by natural means because it has Specified Complexity. Specified Complexity means something that cannot come about by natural means, therefore life must exhibit Specified Complexity. [ 21 ] It was very nice of our loving Designer to design an immune system to protect us from the deadly diseases He designed. The fundamental unity of living things means that there is only one Designer. The extraordinary variation among living things, including their tendency to kill each other, just means that our singular Designer is very creative and whimsical. [ 22 ] Lateral gene transfer, which is a powerful mechanism of evolution, is evidence against evolution. The fact that the laws of the universe are perfect for life is evidence for a Designer. The fact that the laws of the universe can't produce life is evidence for a Designer. [ 23 ] Irreducibly Complex structures require multiple parts. Therefore they can't evolve. If someone demonstrates how a structure that requires multiple parts could have evolved, that just means that it wasn't Irreducibly Complex. IC structures must be molecular systems. Except mousetraps. "Indirect" pathways are wildly unlikely and as hard to find as leprechauns, and are therefore only a "bare" possibility but not a realistic one and can be safely disregarded, despite the detailed attention paid to them by every major biologist from Darwin to Dawkins. [ 26 ] The ID hypothesis, on the other hand, bears no resemblance to leprechauns. [*] "theyeti" is a pseudonym of Steven Reuland. Comments, suggestions, additions, or threats of eternal damnation can be sent to reulansn@musc.edu.