I’m ambivalent to the question whether ID is or is not science. I don’t care how it is classified. The more important question is whether it is true. Even though in some people’s definition of science, ID might count as science, in other people’s definition of science it won’t count as science. Therefore, just to be safe and avoid pointless arguments, ID should not be promoted as science even by IDists.
Certainly IDists use scientific findings to advocate their assertions, but that doesn’t make ID science any more than a police investigator using science makes the police investigator a scientist.
What I view as representative scientific disciplines of investigation:
1. applied and theoretical electro magnetic theory
2. quantum chemistry
3. thermodynamics for heating and air conditioners and nuclear reactors
4. celestial mechanics
etc.
These involve hypotheses, predictions and experiments. ID does not have direct experiments because the mechanism (the Designer), even if He exists, usually chooses not to show up in such experiments.
Not every truth claim about the physical universe is accessible to science. I claim Socrates was a real person as Plato described, however, we only have Plato’s testimony to rely on. Even if Socrates was a real person, and even if there is credible evidence to that effect, such questions about the physical universe are outside science.
If the design of life came about by mechanisms outside those that can be demonstrated in laboratory experiment and are outside physical laws of chemistry and physics, then even if ID were true, ID might not be properly called science. Therefore I think ID should not be promoted as science.
ID is hypothesis, a claim about the physical universe.
This is my view:
Perhaps, however, one just really does not want to call intelligent design a scientific theory. Perhaps one prefers the designation “quasi-scientific historical speculation with strong metaphysical overtones.” Fine. Call it what you will, provided the same appellation is applied to other forms of inquiry that have the same methodological and logical character and limitations. In particular, make sure both design and descent are called “quasi-scientific historical speculation with strong metaphysical overtones.”
This may seem all very pointless, but that in a way is just the point. As Laudan has argued, the question whether a theory is scientific is really a red herring. What we want to know is not whether a theory is scientific but whether a theory is true or false, well confirmed or not, worthy of our belief or not.
Stephen Meyer
http://www.arn.org/docs/meyer/sm_methodological.htm
Does it really help IDists to claim they have a “Positive case for ID” and that “ID is science”? When I’ve witnessed debates on the topics, the IDists have lost. Why? They get bogged down in arguments over definitions rather than delivering discussions about the computer-like, well-engineered systems within biology and why such systems must transcend laws of physics and chemistry as a matter of principle. Therefore, ID should not be promoted as science.
PS
With respect to the public school science issue:
I’ll wager a bottle of single-malt scotch, should it ever go to trial whether ID may legitimately be taught in public school science curricula, that ID will pass all constitutional hurdles.
Bill Dembski
Being an advantage player, I should have taken that wager. I’d certainly like to upgrade my collection of scotch whiskey’s to be more like Richard Hughes’.
Hi Sal,
I think I am seeing a trend here. Will your next OP be arguing that IDers should just keep their mouths shut?
For what it’s worth, as long as you continue to hold to a YEC position you’re not likely to ever been seen as “the voice of reason” within ID.
Watching stcordova & Mung going at each other is hilarious (and a bit sad)! Mung’s an IDist who won’t admit it. stcordova’s an IDist & YECist who will admit it, yet who (more often recently) cuts the ground out from under his own position.
Yes, I agree. It should be called for what it is: an ideology.
IDT (in so far as much of anything coherent can be called that) is properly a topic of science, philosophy and theology/worldview discourse. It is neither only science, only philosophy, nor only theology/worldview. DI has yet to drop the ‘strictly science’ categorisation of its humble monster.
But stcordova has little to no influence on the IDM to convince DI leaders of this. Thus, the charade in which both Mung & stcordova are dancing to the tune of postmodern fantasy in the context of USAmerican prejudice in public schools continues.
‘Design’ is far from being a taboo term; it is used regularly, across a range of fields. It is simply not the ‘Revolution!’ that the cadres in the DI are trying to make it out to be with their right-wing funded rhetoric & PR team.
iD and YEC are as scientific as any opponents. If a investigation into nature is made with a methodology, called science, that allows confidence in conclusions relative to criticisms then its science.
ID is completly science. YEC is mostly. Evolutionism is not at all mostly.
Origin subjects are difficult to do science on because thay are about past and gone events/results and processes. Nothing is witnessed today or can be duplicated.
Only in minor ways can things be done.
Yes truth is king but conclusions must be based on a particular methodology to be accepted by intelligent people who want a careful investigation before they consider the conclusions.
ID is sciency and much more then opponents.
I’m far worse than an IDist, Gregory, I’m a … wait for it … CREATIONIST!
Your taunts really mean about as much to me as your labels.
If you could perhaps get past your attempts to label, we might even have a discussion. Who knows, we might even agree one some things. iirc, there were points of agreement over at UD. But you preferred to stick with labeling. As if that wins an argument.
Do try to get over yourself. I am not going to convert the world to whatever it is your afraid of.
You believe the Earth is how old, Mung? What does ‘creationist’ mean to you that you would call yourself a creationist?
The labelling simply helps to clarify positions. If a person holds no positions they are difficult (but not impossible) to label. Labels are generalisations, of course, while variety still exists. That’s what social scientists do, given the complexity of societies and peoples. They serve a valuable communicative purpose even if some people resist them even when they accurately describe their views/positions/worldview/etc.
As for me, I reject the ideology of creationism (i.e. I am not a ‘creationist’), while nevertheless still believing in Creation.
Wow Gregory. I would answer, but it would be futile. If you don’t already know the answers to these questions from our interactions over at UD I don’t think my repeating them here will serve any useful purpose.
Perhaps I misjudged you. I thought you had me all labelled and in a nice box. Did one of your labels fall off?
What is “ID”? ID is a research program, which involve the application of scientific methods, no different from the methods, say, SETI would apply in their program. Now ID as a theory supported by evidence might have huge implications for theistic religions, but to say that this would make it non-science would mean the same for Darwinism, seeing as Darwinism too has huge implications for theistic religions.
Mung,
The hubris of the IDist is quite remarkable.
Why not just answer the questions & make this simple? Your little game is boring. I don’t take enough interest to keep track. And UD is a cesspit of IDists who don’t publish & influence nothing.
That blind lawyer Barry has penalised stcordova at UD is a (titillating IDist ‘big tent’) story in itself. stcordova probably deserved it for openly questioning IDism while still calling himself an IDist/YECist as stubbornly as ever (I wasn’t following what happened). As one of the rare sociologists who has studied the IDM closely (even from inside the DI in Seattle), having written and published on it, I’m not surprised at your attitude & avoidance. It is quite common among IDists.
As much as I disagree with him ideologically, I credit stcordova for this thread (which shows yet again this site’s higher value of freedom of speech compared to UD) and for other times he’s made this same claim (again, not having followed his usually sincere, but infamous exploits lately). However, I don’t think he really understands the philosophical implications nor the threat to IDism he has made ‘from within’. By openly questioning IDT’s ‘scientificity’, he has gone beyond the likes of Mung’s IDist fanaticism and dared to speak a truth he has apparently (though not deeply or coherently) now come to believe. Will stcordova eventually renounce IDism & YECism & remain an evangelical Christian?
I entirely agree with stcordova that there is no ‘positive case for (uppercase) Intelligent Design’. WL Craig has recently reinforced this position, whether evangelical Christians like it or not. A rather large list of Abrahamic theists agrees with us and it is of little consequence that head in the sand IDists like Mung would wish to protest, play sad/happy/confused & disagree.
In this thread you called yourself a ‘creationist’. What does being a creationist & IDist mean to you, Mung?
Hi RofP and apologies if you found the spam filter annoying. Can you give me an example of of a research program that you would classify as “ID”? I’m not sure if you are being premature about the SETI program. What they are doing at the moment is scanning parts of the visible universe (ie within the past light cone) for unusual narrow-band radio signals. Until they find a candidate signal that is all they are doing. Why do you consider that has something to do with “Intelligent Design”?
Not following your logic here. Scientific study can debunk specific testable claims made by some religious groups. The idea that the Earth is only a few thousand years old, for example. So long as theists keep to untestable claims, they have nothing to fear from science. And if some theological claim were testable and found to be correct, though I can’t imagine what such a claim could be how this might happen, that might have huge implications for theists and non-theists alike.
Alan Fox said:
Why are they scanning for “unusual narrow-band radio signals”?
To see if they can find a designed signal!
http://www.space.com/1826-seti-intelligent-design.html
Your failed attempt to conflate what SETI is doing with Intelligent design is noted.
That the people at SETI explicitly disclaim any connection to ID won’t impact on Williams’ point I’m sure. Evidence, after all, does not matter to you does it William?
OMagain said :
How will they determine if the signal is “designed” or not?
What I think should be conceded is that, if SETI did run across an apparent complex, coded message and recognize it as such, they’d consider it to be a sign of intelligence. Archaeologists do.
But having noted that, there’s a very important fact in SETI research and archaeology, which is that intelligence may well be inferred without finding functional complexity. SETI is searching for something simple (to be sure, one reason for that is that looking for a narrow-band “whistle” is that it’s far easier (requiring far less cost) than trying to find coded messages in all of the radiation out there), and archaeologists would miss most everything involving intelligence early in human history if they only could determine intelligence via functional complexity. It’s rationality that indicates intelligence, not functional complexity, which is why Dembski tried to label things exhibiting simple rationality as “complex” when they’re anything but complex.
Intelligence may be inferrred to have produced functional complexity in many cases, but that’s no determining factor–archaeologists really have little trouble distinguishing the remains of life from those resulting from intelligence. Intelligence may produce the very simple, or the very complex, but one expects the effects of rationality in either case (and in between).
Life superficially can appear to be the result of intelligence, but the lack of real reason underlying organisms’ form and function belies that superficial notion. It isn’t rational to stick to vertical inheritance to limit adaptation, it’s a genetic limit (including artificial selection–it was a found genetic limitation, not a rational one).
Find rationally-determined objects, and you’ve probably found a result of intelligence, whether functionally complex or not. Fail to find rationally-determined objects, and you’ve probably not found a result of intelligence.
Glen Davidson
Designed, composed, created, unveiled, emerged, conducted, made, written, postulated, suggested, coded, programmed, transcribed, etc.
WJM has a sick IDist fetish on ‘design’!
Way to dodge the fact that SETI has distanced themselves from ID.
Well, they *won’t* be using any of the “design detection” tools created by IDists will they? If they worked, you’d be able to demonstrate them. But cannot.
And anyway, can’t you read?
So if we found a non-vertical means of adaption, like say horizontal gene transfer, it would increase the case for design in evolution?
No, I disagree. Only with depth can one conclude this. You’re missing the whole for the parts.
Atheists are generally poor sounding boards on this topic (a few have insights, but usually those who are seeking to become non-atheists). Most people around the world urban and rural believe in Intelligence, save Buddhists & (other) atheists. Social fact.
Yes, if it weren’t actually the result of “natural processes.” Where DNA is regularly encountered by organisms that readily incorporate it, lateral transmission is to be expected, and is identifiable as to its source in the same way that vertically-transmitted DNA’s source is identifiable.
I suppose I could write caveats all day, but of course that’s pointless, since one can’t cover everything even if one tries. Horizontal transmission (or first-principles design in each and every case might work for an extremely intelligent being) would be expected from a designer in nearly all circumstances, while horizontal transmission would be expected in only some of the environments and reproduction schemes if there were no designer.
Guess which we see.
Glen Davidson
From SETI:
How do they know it would be artificial? Isn’t that just an argument from ignorance – an “intelligence of the gaps” argument that, just because we don’t know of any natural source of such a tone, we can infer it is artificial?
Oh, wait. SETI answers that for us:
“… just doesn’t seem to be…?” Wow. Imagine a IDist making that particular statement in response to “How do you determine a thing wasn’t generated by natural forces?” “Well, it just doesn’t seem to be!”
“.. seems to be devoid of…” and “.. nature always seems to add ..”
OMG!! If an IDist made this vague argument from ignorance, you’d be howling at the moon in ridicule. Yet, it comes from SETI, and you swallow it hook, line and sinker without even so much as demanding that the so-called “designer” be identified or insisting on evidence that nature could not have possibly produced the signal!
However, it seems to be that as long as they explicitly state their allegiance to the anti-ID perspective, you seem to be willing to give all of this loose language and pitiful justification a pass.
Absolutely. Hilarious.
GlenDavidson:
So, is it your position that there has never been found a case where functional genetic information suddenly appears in the evolutionary record, and we have so far not been able to account for where it came from – either via inheritance or horizontal transfer?
No, I’m discussing patterns and causes.
You’re trying for a “gotcha.” It’s the way to misunderstand the evidence.
Glen Davidson
Instead of trying to psychically envision my motives, you might try simply answering my questions. My point is that if you’re going to argue that the case for design is undermined by the the weight of the pattern of vertical inheritance and horizontal transfer, then you must concede that the existence of genetic information which cannot be accounted for (as yet) via vertical inheritance or horizontal transfer supports the design case, and that a sufficient quantity or “non-pattern” of suddenly-appearing genetic information reasonably useful in its current at-the-time-environment supports the case for design.
I would also assume you would agree that the development and storage of genetic information with no known prior use, that was later usefully expressed in an environment, would be evidence of teleological evolution?
No, I went over that. You need to show the hallmarks of design, like rationality. So far, the patterns are contrary to design, and you have evinced no pattern that is consistent with it. Rather than deal with the fact that the patterns are contrary to design you assert that purported gaps default to design.
If any do, we need the evidence for that.
Why would I assume such a thing? It’s the overall situation that might tell…
Glen Davidson
No, I said that if the influx of sudden genetic information matched environmental need or opportunity (which would be a rational reason to insert it at that point) or was developed beforehand with no apparent use other than for teleological purposes (a rational reason to develop currently unnecessary function to have it available later).
Or, perhaps you could offer a perspective on what we should find in the evolutionary record wrt the origin of genetic information if some or all of it was generated and inserted by design.
And I said that it depends on the situation.
I said that I’d expect rationality. If you really could show rationality in a specific situation, that would mean something. Your utterly vague “scenarios” and the claim that they’d show rationality indicate nothing, for lack of any real match-up of cause and effect.
Yet again you fail to explain why the patterns of life are what one would expect without a designer.
Glen Davidson
Can you give an example of a method used by SETI that has been applied by ID researchers?
Oh, and welcome to TSZ btw! I don’t think we’ve met 🙂
That’s not what “undermines the case for design” William. What undermines the “case for design” chiefly, is that there isn’t a case for a designer.
If current models are inadequate (and actually all models are), and indeed we do not yet have good OoL models, that does not in itself make a case for design. It merely makes a case for “our current models are inadequate”.
Even if it could be shown that some oberved feature has no possible evolutionary pathway, that wouldn’t make the case for design. What might would be some evidence of a design process, or fabrication process, or some observable force that moved, say, strands of DNA into novel positions contrary to known laws of physics and chemistry.
And it would be interesting.
Thanks Elizabeth, I was responding to Scordova’s OP. You are moving goal posts now.
The point is, you cannot just make a claim “ID is not science” unless you be more specific to what you are referring to. ID has many aspects, some of it are theological/metaphysical in nature, ie, such as the implications for theistic religions.
Simply put, ID is the attempt to determine empirically, whether the appearance of design acknowledge by virtually all sane biologists on the planet is the result of unguided chance processes, or the result of agency. ID develops scientific methods (whether successful or not) in which they attempt to answer this question, no different to what SETI is doing. This was my point.
But, that’s not what Glen was arguing. If glen said not-X is a case against design, then it follows that X is a case for design. However, while Glen insists that the current evidence indicates not-X, my attempts to describe what X evidence would be from his not-X (not-rational) descriptions seem to have failed, and Glen so far refuses to elaborate on what hypothetical evidence would constitute a case of X (rationally) instantiated genetic information.
Superficially it looks no different, but SETI behaves differently. First, they are looking for a simple carrier wave that has never been seen to be produced by a natural source. ID looks at products of nature and tries to argue that they are not natural.
Second, SETI has found a number of unexplained signals. Their response is to find an explanation, even if it takes decades. The latest one seems to have originated in a microwave oven. ID sifts through mountains of genomic data looking for anomalies, and announces victory and writes books as soon as one is found.
I’m sure Lizzie, and myself and others would be interested to learn about these scientific methods that ID has developed. I’ve not heard of any.
And SETI researchers themselves distance themselves from the ID movement. They are looking for radio signals, first of all. If they find odd narrow-band signals, they will then have to consider what avenues are available for deciding whether to attribute the source to intelligent extra-terrestrials.
You could have accepted what I actually stated, which is that vertical limitations of evolution would not be expected to hold in certain situations (like how most prokaryotes in fact live), while under design one wouldn’t expect such limitations to be important anywhere. Rather than accept such a reasonable situation, you fail to deal with the not-X, rather try to come up with something else that supposedly fits ID (Cambrian “Explosion”–like we don’t know).
Actually, I was pretty clear that if organisms were (evidently) designed from first principles, or, as ungodlike designers do, by readily repurposing designs that worked in unrelated lines, that would indicate design. I didn’t refuse to give the general rules (am I supposed to elaborate upon what are clearly general rules? Design doesn’t have very specific limits, the actual point), you refused to deal with them, rather to inject ambiguously superfluous (and wrong) criteria.
Glen Davidson
It’s really a question of what about ID is even remotely scientific. It does not experiment using ID-derived predictions, it doesn’t deal meaningfully with taxonomic data, and it doesn’t deal with any likely expectations of design.
It has one overwhelming aspect, that it is apologetics for Abrahamic religion in general, and for Christianity in particular.
Citation needed. And, if you can produce one of those, we’d still need cause to believe that it is relevant, not merely an cultural artifact.
Not really an issue, the patterns are what would be expected without a designer, not with one.
Not even close. SETI is looking for evidence of intelligence, ID basically is doing nothing but trying to define life as designed instead of evolved.
Glen Davidson
I never said anything about the Cambrian explosion. I simply tried to develop a criteria that was the direct inverse of what you described, attaching a rational reason for the insertion of that genetic information or its development over time. Apparently, I’ve failed in doing that, so I’m asking you to describe what the insertion or development of genetic information would look like if it was rationally instantiated. Which you responded:
So, what would this look like from our end, after the fact? Is this horizontal transfer between two otherwise unrelated evolutionary lines? Is this like convergent evolution, where a similar design is instantiated in unrelated lines? Perhaps you can clarify for me what an instantiation of clearly rational design would look like?
//ID looks at products of nature and tries to argue that they are not natural.//
Products of nature? What methods of design detection have you applied to these patterns which permits you to make such blanket truth statements?
Your ignorance is exceeded only by your hypocrisy, we don’t know these are products of nature, this is the point, SETI doesn’t know if all the signals they are looking at were produced by nature, they are trying to see if they can find some signals which resulted from agency. Starting off with your assumptions SETI might as well close their doors.
I never said you did.
I suppose the lack of any meaningful criteria had something to do with it.
A lot more like design evolution. Why do octopi and fish inhabit similar environments, having reasonably close visual requirements, yet octopi always have eyes that begin with an invagination of skin and have the blood vessels serving their eyes at the back, while fish always have the usual vertebrate eye configuration, derived from the brain? Why do birds have testes that are capable of spermatogenesis at body temperature, while mammals with higher body temps have to keep them cool enough for spermatogenesis by moving them out of the body cavity? And even if the Designer didn’t have the sense to use bird testes’ design, why did it have to start mammalian testes in the apparent ancestral position only to move them down to the scrotum later in development (which malfunctions fairly often, and leaves men prone to hernias even when it goes right)?
It all makes sense under non-poof evolution, while I haven’t heard the slightest good design reason for it
What else would it be?
No, convergent evolution is nothing like “similar design” instantiated in unrelated lines. Certain aspects may become similar due to similar forces affecting the organism, but by no means is it similar design. Pterosaur wings are quite unlike bat wings, yet behold, there are homologies, they simply have nothing to do with flight characteristics. Almost as if wings evolved from the same bones that most vertebrate lines inherited, yet without the slightest bit of knowledge of pterosaur wings being involved in bat wing evolution.
It really shouldn’t be that difficult. My Camry uses parts invented in quite different circumstances, often without considering how they’d be used in a car someday (later, engineering for compatibility occurred), being largely unlimited by inheritances of previous Camrys and/or Toyotas. The patterns of use of technology in cars is fairly free movement of inventions across makes and models (with patent protection limiting it some for a few years), while the patterns of “macroevolution” are very similar to those of “microevolution.”
To bring up lateral transmission yet again, I’d certainly like to know why the patterns of lateral transfer in “macroevolution” are similar to those of “microevolution” in “Design Theory.” For humans and other vertebrates, horizontal transfers are relatively rare and have been for hundreds of millions of years, and we see largely vertical transmission in “microevolution” and in “macroevolution” since, say, the Cambrian, at least. Meanwhile, prokaryotes
readily transfer genes laterally in today’s “microevolution,” and they also show evidence of having done so over the course of “macroevolution.” You’d think Behe could address this, but no, I’ve seen no explanation from IDists for why prokaryotes evidently had a plethora of horizontal transfers during “macroevolution” and in “microevolution,” while vertebrates have had much less horizontal transfer in both “macroevolution” and in “microevolution.” Almost as if it were just “natural.”
Glen Davidson
//It does not experiment using ID-derived predictions//
Didn’t they do knock out experiments on the genes to determine whether the flagellum was IC? Doug Axe also did experiments whereby they were trying to evolve one protein into another, in they end they determined it would require no less than 7 mutations in order to change the one into the other. This not experimenting? (this is ID inspired, note most evolutionists don’t worry about things like this, because they just assume evolution one way or another has to be true)
//and it doesn’t deal with any likely expectations of design.//
False again, back in 1998 (long before the myth of junk DNA was widely known) Dembski explained how one would expect DNA sequences to exhibit function even if the function was not known. In contrast if one holds to the idea that things just evolved, one would be more inclined to write off function where function is not known. This is why evolutionists are always so quick to reach premature conclusions and claim things are examples of “poor design”. Bad ideas leading to bad conclusions.
//Citation needed.//
Dawkins is about as staunch a Darwinist as you can find, and yet in the opening page of “Blind Watchmaker” he *defines* biology as “the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose”.
If this is Dawkins’ definition of biology, then you would have to be insane as a biologist to deny the appearance of design.
Which is one of the stupidest definitions of biology I’ve ever seen, frankly.
One does not have to be insane to think that pop science writers use florid language to make concepts more accessible.
And what would the flagellum being IC indicate regarding design? Where is any experiment actually predicated on design, and not on assuming that design is the default?
Well, maybe I shouldn’t have written “ID-derived predictions,” since one can see predictions from ID that IC indicates design. So I wrote less carefully there than I usually do. Obviously I really meant design predictions, not the ersatz “theory” that I noted was not science at all.
No, again, what does this have to do with actual Design? Sure, as apologetics the mutations needed works on the rubes, it’s just that evolution doesn’t predict that modern proteins evolved into modern proteins, so even as evolution experiments go they’re a failure of conception. As to giving evidence of design, they weren’t even supposed to do so, except via the irrational belief that if evolution fails ID wins.
//and it doesn’t deal with any likely expectations of design.//
Firstly, there’s precious little reason to think that all, or nearly all, DNA sequences exhibit function, and some good reasons to think that a great many do not. Secondly, if they’re not going to commit to “good design,” they certainly can’t reasonably claim that therefore “junk DNA” is contrary to ID. Thirdly, there’s never been a solid evolutionary prediction either way on junk DNA, with strong selectionists typically disparaging the notion, while those more focused on the “selfish gene” (selfish DNA in general) tended to welcome the notion.
Yes, like the idea that somehow ID had anything to do with finding function for “junk DNA.” Real scientists did the work, IDists just tried to capitalize on the finding of function for some “junk DNA” while contradictorily claiming that “bad design arguments” are inappropriate. They can’t even keep their own story straight.
Glen Davidson
And that is why I asked for an example of ID using an empirical method similar to a method used by SETI.
And no, living things do not have the appearance of having been designed by an external designer. They have the appearance of having evolved to be optimised for survival and reproduction in the environment in which they are found, or in which their ancestors found themselves. That is what “virtually all sane biologists on the planet” would agree on – not on the proposition that some external designer designed them.
While the rules here are quite relaxed, they are not non-existent. We do ask that commenters assume other participants are posting in good faith. You can get an overview here
So far, SETI has nothing to analyse. They are looking for real signals, and there is no suggestion that any source that looks unusual will have anything other than a real origin, perhaps generated by real intelligent extraterrestrials. Your use of the word “agency” suggests a conflation between alien beings using radio to communicate or advertise themselves and ID’s mythical “Intelligent Designer”.
Nonsense. The assumptions SETI makes are the minimum that are forced on them by economics and the laws of physics.
I think that people who write best selling books generally employ shock tactics to get the reader’s attention. It’s what makes them best sellers.
On can estimate the intelligence of the reader by whether they bother to read beyond the intro.
William: of course a signal from SETI proposed as a candidate for a signal from an intelligent life form would be treated as a highly provisional finding. Indeed, when Jocelyn Bell discovered the Little Green Men signal from a quasar, while LGM were a possiblity, she kept probing and figured out the actual source.
Your scoffing is premature – there IS no candidate signal from SETI yet, so no reaction from anyone for you to scoff at!
And that’s before we even consider the FACT that organic beings are already known to be capable of sending signals across space – we have a precedent.
Whereas there is no known instance to date of an invisible designer who leaves no trace of her design or manufacting process, nor of the forces used to execute the design.
But my point here is simply that you are scoffing at imagined reactions to an event that has not even occurred.
I think this appeared in later edit:
Sorry, it’s a completely meaningless claim as far as science goes. I know that it gets chanted like a mantra, it just lacks any kind of insight, or, as far as I can tell, any real self-awareness on the part of Dawkins. He didn’t like religion as a kid, but had heard the Paley “argument,” and he believed that it was the one problem that stood in the way of his desired atheism. Then he got into evolution and believed that it took care of the “appearance of design.”
But he’s a Westerner who couldn’t escape the religious claims of the Western world. Many people thought very different things under different religions and cultures, often with some sense that life is magical and in important ways very unlike “designed things.” Sexual reproduction often play into their origin myths, since, oddly enough, most life that ancients were concerned (and recognized as life–not including plants in many cases) about appeared to be like sexually reproduced organisms.
Aristotle certainly made a considerable distinction between physis (life for our purposes here) and techne, especially since the purpose of life wasn’t very evident (Aristotle assumed that the purpose of life’s form and function was for the living being-rather circularly). I assume that he could see some other important differences.
No, it won’t do to quote Dawkins as if he’s Darwin’s prophet. We need something a whole lot better than that Dawkins said it, or even that a whole lot of biologists did–if they did.
Glen Davidson
Are you referring to this paper?
Since I haven’t done a sociological study of SETI researchers (those highly sane and mainstream scholars 😉 ), I’d be glad if you’d provide some names and/or sources of those who are on record as distancing themselves from the IDM.
Thanks.
Religion_of_pieces has chosen a notorious creationist quotemine of Dawkins.
Just as Darwin did, Dawkins opens his book with a lengthy statement about what he is going to show in his book, and notes some of the problems that he is going to have to surmount to persuade the reader, and the creationists can find much to cherry-pick and lie about when they select only a short sentence.
Here are long excerpts from the first 5 pages of Dawkins’ book, providing a fuller context for the apparently-stupid quote:
The relevant first chapter of The Blind Watchmaker is available in google books.
I know that many people, evolutionary biologists in particular, don’t like Dawkins’ priority of Natural Selection as, essentially, the whole explanation for the evolved characteristics of life. But it’s not a bad book for 1986. It’s certainly not a slam-dunk support for Religion_of_pieces hope that “virtually all sane biologists” think ID might be a reasonable answer to a question of why life appears designed. Nor even support for a supposition that a majority of biologists would “acknowledge the appearance of design” at all.
Thanks for posting that, hotshoe. I suspected that Dawkins was speaking about biology, not defining it. Your quotation confirms that.
I’m a bit surprised and disappointed to see Lizzie and Glen swallowing the quotemined bait so uncritically.