(no subject)
Oct. 18th, 2005 07:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
herveusThe appearance of design is aspects of biology is overwhelming. Intelligent design is based on observed, empirical, physical evidence from nature." - Michael J. Behe, professor of biochemistry, Lehigh University, testifying in support of the Dover, Pa. school board.
Right.
That still doesn't make it science. From scientific perspective, "intelligent design" is just a handwave to gloss over things that can't yet be explained. It's a way to avoid the hard/critical thinking. Where are the testable and falsifiable predictions?
Behe claims that the bacterial flagellum is "irreducably complex" -- that it could not have evolved because it needed all of its parts to work. OK. If that's true, then how did this "intelligent designer" come up with the idea? Where did that designer come from?
It's turtles all the way down, folks.
I guess Behe is too lazy to contemplate various evolutionary false starts and dead ends that don't exist anymore.
He also says "If Darwinian theory is so fruitless at explaining the very foundation of life...one can reasonably wonder if there is some other explanation." Maybe. On the other hand, one can at least as reasonably wonder at the marvel of it, thank <fitd(s)> for the inspiration, and continue to ponder and hypothesize and test instead of throwing up one's hands and giving up.
"God is who. Evolution is how." I don't see why this has to be a disjunctive OR, nor why faith must be taught in the science classroom. Don't play stupid word games with "theory" when you know damn well that the term as applied in science does not mean that there is particular doubt, but rather that the question has survived attempts to disprove it.
Yes, Toto, I'm afraid of Kansas.
Right.
That still doesn't make it science. From scientific perspective, "intelligent design" is just a handwave to gloss over things that can't yet be explained. It's a way to avoid the hard/critical thinking. Where are the testable and falsifiable predictions?
Behe claims that the bacterial flagellum is "irreducably complex" -- that it could not have evolved because it needed all of its parts to work. OK. If that's true, then how did this "intelligent designer" come up with the idea? Where did that designer come from?
It's turtles all the way down, folks.
I guess Behe is too lazy to contemplate various evolutionary false starts and dead ends that don't exist anymore.
He also says "If Darwinian theory is so fruitless at explaining the very foundation of life...one can reasonably wonder if there is some other explanation." Maybe. On the other hand, one can at least as reasonably wonder at the marvel of it, thank <fitd(s)> for the inspiration, and continue to ponder and hypothesize and test instead of throwing up one's hands and giving up.
"God is who. Evolution is how." I don't see why this has to be a disjunctive OR, nor why faith must be taught in the science classroom. Don't play stupid word games with "theory" when you know damn well that the term as applied in science does not mean that there is particular doubt, but rather that the question has survived attempts to disprove it.
Yes, Toto, I'm afraid of Kansas.
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no subject
Date: 2005-10-18 05:24 pm (UTC)I realize that 'Kansas' is afraid of the 'cultured' states (Go read Sinclair Lewis for why...) So there's no question in my mind why anyone would want to put a disclaimer in the coverage of Evolution. They did that in my biology class: "Some people think life is too complex to have developed purely randomly. Some people disagree. The theory doesn't say either way."
If that was all they meant by intelligent design, why would anyone have a problem with it? The theory of Evolution doesn't require purely random mutation, does it?
no subject
Date: 2005-10-18 05:42 pm (UTC)Intelligent design requires an external agent to cause or steer at least some of the development process. The nature of that agent is carefully left unspecified (at least overtly). However, it follows directly that said agent is not part of the biosystem. That then leads logically to the question of the origin of that agent, hence "It's turtles all the way down." Proponents do not proffer any meaningful explanation for how this hypothetical agent functions. They simply assert that there must be one.
If people wish to deal with the difficulty in understanding *how* evolution works/ed by invoking a supernatural explanation, that is their business. I don't suggest that they are somehow deficient for doing so. I simply maintain that such a belief is a matter of faith and not science, and they don't get to insist in inserting it into the science curriculum.
Having life arise without reliance on an external agent means you don't have to explain the origin and mechanisms of that external agent.