As everyone knows by now, the Dover ID case has been decided. I think the court was right on the establishment clause issues, partly becasue the existing Supreme Court establishment clause jurisprudence is such a mess. Hopefully I’ll blog about that another time. For now I want to focus on the court’s unecessary, and wrong-headed, discussion of whether ID is “science.”
I should note that I have to go back and read the decision more carefully. On my first quick read, here’s what, from my perspective, is objectionable about the court’s discussion of “science”:
1. The judge went far beyond the case / controversy at hand by giving his primer on whether ID is “science.” There was enough in the record to establish the religious motives and effect of the particular Dover school board policy at issue that the establishment clause decision could easily have been decided without the long explication of ID as “science.” It strikes me that the court in that respect was acting more like a soldier in the culture war than as a neutral arbiter of facts and law.
2. The judge’s criteria for determining what constitutes “science” seem muddled and dangerous to me, for several reasons.
a. He distorts the history of science by stating that science since the Enlightenment has always proceeded under the assumption of absolute methodological naturalism. That just isn’t so. Many giants in the history of science, Netwon not the least among them, started with the assumption of a creator / designer who built intelligible order into the universe. In fact, from an historical perspective, absolute methodoligical naturalism arguably is the anomaly.
b. He distorts the philosophy of science by essentially equating the assumption of naturalism with the definition of science. I have to go back and check carefully, but I don’t recall any serious mention of how the philosophy of science has developed from the Enlightenment to Karl Popper’s falsifiability criterion, and then from there has split into numerous strands including Kuhn’s observations about paradigm shifts, Lakatos’ criteria for a “scientific program,” and Polanyi’s critiques of what constitutes scientific “knowledge.” Given the rich debates that surround serious discussion of the philosophy of science, it’s facile to conclude that absolute naturalism must be the sine qua non.
c. He further distorts the demarcation (“science” or “non-science”) question by focusing the definitional question on whether a theory has gained acceptance within the scientific community. It seems that, in the court’s view, it is “science” only if it has a sustained record of peer reviewed pubications and endorsements by major scientific organizations. That can’t, however, be a test for whether something is categorized as “science.” Almost any new theory initially meets with resistance. Under the court’s “science is what science says it is” test, most theories would start out as “not science” and then only later evolve (pardon the pun) into “science.” We’d have to say, for example, that many of the revolutionary scientific theories of the past centuries were not “science” when first proposed, and that many important theories today, such as string theory and multiverse theory, may not really be “science” yet.
d. He misrepresents key ID arguments by stating that they are only negative arguments against evolution rather than positive evidence for design. Once again, this is flat wrong. The irreducible complexity argument, for example, doesn’t only state that an IC system can’t have evolved and thus must be designed. It states that an inference of design can be drawn if there is a system is irreducibly complex, there is a statistical probability that the system could not have been assembled merely by chance, and there are no reasonable explanations for the system’s development other than design. It is true that this analysis includes negative arguments against other possibilities for the system’s appearance, including evolution, but every scientific claim proceeds by discounting alternative explanations.
e. He misrepresents the merits of key ID arguments, in particular irreducible complexity. As noted above, he simply doesn’t understand the irreducible complexity argument. Moreover, he uncritically credits arguments by Ken Miller and others against certain ID systems, such as the bacterial flagellum, that have been responded to effectively in many cases by ID proponents, and that should remain the subject of vigorous debate in the scientific community.
In short, it seems to me the court is saying that any truth claim not based on absolutist naturalistic materialism cannot be “science,” regardless of the history of science, the philosophy of science, or the nature of the claim. That seems to me a recipe for censorship rather than for free and open scientific inquiry.
75 replies on “Dover ID Decision”
“It strikes me that the court in that respect was acting more like a soldier in the culture war than as a neutral arbiter of facts and law.”
Well phrased.
What is a judge doing espousing all of the philosophical rhetoric in this opinion? Whom does that serve?
Just as a point of clarification : DI’s response includes the following comment: “Luskin pointed out that the ruling only applies to the federal district in which it was handed down. It has no legal effect anywhere else.”
Explain what that means to a legal neophyte like me.
Could Jones’ long explication about the true nature of science be some attempt to make this ruling go beyond his jurisdiction and deliver a crushing coup de grace to ID nationally?
Interested in your $0.02.
Normally wouldn’t bother posting here, but i went to Hawthorne High School with a David Opderbeck, and figured you might be one and the same. If so, hi!
In terms of your arguments, there’s several places where i think, as a practicing scientist, i might be able to clarify a few things. The judge was pretty much spot on in his description of science, and i’ll hit on a few of the points to illustrate why:
a. Methodological naturalism is something that, as the judge pointed out, has been a development of the past couple hundred years. Newton predates that change, and it was arguably Pasteur and Darwin who brought that change to biology. Post Darwin, it’s been a ground rule for all fields of scientific inquiry.
b. Methodological naturalism is a ground rule of science in that it’s required for reproducibility and extrapolation. Non-natural causes are inherently unlikely to be reliably reproducible. In addition, fields like astronomy, plate tectonics, etc. seek to explain the past by extrapolation of the rules that we see in action today. To accept supernatural intervention means that we cannot expect that past events can necessarily be understood in light of the mechanisms we see today.
c. I actually agree with you that string theory has questionable scientific validity. But many scientific revolutions, including the big bang, prions, plate tectonics etc., were started by the publication of peer reviewed data that could not be explained by existing theories. And these publications happened despite resistance to the ideas they led to by the scientific community at large. The absence of any compelling published data that supports ID is a compelling reason to view it as non-scientific, since it indicates that it’s a proposition without support from scientific data. It was this sort of history in conjunction with statements by the NAS that made the difference, rather than the statements by the NAS alone.
d and e mostly fall into the same area, the judge’s dim view of ID. Regardless of their sophistication, arguments for ID distill to “it looks designed”, and have to date failed to enunciate a way to objectively measure design. Dembski’s mathematics relies on a series of assumptions that in no way derive from our actual knowledge of biology (i’m not competent to delve into his math).
Separately, irreducible complexity has been thoroughly discredited. There is no positive data that any system is irreducibly complex, and the irreducible complexity argument fails because it refuses to accept a demonstrated evolutionary mechanism, exapation. It has also led to the mistaken identification of several systems (the eye and blood clotting included) as irreducibly complex when simpler, transitional forms of these systems have been identified.
In the end, the judge followed Ken Miller’s arguments because they were credible, while Behe was not. Behe’s cavalier dismissal of the extensive literature on immune system evolution and his defense of the Behe and Snoke paper in light of the figures on bacterial populations provided by the plaintiff’s lawyers pretty much killed any chances of his arguments being taken seriously.
I could elaborate any of these points, but it might be easier to continue the discussion by email, as this tiny text box is painful to type detailed explanations in.
Re: the jurisdiction of the federal district court: that statement by DI is mostly correct.
In the federal court system, the Supreme Court is the highest court – its rulings are binding on all other federal courts. The Supreme Court has original jurisdiction (meaning it is the court of first instance) in very limited types of cases. Otherwise, the Supreme Court chooses whether or not to exercise jurisdiction over cases after reviewing writs of certiorari, wich essentially are requests by the parties that the Supreme Court hear a case.
The next highest courts are the circuit courts of appeal. The circuit courts have jurisdiction over appeals from the district courts within their circuits, and also have original jurisdiction in limited types of cases arising within their circuits(such as some petitions by federal prisoners). Rulings of circuit courts are binding on the district courts within that circuit, but not on district courts in other circuits. Most circuits consist of districts covering 3-5 states. Circuit court opinions are not binding on other circuit courts. Generally cases before the circuit courts are decided by panels of three judges. Panel decisions are not binding on later panels within the same circuit in the same way that they are binding on lower courts; in rare circumstances, if a later panel disagrees with an earlier panel’s precedent, the case can be heard by all of the judges of a circuit sitting en banc, in which case the en banc opinion will become the law of the circuit.
The federal district courts are the trial courts in the federal system. Generally, under the rules of stare decisis (precedent), a decision of a federal district court is binding only on the litigants before the court in a given case. Any other federal or state court is free to disregard it. In fact, even a trial court in the same district is not bound by a decision reached in another case in the same district. Decisions of federal district courts also are not binding on any state courts.
Now for the qualifications. There are several doctrines of judicial efficiency that can give a district court’s ruling more force than the general rules of stare decisis would suggest. One of these is res judicata (“the thing has been decided”). Under the doctrine of “claim preclusion,” a subset of res judicata, a litigant usually cannot re-litigate a claim that was decided against that litigant in an earlier case. Also, under the doctrine of “issue preclusion,” another subset of res judicata, a litigant usually cannot re-litigate an individual factual or legal issue that was decided against that litigant in an earlier case. There are all sorts of complicated exceptions and permutations to these rules. The upshot is that a district court’s decision may well have greater preclusive effect on a particular litigant than the rules of stare decisis suggest.
In addition to these rules of claim preclusion, you also need to account for a district court’s power to issue injunctive relief under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65. The injunction power is quite broad and district courts often issue injunctions that have nationwide effect. Under the principles of “comity,” federal district courts in other districts typically will defer to and enforce cross-district injunctions issued by district courts in other districts. Injunctions can only be issued against parties to individual cases and related parties, but particularly in class action litigation, an injunction can bind many more persons than those who actually appeared in the underlying action. Again, these principles have many exceptions and permutations.
Finally, even when a district court’s decision doesn’t have any preclusive effect, judges in other districts may look to the opinion of another trial court as “persuasive” authority. A decision issued in after a well publicized trial on a hot button issue — like the Dover case — will be considered carefully by other trial courts.
Thus endeth the civil procedure lesson. Can you tell that I love this stuff? 🙂
Jay!!!! How are ya buddy? For some reason I was just thinking about our crummy old soccer team the other day, as well as our equally crummy chess team, and I was wondering what you were up to (remember when you were called “Thunderfoot”)! Are you still near NYC? If so, let’s have lunch.
I understand many of your arguments here. I agree with some, but not with others. Most particularly, I think you’re missing the point of design arguments — just as Ken Miller does, and just as the court did. In particular, I don’t see why your conclusions about “supernatural intervention” necessarily follow.
In fact, as we seem to agree, the scientific method initially developed with the assumption that supernatural intervention is exactly what makes the universe orderly and intelligible. And this makes sense; it’s what we do in every other field of knowledge. You wouldn’t suggest, for example, that we can’t understand how a building was constructed, or learn anything about the properties of the building, unless we assume the building arose by chance. If something has been designed by a rational designer, accepting the existence of the designer, instead of assuming it away, is the best way to understand the building’s properties.
If the designer is entirely arbitrary or irrational, and is constantly changing things, then I suppose you are right, we can’t learn anything reliable from the design. But that’s a basic problem of epistemology, isn’t it? Even if we take your naturalistic assumption, how do you know it’s giving you accurate information about the real world? How do you know there isn’t some way in which the rules are changing, or in which you’re being deceived? It is no less reasonable or justifiable to assume a rational designer than it is to assume a rational universe arose by chance. In fact, I’d argue it’s more rational to assume that the order evident in physical laws is the result of design rather than chance. Either way, an epistemology based on chance is at least as much a matter of faith as an epistemology based on design.
In addition, I don’t agree with your statment that irreducible complexity has been “thoroughly discredited.” I do agree that anti-ID advocates and most scientists think this is so. I also agree that some IC arguments have been shown to be problematic. However, I think many of the criticisms of IC, particularly most of those raised by Miller, are wide of the mark.
Finally, regarding ID’s success as a research program, you’re right, it hasn’t had much yet. But it’s still relatively young, and has been faced with intense political, legal, and institutional opposition. I would not claim that ID is a well-established science, and I don’t think it should be mandated as part of public school curricula. But I’m something of a Kuhnian when it comes to the history of science, so the “it’s not part of the currently accepted paradigm” argument doesn’t impress me very much.
I’d completely forgotten about “thunderfoot” – fortunately, it wasn’t a nickname that stuck.
Regarding the potential role of a rational designer in the existence of predictability and repeatability, i think that’s largely a question that’s not addressable by science. Empiricism has shown that’s the way things behave, and it has predictive power, which is what science cares about. The why seems to be a philosophical and theological question.
As far as the discrediting of IC, i guess i wasn’t careful enough with my phrasing – it’s been scientifically discredited, in that it’s an argument without scientific data supporting it, it isn’t formulated using the current ground rules of science, and some of its postulates have been disproven. It may have validity in other spheres, but i’m not really equipped to discuss them.
And maybe that’s the problem – i’ve read the design arguments carefully, and so have people like Ken Miller and Judge Jones. For the most part, we don’t appear to be stupid people (you may disagree on this). If there’s something we’re missing about design arguments that’s significant, then it’s probably because it’s something that’s not consonant with science as it’s been practiced for the last 100-150 years or so. And that 100 years has produce a lot of Kuhnian style revolutions (i’m a bit of a Kuhnian myself), including all of Einstein’s theories, plate tectonics, etc., so paradigm changes can occur within the scientific strictures that exclude ID.
Jay,
Let’s assume you’re right about ID being outside the strictures of science that have arisen over the past 100 or so years, and about the fact that paradigm shifts have happened even within those strictures. Even so, I still don’t understand why the stricture of absolute naturalism is so fundamentally important. Yes, the assumption of naturalism can be useful sometimes — or, perhaps more accurately, an assumption of chance vs. design often makes no difference to a basic research program. But shouldn’t the scientific enterprise utlimately be about truth? Just as there are fundamentalists on the religious side of the aisle who want to ignore “scientific” truth, it seems to me there are fundamentalists on the “science” side of the aisle who care more about preserving the recent stricture of naturalism than about discovering truth. Ultimately, this is what concerns me more than what bucket current ID theories land in.
Boy, they *really* don’t get it
I’ve got about 30 minutes to kill, so I might as well give some general thoughts on the IDists’ reactions to the cataclysmic Dover decision….
We’ll get fancy and try some HTML here…
I agree that the search for an understanding of the natural world is the goal, and that we really have no idea whether or not the natural world has had supernatural interventions. There’s two problems with using the supernatural in science, though:
It’s not disprovable. There’s really no way to ever conclusively demonstrate that a supernatural cause was never involved in a given process. Science works in large part by generating evidence against alternatives, and it’s not clear what evidence can preclude the supernatural.
All supernatural explanations are equivalent. In some cases, evidence doesn’t rise to the level of disproof, but it can make a number of alternative possibilities much less likely. We just don’t have the power to discriminate among supernatural causes and the probabilities for each. From a scientific standpoint, a Christian God, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and an omnipotent Blue Meanie from the yellow submarine movie are indistinguishable.
More significantly, though, we have no idea as to what evidence will make a supernatural explanation more or less probable than a natural one. Evolutionary models are rising and falling rapidly in response to modern genomic evidence – flower and venom evolutionary histories have been rewritten in 2005 alone. But that’s because the data make one alternative more probable than another. How does one make such decisions if a third, non-natural alternative is present, that is always consistent with all data?
This can be viewed as a limitation of science in terms of what it can possibly discover. But people within science are comfortable working within that limitation, and its successes have been significant despite it. And there’s nothing preventing someone from starting an alternate field of inquiry that incorporates the supernatural and some of science’s methodology. If it’s more successful than science as we now know it, it may replace it and eventually wind up known as the modern version of science.
Science works in large part by generating evidence against alternatives, and it’s not clear what evidence can preclude the supernatural.
And it’s equally unclear what evidence could be generated to “disprove” or preclude the assumption of naturalism. So one of my basic premises is that All foundational assumptions are equally disprovable. If the ability to prove foundational assumptions is the test, then nothing can be “science.”
From a scientific standpoint, a Christian God, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and an omnipotent Blue Meanie from the yellow submarine movie are indistinguishable.
So what? ID never suggests that it could “scientifically” prove who the designer is. That doesn’t mean there’s no “scientific” way to evaluate whether some systems are more likely designed than random.
More significantly, though, we have no idea as to what evidence will make a supernatural explanation more or less probable than a natural one.
Why? We assess the probability whether something is random or designed all the time in many other branches of science, such as forensics and archeology. Moreover, if what you are suggesting is true, natural scientists should be unconcerned about whether one’s foundational assumption is of a designer/creater or of random processes. Clearly, that isn’t so.
“All foundational assumptions are equally disprovable”
Yes, that’s accurate. But it’s not the foundation assumptions that aren’t disprovable. It’s the use of the supernatural as a potential cause for any given observation in the natural world that’s not disprovable. To use an example that i mentioned above, there is some evidence that supports a model that snakes and other reptiles like gila monsters evolved venom separately. There’s now more compelling evidence that venom popped up earlier in the reptile lineage, and predates the split of snakes and other reptiles. Based on current data, the favored model is one where the gila monster and the snake wound up with venom due to common descent.
All the data mentioned above are compatible with supernatural intervention. There’s really no evidence that could make supernatural intervention incompatible with any of the data, or even more or less favored based on the data.
So, a reliance on natural causes has become a foundation assumption over the last few hundred years because experience has shown that it’s very difficult to make science work any other way.
The foundation assumptions issue is all a bit separate from the specific scientific flaws of ID, though, which is the random/design issue you’re bringing up at the end. If you’re interested in that, i think it’s better to keep the discussion separated, or it’d probably just confuse things.
Jay — thanks for these intelligent and thoughtful comments. I probably be on an offline over the holidays, but let’s continue the conversation. It’s refreshing to have a reasonable discussion about these things. Have you seen how the “discussion” on the U. Chicago Law Faculty Blog rapidly degenerated? In addition to all the usual shouting about dishonesty and religious fundamentalism, someone over there has started calling me “dpoopderbeck.” What a shame that our culture so often can’t seem to handle civil discussion and debate.
“Thus endeth the civil procedure lesson. Can you tell that I love this stuff? :-)”
Yes. That is why I feel absolutely no guilt in asking 🙂
“Finally, even when a district court’s decision doesn’t have any preclusive effect, judges in other districts may look to the opinion of another trial court as “persuasive” authority. A decision issued in after a well publicized trial on a hot button issue — like the Dover case — will be considered carefully by other trial courts.”
So perhaps this explains why a judge in Harrisburg would morph into a philosopher of science … he is, in essence, trying to broaden his “blog post” as widely as possible in hopes that other judges will “link to his post” no matter what the specific details their case is … to borrow a blogging metaphor or two 😉
Is this a fair characterization? If not, why not?
Good discussion guys.
“So, a reliance on natural causes has become a foundation assumption over the last few hundred years because experience has shown that it’s very difficult to make science work any other way.”
Which means science is inadequate, on epistemological grounds, to reliably discover truth to metaphysical questions such as “where do we come from?” … and “what are we?” It is philosophically predestined, in its current form, to return only the right kinds of answers, instead of the right answers.
Which is exactly why need a paradigm shift in thinking, if we are genuninely interested in discovering truth about every aspect of the natural world … including its history.
The discussion has to be centered around foundational assumptions, as you are doing David, or we will never progress toward true truth … we will continue promote models that stretch faith in naturalism beyond the breaking point.
Dave –
Agreed on all counts – it’s a shame how quickly the Chicago discussion sprinted for the sewers, and i’m very pleased to keep chatting in a civilized manner. As i’m going to be out of the country for the holidays, i’m happy to wish you a Merry Christmas and wait for the new year – just ping me with an email when you’re interested in continuing.
Because i will certainly forget this in the mean time, i’ll just include an addendum to my previous post. That is that a decreasing reliance on the supernatural was apparent prior to any attempt to define science as adopting methodological naturalism. In short, the discoveries of science were already limiting the explanatory role of the supernatural prior to any attempt to formalize it. The supernatural had already assumed the role of a “god of the gaps” as characterization of the natural mechanisms increased, and methodological naturalism was just taking this to the logical conclusion.
Oops, more posts in the mean time. In regards to both of Jeff’s posts:
I can’t get inside of Jones’s head and know his motives, but if i had to guess, he recognized that the huge costs for all parties involved and extensive length of the trial would preclude an equivalent one from being pursued very often in the future, so he wanted to get a ruling down on as much of what he was presented as possible.
You are correct, as i noted above, that the sciences are limited by their inability to address the metaphysical. As i also noted, there is nothing stopping an adoption of portions of the scientific method by other fields, such as philosophy or theology, or the creation of a new field entirely. Nobody would object to that on purely scientific grounds, and it’s entirely possible that such inquiry could produce information that’s more satisfying to many people. But scientists would (and have) object to trying to change science to incorporate the metaphysical. We’re not after “truth” but after the best description of the natural world and the observable mechanisms by which it has reached its current form.
Jay — thanks, Merry Christmas to you and yours as well. I’ll get in touch with you again after the holidays.
First off, I’d like to say thanks to all the interesting and civil posts in this thread. Seems to be harder and harder finding that in the blogshpere now.
Secondly, wishing all here a very Merry Christms.
Would just like to comment on one thing that Jeff said:
“Which means science is inadequate, on epistemological grounds, to reliably discover truth to metaphysical questions such as “where do we come from?” … and “what are we?” ”
I’m not sure science can or even should try to answer questions like that. As a Christian I seek answers to questions like that in my faith. I’m sure others do the same in accordance with whatever philosophical or belief system they may have. And as the title to this site reminds us, all of us can only see as through a glass darkly. Even though I have much confidence in God and trust that He will reveal enough for all of us to attain salvation, we all are still capable of making grevious errors not only in moral matters but also intellectual ones too.
Anyways, I don’t think we should judge science too harshly for limiting itself to the natural sphere of knowledge.
Hope to get back to add some more input after Christmas.
Ralph
From p.41 District Judge Jones’ Dover decision:
“(Intelligent Design) is an extension of Fundamentalists’ view that one must either accept the literal interpretation of Genesis or else believe in the godless system of evolution. The two model approach of creationists is simply a contrived dualism which has no scientific factual basis or legitimate educational purpose….”
—
I’ve heard a lot of demeaning words used to attack Judge Jones decision – it has me wondering:
Why the contempt for evolution? The insistence on a literal six-day creation runs counter to every lesson God has ever given me.
Evolution is a magnificent drama of cumulative poetry in motion. God is Creation. Why rob God of God’s Creation by slamming our origin story into a static two-dimensional model? To me, evolution is an exquisite pageant revealing God’s intricate, dynamic majesty. I glory in it indescribably more than some notion of God saying “poof” and there it was.
I challenge Creationist to present any of God’s natural phenomena that reflect a static creation. Does a person not evolve from a single cell to a functioning human who passes through countless life-stages, then ultimately disappears back into the beyond, while leaving something behind for others?
Look at civilization and our history. Who can deny human social evolution? What about our dynamic Earth? There are millions of examples of geological and biological evolution going on right now. Why confine humanity to the limits of ancient understanding?
Why not look within the words. Try to imagine our universe and Earth as having a life story, conceived by God and born of a single cell, evolving through countless life stages, just as everything else in God’s Creation does.
Why not?
sincerely, pm
Peter,
That echoes many of my feelings on this matter.
For those fellow Christians who still are convinced that Genesis is completely accurate historically, I can understand why they would be upset with evolution. But I know many rather conservative Christians who don’t look at Genesus that way.
The only thing I’ve been able to figure out is that a lot of people don’t really understand evolutionary theory. I know that very little time was spent on it when I went to high school.
Also, even though the theory itself makes no comment on whether or not there is a God, it does enable atheists and agnostics to make a little more sense of the world without resorting to God.
Take care,
Ralph
When I study evolutionary theory, I am more impressed than ever with the power and wisdom of God.
Why not?
From a philosophical stand point, I do not see a problem with your argument. From a Biblical stand point, your argument becomes untenable.
Please defend, using accepted Biblical hermenuetics, how the Bible teaches that God used the process of undirected evolution to create all of life.
Short of taking Thomas Jefferson’s exegetical approach (i.e. taking a pair of scissors and clipping the verses you don’t like out of the Bible), I think you will have a rather tough go of it.
If you can present an argument that harmonizes God’s special revelation (the Bible) and God’s general revelation (the record of nature), and is faithful to both, then I am interested in hearing it.
“Anyways, I don’t think we should judge science too harshly for limiting itself to the natural sphere of knowledge.”
Unfortunately, science has artificial constraints to only allowing one kind of answer — whether or not it is the right answer. John eloquently said as much when he said …
We’re not after “truth” but after the best description of the natural world and the observable mechanisms by which it has reached its current form.
I would add the word “natural” in front of “best description”. It is implicit in John’s argument. So to summarize, science, in its current form, is only allowed to give natural answers … even if those natural answers are false. A false “scientific” answer trumps a true metaphysical answer … end of game.
I don’t know about you, but I am not interested in learning false answers that meet the proper scientific qualifications. I would actually like to learn the Truth with a capital T.
We need a new approach that blends all of our epistemological tools of inquiry … at least when it comes to studying questions like … where do we come from?
The scientific method is not the problem … the philosophy of naturalism, which has become co-equal with science in our culture, is the problem.
Naturalism makes philosophical assumptions about reality and that is the problem. It is circular. It begs the question. It assumes the answer before beginning the inquiry.
Jeff,
I’m under the impression that you are a Christian. If I’m mistakn in that assumption, please forgive me.
I know that as a Christian I don’t expect science to find the kind of ‘truth’ that I find through my faith. It is my relationship with Jesus, careful study of scripture and fellowship with other Christians that helps direct me to the truth. As a Catholic Christian, I also believe it is very important to partake of the Body and Blood of Christ through the Eucharist. God’s revealation is necessary to arrive at truth. Mankind cannot get their on their own.
If you think that Genesis is literally and historically true, then I can understand your reasons for rejecting evolution. But bear in mind we believers differ over how scripture is to be interpreted. I have no reason for taking a pair of scissors to the Bible in order to justify my belief that God came up with what I consider to be a wondrous way to bring about His creation.
Ralph
Jeff,
Just one additional thought. I don’t believe the Bible is really concerned about the how of God’s actions. It’s purpose is to give us the reasons or the why of God’s actions.
None of us knows how God was able to raise Jesus from the dead. We know that He did and we know why He did it.
In the same way, we know that God created mankind. Amazingly, we also now have a pretty good idea of how He worked His creation. But science will never be able to tell us why.
We Christians should be talking more about evolution and using it to help show the non-believers how powerful God is.
Ralph
Guys– thanks for the ongoing discussion. I’m “off” from school (I’m a teacher) this week, which means I’m “on” with the kids — far more work than my day job, and far less time to blog! So, a few quick thoughts:
Peter / Ralph — it seems you think I’m a young earth creation person. I’m not. If you search “YEC” or “young earth” on my blog, you’ll see a bunch of posts in which I criticize the young earth position. I agree that God designed creation using some change processes that He built into creation itself. I also agree that the universe is billions of years old and that such processes have been at work during that time, ordinarily without what we would call “miraculous” divine intervention. And I agree that observing and learning about such processes reveals all the more the wisdom, power, and majest of our creator.
You also seem to think I’m a “fundamentalist” or “Biblical literalist.” I wouldn’t identify myself that way. I do, however, believe in the doctrine of Biblical “inerrancy,” properly understood and qualified. I’ve also discussed this on my site before if you want to search on it. The interpretive framework of inerrancy is flexible enough to recognize that God often used literary structures, metaphors, and the like in scripture that themselves aren’t to be taken “literally.” However, inerrancy does hold that, once we properly undestand a scripture passages’ literary, historical, and linguistic context, scripture is without error. I think this understanding of scripture is important for a number of reasons having to do with the historical and doctrinal integrity of the Christian faith.
Personally, my view of the first two chapters of Genesis at this time would probably be classified as something between a “day-age” view and a “framework” view. In a “day-age” view, the reference to “days” in Genesis 1 are properly understood as long stretches of time. There are a host of exegetical reasons why I believe this makes sense; if you’re interested I’ll post some more info about them. In a “framework” view, the “days” of Genesis 1 represent a literary framework and do not refer to any particular time periods. Again, there are some good exegetical reasons for this position (see in particulary Henri Blocher’s book “In the Beginning”), though I think this position is exegetically somewhat weaker than the day-age position. This is a matter of ongoing study for me, so I try not to be overly dogmatic about my position.
Now having said all that, to tie a few things up, I need to understand what you mean by “evolution” when you say evolution could be consistent with scripture. If “evolution” is defined to mean the development of all life through random processes without any divine causation, I think it clearly does conflict with scripture, regardless of your exegetical approach to Genesis 1. Even a merely metaphorical approach to the text must come away loud and clear with the idea that there is a sovereign creator-God who purposefully brought everything into existence and arranged it so that it could be called “good.”
On the other hand, if “evolution” means merely a process by which organisms can change over time through genetic mutation and recombination, I don’t think that in itself conflicts with anything in scripture. God may well have designed the capacity for such change into creation; indeed, it appears quite clearly that He did so.
All of this, I think, ties into Jeff’s comments about Truth. From a Christian perspective, it seems to me that a primary concern as we investigate the created order should be to discover truth. I’m not afraid of any truth science can uncover. “All Truth is God’s Truth,” both from general revelation (nature) and specific revelation (scripture). Neither revelation trumps the other; at the end of the day, if we knew all the facts and could properly and fully understand both types of revelation, they would harmonize completely. Since we only see “through a glass darkly” now, we often misunderstand one or the other, or both, sources of revelation. That’s ok, so long as we maintain some humilty about our human capabilities and keep seeking after Truth.
I therefore agree with Jeff that a scientific method that is self-consciously unconcerned with truth is hugely problematic. It seems that, somewhere along the line, the train jumped off the rails. What once was an enterprise seeking Truth has become, it seems, an enterprise that, at least in some quarters, seems more concerned about preserving its privileged methodology and cultural position. When methodology and cultural status prevail over Truth, that is the true mark of “fundamentalism.”
One quick point of clarification — this has been a great discussion, and I’m not accusing anyone here of being a “fundamentalist.” Actually I kind of hate how that word gets slung around all the time. I just want to ilustrate and keep talking about what I think are some problems with how we’re talking about “science” in relation to “Truth.”
David,
Having been raised a Lutheran and then in my twenties attended a very conservative, non-denominational church and then finally converted to Catholicism in my early thirties, I am all too aware of the different ways in which Scripture can be interpreted. Since becoming a Catholic, I believe that scriptural interpretation has to come through the teaching authority of the Church and Her traditions. I am aware that other Christians will not agree with that. I see little point in arguing over that here.
Within the framework of my beliefs I see no more problem with the scientific theory of evolution than with any other widely accepted scientific theory.
As I understand the theory, evolution is not just a random process. The randomness is filtered through the natural selection process.
I don’t believe the revelation that comes to us through nature is ever going to get us to the truth that is revealed through Scripture. That is the reason God has given us Scripture. So I don’t think it fair to criticize science for only giving us a part of the truth.
I’m not a scientist, but from what I have learned of ID I don’t understand how it could be considered good science. All it ever seems to do is criticize evolutionary theory, wihtout making any positive, testable claims itself.
Ralph
Ralph — I respect your Catholic position regarding scripture, and I wasn’t intending to get deeply into a discussion of hermeneutics– just outlining my position. I attended a Catholic law school and support ecumenical discussions like Evangelicals and Catholics Together, and I’ve always appreciated the richness of the Catholic intellectual tradition. (An aside — do you have a blog or site where you discuss your spiritual journey?)
So let me ask you this: if we set aside the specific claims of ID theory, would you agree that a Catholic perspective holds that the universe was designed by God, not merely in the “blind watchmaker” sense, but in the sense of being soveriegnly planned in detail? Would you also agree that the Catholic natural law tradition holds that human beings can discern that there is a God using the facilities of observation and reason as applied to God’s orderly and creative work in nature? If so, it seems that a method of making truth claims that excludes a priori any reference to these fundamental truths should be as a much a concern of yours as it is of a protestant inerrantist. There’s an excellent article in this month’s First Things by Christoph Cardinal Schonborn that I think summarizes some of these issues, from a Catholic perspective, extraordinarly well.
David,
No, I don’t have any kind of blogsite. Though I am more than happy enough to share my spiritual journey with people I know, I am not comfortable doing so in such a public manner.
Yes, of course I agree that all originates from the Creator God. But I don’t think the how of that creation has been divinely revealed to us. The how can only be determined by a study of nature itself – at least while we abide on earth.
Yes, its my understanding that the Church teaches it is possible to come to knowledge of God through nature,natural revelation, but that knowledge can’t compare to divine revelation. And I’ve always thought revelation, whether divine or natural, as being applicable to individuals. I don’t recall in my RICA classes or since being told that that meant an organization of scientists would be able to agree that the evidence in nature points to God.
Science is composed of people who hold very different philosophical and religous beliefs. I don’t know how they could possibly ever come to an agreement on what God is or does. Most people understand that science in its modern form has decided not to deal with the metaphysical claims regarding God. If science were to delcare that it could grapple with such metaphysical claims I would be very concerned. I know that the priests in my church and many of the laypeople I’ve talked to have expressed the view that the current scientific theory of evolution is not in conflict with the faith.
I read the article by Cardinal Schnoborn. Obviously, his views need to be considered carefully, but I have to admit to the impression that he should have left this matter to other teachers in the Church who have a better grrasp of science. Evolution is not a purely random process, as he tries to paint. Also, I don’t think he quite grasps how reductionism works.
Ralph
Greetings from England! I see things haven’t slowed down much for the holidays.
I think we may be in danger of getting hung up on the definition of the “truth” in a way that might confuse the actual content of the discussion. Leaving out the chosen causes (natural vs. supernatural), a condensed definition of science is: a process that seeks the best description of the natural world and the forces that have brought it to its current state. How does this relate to a form of truth under the definition you’re using? Does the recognition that science’s descriptions are provisional, and may change as we get more/better data, alter their status relative to truth? Based on the phrase quoted below, you seem to feel that science was once very different from my description, and i’m trying to find out how it differed.
Regardless, the phrase really needs to be commented on:
“What once was an enterprise seeking Truth has become, it seems, an enterprise that, at least in some quarters, seems more concerned about preserving its privileged methodology and cultural position.”
In addition to the truth issue described above, i think there’s a couple of misconceptions. I think there is some protectiveness about the definition of science, mostly because calling something “scientific” confers credibility in our current society. To avoid being seen as endorsing things that aren’t actually scientific, science does have to police claims many claims of “scientific” content. ID is not the only thing problematic in this regard – science needs to be distinguished from no end of pseudoscience – astrology, pyramid power, homeopathy, health supplements, etc. – and doing so, especially in regards to health, is effectively a form of public service.
The second is that, although the concept of science may have a special credibility, science and scientists in general don’t. Those of us in academic research are grossly underpaid relative to our education and training, and rely for grants on an increasingly bankrupt government (the National Institute of Child Health and Development can now fund less than 15% of the grants submitted to it). The scientific consensus is readily attacked when it contradicts people’s beliefs (evolution) or economic interests (global warming). And, certainly since the atomic age, society has taken a mixed view about the technology arising from scientific breakthroughs.
So, just from this scientist’s view, if there is a privileged position to defend, i want to know how to get into this position!
Jay, I have a few other thoughts but I’m a little short on time just now. Let me ask you this, though: when you say “best description,” what do you mean? Do you limit that strictly to materialistic descriptions as the Kitmiller court did?
I’d like to make a couple of comments, if I might. I came here from the U of Chicago law school blog, and I’d no sooner comment there than I would poke pencils in my ears. I think some folks need to take their meds. It’s good to see civil discussions.
I know some very smart religious people who are afraid to even look closely at evolution because they think they’re being disloyal to God if they do so. I think it’s because the science/religion dichotomy is being pushed so hard. I think that in some ways that’s a false dichotomy. I get the impression that when atheists say that we have to keep faith and science separate they seem to think we can believe in atheistic evolution Monday through Saturday, and a creator God on Sunday. A person of integrity cannot do that. And it’s not necessary.
Laura,
Is quantum physics atheistic physics? Or is the theory of gravity atheistic gravity? Or is the Big Bang theory atheistic Big Bang?
Evolution is a scientific theory like the others. God is not discussed in any of them. Atheists, Agnostics and Theists of all stripes accept all of the above theories.
So why is it appropriate to label evolution as atheistic simply because God is not mentioned in scientific discussions of evolution?
No need to reply, if you don’t wish. And I hope I’m not coming across too harshly here. Mainly am still a little perplexed as to why some other believers seem so insistent on including God in this theory when they are so untrouble by His exclusion in all other scientific theories?
Maybe my skull is just too thick.
Ralph
“Evolution is a scientific theory like the others.” I know that, Ralph. I wasn’t clear, sorry.
I meant atheistic evolution as opposed to theistic evolution. I suppose I consider myself a theistic evolutionist. I’m down with natural selection, but I balk at abiogenesis, and it seems more likely than not to me that God had a hand in directing the development of the little single-celled whatever-they-weres to what we see today. I can swallow that a lot easier than all of that happening by happy chance. That is a mixing of faith and science and I don’t actually see anything wrong with it.
As to the exclusion of God from other theories, maybe people don’t see themselves as quite so personally involved in quantum physics or the theory of gravity as they are in common ancestry. Or maybe the perception is that proponents of evolution being taught in the schools to the exclusion of everything else are trying to drive out religion in a way that physicists and chemists aren’t. I’m not saying they are trying to drive it out, I’m saying that that is the perception.
Finally, your mentioning of those other fields of science raises another interesting point. It’s possible for kids to graduate from high school today without having a clue about what quantum physics is, or being asked to contemplate the nature of gravity. In fact, I’ll bet that’s the case with the vast majority of them. What is so special about evolution and why is it so extremely crucial that biology classes be kept so pure and pristine that the textbooks can’t even get those little stickers? When you know most of the kids are staring out the window anyway.
David – don’t know when i’ll have internet access again, but….
“Jay, I have a few other thoughts but I’m a little short on time just now. Let me ask you this, though: when you say “best description,” what do you mean? Do you limit that strictly to materialistic descriptions as the Kitmiller court did?”
I’ll see you a question and raise you a question (which was bound to come up eventually any way): if there is a scientifically valid materialistic explanation for something available, is that always prefereable to a supernatural explanation? Science would say yes, and i’m pretty sure has said yes ever since it’s been recognized as a distinct field of inquiry. If this isn’t consonant with your view of a search for truth, then i think our disagreement comes out of a different view of the history of science, as much as anything else.
“Finally, your mentioning of those other fields of science raises another interesting point. It’s possible for kids to graduate from high school today without having a clue about what quantum physics is, or being asked to contemplate the nature of gravity. In fact, I’ll bet that’s the case with the vast majority of them. What is so special about evolution and why is it so extremely crucial that biology classes be kept so pure and pristine that the textbooks can’t even get those little stickers? When you know most of the kids are staring out the window anyway.”
It’s more than possible for kids to get a bad science education, and it happens all the time. But that doesn’t mean we should make it our official policy to make it worse. As Ralph points out, evolution is on par with all other scientific theories; to indicate to kids that it’s in some way different is to mislead them about science. Put stickers about theories on all text books, and list all theories covered, or don’t bother.
And that’s completely separate from most of the sticker campaigns being motivated and promoted in ways that violate the establishment clause.
David,
I just wish to elaborat a little on my last response to you.
When I learn about the theory of evolution, it awakens in me a feeling of awe. And that feeling leads me to believe more firmly in God. That is how I undersand natural revelation leading me to God.
But that seems to me different than using God as an explanation for how things work in this created world. I see God as having established the rules for creation, not as being a sort of tinkerer who is always having to fiddle around and make adjustments in the physical realm to keep things working.
Ralph
John, suppose that you were a sixteen-year-old high school student. You’ve had one high school science class – let’s say chemistry, or physics – that for the purposes of what’s in your textook, everything was figured out before you were born by “dead white men”. There’s nothing left for you to do but memorize all that crap so you could regurgitate it for the tests. Then you had biology class, and in the front of the book was a sticker making sure that you knew that there are unanswered questions, things left to discover, and actually a certain amount of controversy about the contenst of that book. Which book would fire your imagination? Which one would you study carefully and maybe do some independent reading and ask a lot of questions about?
If I were a chemistry or physics teacher I believe I’d want one of those stickers.
And it doesn’t make science worse to say that there are disagreements and unanswered questions, if there are. It makes it better.
I want to add my thanks to all who have kept this discussion civil and intellegent. Just so you know where I am coming from, I do not hold to the young earth veiw of creation because of the evidence from astronomy and geology. I would put myself in a modified version of the day age interpretation of Genesis 1. I say modified, because I don’t hold to a strict chronological interpretation of the days of creation. This is primarily because in the Genesis account the plants were created before the sun which does not work with science.
I avoid a purely allegorical interpretation of Genesis 1-11, because I see it as the begining of a slippery slope where the whole Bible is open to us picking and choosing what parts are literal and what are allegorical. This kind of hermenuetic allows us to make the Bible say anything we wish. Genesis 1 has many of the forms often found in Hebrew poetry, and I think it is safe both exegetically and theologically to interpret it as poetry. The references to the first day, the second day, etc. do not necessarily signify a strict chronology, but could mean day x, day y and day z in no particular order.
The most important thing we should learn from the text is the spiritual lessons. The pinnacle of Genesis 1 is that after creating all things, God proclaimed it “good”, then after the creation of Man, he said it was “very good”. The special status of Man in creation is further shown by the fact that Man is created in the image of God, and that he is specially created from the dust of the earth. I think this is the key to why many Christians have problems with evolution and not other fields of science. The idea of humans decending from apes is repulsive to many.
I personally have no problem with the concept of theistic evolution when it applies to plant and animal life. I don’t dispute the similarity of man to primates both in physical characteristics and DNA. However similarity of form does prove ancestry. I believe by faith in the supernatural creation of a man and a woman by the direct act of God. The reasons for this belief are religious and not scientific, and cannot be proven or disproven by the scientific method. The evidence for such a belief is the enormous difference between man and animal in the intellectual and spiritual realm. I say evidence, not proof. Ultimately belief in the supernatural must be based on faith alone.
Concerning the Dover decision, I really believe the judge did the right thing. It was shown that the arguement for God based on the complexity of nature dates back to Thomas Aquinas. The judge ruled that the arguement that irreducable complexity demonstrates design was philosophical and not scientific in nature. He did not rule on the validity of the arguement, but only on whether it fits in the scientific method of determining truth. He also ruled that the specific examples of irreducable complexity cited by Behe were not irreduceably complex because other simpler forms can be found in nature. He further ruled that Behe was presenting a false dualism where we must choose between belief in a designer or belief in evolution and cited previous creationist cases where this was thrown out as an arguement.
While I agree with the decision, I am not happy that it went to court in the first place, and I am not looking forward to watching it be appealed all the way to the supreme court. I’d much rather see these issues discussed calmly in civil forums such as this one without involving the courts. It only gives reason for the enemies of God to blaspheme, and significantly hurts our abiltiy to preach the gospel.
Best wishes to all in the new year.
Tom
“The most important thing we should learn from the text is the spiritual lessons.”
I couldn’t agree more.
Thanks for the interesting post.
Ralph
Jay — sorry, but I’m not ready to call yet; I have to raise you another question: when you say a “scientifically valid materialistic explanation,” what do you mean by “scientifically valid?” We’re getting very close to begging the question here. Do you mean empirically verifiable through observation and experiment? If you limit it in that way, I might agree with you in a qualified sense and I might also agree to some extent with the history of science from which you’re drawing your cards.
But if by “scientifically valid” you mean “falsifiable,” then I’d have to be much more careful about my answer. Falsifiability, it seems to me, is a relatively recent development in the history of science, which has been subject to substantial and I think convincing critiques by Quine, Polanyi, Lakatos, and others.
For me, this to a large extent is part of the heart of the matter: when you combine an excessive reliance on the falsifiability criterion with an a priori commitment to naturalistic explanations, you start to get “scientific” explanations that may bear no relationship to any ontological realit. This is particularly the case, I think, as you attempt to describe things, such as the development of organisms over billions of years, that can never be directly observed. When you combine that “reality gap” with the logical positivist position that the only true “knowledge” is that which is arrived at through the scientific method, you end up with a culture in which any other sort of truth claim is relegated to the dust bin of “subjective belief.”
When I mentioned the “privileged status” of science a few days ago, this is what I was driving at. Obviously most individual scientists (and, sadly, most law professors) don’t get rich or powerful from their work. But “science” as an institution and a way of knowing serves almost a “priestly” function in many parts of our culture. “Science” defines objective reality for us, or at least that’s how it’s portrayed in much of our media and serious public debate.
We have, then, “knowledge” which may bear no relationship to reality but to which every “reasonable” person is expected to assent, and “belief” which might more accurately describe reality but which polite and reasonable people are expected to keep to themselves. There is something dreadfully wrong with this game, I think.
Tom — thanks for stopping by and for the comments. Ultimately, I do agree with you that the central purpose of Genesis isn’t to give us “scientific” details about what God did at creation, and that its central concerns are theological ones about the nature of God, man, and creation. My interpretive framework at this point in my study of all this is probably similar to yours as well. I might have some different views than you (and Ralph) about the particulars of the Dover case and the relationship between faith and science, but that’s ok. This is all interesting and I think important, but it’s not, in my view, a fundamental of the faith that should divide us.
Oh, and Tom, I also agree with you about not hashing issues like this out in the courts. The Dover school board acted foolishly and I’ve always said that I don’t support efforts to push ID into public school cirricula. The “other side” wasn’t totally innocent either though. The ACLU, I believe, viewed this case, perhaps correctly, as a political spear to the heart of religious conservatives, and contributed significantly to the politicization of these issues. A pox on them all.
I don’t think that the philosophical nature of an argument makes it unscientific. I think that’s another false dichotomy.
If the argument of irreducible complexity forces evolutionary theorists to put aside fuzzy logic and get down to brass tacks about exactly how natural selection brought about the eyeball and so forth, isn’t that a good thing? Doesn’t it increase the body of knowledge?
I actually don’t have a problem with us having common ancestors with the rest of life on Earth. When you think about biochemicals, you think of CHNOPS: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, sulfur. Carbon, phosphorus, and sulfur, as well as calcium and various trace metals that we require are found in the dust of the ground. I think the point probably is that we are of Earth, not Mars or some passing asteroid, and that we are part of the biosphere. I think that’s a happy thought. I think it’s quite possible that God got the whole process of life started, and then mostly used natural selection but nudged it along here and there, and when he got a troop of primates that were upright, had adequate braincases and opposable thumbs, and so forth, he picked one out and gave it a spirit to know him. And that was Adam. The idea of Adam being made in God’s image would, in my scenario, be a reference to the spiritual nature God gave him, not his physical body. Adam was lonely because none of the females in the group could share his spirituality with him, so a suitable female, a “help meet for him”, was selected and given a spirit, and that was Eve. (This solves the problem, by the way, of where their sons found wives.) I don’t know, this is purest speculation and could be 100% wrong, but it makes sense to me.
Laura,
I guess I feel the literal reading of God forming man out of the dust, and woman out of man’s rib, enhances the special love of God for Adam and Eve. Both your interpretation and mine require faith in a direct intervention by God which cannot be proven by the scientific method. As far as where their sons got thier wives, I think they married thier sisters. While this may be immoral and genetically inadvisable today, in the early days after creation their genes were not as similar as siblings today. Just a thought.
Minor point – marrying sibs in the early days, by your scenario, wouldn’t be OK because their genes were not similar, but because they would not have lurking genetic illnesses caused by recessive genes. It’s still possible today for sibs to have healthy children together.
One more thing. (I’m sorry.) I wish that what the Dover school board did was the only stupid thing school boards ever do. Watching my child graduate from high school this past Spring was one of the most euphoric experiences I’ve ever had. There are probably dumb-as-dirt decisions being made at the university she attends, but at least I don’t have to know about them.
“Then you had biology class, and in the front of the book was a sticker making sure that you knew that there are unanswered questions, things left to discover, and actually a certain amount of controversy about the contenst of that book. Which book would fire your imagination? Which one would you study carefully and maybe do some independent reading and ask a lot of questions about?”
The simple answer is that i feel we should never mislead a student into anything. If you read the Dover science teacher’s statement refusing to read the board’s evolution disclaimer, it indicates that doing so violates teachers’ professional code of ethics.
Such a sticker might generate increased interest, but i also expect it would first generate this question on the part of the student: how is evolution different from any other scientific theory? That could be answered in two ways. One would be to describe in detail the social controversy surrounding it, the other would be to simply state that it’s not. Either answer, i expect, would breed cynicism in the students.
Breeding cynicism should be reserved for graduate school, based on my experience.
David –
Okay, i think we’ve stretched the poker metaphor to its breaking point, so i’ll borrow a legal phrase: let me rephrase the question.
I meant, basically, a reasonable explanatory model based on natural causes that’s consistent with the data. In general, science (even proto-science from Newton’s time) preferred a natural explanation when available. That’s why heliocentrism and orbits based on gravitational attraction won out over crystal lattices in the ether and epicycles. We had observations and an understanding of gravity that was consistent with the former, and no evidence for whether any of the later would exist, or how they’d operate (which is why i’d consider them supernatural explanations).
The other thing is that i think we’re getting overly hung up on falsifiability. Falsifiability’s just taking the process of evaluating a model for probability relative to data and other models to its logical extreme, namely terming a given model so completely inconsistent with existing data that it should no longer be considered. I’d expect you’d agree that science needs to be able to evaluate the relative probability of various models – if all models were always considered equally probable given existing data, science would never be able to form any theories.
Given that, i’m willing to handle the discussion without falsifiability as a ground rule of science. Have we hit a common ground at this point?
John, another way of explaining that sticker would be to discuss the “evolution” of the concept of endosymbiosis, which is fairly recent and wasn’t accepted right away, and still is not totally worked out. (It found its way into the back of my cell biology book back in 1980 or so, but my degree is in chemistry so I probably never encountered it in the classroom.) I thought it was fascinating when we discussed it in the micro class I took this year, and even more so when I found out it’s still being developed and debated; some proponents of this theory think that the flagella on eukaryotic cells, rather than evolving from prokaryotic flagella, actually started out as spirochetes. Some people think they can back that up, and some think it’s too far-out. I can’t think of any similarly unsettled topics in chemistry or physics that are understandable by the average high schooler. And I can’t think of any science besides evolution in which working these things out is being pushed by social pressure – that also makes it fascinating to me. To tell a high-schooler that everything is figured out and agreed upon and that all the student needs to do is to learn what’s in the textbook, without even a sticker to tell him that people who have studied the subject are not in full agreement is just wrong. In my humble opinion.
Jay — interesting — would you characterize your position regarding falsifiability as a mainstream view of how falsifiability works?
Your definition includes a “reasonable explanatory model based on natural causes.” I guess I’m ok with that as far as it goes. It doesn’t seem to go very far, though. What is a “reasonable” explanatory model? And at what point in the chain of causation can the explanatory model stop?
Here’s where my thinking is going on this: one of the big stumbling blocks in the faith-science dialogue, I think, is this issue of causation. Perhaps we need to re-label our efforts to investigate the universe based on where we are in the chain of causation.
For example, say a medical researcher wants to investigate what causes a certain type of tumor to metastasize. That researcher is looking for the immediate cause of the metastasis. It’s fair, and proper, and profitable for that researcher to exclude supernatural causes. Even if there is some supernatural cause — say, the ultimate sovereign will of God, or bad Karma — it would be far beyond the point in the chain of causation that concerns this researcher.
On the other hand, if a researcher is exploring questions of origins, she is getting much further down the chain of causation, even perhaps to the question of first cause. There, it seems far less reasonable, fair, proper or profitable to exclude supernatural causes a priori. Purely naturalistic explanations at these more basic points in the chain of causation start to sound like tautologous doublespeak.
This is why I get my back up when people like Dawkins claim that “science” provides the rational explanation for life. Even more so, it gets my back up when people who’ve bought the Dawkins line pass it on in a less sophisticated and more authoritarian form to people who don’t know better, particularly impressionable kids in school.
Perhaps, then, we could reclassify our areas of investigation based on the extent to which we have some reasonble understanding of how the chain of causation might work. The “science” of cancer research is not the same as the “science” of origins research. Perhaps origins science is more like “Naturalistic Metaphysics.” That wouldn’t mean “Naturalistic Metaphysics” is an invalid method of inquiry, but it would perhaps more accurately reflect what Naturalistic Metaphysicians are doing. If the scientific establishment (an unfortunately loaded term, I know) would recognize this kind of humilty about its methods, I think I’d be more willing to recognize the validity of a methodology tht excludes supernatural causes in other areas of inquiry.
First off, many apologies on the multiple posts – my original attempt refused to show up for a while, so i tried testing various options for what i might be doing wrong. Sadly, they all turned out to ultimately work. Ooops. I’ll be traveling tomorrow, so i’ll necessarily be shut up shortly.
Laura:
I agree that it’s the duty of science teachers to make clear that science is not complete, and many areas are still under study. After all, electromagnetism and the weak force were only unified since i’ve been an adult, and efforts are still under way to merge gravity in. So, do we put a sticker on every text that mentions gravity, or do we improve state science standards and teacher training? I’d argue that the former is a bit of near-useless window dressing if we don’t improve the later. If we do improve the later, then the former becomes redundant.
I’d also agree that the development of the endosymbiosis theory is an excellent example of how science progresses (it should also be viewed as a Kuhnian revolution in our paradigms) – a controversial idea that testing and new data ultimately made the most probable explanation for these observations. Teaching it as such should help make biology more interesting to students.
You’re right in that there’s now some discussion and controversy over how many other systems the endosymbiosis model can apply to, but i think the eukaryotic flagella is stretching it too far. The vast majority of the proteins in the eukaryotic flagella don’t exist in prokaryotes such as spirochetes, but versions of them are used in intracellular transport in the rest of the cell in all eukaryotes. There are also transitional forms of the eukaryotic flagella preserved in some primitive eukaryotes, where they don’t move, but simply act to expand the feeding surface available to the organism. So, i think endosymbiosis is proposing a solution (one inconsistent with current data) for something that isn’t a problem here.
David –
I’m not certain that my view of falsifiability should be considered mainstream – to some extent, science is viewed by its practitioners (as opposed to philosophers) in the same way as pornography: we know it when we see it. We don’t tend to have to define it during the day-to-day research, because things like theories don’t get formulated that often, and the models we test and propose are generally extensions based on existing ones.
What i think we’d all agree on is that we do need a mechanism to test models and evaluate the relative merits of them, or something can’t be approached scientifically. As i’ve indicated, i don’t understand how testability/evaluation and falsifiability are significantly different other than in degree, so i’d imagine there’d be general agreement if other scientists thought about it.
So, given that, how does one rate the probability of supernatural intervention? How does one compare the probability of supernatural intervention to something that’s only supported by a limited data set vs. an extensive data set? If a supernatural intervention can include omnipotence, how can you ever gather enough evidence to make it overwhelmingly unlikely? I just don’t understand how to do any of that, and i’m not aware of anyone who does. If the supernatural’s going to be eliminated from consideration as soon as a probable natural explanation comes along, why consider it in the first place? It’s all these problems that have caused science to stop considering the supernatural: not because we know it’s not the cause, but simply because we don’t know how to evaluate it.
In regards to your thoughts on evolution, i think it’s important to emphasize that evolution isn’t a theory of origins, but a theory of diversification. No model for origins of life has generated enough scientific support to rise to the level of theory yet. But that’s not to say that one eventually won’t be developed, and that when it is developed, it will be any less scientific than, say, plate tectonics. That’s why it’s important to emphasize that there are areas where our scientific understanding is currently limited (that should be part of the humility of science), but dangerous to declare them permanently off limits to a scientific understanding or even a limited form of scientific understanding. Science has consistently surprised even its practitioners with the number of areas that have become scientifically accessible due to improving technology.
It’s also important to emphasize that Dawkins is not the be-all and end-all of evolutionary theory, and that he often makes grandiose philosophical claims derived from science in a way that makes a lot of other scientists uncomfortable, many of who have stated so publicly. A distinction between such philosophical claims derived from science, and the claims of science itself was a major point of discussion at the Dover trial.
Much like quantum mechanics, evolution is not a theory of necessary causation, either. When an organism is under selective pressure, there is no single necessary way that the organism will respond to adapt best. Clearly, in some cases they fail to adapt at all, leading to all those extinctions. So, to view it as a chain of clear, causal connections back to the origin of life is an oversimplification.
As for the humility aspect, i don’t know what to say. Everyone will admit that science seeks natural explanations for the natural world. Whether that’s presented and/or perceived as a limitation or a triumph depends on social aspects, and not something intrinsic to science itself.
Anyway, if you’re happy where things now stand here, there’s at least one other thing that was touched on above but not discussed: how ID fails as science in addition to its reliance on the supernatural. The other thing that you might be interested in is why a scientist might have issues with the ruling (there’s two problems that stand out to me).
Jay — I don’t know if I’m completely “happy” yet, but I do think I understand your position better, even if we might not yet fully agree.
I’m not sure why we can’t in principle evaluate the likelihood that an event occured through supernatural intervention. That kind of evaluation might require some assumptions about the sort of supernatural intelligence involved — one that is not only omnipotent, but also consistent and orderly, and one that gave to us the noetic equipment needed to discern its activity. Given these foundational assumptions, we should be able to reasonably conclude that the apparent design of the universe isn’t merely apparent, just as we assume that a structure apparently designed for human habitation is in fact a home built by intelligent people rather than something that just happened to appear through natural causes.
These are the very assumptions that were made about God in discussions of the investigation of the natural world from Plato to Augustine to Newton. And, they are the very assumptions naturalistic science makes, but without reference to God: that the universe operates according to discernible, uniform processes, and that our human perceptive and rational capabilities are sufficient to give us reasonably accurate information about how those processes operate. So, we are back to foundational assumptions: I don’t see why it’s more reasonable to ground these foundational assumptions in a naturalism that ultimately reduces to an infinte regress of causation than to ground them in a first cause (God).
So maybe we’ve gone as far as we can go on that front, if we’re down to unverifiable foundational assumptions again? Or am I still missing it (honest question, not snarky)?
Ok — beyond that I would very much like to hear your thoughts on the other two things you mention — how else ID fails as science and the problems a scientist might have with the ruling. One thing that occurs to me about the ruling, regardless of anything else, is that the scientific community shouldn’t be too sanguine about having district courts pronounce for them what “science” means.
“One thing that occurs to me about the ruling, regardless of anything else, is that the scientific community shouldn’t be too sanguine about having district courts pronounce for them what “science” means. ”
Doesn’t the judge’s decision only apply to one school district?
I would think any scientist out there is still perfectly free to continue on as he always has. After all, there have been many books written about the philosophy of science. I believe most scientists don’t pay them much heed.
Even those scientist’s who believe that ID is a testable theory can still do their reasearch and try to convince the rest of the scientific community of the value of such research.
Ralph
Ralph — technically you are correct. However, this clearly was a “test case,” and the court’s ruling already is reverberating throughout the country. The effect and implications of this ruling will not be limited to one school district. And it will be far worse if other district courts, which aren’t bound by the Kitzmiller ruling, also decide to opine on what constitutes “science.” This is not a road anyone should want to go down.
David,
I think you are correct that any other school district wanting to mandate the teaching of ID will have to seriously consider the ruling from Dover.
I’m sorry, I don’t see how this can have any practical effect on how actual scientist conduct their research. The practicing scientists I’ve talked to or whose writings I’ve read, seem to take a rather dim view of anyone trying to tell them how to practice science.
By the way, I listened to your song Bound for Glory. I thought it was very good. Do you record professionally?
Take care,
Ralph
“In regards to your thoughts on evolution, i think it’s important to emphasize that evolution isn’t a theory of origins, but a theory of diversification. No model for origins of life has generated enough scientific support to rise to the level of theory yet.”
I agree with these statements, but I’m not sure that people who design curricula and textbooks do. My daughter, who happens to be a freshman biology major, says that the primordial soup was discussed in her high school biology class (but not in college, at least not yet.) Primordial soup is purest speculation. If people are presenting this as part of evolutionary theory they shouldn’t be. I think the sticker thing results from the perception that many people have, and it may be a true perception, that evolution is being taught in the classroom as covering life origins. They further suspect that this is done while actively denying God’s role in it. I felt very adequate to help my child understand these things at home – and actually, the way her teacher handled the discussion it wasn’t necessary for me to do anything – but many people are convinced that biology books and biology teachers are trying to turn their kids into atheists. In all the sneering at creationism, I see very little happening to reassure those parents.
I work with a man who is an avowed atheist and a former high school science teacher, and while he is a nice person most of the time, he does like to get his little digs in when he’s around me. I shudder to think what his classroom would have been like for teenagers who might not have had the self-confidence to shrug him off like I do. For people who had teachers like him, or whose kids have teachers like him, I don’t blame them in the least for wanting those stickers.
Ralph — thanks for the compliments on the song — I think it’ll be fun once it’s finished. I don’t record professionally, but I do alot with music at my church. See my music page at http://www.davidopderbeck.com/music.php for more of my original work!
Happy new year, all!
David –
If you’re not done talking about this, that’s fine. Our life expectancies would suggest that we’ve got plenty of time to sort through things. I think you described one of the problems with allowing supernatural intervention well, even if it was not your intent – it requires assumption on top of assumption. First you assume there is something there to intervene, then you have to start assuming various things about the capabilities and motivations of that something. Unsupported assertions like this don’t have a place anywhere else in science; certainly, limiting the number that go into foundational assumptions seems appropriate.
These assumptions are also qualitatively different from the two natural assumptions that you correctly recognize as the foundation of science – that we can accurately perceive the natural world, and that the forces and mechanisms we observe today have operated in the past. These have been confirmed empirically, as testable predictions based on these assumptions have been borne out by observations. Were they not, then i’d imagine that science would have developed differently than it has. In contrast, the pre-scientific theological assumptions you’d like to see reintroduced into the study of the natural world are open for debate. Is an orderly omnipotent being consistent with a reality in which many basic features are best understood via probability curves? Reasonable arguments could be made either way.
Another problem with this is something Ralph’s been pointing to: those assumptions aren’t compatible with the beliefs of a substantial fraction of the world. Should Buddhists, atheists, Hindus, etc., who have all made significant contributions to modern science, be excluded from science or forced to check their theological considerations at the door? Should monotheists be the only true scientists? What about monotheists that prefer to keep their view of god abstracted from the messy effects of biology, meteorology, and plate tectonics, which cause suffering for millions? How do they fit in?
Overall, i think introducing theological considerations is an attempt to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. Aside from the whole testability/evaluation problems, they were excluded during the development of modern science because they introduce many problems such as the ones described above. I also don’t think it’s a good idea to make a foundational assumption about the possibility of supernatural intervention for a field where the goal would then be to eliminate the reliance on it by providing natural explanations. But that may just be me.
Jay,
Our life expectancies would suggest that we’ve got plenty of time to sort through things.
Maybe you do. My three children have sucked most of the life out of me. I’m sure my heart will give out once they reach college age and I see what tuition looks like. 🙂
…that we can accurately perceive the natural world, and that the forces and mechanisms we observe today have operated in the past. These have been confirmed empirically,
I think it’s more than a bit too strong to say these assumptions have been “confirmed empirically.” They can’t be confirmed empirically in the sense of being tested against a control, because if the assumptions are correct, there is no way to create a control. They also can’t be confirmed empirically merely by historical observation, because if these assumptions are untrue, we can’t trust our perception of history.
I would agree with you that both assumptions are reasonable — there don’t appear to be any sound reasons to doubt them — but they can’t be tested. Utlimately, they must be taken on faith. I’d also note that at least a billion Buddhists would take issue with us about the reasonableness of these assumptions. I think they are wrong about that, but questioning these basic assumptions isn’t limited to UFO freaks and isolated crackpots.
Should monotheists be the only true scientists?
No, I didn’t mean to suggest that. All I’m suggesting is that that monotheists shouldn’t be required to check their foundational assumption of a creator at the laboratory door. Isn’t there room for both kinds of inquiry? Some seek strictly naturalistic explanations, some seek to determine whether design can be inferred from the data. All should be trying to determine what constitutes reality. Why should some sociological definition of “science” — “science is what scientists call it when they see it” — limit the search for Truth?
Yes, I know, religious people are free to investigate Truth using their own methods and assumptions — but in the popular culture, and very often in the law, that’s correct only so long as religious people don’t make any claims to “objective” knowledge and keep their theories to themselves. I’m really more intested in addressing that problem than in haggling over the somewhat arbitrary meaning of “science.”
Jay — another thing that’s been bugging me — you seem to have described Newton as “pre-science” or “proto-science.” Is that really what you would call Newton?
I think it’s more than a bit too strong to say these assumptions have been “confirmed empirically.”
Well, not entirely. What we observe of distant stars can be very, very old, but indicates that the basics of physics and chemistry were in operation in the distant past.
I’d also note that at least a billion Buddhists would take issue with us about the reasonableness of these assumptions.
My understanding, based on a year of college buddhism, is that they view the world we see around us as impermanent, but this doesn’t necessarily extent to the forces that shape the world being impermanent. It’s easy to see that as being consonant with things like evolution and continental drift, but a practicing buddhist would be able to say more than i could. At least one school of Buddhist thought must be okay with science, given that the Dali Lama’s position is fairly similar to that of the most recent statement out of the Vatican.
Isn’t there room for both kinds of inquiry? Some seek strictly naturalistic explanations, some seek to determine whether design can be inferred from the data.
As stated here, there isn’t a conflict at all. There is room for design detection in science, provided it’s done using the methods of science; if it were successful, then scientists would start looking for explanations, though they’d focus on natural ones since, as discussed earlier, these are the ones we know how to evaluate. But nobody’s even made the first step successfully yet.
If the ID crowd had managed to generate any compelling evidence that design is apparent, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. That is in fact what they should be doing first – come up with an objective, scientific way of detecting design. Scientists would be more than happy to apply such a test if it were developed, and who knows where that would lead. Instead, the people like Behe and Dembski have made a couple of stabs at this, declared victory, stopped responding to scientific criticisms, and tried to claim unsupported extrapolations based on this “success” as valid scientific theory.
Yes, I know, religious people are free to investigate Truth using their own methods and assumptions — but in the popular culture, and very often in the law, that’s correct only so long as religious people don’t make any claims to “objective” knowledge and keep their theories to themselves. I’m really more intested in addressing that problem than in haggling over the somewhat arbitrary meaning of “science.”
Well, this is more of a social issue than one of science per se. I could comment on it, but i’m not sure my thoughts would be in any way helpful or insightful.
you seem to have described Newton as “pre-science” or “proto-science.” Is that really what you would call Newton?
Yeah, that was pretty intentional. Newton was a brilliant mathematician, but his use of math was primarily in confirming the observations of others. He himself wasn’t doing as much of the observing, and he was an even worse experimenter, dabbling in alchemy and other pseudoscience of his day. He was a very significant figure in the development of science, but at the same time, very much a product of his times, times in which science was not very well developed.
What we observe of distant stars can be very, very old, but indicates that the basics of physics and chemistry were in operation in the distant past.
I agree, but you still have to assume that your observations are accurate — what you are perceiving truly reflects reality, both the reality of the photons hitting your eyes now and the reality that existed billions of years ago. Again, a reasonable assumption, but not truly testable.
come up with an objective, scientific way of detecting design.
But now this seems to be getting circular again. What would an “objective, scientific way of detecting design” look like if “design” is excluded at the outset from the definition of “science?” This sounds like “we’ll listen to your scientific explanation if you provide one, but you can’t provide one, because by definition what you’re doing isn’t science.” I’m not trying to be argumentative; maybe I’m just dense at the moment (been a long day). What would you suggest as some objective, scientific ways to detect design? Or is it really correct that no such ways are conceivable? Or are you getting tired of talking with me about this (I really do appreciate your stopping by here)?
very much a product of his times, times in which science was not very well developed.
Aren’t we all? I wonder what scientists two hundred years from now will be saying about us. This sort or historical perspective makes me want to be very cautious about defining what’s “in” and what’s “out.”
No, i’m not tired of talking about this, and i realize you’re not being argumentative in any unpleasant sense. Having written up evolution articles on the web and waded through the resulting discussions, i’ve developed a fair idea of where the boundaries of honest questions lie – this one makes for a welcome change to some of those “discussions.”
What would an “objective, scientific way of detecting design” look like if “design” is excluded at the outset from the definition of “science?
Well, design itself isn’t excluded from consideration – supernatural intervention is. That’s why i said that if solid evidence of design was ever presented, scientists would start looking for a natural explanation. I guess the distinction is between artificial and supernatural. Science can try to identify the artificial (designed things) while still not being able to handle the supernatural (ie – a potential designer).
This will actually probably be a real issue going forward (at least scientifically – i realize it’s a social issue already), since i’d guess that we’re probably within 50 years of being able to design our own proteins, rather than creating variations on natural ones. At that point, there’s a real danger that the artificial and natural will no longer be readily distinguishable, and evolutionary studies will have to exclude known artificial causes.
I wonder what scientists two hundred years from now will be saying about us. This sort or historical perspective makes me want to be very cautious about defining what’s “in” and what’s “out.”
And that’s what’s bothered me most about the decision. The judge did a flawless job of describing the historical process that brought about our current understanding of science, and looked to all the right places to get that understanding. But he should have made it explicit that the process was the important part, not the result. Science has changed historically, and at some point in the future, the legal world may need an updated definition. The judge figured out how to get a very good one, but didn’t clearly state that it’s the process should be followed in the future, rather than simply using the definition of our time.
I feel the same way about the point where he stated that a governmental body pointing out “gaps” and “problems” with evolution is now understood by a reasonable observer to be a creationist argument. That’s certainly true now, but will it still be so 50 or 500 years from now? I’d love to see science education stay out of the courts for longer than it took the creationist movement to reformulate around the Discovery Institute and ID, but at the same time, i realize that accepted theories sometimes have a fall from grace. The decision was the right one for our moment, but would have done better if it included some guidance for recognizing when our moment has passed.
Happy New Year to you both!
“Well, design itself isn’t excluded from consideration – supernatural intervention is. That’s why i said that if solid evidence of design was ever presented, scientists would start looking for a natural explanation. I guess the distinction is between artificial and supernatural. Science can try to identify the artificial (designed things) while still not being able to handle the supernatural (ie – a potential designer).”
So why not assume the source (i.e. designer) is natural, and then focus solely on the mathematics of design detection?
Jeff,
What are the motives of this “natural designer”? What kind of powers does he/she/it have? Where does it come from? How did the desinger accomplish it’s designs?
Don’t we have to know things like that in order to recognize design in already established scientific fields like archeology?
Ralph
“What are the motives of this “natural designer”? What kind of powers does he/she/it have? Where does it come from? How did the desinger accomplish it’s designs?”
All very interesting questions, of course, but none of them scientific according to the view John has presented … other than perhaps the how question.
Let the philosophers and theologians tackle the motives question, and scientists focus on the mathematics of eliminating chance and detecting design. In order for the scientists to get involved, they need to play their rules … which is to assume a natural cause. So be it. Assume a natural cause, and then get to work on the math so we can empirically determine design instead of play off hunches.
Jeff,
You’re missing the point of my post, I’m afraid.
One has to be able to provide answers to the questions I asked, if one is going to be able to infer design.
That’s why archeologists and anthropologists can infer design from tools that look like they could have been products of natural processes: they know a great deal about the designers and they are able to figure out how the tools were made.
I’m not sure I understand what you mean by using math to empirically determine design. Are you referring to Dembski’s ideas?
Ralph
“That’s why archeologists and anthropologists can infer design from tools that look like they could have been products of natural processes: they know a great deal about the designers and they are able to figure out how the tools were made.”
I disagree. Archaeologists can quite easily determine whether a rock formation was formed naturally or carved just by looking at it. It is not that hard to do actually. We infer design using intuition … knowing nothing about who did it or why they did it.
I drove past Eagle Rock on the 210 freeway on my morning commute when I worked in Burbank. Looking at it, I could see that it kinda sorta resembled an eagle if the morning sun was shining on it just right … but it was pretty obvious to me that it was a natural rock formation versus something formed by human hands. I did not need to know anything about the early inhabitants of Southern California to make that call.
A second example is forensics. Surely you agree that forensic investigators can determine a murder versus a suicide before they know the identity or motive of a putative killer. True?
What we need are scientists to help us perfect the scientific tools to detect design. We need to move away from intuition into empirical detection; like we have in cryptography and various forms of pattern matching and recognition.
If we are stuck in a loop because scientists won’t help unless they assume a non-supernatural cause behind patterns, then go ahead and assume a non-supernatural cause. Check that box and proceed.
Well, there are many examples of people who’ve intuited wrong about natural formations like the Devil’s Causeway and the face on mars. Archeologists can’t always identify things quite as easily as you say – many things in central and north America weren’t identified as human creations for decades, and i’d bet there’s a lot of jungle-covered lumps waiting to reveal themselves as Mayan ruins to this day.
A second example is forensics. Surely you agree that forensic investigators can determine a murder versus a suicide before they know the identity or motive of a putative killer. True?
Yes, but they also base this sort of determination on the known human physical limitations – our “powers”, as Ralph mentioned. And i also would guess it’s not a simple before/after as you portray it – discovering a motivation will influence how the physical data gets interpreted. Absence of anyone with motivation will probably do the same. So, i think Ralph is right to a degree.
But i’m not entirely convinced that there is no possible way to identify artificiality in a motivation-free manner. Which means i roughly agree with this statement:
We need to move away from intuition into empirical detection
But i don’t think anybody now has a good idea on how to do that. The ID crowd is also focusing on the wrong fields for developing this sort of thing – it would be most useful in archeology and anthropology. If people want to see this developed by scientists, then it’s scientists in those fields that are more likely to be convinced to work on it. Focusing on biology is pointless, because there’s already a successful theory that explains pretty much all the data. Nobody much is interested in messing with success – it’s generally not very rewarding on any level.
Anyway, i’m not sure it’s my position to be giving advice to the ID community. Not that they’d take it – as i wrote in one of my articles on this, one of the ironies of the post-Dover fall out is that, in some ways, the decision could be used as a road map to lead ID in the direction of scientific respectability. But the ID crowd is busy attempting to re-fight the battles they lost in the decision, rather than paying attention to the decision itself.
“I drove past Eagle Rock on the 210 freeway on my morning commute when I worked in Burbank. Looking at it, I could see that it kinda sorta resembled an eagle if the morning sun was shining on it just right … but it was pretty obvious to me that it was a natural rock formation versus something formed by human hands.”
Why did it seem obvious to you that it was a natural rock formation? In science you can’t simply say something is pretty obvious, you have to give supporting reasons.
“A second example is forensics. Surely you agree that forensic investigators can determine a murder versus a suicide before they know the identity or motive of a putative killer. True?”
Not really. They can determine the cause of death without knowing who caused it. Murder and suicide are not causes.
To classify that death as a murder or suicide, they are going to have to rely on assumptions and other evidence pointing to possible motives and identity. or identity. Those assumptions can be made because we already know a great deal about human behavior.
“What we need are scientists to help us perfect the scientific tools to detect design. We need to move away from intuition into empirical detection; like we have in cryptography and various forms of pattern matching and recognition.
If we are stuck in a loop because scientists won’t help unless they assume a non-supernatural cause behind patterns, then go ahead and assume a non-supernatural cause. Check that box and proceed.”
If those supporting ID think they can provide evidence, it is up to them to do so.
Ralph
“Well, there are many examples of people who’ve intuited wrong about natural formations like the Devil’s Causeway and the face on mars.”
I’ll go along with that. I think that argues for developing a more objective tool than playing off hunches which can go astray (to refer back to my earlier point). The Face On Mars controversy is a classic example of inferring design where there is none.
To your point re: knowing motivations and powers. I agree that it is helpful information if you have it. What I am disputing is that an investigation is dead in the water without it (which is what I thot Ralph was asserting).
“Which means i roughly agree with this statement: We need to move away from intuition into empirical detection”
Xlant. We have a starting point of agreement.
“But i don’t think anybody now has a good idea on how to do that.”
Well let’s stop standing around and get going! 🙂
I think we have the basic framework to proceed. We can borrow from the fields of information science (which I know more about) and cryptography (which I know less about). Identifying patterns requires the use of probabilities and the ability to filter out noise (false positives and false negatives). I think it is possible to quantify when data has a recognizable pattern and the likelihood of that pattern being formed by stochastic processes. We don’t have to reinvent the wheel here.
“The ID crowd is also focusing on the wrong fields for developing this sort of thing – it would be most useful in archeology and anthropology.”
Point taken. Let’s perfect this tool in other areas where it will have an immediate impact. Perhaps archaeology and anthropology, maybe forensics, perhaps encryption, security and cryptography.
I am sure everyone is interested in living in a safer world where terrorist messages can be recognized, intercepted and decrypted with greater precision, as an example.
If people want to use design detection in biology, then they will need to make a pragmatic case for why this would be beneficial. Who knows, maybe they could make a strong case … but for now, I agree that there is not a compelling reason to focus on biology with such a tool.
Just a few thoughts on the issue:
I should point out that it’s not at all clear that any techniques developed that help identify design in non-living systems may not apply to living ones, which self-replicate, undergo mutation, etc. – all sorts of things that the non-living doesn’t. But it’d be at least the starting point for a reasonable debate, instead of all the unreasonable debate that goes on now.
The other thing which may interest you, is that pattern recognition software is heavily used in biology already. With whole genomes now available, its primary use is in recognizing things which are likely to be genes vs. all the junk DNA. Other software actually recognizes the patterns of common descent. For example, flies have 3 versions of a kind of molecule i work on – mammals have somewhere in the area of 30. Given enough species spread out along the evolutionary distance between the two, computer analysis can recognize when the 3 versions in flies got duplicated, which of the duplications are most closely related, etc.
Jay– any links for any of the uses of pattern recognition you describe? I tried Googling but I’m not getting any good info. Thanks.
This is all Google driven, since i don’t use many of these personally (i’m a lowly developmental biologist – i just use the results), but i do have the advantage of knowing what search terms to plug in.
Don’t know if this is really pattern recognition, but the program they use for genome reconstruction is Arachne:
http://www.broad.mit.edu/wga/
It’s big recent success was the dog genome.
There seems to be a number of options for gene prediction programs:
http://opal.biology.gatech.edu/GeneMark/
http://cbcb.umd.edu/software/jigsaw/
http://genes.mit.edu/GENSCAN.html
My favorite genome site is ENSEMBL, which uses this last one for its predicted genes.
I also dug up a reference that compares a number of programs – it’s pretty out of date now, but it may give you names of programs that have been updated in the mean time:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=10743555&dopt=Citation
For evolution analysis software, Google suggests:
http://www.megasoftware.net/
http://evolve.zoo.ox.ac.uk/
But i don’t do any of that sort of research, so i don’t know how well these work, or whether they were the ones that were used for the example i gave.
Hope that’s helpful for your interest. I could do some detailed research if you were interested in some specific aspect.
Oh, and it turns out that this sort of DNA data mining’s just been put to interesting use:
http://www.corante.com/loom/archives/2006/01/05/catblogging_from_deep_time.php