Of course, in the New Yorker, and of course, well thought out and interesting. And of course, longer than what most people can read in an average dump.
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/050530fa_fact
Great article.
And this is a great quote from Behe:
“I quite agree that my argument against Darwinism does not add up to a logical proof,”
So Behe admits defeat before the battle even begins and Demsbki offers nothing but logical circles and highly convoluted analogies. And he now admits defeat:
Now he says, “I certainly never argued that the N.F.L. theorems provide a direct refutation of Darwinism.”
This is why I call Intelligent Design “strategic retreat”. That’s all it is and this article shows it very well (all while trying to be very very nice to IDers, of course).
And whenever you have a retreat, you have confusion and dissent in the ranks. Not only does the ID movement not have any real logic behind it, they don’t even have a clear message:
Those of us who have argued with I.D. in the past are used to such shifts of emphasis. But it’s striking that Dembski’s views on the history of life contradict Behe’s. Dembski believes that Darwinism is incapable of building anything interesting; Behe seems to believe that, given a cell, Darwinism might well have built you and me. Although proponents of I.D. routinely inflate the significance of minor squabbles among evolutionary biologists (did the peppered moth evolve dark color as a defense against birds or for other reasons?), they seldom acknowledge their own, often major differences of opinion. In the end, it’s hard to view intelligent design as a coherent movement in any but a political sense.
It’s also hard to view it as a real research program. Though people often picture science as a collection of clever theories, scientists are generally staunch pragmatists: to scientists, a good theory is one that inspires new experiments and provides unexpected insights into familiar phenomena. By this standard, Darwinism is one of the best theories in the history of science: it has produced countless important experiments (let’s re-create a natural species in the lab—yes, that’s been done) and sudden insight into once puzzling patterns (that’s why there are no native land mammals on oceanic islands). In the nearly ten years since the publication of Behe’s book, by contrast, I.D. has inspired no nontrivial experiments and has provided no surprising insights into biology. As the years pass, intelligent design looks less and less like the science it claimed to be and more and more like an extended exercise in polemics.
Of course, in the New Yorker, and of course, well thought out and interesting. And of course, longer than what most people can read in an average dump.
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/050530fa_fact
You think that Rick Santorum even gave ID that much thought? Assuming, of course, that he can think.
I was reading some interesting points in the book Tower of Babel (very interesting book BTW) about how ID is smart enough to not try to inject ID ides into evolution of language theory, Earth Science, Astropnomy, atomic theory, etc … by stays strictly and vaguely in the area where it knows it will maintain a small chance of survival … evolution.
Many of the IDers are fundamentalists whose suggestions-beliefs do not just pertain to evolution, but virtually every field of science. That idea rarely, if ever, gets brought up, and IDers do an excellent job of keeping it that way.
For those interested, ToB, also does an excelelent job of altering Behe’s analogies to accurately describe the situation. Very intersting. Behe is a tremendous writer, but writes with a slanted, somewhat misleading view.
I keep reading that ID is a “valid scientific theory” … yet I have not seen the theory laid out or a potential test that could falsify it … both of which are required to be a “valid scientific theory”.
From the article … The intelligent-design community is usually far more circumspect in its pronouncements. This is not to say that it eschews discussion of religion; indeed, the intelligent-design literature regularly insists that Darwinism represents a thinly veiled attempt to foist a secular religion—godless materialism—on Western culture. As it happens, the idea that Darwinism is yoked to atheism, though popular, is also wrong. … and there it is. It’s not about sicence,it’s about percieved materialism v. religion and the “purpose of life”.
I actually do think Santorum can think and isn’t a dumb guy. However, I think he doesn’t often question what he believes, and is dogmatic to the point of drawing his moral compass from somewhere other than himself.
But yeah, I don’t think he has given ID a ton of thought, and even if he were to read this article and its brilliant refutations of it, he would dismiss it as clever sophistry. And that is why he shouldn’t be a senator, and why ID is such a bizarre movement - a movement that deliberately avoids mentioning the elephant in the living room (God), and tries to pseudo-scientifically carve a place for itself. It’s like trying to watch a small child lie convincingly, when both of you know he’s lying, but he still goes through with the exercise, either because of naivete or because he actually believes he can find a logical loophole.
I haven’t read the book, but I agree with your point. ID seems to be very careful in where it injects this “creator” theory - it tries to postulate something in an area of continuing inquiry that relies somewhat on a complete collection of physical evidence, and then suggests that its postulate must be true because the contrary idea isn’t completely proven.
It’s a strange way to try and prove something - by saying “it’s not entirely conceivable you’re right, so therefore we must be,” - it’s an argument almost entirely posited on the negative of another well-researched theory.
But yeah, I find the semantic exercise ID goes through to avoid God to be so disingenuous that you wonder how hard they are trying to hide their agenda.
Intelligent Design = Gods of Gaps Theory.
If we do not currently have a naturalistic explanantion for it, then God/Creator is the only acceptable explanantion. In many cases, there is a naturalisticly possible explanantion … only those in opposition do not accept it (flagellum, bombadier beetles, blood clotting mechanisms, etc).
Where does/can ID stop? Today as I was stopped I look through the sunroof and saw the wonderful clouds … surely these beautiful features are the result of intelligent design. And a sunset, are you kidding me? HAS to be intelligent design.
There are things that we do not have thoroughly supported explanantions for. I STRONGLY advbise against the ID or GoG epxlanantion … why? Because someday we will have an explanantion, and the explanantion could be interpreted “God is unnecessary”.
The ID case is intentionally vague (and untestable). Legitimately, it is not a scientific theory, so it is not included in the science classroom. That’s where the ‘controversy’ should end.
I’m going to have to (unfortunately) look at the Discovery Institute to see if they have a formal rebuttal to this article. I doubt they will, and even if they do I suspect it will be logically flawed, at best. But we shall see.
On one level, I can see why people like this might lash out at evolution - their faith has over the centuries become more and more marginalized as science explains more and more, making it look like secular humanism is getting the upper hand. So they try and fight back against science and to some extent, knowledge and logic. As if believing can make something true.
I guess it eventually becomes an argument about faith versus reality, and all that implies.