I saw a program on CBC last weekend on ID and the Dover court case.
It was the first time I came across the flagellum and the concept of irreducible complexity which appears central to ID proponents.
This little sucker, the flagellum is a tiny little motor with a significant rpm. Apparently there are about 50 components required to run this motor. Now to a layman like me who hasn’t taken a science class in thirty years that is pretty damn incredible. I used to think complex organs like the eye could challenge evolution but I got past that.
Now if the concept of irreducible complexity is not worthy for scientific falsification where do I go to learn how this machine doesn’t require an intelligent designer?
You might think irreducible complexity is not worthy of being challenged in the science classroom, but given there are probably millions of others and their children who will be hung up by this concept, don’t you think it needs to be addressed by science?
For what it’s worth, Richard Dawkins acknowledges that a true case of irreducible complexity would be a serious blow to evolution. Happily, he notes, none has been found.
The problem with ID is not actually the possibility that an irreducibly complex entity might be the work of intelligence, it’s that saying “we don’t know how it happened, so let’s just make something up.” is not better than just saying “we don’t know how it happened.” - it’s the old false dichotomy thing - the alternatives are never just:
-We can explain it
or
-God did it
Uh, can you start by teaching us…what the heck is “ID”? (Intervention Divine, I wager?) Also, please define irreducible complexity (IC?). Does the latter mean something is too complex to have formed by any other means?
Personally, I think the presence of a superior being is self-evident. Look at what great lengths man must go to in order to build an artificial limb…not to mention the technology it takes in civil engineering to dig a 15-ft hole that won’t collapse in on itself (when dug in wet soil) prior to pouring a [pole] foundation. Even the simplest of projects is a major undertaking. Yet, science class conveniently skips all of those finer details. In short, we should remember that Rome wasn’t built in a day, but the earth was!
Exactly. And taking that perspective is completely non-scientific. “Irreducible Complexity” is a way to just throw up your hands and say “we don’t understand this, so it must be magical”. Behe has been proven wrong over and over again about his claims of what is “irreducibly complex”, and even if we couldn’t prove any particular claim wrong that just means we don’t know the answer yet. It doesn’t mean that the answer must be “God did it”.
I think ID should be taught in schools. Also Creation “Science”.
In philosophy class.
Seriously, I’m not against either being mentioned, even studied, in science class, but under the topic of “How science is done and why it works – an historical perspective.” ID should be grouped with dozens of other failed attempts at accumulating knowledge, like Lamarckism and the myths of South Sea Cargo Cults.
This should take all of a day at the High School level. Then we can get back to real science.
I think the “controversy” uproar about ID/Evolution would make a fascinating subject for psychology class. What makes people so adamant about some beliefs and so blase about others? (Imagine if a bunch of cooks said that home economics class was making chicken soup all wrong and insisted that pork be used as a base instead, taking it all the way to a federal court?)
Actually, an ID chef would claim that although chicken soup can be made from a simple recipe, and also that the recipe that can be varied by changing the ingredients, the Fundamental problem is the chicken stock.
Since chicken stock comes in a can, it’s impossible for it to spring into existence without the intervention of the Great Canner in the Sky.
I consider ID more of an *argumentum ad ignorantiam*. Nonetheless, the underlying argument is clearly a fallacy.
ID does not belong in a science class because the essential principle behind it is unfalsifiable. It asserts supernatural intervention, but ultimately denies that one can observe this process in action, or determine it as a unique causation for the result. And yet, propoents of Intelligent Design don’t make a positive, testable or predictive claim about such intervention; they merely assert that the resulting “design” is too complex to have come about by natural processes (although most will admit that adaptation occurs, but try to distiniguish this process from natural selection). This is a specious argument, and introducing it into science class would be like talking about the “gravitational aether” to explain the attraction between massy objects rather than admitting that we don’t understand the underlying mechanism of gravity. (Relativists will argue the latter point, of course, but will quiet down a bit when you start inquiring as to what spacetime actually looks like and how one goes about observing it.)
If you want to bring ID into science class it needs to be included in a unit of quacktastical, unsubstantiated, ascientific theories that include ghost hunting, astrology, flat earth theory, and vitalism. You might as well have a discussion on why Hawaii and Norway are not near each other.
To my thinking – and the program on Dover confirms this – ID (Intelligent Design “theory”) and Creationism are essentially the same. I don’t think they rate a philosophy class – usually taught in college anyway. Public schools, at least, need to stay away from this topic altogether.
What makes something a scientific theory needs to be stressed more. The reason that Evolution is a Theory that is regarded with the status of almost a fact needs to be explained more carefully. (Gravity is also such a Theory. So is Relativity.)
Personally, I do believe in a Creator. I also believe in evolution. The two do not clash for me. As a child I figured that some day I would understand. When I was eighteen, it was a young minister that helped me to grasp both. I had a chance to thank him a year ago – forty-six years later.
If it is self-evident to you, then that is indeed personal – as it is for me. It is not a matter of science. It doesn’t fit the criteria.
No, it was science (the technology and the civil engineering you mentioned) that has allowed human beings) to develop the means for developing artificial limbs and digging those 15ft. holes. It was science class that taught the inventors and taught the engineers the finer details upon which to build.
Science even describes the workings of the brain as it creates.
But that’s where I leave the science classroom behind and celebrate the mystery of continuing creation. The ideas and genius continue to abound. I believe that is the Divine spark in each of us.
If you are a literalist, which Biblical version of creation do you believe, BTW?
drewbert, you are correct. I believe that was a NOVA. They illustrated how simplier versions of the “machine” have uses. The program was very educating for me. I hadn’t realized the importance of irreducible complexity.
I was glad that this school system was not from the South or Midwest. I live in the South and we get tired of our schools reflecting the only fundamentalists. Unfortunately, the problems continue.
I did notice how the anti-ID supporters were the ones threatened with violence and the pro-ID supporters were the ones who spoke with the most anger and spitefulness. I will never understand Christians like that.
Just to be clear, a theory is never “almost a fact”. A fact is nothing, relatively speaking. A fact is: The first word in my post is “Just”. Or: I am a male. A theory is something that explains a whole series of factual observations. It starts out as a hypothesis, and once it is tested and has proven that it has predictive value, it will be regarded as a “theory”. There is nothing higher than a “theory” unless you are looking for truth (which is outside the realm of science).
Actually, I think that a day addressing Intelligent Design should be included in biology courses. First spend 25 minutes noting that Michael Behe caused a great stir in the public by publishing a book, Darwin’s Black Box, without peer review, pushing his claims for Irreducible Complexity, then pointing out that nearly every claim he made in his book has been refuted with further investigation or was deliberately false. (He made a claim that no one was actually examining his claims for amino acids while even a simple Google search turned up multiple papers that had been published on the topic in the years before he wrote the book.) Then spend another 25 minutes pointing out the ways that William Dembski has misapplied statistics (even when he did not get the math wrong) to support a claim that has no basis in science or logic. If the class runs more than 50 minutes, it can be used to note that Phillip Johnson’s pseudo-philosophical claims about Intelligent Design are an attempt to argue the case by ignoring facts and putting forth straw man attacks on scientists.
If every high school student was exposed to that day’s class, it would go a long way toward taking ID away from ignorant school boards who wish to impose Creationism on science classes.
The universe is estimated to be 13.7 billion years old. That’s one hell of a day.