Intelligent Design Defeated by a Church Going Republican
U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III ruled the teaching of Intelligent Design in a public school science classroom unconstitutional. He called ID creationism in disguise and accused the former Dover school board of lying repetively in order to cover up that fact. Oddly enough, Jones is a church going man and a Republican.
Christian parents must be on the alert. It is clear that the state educational status quo will not be showing your children the whole story. Much of what they teach will be true, but it will not be linked to the source of truth - Jesus Christ and His sovereign reign over humanity and history.
That means schools will by and large be teaching your kids how to make a buck. I suggest either placing them in a Christian school, homeschooling them, or if state schools are your only choice (usually they are not), then be sure you are talking and sharing very often with your children about how God uses intelligence for His glory. Getting smart is not just a way to make a living.
Show them how math and reading are good - in conjuction with the divine purpose for which God made us, to magnify His name. Show them how history is good but that it must not be divorced from the overall redemptive history God is unfolding and that is spelled out clearly in His Word.
The decision today is a defeat to those kids who are stuck in public schools and made to believe the myth of evolution, as if it is fact - with no other options at all as to the origins of life. And this even though many scientists show that evolution as a theory is faltering if not falling apart. But this is no defeat to the Kingdom of God, who through His Son Jesus Christ is working all things according to His own timing.
The decision also shows just how blind people are to common sense statements. Jones maintains that ID is non-scientific because it allows for possible supernatural causation. It is clear that holding to that position actual kills true science for it excludes one possible cause of phenomena at the outset, before any experimentation is done. At the very least, a true scientist will be open to the possibility of supernatural causes, and if there are supernatural causes, one would expect to see the evidence for it. But Naturalistic scientists are so stuck in their presuppositions of natural-only causation, that they force themselves to be closed-minded and intolerant of other possibilities. They should no longer be allowed to be called scientists true science by definition wants to know the truth of a matter whatever it may be - even if it is supernatural.
Jones, open your eyes.
Christian parents must be on the alert. It is clear that the state educational status quo will not be showing your children the whole story. Much of what they teach will be true, but it will not be linked to the source of truth - Jesus Christ and His sovereign reign over humanity and history.
That means schools will by and large be teaching your kids how to make a buck. I suggest either placing them in a Christian school, homeschooling them, or if state schools are your only choice (usually they are not), then be sure you are talking and sharing very often with your children about how God uses intelligence for His glory. Getting smart is not just a way to make a living.
Show them how math and reading are good - in conjuction with the divine purpose for which God made us, to magnify His name. Show them how history is good but that it must not be divorced from the overall redemptive history God is unfolding and that is spelled out clearly in His Word.
The decision today is a defeat to those kids who are stuck in public schools and made to believe the myth of evolution, as if it is fact - with no other options at all as to the origins of life. And this even though many scientists show that evolution as a theory is faltering if not falling apart. But this is no defeat to the Kingdom of God, who through His Son Jesus Christ is working all things according to His own timing.
The decision also shows just how blind people are to common sense statements. Jones maintains that ID is non-scientific because it allows for possible supernatural causation. It is clear that holding to that position actual kills true science for it excludes one possible cause of phenomena at the outset, before any experimentation is done. At the very least, a true scientist will be open to the possibility of supernatural causes, and if there are supernatural causes, one would expect to see the evidence for it. But Naturalistic scientists are so stuck in their presuppositions of natural-only causation, that they force themselves to be closed-minded and intolerant of other possibilities. They should no longer be allowed to be called scientists true science by definition wants to know the truth of a matter whatever it may be - even if it is supernatural.
Jones, open your eyes.
posted by Jason Dollar | 4:20 PM
22 Comments:
The ruling in Dover, Pennsylvania is one of the most revealing of all judgements against overt religious dogma. It shows how even a Republican Christian can still rule fairly and evenly without bias - a foundation of the law itself in all democratic countries.
ID is a lie, a distortion of facts. Elsewhere on this site and other are blogs which clearly and specifically provide the knowledge available to understand where all life comes from, via the synthesis of elements in the nuclear hearts of stars. This knowledge has been available since the 1950's. It is quite solid and dependable, and requires no gods to support it.
Evolution is understood and accepted as proven fact in almost every country on earth, and half of the United States has no problem with it either. Only the fundamentalist cannot deal with alternatives to their biblical myths.
Mr Dollar, you have signally failed to refute any of the comments I have made regarding biblical fallacy, non existent biblical characters, the origin of the elements of life or anything else here. Your arguments, and your most recent blog-post, are made from ignorance and nothing more. Those who blindly accept your views will achieve little in life, for they will remain in ignorance of even the simplest understanding of the world and the cosmos of which we are all a part.
Perhaps you should begin to embrace common-sense, something you clearly refuse to do, and begin *learning* that there are options other than your Bible for understanding our place within existence.
DC
“The ruling in Dover, Pennsylvania is one of the most revealing of all judgements (sic) against overt religious dogma. It shows how even a Republican Christian can still rule fairly and evenly without bias - a foundation of the law itself in all democratic countries.”
1) I.D. is not religious dogma. It has no doctrinal content. It is not connected to any religion or any denomination. It is nothing but science that allows the possibility of the supernatural and examines data with rigor. You are building a straw man here that cannot be sustained. You have a good talking point, but it holds no water.
2) The Dover ruling is a clear case of injustice because it maintains that there is only 1 correct way to do science (namely, the closed-minded Naturalistic model) simply because those who control scientific organizations say so.
3) This Republican Christian may think that he ruled fairly and without bias, but this is not the case. This ruling is an act of injustice in a country where justice and fairness for all parties is demanded. If one brand of scientific understanding is available for students in the classroom, then other brands must be allowed as well. Regardless of whether one of the groups contends that the other is not true science.
”ID is a lie, a distortion of facts. Elsewhere on this site and other are blogs which clearly and specifically provide the knowledge available to understand where all life comes from, via the synthesis of elements in the nuclear hearts of stars. This knowledge has been available since the 1950's. It is quite solid and dependable, and requires no gods to support it.”
1) No, evolution is lie and a distortion of facts.
2) There are plenty of blogs for both sides – your point proves nothing.
3) This “knowledge” you refer to requires more faith to believe than my theistic believes! I, for one, have never been to a star and certainly not the nuclear hearts of stars. These theories are based on much speculation and should not be considered justifiable belief.
”Evolution is understood and accepted as proven fact in almost every country on earth, and half of the United States has no problem with it either. Only the fundamentalist cannot deal with alternatives to their biblical myths.”
1) Just because a certain number of people believe something does not make it true. Millions of people in Germany, for example, thought Hitler was right on track with his wild views. They were all wrong.
2) “Only the fundamentalist.” This is just not true. Much scientific research has been done (by many who would not at all be called fundamentalists) that shows the complete fallacy of the Naturalistic model.
"Mr Dollar, you have signally failed to refute any of the comments I have made regarding biblical fallacy, non existent biblical characters, the origin of the elements of life or anything else here. Your arguments, and your most recent blog-post, are made from ignorance and nothing more. Those who blindly accept your views will achieve little in life, for they will remain in ignorance of even the simplest understanding of the world and the cosmos of which we are all a part.”
1) All of your arguments are refuted in detail on the Apologetics Resource Center website and on other Apologetic sights across the web. The problem is that you refuse to accept the answers given.
2) “Those who blindly accept your views will achieve little in life.” I am still laughing at this comment considering the thousands of conservative Christians who have accomplished so much in so many realms in human life. Even in your sacred England, we have the legacy of people like William Wilberforce who almost single-handedly abolished the slave trade. By his own admission (in a book called Real Christianity) his resolve was based upon his deep convictions concerning the truth of Scripture. This argument, DC, is perhaps your most ridiculous to date.
”Perhaps you should begin to embrace common-sense, something you clearly refuse to do, and begin *learning* that there are options other than your Bible for understanding our place within existence.”
I know that other options exist, but they make little sense of reality. Naturalism, for example, means that my cognitive faculties themselves may be malfunctions (sense nothing in evolution demands that they evolve correctly). Thus if your worldview is correct you have no basis to believe anything you believe. Yet you make statements as if you believe them. Biblical Christianity on the other hand gives us reasons to believe what we know intrinsically is true: the basic value of human life, the trusting of cognitive faculties, and so on. Not to mention the relief from guilt through Christ that He provides guilty sinners based upon His sacrifice on the cross.
Mr Dollar,
Once again your flagrant inablility to entertain any of the current achievements of science makes itself known in arguments based solely on ignorance. Once again, you claim that the knowledge of measuring light from distant objects in order to asscretain their nature is impossible and requires 'divine faith'. Either you genuinely have never heard of spectroscopy, or you're just afraid of its implications.
Did you ever actually go to school? Don't you remember the nice teacher with the glass prism who showed how light entering the prism split into a spectrum? Didn't they explain how that spectrum, when examined, reveals in its bandwidths / colours the materials from which the original light was made? We here in the UK are taught such things as eight year olds - if you've never been taught this, it says more about US education system that anything else, because these discoveries ultimately gave us the Periodic Table - the famous list of all the naturally ocurring elements.
Measure the light from a star, in this way, and you'll find what it's made of. Our sun is hydrogen and helium, but it manufactures sodium, nitrogen, oxygen and carbon too. Bigger stars are sufficiently powerful to manufacture everything from helium to iron, as well as gold / silver etc. These elements are what create planets, oceans and people -LIFE.
Please stop ignoring such well established knowledge and start accepting that spectroscopy is FACT. Don't take MY word for it - go take a look for yourself. Presumably, if you cannot achieve this, you must likewise assume that the checkout girl at your local KwikMart also has 'divine qualities', as she scans a simple bar-code with a laser and identifies what she's scanning...
You said; "Just because a certain number of people believe something does not make it true."
I agree, and the same principals appply to the bible. In contrast, history and science provide ample information to support their studies, proven theories, years of producing technologies or artifacts as a result of their work. ID is NOT a scientific theory, and no matter how many times you write so, it won't change. It's a hypothesis, an untested (and indeed untestable idea ) and thus not science. A true scientific hypothesis can be proven one way or the other - ID cannot. It's faith. It's belief. It's dogma.
You're right that William Wilberforce was instrumental in the abolishment of the slave trade. Yet you ignore that he was virtually alone among Christians in doing so - the church vociferously opposed emancipation. Likwise, you mention Hitler yet fail to include the fact that he was an affirmed man of God, a theist like yourself. Belief over substance. Dogma. That's why many initially supported him, and indeed he would never have gotten where he was without the Concordats of the Vatican.
You say that you know other options exist to your views, and yet blatantly reveal how you understand nothing of those options - and won't entertain them at all. That's dogma. The existence of knowledge obtained by science is harmless to understand - it doesn't take away anything from your faith. I know our views are polar opposites, but at least take a look somewhere on the web or something at how these sciences work. They're vital to our lives, and important to understand.
You might find another sense of 'enlightenment' by doing so, and even if not, it's still fascinating stuff.
DC
To all who are reading this,
A couple of links, to perhaps help you on your way - these are from the BBC, not specialist sites, in case you should accuse me of bias;
For the origins of every atom in your body;
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/space/stars/index.shtml
and for spectroscopy;
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/inourtime_comments_planets.shtml
Please take the time to look - you'll see that I'm not making up anything I've written here, contrary to Mr Dollar's claims.
DC
anonymous wrote...
Once again your flagrant inablility to entertain any of the current achievements of science makes itself known in arguments based solely on ignorance. Once again, you claim that the knowledge of measuring light from distant objects in order to asscretain their nature is impossible and requires 'divine faith'. Either you genuinely have never heard of spectroscopy, or you're just afraid of its implications.
Been away from this discussion for while, but glad to get back to it. I'm sure that Jason can defend himself, but I'll add my two cents. DC has been arguing that spectroscopy, because it reveals the material and chemical constitution of stars, somehow shows us where and how life came into being. Jason has challenged this, and DC responds by accusing him ob being ignorant of spectroscopy. I cannot speak to Jason's knowledge of spectrocopy, but I will echo his challenge to DC. How in the world can spectroscopy even begin to tell us where life comes from? DC is guilty of one of the grossest non-sequitors I have encountered in my life. Teh question he keeps begging is that life can be entirely explained in physical/materialistic terms.
I will grant you, for the sake of argument, anything and everything you want to claim about the empirical science of spectroscopy. What I want to know is how it follows from spectroscopic analysis that life (esp. intelligent animal life) has or even could arise from matter? As a philosopher and someone who has done some study in the philosophy of science (do that teach that in the UK?) I know for a fact that there is absolutely no theory on the books providing an explanation for how life arises from non-life. There is also no theory that is generally accepted even among naturalistic materialist that can explain the origin or nature of consciousness in physicalist terms. So, I'm laying down the gauntlet DC--give us some account (don't just assert it) for how life and consciousness have arisen from the material elements of the stars. (BTW, I won't be holding my breath.)
anonymous said...
ID is NOT a scientific theory, and no matter how many times you write so, it won't change. It's a hypothesis, an untested (and indeed untestable idea ) and thus not science. A true scientific hypothesis can be proven one way or the other - ID cannot. It's faith. It's belief. It's dogma.
You are mistaken on both counts, DC. ID is testable, and it is being tested by those who work with the theory. ID, for example, makes the following testable prediction: If a biological organism X is intelligently designed, then X will exhibit specified complexity.
This statement can be easily tested. If you challenge this on the grounds that specified complexity is not an indictation of ID you should first of all take note that this challenge doesn't prove ID untestable, it just challenges one possible test. Second, if you reject specified complexity as an indication of intelligent design, then you must be willing to say that archaeology and the SETI program are not science, since they rely upon that criterion as surely as ID theory does.
Also, if you insist that a scientific theory must be testable, then you will wind up having to reject other theories that are clearly scientific. It is a fact, for example, that there are scientific theories that are empirically equivalent in principle. That is, any and all empirical data are equally consistent with both theories, so that no imaginable test can adjudicate them. For example, Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity and J.L. Mackie's absolutism are empirically equivalent. Yet, I know of no one who claims that either of these theories is unscientific. Moreover, for the record, Darwinian evolution is untestable, so I guess you'll have to become a creationist!
You guys... You really leave yourselves wide open for it, don't you.
OK, I'll do this as simply as I can. It's a short version (today is my last day at work until after the holidays, and I don't have a connection at home at the mo').
Measurements have all shown that the only naturally occuring elements in the early universe were hydrogen (85%) and helium (the rest). So where did the elemtents that make up our planet, our bodies, our atmosphere etc come from?
This vexed science for decades. It also fuelled theist's claims; "You see, you can't tell where we came from, so God must have done it!" Sound familiar..?
It was Einstein, and Relativity, that showed how the elements are made in the hearts of stars, and likewise how stars can live for so long. Inside these huge hydrogen spheres, at immmense pressures and temperatures, hydrogen is fused to make helium, helium to make carbon, carbon to make oxygen - all the way to iron. Spectroscopy can identify these processes ongoing in stars, because these elements show up in the star's spectra.
When the stars die, they typically go off with one hell of a bang! This is called a supernova. The entire star releases itself into the cosmos along with enough energy in a split second to exceed that produced by our own sun in its entire 10 billion year life span. A huge, expanding cloud of debris, laced with everything from helium through carbons, nitrogen, formaldahyde (a building block of life) right down to silver, gold, zinc and so on, remains.
Gravity, ultra-violet radiation and so on affect these clouds, causing them to condense, and newer, smaller stars (like our sun) form, with planets around them, already laced with the naturally occuring elements of life. I know this will sound almost comical, but it's geniunely a "just add water" situation - water simply acts to hold these elements in solution and allow them to interact.
Our sun will, when it dies, provide enough nitrogen for a million earth sized planet's atmospheres, and our sun is small, comparitively speaking. Put a super-giant star like Rigel where our sun is now, and we'd be inside it!
When planets like earth are young, they have much thinner atmospheres, and huge amounts of the organic debris orbiting the young star fall onto the surface of these proto-planets. As atmospheres form, and things such as lightning take their effect, stimulating these basic compounds, amino-acids appear (this process has been successfully replicated in laboratories world-wide). These acids are one step away from life itself.
The above is a VERY brief picture of the processes known to kick-start life in the universe. They are well documented, and indeed observable in motion (Orion Nebula, Vega star system etc). Spectroscopy of supernova clouds reveals every naturally occuring element within their veils - these same elements are visible in condensing star formations and proto-planetary discs. Light from these places tells us everything we need to know about what they consist of and what's happening to them.
You said; "DC is guilty of one of the grossest non-sequitors I have encountered in my life."
Why? You obviously did not know of this process. It's been a part of science for over 50 years! It does nothing to attack faith, but it sure goes to show that life doesn't need a super-natural explanation. We are stardust, Dr Cowan, nothing more. So is our planet, and all those in our solar-system.
Sciences like SETI are now looking for signals of life in much older star-systems, because they know that younger stars would not have built up enough of the heavy metals (elements) in their forming clouds to provide the necessary elements for life.
All of the above is OBSERVABLE fact - go looking for it if you don't believe me. There's ample information on the internet and in books to support this knowledge.
I suspect that no matter what I write here, and no matter how much our understanding of oour universe advances, you will simply reject it as 'requiring divine knowledge'. Theists hate anything that takes away the supposed reality of their respective gods.
In truth, nobody on earth, either now or in history, has known anything about gods, including whether they exist or not. Learning has simply pushed them into a realm of fantasy. They are now more likely to be false idols than they have ever been.
DC
Aaand another thing! :o)
You said; "ID, for example, makes the following testable prediction: If a biological organism X is intelligently designed, then X will exhibit specified complexity."
This is not a scientific prediction, because it is based upon an assumption, that being 'if biological organism X is intelligently designed'.
You're not grasping the scientific method at all Dr Cowan. Science doesn't make an assumption and then try to prove it, like ID does. It asks a QUESTION, and then searches for the answer,thus;
'This biological organism is extremely complex - let's see if we can't understand how it works, and thus how it might have come to exist as it does.'
If it turns out to be God's work, fair enough. However, it never yet has. A mechanism always exists.
Darwin's Theory of Evolution has been tested repeatedly at both the physical and genetic level. Darwin predicted the existence of a 'molecular engine' that would drive change in species. He went to his grave knowing nothing of DNA, but his prediction led to its discovery. Now that IS science.
You said; "So, I'm laying down the gauntlet DC--give us some account (don't just assert it) for how life and consciousness have arisen from the material elements of the stars. (BTW, I won't be holding my breath.)"
Now here's the tricky bit. The 'life from the stars' is in the post above. Consciousness is something else entirely. However, there is a hypothesis about how it could come about. Here goes;
Science aways searches for a single cause of an event (the first living organism, for instance). But usually, there are multiple causes, which makes things more complex to locate or discover. The hypothesis goes that there never was a single first "alive" organism, but many millions of individual simple organisms that combined to form a 'super-colony', rather like ants and termites do. They're not particularly intelligent or capable alone, but in their colonies they can literally (from their perspective) move mountains.
It's worth noting that individual cells can replicate alone, doubling their number expotentially. They have no intelligence, per se, but a massed common goal of replication. Eventually, a brain in this way forms (along with a body, limbs, eyes etc).
Life, or rather what was termed 'synthetic life', was created in a laboratory a couple of years ago, much to theist's disgust. But it proved that the mechanism for "life from nothing" does indeed exist, if understood and replicated correctly.
I like this hypothesis because human consciousness, for instance, does not really appear until around 18 months old, the time of most people's first memories. It is also at this point that the human brain fuses together, becoming whole and connecting neuron tracts.
Life ( and consciousness ), quite possibly, are the result of mass-gatherings of individally irrelevent, but populatively capable organisms (like the neruons in our brain, or termites in a hill).
This is speculation, I admit, but it' something I've always felt worth studying and pursuing. It's not a theory yet, it's a hypothesis, but I reckon it could yield valubale insights into what it means to be intelligent and conscious.
This is my last post before Christmas. Regardless of beliefs, facts or anything else, have a good Christmas.
DC
DC said in response to Dr. Cowan:
You said; "ID, for example, makes the following testable prediction: If a biological organism X is intelligently designed, then X will exhibit specified complexity."
This is not a scientific prediction, because it is based upon an assumption, that being 'if biological organism X is intelligently designed'.
But it works the same using methodological naturalism. That is to say, an assumption is made that X cannot be intelligently designed. Dr. Cowan is not assuming that it is, but assuming the possibility that it could be - thus the word "if". This is were naturalists exhibit an incredible closed-mindedness. They exclude that possibility at all.
I have to be honest...
I just read this thread, and my faith has been shaken. Well, maybe not so much my faith, but, at least my trust in concepts like ID. It just never occured to me: ID isn't really testable. At all! I mean, how would you test it? You'd have to ask God for a beaker! (I was just defending it to some of my more liberal family members the other day :) )
I can hardly believe I was so dogmatically opposed to evolution just because the church wanted me to be for ID! DC, I would thank you, but honestly I am a little unnerved right now.
Jason,
You're just not getting it yet, are you? By creating an experiment, you have to have a method and a conclusion. ID cannot achieve that - putting "if" before the question and claiming that makes it scientifically valid is, frankly, pointless. It's just not science. How will you prove that your biological entity is intelligently designed?
The problem ID has is that it is a circular logic. Human brains are complex, so must have had an Intelligent Designer; but if so, and the designer is intelligent, then who created the Designer? Ad infinitum... If you answer that "God did it", and god is infinite, then why not infinite universes or infinite evolution? It's not science, and that's why it is rejected - it's untestable.
To the blogger "istillbelieve"; don't be unnerved. It's a lonely feeling to realise that we are nothing but a by-product of the existence of stars, that we are so completely insignificant compared to the vastness of our universe. Or is it? If life exists here, for us, then it exists everywhere, because stars are everywhere. We are not alone because the processes of life are everywhere around us in our universe. Your faith still holds. Why? Because even though we know where we came from, where all life came from, we don't know what happens AFTER life as we know it, or where we go to when we die. That's a matter of faith, or perhaps 'hope'. Keep it, because it's human.
If you're interested in what I've posted above, tap the letters SN1987A into a search engine. The letters refer to a supernova that went off close to our galaxy in 1987 - you can learn more about what happens and how life originates there. Alternatively, try the book "Stardust" by John Gribbin - it covers everything in much more detail than I can here.
DC
anonymous said...
The above is a VERY brief picture of the processes known to kick-start life in the universe. They are well documented, and indeed observable in motion (Orion Nebula, Vega star system etc). Spectroscopy of supernova clouds reveals every naturally occuring element within their veils ...
You said; "DC is guilty of one of the grossest non-sequitors I have encountered in my life."
Why? You obviously did not know of this process. It's been a part of science for over 50 years! It does nothing to attack faith, but it sure goes to show that life doesn't need a super-natural explanation. We are stardust, Dr Cowan, nothing more. So is our planet, and all those in our solar-system...
All of the above is OBSERVABLE fact - go looking for it if you don't believe me. There's ample information on the internet and in books to support this knowledge.
DC,
You seem to assume that because I do not accept your conclusion, I must not understand (or am choosing to ignore) your premise. Nothing could be further from the truth. And it seems clear to me that you paid little attention to what I actually said in my previous post.
I understand and grant you everything you said about thr formation of stars and the production of hydrogen, helium, etc., etc. What I object to, first of all, is your astronomical leap from this empirical data to the conclusion that "We are stardust...nothing more." This does not follow logically at all. This is what I called a non-sequitor. All you have shown is that our physical bodies are stardust, something that no Christian has ever denied, and no ID advocate of which I am aware would ever deny.
What we claim is that our physical constitution does not exhaust who and what we are. In my last post I asked you to explain how life comes from non-life, but nothing you have said takes us one step closer to an answer to that question. I renew my challenge by making this assertion: to date, no scientist or philosopher has offered even the remotest hint of a naturalistic theory to explain how life arose from non-life (I will respond to your other post on this shortly).
What's more, this comment of yours is highly misleading: "As atmospheres form, and things such as lightning take their effect, stimulating these basic compounds, amino-acids appear (this process has been successfully replicated in laboratories world-wide). These acids are one step away from life itself."
The "step" you are talking about, though, requires the crossing of a great chasm, something no one has done yet. These amino acids are a necessary condition for biological life, to be sure, but they are far from sufficient. Moreover, even if these experiments succeeded in producing life from non-life, it would not prove naturalism, but ID! After all, intelligent humans are in the lab manipulating the chemicals!
Another problem faces your answer. Where did the original hydrogen and helium come from? What is the source of the first molecule, first atom? In fact, why is there something rather than nothing?
anonymous said...
You said; "ID, for example, makes the following testable prediction: If a biological organism X is intelligently designed, then X will exhibit specified complexity."
This is not a scientific prediction, because it is based upon an assumption, that being 'if biological organism X is intelligently designed'.
You're not grasping the scientific method at all Dr Cowan. Science doesn't make an assumption and then try to prove it, like ID does. It asks a QUESTION, and then searches for the answer,thus;
'This biological organism is extremely complex - let's see if we can't understand how it works, and thus how it might have come to exist as it does.'
You have an incredibly naive view of the scientific method. No scientist works the way you describe (at least this is far from the whole story), as almost every philosopher of science on the planet will tell you.
A more accurate (but still overly simple description) goes like this:
1. The scientist observes some phenomenon X and desires to explain why X occurs.
2. The scientist considers several competing hypotheses that purport to exlain X, and chooses one, call is H, which, given other background assumptions he has, seems most plausible.
3. The scientist then sets out to test H in various ways. One way (but not the only way) is to seek to falsify H by making a risky prediction such as: "If H is true, then Y will also be true (where Y is some other observable phenomenon that would be causally related to X, given the truth of H). For example, a scientist might say, "If evolution is true, then there will be millions of transitional forms in the fossil record" (this is something that Daw\rwin DID say, BTW).
4. The scientist then makes further observations to determine if the prediction comes to pass or not. If it does, then his theory gains a measure of confirmation, and he sets out to perform additional tests. If the prediction does not come to pass, then the scientist either (a) considers H to be falsified and looks for a different hypothesis, or (b) modifies H slightly to account for the failure of the prediction, and then tests the modified hypothesis.
So, the "if" statement in my earlier post is not really about making unwarratend assumptions as you say. Rather, it is simply part and parcel of the hypothesis testing that ALL scientist do every day. Scientists, in order to test an hypothesis, simply must assume that the hypothesis is true, for the sake of argument, and then see where it leads. Any book on the philosophy of science and the scientific method will echo what I have said here.
And, again, there is nothing in this methodology that rules out ID as scientific. If ID were true, then at least some biological organisms would exhibit specified complexity. And specified complexity is empirically observabee. Why isn't this a test?
Now here's the tricky bit. The 'life from the stars' is in the post above. Consciousness is something else entirely. However, there is a hypothesis about how it could come about. Here goes;
Science aways searches for a single cause of an event (the first living organism, for instance). But usually, there are multiple causes, which makes things more complex to locate or discover. The hypothesis goes that there never was a single first "alive" organism, but many millions of individual simple organisms that combined to form a 'super-colony', rather like ants and termites do. They're not particularly intelligent or capable alone, but in their colonies they can literally (from their perspective) move mountains.
It's worth noting that individual cells can replicate alone, doubling their number expotentially. They have no intelligence, per se, but a massed common goal of replication. Eventually, a brain in this way forms (along with a body, limbs, eyes etc).
I'm sorry, DC, but this doesn't even rise to the level of a hypothesis. It is simply, if I understand you correctly, a suggestion that when matter reaches a certain level of complexity, consciousness arises. But, this is not an explanation. It is merely a suggestion. How would you even go about testing this? Any experiment you conduct that fails, you could always say, "well, I guess the matter used in this experiment wasn't complex enough"--a prime example of an irrational, unfalsifiable theory!
Moreover, and this is most important, you must be able to give an account of what consciousness IS in physical terms, not just speculate about how it might arise from matter. To date, all physicalist theories that try to equate mind/consciousness with the brain or states of the brain have failed. It seems to even most naturalistic philosophers of mind that conciousness is an irreducible property--that is, it CANNOT be explaind in physical, materialistic terms. Mental states like beliefs, desires, memories, color images, sounds, etc., have properties that matter just doesn't have.
Also,I found your statement that individual cells have "a massed common goal of replication" quite humorous. The term "goal" is inherently teleological. Which means that only intelligent, conscious beings can have goals. So, if you are right, then you have just defended ID!
I like this hypothesis because human consciousness, for instance, does not really appear until around 18 months old, the time of most people's first memories. It is also at this point that the human brain fuses together, becoming whole and connecting neuron tracts.
You appear to be operating with a non-standard definition of consciousness. You seem to be equating it with the ability to remember. But, memory is only one of a host of mental (i.e, conscious) states. Others include the ability to feel pain, belief-states, color- and sound-states, desire-states, etc. --some of which are had by babies even in the womb, as well as non-human animals.
Dr Cowan,
Congratulations on an enormous list of arguments from dogma. I'm not sure where to start, but I will try to keep this brief;
A) What part of 'VERY BRIEF description' were you failing to understand? The processes of manufacturing elements in stars, and the subsequent emergence of life on earth, are indeed VERY well understood. They are VERY much more detailed than my own blog.
Your arguments against my comments are, once again, a theological 'God-of-the-gaps' argument. Typical ID approach; don't learn, just pick holes whilst simultaneously providing absolutely nothing of use to further the argument. Whoopee doo.
B) You said; "All you have shown is that our physical bodies are stardust, something that no Christian has ever denied, and no ID advocate of which I am aware would ever deny."
Utter, utter rubbish, and in fact tantamount to lies. Repeated surveys have shown that 50% of Americans believe that god created man in his current form. 35% believe that god had 'something' to do with it. Only 15% believe that we evolved naturally. Christians *hate* evolution, as a general rule, and very few people are aware of stellar-nucleosynthsis as the origin of elements, and thus, life. Including, clearly, Jason Dollar. I guess this is why the Dover case judge mentioned how ID advocates on the school-board lied to cover their highly vocal religious convictions whilst in court.
C) You said; "The "step" you are talking about, though, requires the crossing of a great chasm, something no one has done yet. These amino acids are a necessary condition for biological life, to be sure, but they are far from sufficient. Moreover, even if these experiments succeeded in producing life from non-life, it would not prove naturalism, but ID! After all, intelligent humans are in the lab manipulating the chemicals!"
Again, misleading comments and arguments from dogma. Yes, the step is a great one. In fact, the laboratory HAS indeed replicated (basic) compounds from formaldehyde whilst simulating early earth-like conditions, bolstering the general hypothesis. No, this is not ID, as there were no humans around when the original earth like conditions prevailed. It's simply 'replication'.
Hydrogen and helium were the primary elements created in the Big Bang. Their respective ratios remain to this day. Matter/anti-matter collisions and highly complex physical events in the early universe resulted in this ratio ( and this is much too long and complex to go into here - use books or the internet for confirmation ). It's known that this was the case, and my examples go from that moment on. What came before is another story entirely.
"You have an incredibly naive view of the scientific method..."
Er, not. Full stop. Neither yourself nor Jason Dollar (especially JD!) has shown anything approaching an understanding of science or its methods. You simply twist science to suit your own dogmatic agenda, or in the case of Mr Dollar, just wilfully ignore it when it suits you.
Finally, you spent a good few passages trying to disassemble my comments on possible causes of consciousness, after I'd quite openly and honestly stated that they were a 'hypothesis'. Many of your points are indeed quite correct and well observed, but - why bother? It was an *idea*. A possibility. Yes, babies in the womb react to stimuli. Are they conscious that they are doing so? Were you? These are questions that can't yet be answered, so I state again clearly that my comments were hypothetical possibilities.
I stick to FACTS. You simply dodge those facts, nit-pick gaps in theories that you haven't comprehended and then add a trademark theological "God did it" twist on top.
And that is why ID fails so comprehensively, and with it the warped sense of learning its followers use to advance their religious agenda.
DC
Dr Cowan,
By the way, in response to your transitional species argument, I left a reply elsewhere to your own commments - a link to an entire site dedicated to transitional specia.
Darwin did indeed claim that their would be millions of fossilised species to provide an evolutionary record. They're being dug up all across the world every day.
Or perhaps "God planted them there.." Not.
DC
DC -
Dr. Cowan and Jason have held this worldview for so long, it would be very hard for them to let it go. The WANT science to back it up for them. The WANT it so bad that they will twist it in their own minds until it looks how they want it to look.
Dr. Cowan -
Everytime DC makes a good point, not only do you call him wrong (without providing very good reason) but you do so in an condescending and arrogant manner. You bring shame to Christians like myself.
Is your faith so weak that you need scientific evidence to back it up?
istillbelieve -
Glad that I'm being heard and noticed by people other than fanatical ID fans on this site. I ended up blogging here almost by accident, and have felt as though I'm talking to myself.
Hope you're no longer unnerved by anything you've read here.
DC
istillbelieve said...
Everytime DC makes a good point, not only do you call him wrong (without providing very good reason) but you do so in an condescending and arrogant manner. You bring shame to Christians like myself.
It is not my intention to be condenscening or arrogant. If I have done so, I apologize. I have used some sarcasm in my responses, but far less than DC, for what that's worth. (Surely, you must have noticed DC's condescending tone--his name calling and ridiculing of Jason and me and other ID theorists?)
You accus me of offering no good reasons for calling DC wrong. Well, all I can say is that I have certainly tried to give some reasons, and good ones to boot. Can you give me a concrete example of when I have responded without offering an argument or reason? I would truly appreciate the opportunity to correct that oversight if it's true.
anonymous said...
B) You said; "All you have shown is that our physical bodies are stardust, something that no Christian has ever denied, and no ID advocate of which I am aware would ever deny." Utter, utter rubbish, and in fact tantamount to lies. Repeated surveys have shown that 50% of Americans believe that god created man in his current form. 35% believe that god had 'something' to do with it. Only 15% believe that we evolved naturally.
Okay, you have honestly caught me in an imprecision, though not intentional. What I meant was that all Christians do believe that our physical bodies are just that, physical, and that they are literally created from "dust" (see Genesis 2:7). Many Christians who are ID advocates (like myself), however, would have no problem with even claiming that the "dust" was stardust. They believe in the Big Bang and an old universe. And if, as you say, all the elements that we are made of find their orgin in star formation, then I am happy to grant that our bodies are made of stardust. But, (and this is the main point I was trying to make) you cannot go on to simply claim, without argument, that human beings are merely stardust. Showing that our bodies are stardust implies that humans are SIMPLY stardust only if you can give a physicalist account of mind/consciousness. And this is something that you CANNOT do--I know this because I have some significant familiarlity with the latest research in the philosophy of mind, and happen to know that there is no widely accepted physicalist theory of mind and that many, many naturalists are retreating to non-reductive views that take consciousness more or less as a mysterious brute fact.
very few people are aware of stellar-nucleosynthsis as the origin of elements, and thus, life.
It's the "thus life" addition here that completely begs the whole question. What you are supposed to prove is that life arises from non-life, that life (and esp. consciousness) is essentially a physical trait. But, your arguments so far simply assume what you are trying to prove--that is circular reasoning, plain and simple.
C) You said; "The "step" you are talking about, though, requires the crossing of a great chasm, something no one has done yet. ..." Again, misleading comments and arguments from dogma. Yes, the step is a great one. In fact, the laboratory HAS indeed replicated (basic) compounds from formaldehyde whilst simulating early earth-like conditions, bolstering the general hypothesis. No, this is not ID, as there were no humans around when the original earth like conditions prevailed. It's simply 'replication'.
No, it is not simple replication. It is an experiment designed by human beings in which human beings intervene in the "evolutionary" process. What's more, many scientists have argued that other factors in the early Earth atmosphere which are conspicuously left out of these experiments, would have prevented the results obtained in the experiments from actually obtaining on the early Earth!
Hydrogen and helium were the primary elements created in the Big Bang... What came before is another story entirely.
Indeed! It is a story that cannot be told in naturalistic terms as I have argued elsewhere in the discussion of the Kalam cosmological argument.
"You have an incredibly naive view of the scientific method..."
Er, not. Full stop. Neither yourself nor Jason Dollar (especially JD!) has shown anything approaching an understanding of science or its methods. You simply twist science to suit your own dogmatic agenda, or in the case of Mr Dollar, just wilfully ignore it when it suits you.
Could you please tell me, then, what is wrong with my description of scientific methodology? You must know, since you keep saying I'm mistaken about it. Keep in mind that nothing I said about this topic is my own invention. What I said about scientific method and hypothesis testing comes right out of secular textbooks on the philosophy of science. So, your quibble is not with me, but with people who would, in many cases, be in agreement with you on origin of life matters.
Finally, you spent a good few passages trying to disassemble my comments on possible causes of consciousness, after I'd quite openly and honestly stated that they were a 'hypothesis'. Many of your points are indeed quite correct and well observed, but - why bother? It was an *idea*. A possibility.
So, you admit then, that you have no real natural explanation for the origin of consciousness, and that there is no evidence whatsoever for your vague "just-so" story?
Yes, babies in the womb react to stimuli. Are they conscious that they are doing so? Were you?
Again, it depends on what you mean by consciousness. If you equate it simply with long-term memory, then babies are not conscious. But, this is not the standard way in which consciousness is understood in the scientific and philosophical literature. Perhaps you are equating "consciousness" with "self-consciousness"? If so, you are making a fundamental error, and that may explain why we seem to be talking past each other.
My year-old son may not be self-conscious, but no one can tell me that he isn't conscious. He sees and hears and and smells and feels pain and seeks to communicate. What's more, many of these things were undoubtedly true of him in the womb.
Dr Cowan,
Again, you raise good points, but I find it remarkable that you miss the *main* point once again.
This thread is about ID. ID posits a creator, an intelligent designer. This is an unprovable and untestable entity. Full stop.
There's nothing wrong with your description of the scientific method, per se. It's the fact that you're twisting it in an attempt to support an assumption without evidence for that assumption. Things like specified complexity have no actual *meaning*. "Oh, that looks complicated - God must have done it."
The elements that make life occur through a known process, observable today. Your argument is a consistent God-of-the-gaps argument once again, not even a remote challenge to the basic tenets of what mankind has learned. Science traces the following path of matter in our universe; Physics first, leading to Chemistry, leading to Biology. Life IS biology. That's what happens. Fiddling around with questions about consciousness is just a tactic to avoid the facts presented; we know where we came from. It wasn't God. End game, lights out.
Synthetic life has been manufactured in the laboratory repeatedly, in the form of polio-viral bacteria, made from literally "off-the-shelf" products. If complex bacteria were created, true life from non-life, as is planned over the next couple of years, no doubt you would counter with something along the lines of; "Well, it's not *intelligent* life, is it!"
Experiments to create amino-acids in conditions similar to life on an early earth are ones in which scenarios are created, and then left to get on with it. There is no intervention - that's the whole point.
The way I look at things, if the entire history of the universe could be represented as our alphabet, with A being the instant of the Big Bang, and Z representing the here and now, then the scientific method has successfully identified and placed perhaps 20 or so of the letters of our existence. We know how we came about, what life is and what / where it came from. We just need a little more time to fill in the gaps. Given the historical success of true science over dogma, I'd say it will be achieved.
All your arguments represent are gap-fillers; "You don't know everything yet, so therefore it's all wrong." As I keep having to repeat to Mr Dollar, the existence of otherwise of a supreme creator is untestable and thus irrelevant; answers are what count, because they help us to move forward. ID is not an answer. It's dogma.
DC
Dr Cowan, you said;
"So, you admit then, that you have no real natural explanation for the origin of consciousness, and that there is no evidence whatsoever for your vague "just-so" story?"
Why do you keep twisting my words with deceptive comments? There was no question of consciouness for which I promised an answer. You askd me how the origins of life could come from the study of spectroscopy, and said you wouldn't hold your breath.
I answered, with FACTS, and in line with Creationist tactics you changed tack and went off on one about consciousness.
I gave an *idea* as to what might create consciousness, a good shot if you like. I've repeatedly said that's what it was.
Don't get me wrong, I like your postings and I like the challenges, but you're starting to sound like Jason Dollar. Keep it real, OK?
DC
www.creationontheweb.com.au
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