Wesley Elsberry reminds us that the tenth anniversary of the Kitzmiller vs. Dover Area School District is fast approaching. In his inimitable low-key but hard-hitting style, he writes:
Because religious antievolution since the Epperson v. Arkansas case has mostly adopted the strategy of deception, I see the time since Dover as confirming that as the approach. After Epperson, the proponents of creationism could have used a strategy of cultural resistance via Sunday school and church. Instead, they seized on phrasing in the Epperson decision’s dissenting opinion that of course science of whatever variety could be taught in public school science classrooms, and decided that they would use a subset of the old arguments they used to promote creationism, and claim that those were science. The history of the antievolution movement since then has been a process of iterative cloaking of intent as the courts prove time and again capable of discerning the sham. (‘Sham’ is the phrasing used in the Edwards v. Aguillard decision in 1987.)
Given that view of history in mind, it is easy to see that the application of the deceptive strategy is still the primary focus of the antievolution movement. The intent is to get as many of the old, shabby, awful arguments from creationism mentioned in public school science classrooms as if they had never been refuted.
Given that our legal system has recourse for teaching sectarian religious doctrines, but not for teaching bad science*, this looks to be a process that will continue. ‘Intelligent design’ as a commonly accepted, given the benefit of doubt notion is dead, but the arguments that comprised IDC go on under new names, sowing confusion and mistrust of the scientific endeavor.
*There are some provisions for removing incompetent teachers, but applying them is usually difficult and uncertain of achieving good results.
I remember the events building up to the Dover trial as it coincided with a period of illness and treatment that meant I had plenty of time on my hands to surf the net and, having come across “Intelligent Design” by accident, I was able to follow events and personalities quite closely. Since then, I’ve predicted (wrongly and prematurely) the demise of the movement. That puzzles me. The strategy to get alternative ideas to evolution taught in public schools has pretty much failed. Seems to me that ID proponents need to look at two options. Develop another strategy for bypassing Church-state separation or actually put some effort into developing ID into a genuine scientific hypothesis with entailments and predictions. Otherwise, why go on?
The third way? Biosemiotics?
Natural genetic engineering.
Hermeneutics of quantum gravity?
Happy Anniversary!
Science by Analogy, or, Argumentum ad Fishing Reel.
One version being, it takes humans to make a language, therefore it requires God to make the genetic code.
Because…we ran out of other “arguments.”
Glen Davidson
LULZ
The latest IDiot gambit seems to be “directed evolution”. The demand is made science must prove evolution through random genetic variations is undirected and not caused by an external Intelligence doing behind-the-scenes manipulating. Same old same old, science must prove a negative or we should assume ID. Just like until science proves gravity is undirected we must assume the Invisible Gravity Pixies are pushing things around.
… just as happens with landslides and diffusion of particles in solution. We have been making the unjustified assumption that rocks go down a hill in accordance with gravity, and the unjustified assumption that salt dissolves in water by a process of random movement of atoms in the solution.
Clearly these must both result from the actions of a Designer, as no one has proven that they aren’t.
Larry M links to a series of articles int the Features section in Reports of the National Center for Science Education which cover the anniversary.
I enjoyed the last one by Scott, who was part of the legal team.
Moran thinks their appeal to Methodological Naturalism as a defining feature of science would not work today because philosophers of science have moved on.
Joe Felsenstein,
That’s not so far from what some Christians I know personally claim for me to be sure there isn’t someone who genuinely believes it.
Moran is canadian. He does not wish to corrupt his mind trying to understand American law and American politics. He would like to see critical thinking taught.
I suspect it is being taught is advanced classes, to college prep kids.
Thank God that Dover saved us all from an authoritarian theocratic government.
To be fair ID has flourished, returning to the labs and increasing our collective knowledge since the ruling. It’ll be easier next time…
1- ID is not anti-evolution nor is it based on religion
2- ID attacks materialism, not science
3- Dr Behe responds to Dover and sets the record straight
4- The judge bought a literature bluff
5- The defense didn’t object to the literature bluff
Alan Fox:
What was evolutionism’s strategy for bypassing Church-State separation and what are the entailments and predictions of drift and natural selection, ie blind watchmaker evolution?
Give us something we can compare ID to, Alan. That way you can’t just throw out nonsensical statements and assume they mean something.
Joe Felsenstein,
So rocks go down a hill but landslides could not have formed Stonehenge. Did you have a point, Joe?
You don’t even have an argument by analogy. You don’t have a model. You have argumentum ad bald declaration.
Wow, what a loser of a strawman. “Not By Chance” came out in 1997. Genetic and evolutionary algorithms, ie directed evolution, have been in use for longer than that. And no, no designer manipulation required. And I know that you have been told that many times and yet you still persist.
Pathetic, even for this forum.
Your position can’t explain analogies.
And what has evolutionism given us, ever?
Don’t have to. All we care about is they exist and for most people they are a good learning tool. That is why you don’t like them.
I don’t know Joe. That’s your thing, scientists study evolution.
The only weird part in all of this is that these landslides and salt dissolving haven’t managed to create any light bulbs yet. I wonder what is taking these accidents so long.
Just time, all you need is time, right.
Chubby Gallien,
Do they offer courses in it? Do people have degrees in it?
And imperfect replication and selection. Look, evolution made a dim-bulb.
Frankie,
It gave Richard a job, he just studies evolution computer simulations all day. That is why he has such a vested interest in defending the theory (just like most college biologist, don’t rob their gravy train).
The simulations of course never actually produce anything, but just wait. Time!. Just like Joe’s landslides and salt, given enough time these accidents are going to write sarcastic poetry, and design rocket ships to Mars.
Richardthughes,
Why has it only ever happened once?
phoodoo,
No that’s not what I do at all. I solve business problems using the most powerful tools I can find. Still making things up about others, Phoodoo? That’s pretty poor.
phoodoo,
It may have happened lots of times. Try thinking – how do you think proto life would fair when introduced into a mature ecosystem?
Frankie,
“Intelligent design is just the Logos of John’s Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory.”
— William Dembski
Sure we can. Start out with the the following: seilanaog
Randomly re-arrange until the following sequence is obtained: analogies
Analogies explained.
10 years of incompetent court folks is irrekevant to hundreds of years in Anglo American civilization of freedom of conscience, speech, advocacy, thought.
More cases please. Until the courts step aside from any claim to control what is true or not true in our universe.
Schools etc must obey the law of truth and freedom to seek it and teach it.
No censorship must be suffered.
ID/YEC are not religious conclusions bit thoughtful scientific conclusions that lead to conclusions about things called religion.
Even if creationism was religious investigation and conclusions it would still be illegal to censor it in schools because it means to say its not a option for truth in subjects about truth.
These are small circles in small cases and simply the nation should be involved. in fact thesze court decisions brought more attention to creationism and not less.
Just what is desired. dumb decisions have this heritage.
Another court case please we are creationists.
Alas for irony, since it is lost on Chubbs, yet again.
Glen Davidson
There’s this big yellow thing in the sky that emerged from the interactions of a few simple physical forces: Gravity, electromagnetism and the nuclear force.
The Earth itself formed pretty much through the same forces. Is the Earth simple? Think of all the geological and atmospheric processes taking place this very moment. None of this is simple, yet it all happened by “chance and necessity”.
What are the odds that the Mt Everest would form? There is only one Mt. Everest in the entire universe. Think about how many atoms Mt. Everest is made of, how they are all arranged exactly the way they are into the shape it has. All it’s cracks, faults, peaks, valleys, whatever countless miniscule surface features, texture, hardness etc. etc. Every cubic millimetre of that entire mountain from it’s core and foundation to it’s surface and peak. Made of rock, which consists of atoms, incomprehensible number of atoms arranged into it’s particular shape and structure. Any one particular atom could be in a different place. Any imaginable different place. But they aren’t, they’re part of the Mt. Everest, and not just arbitrarily, but they each have some particular and exact position. Litterally unique. Chance can’t have produced it, it’s too unlikely.
Are we now to believe the Mt. Everest was intentionally designed. Are we now to believe the universe was made with the specific intent of making the Mt. Everest?
Notice how you can make the exact same argument for anything that exists. Any particular rock, or leaf, or cloud, mountain, body of water, is exactly the way it is. The odds that anything would happen to be exactly like the way it is, sometime before it formed, is incalculably improbable.
And now you’re just arbitrarily picking lightbulbs as if they have some kind of “special” property that means they could not have been produced by blind natural forces. Yet all the reasons you erect to support this conclusion could be erected for things we know aren’t designed too. Like the Mt Everest, a lump of mud, the arrangements of sandgrains on some particular beach at some particular moment in time. Think about that beach, some specific particular beach that exists right now. The entire Earth first had to form, then mountains ranges had to form and slowly erode over time, getting fractured into smaller and smaller rocks that are eventually ground into grains of sand, and then eventually all those grains of sand(all of those specific ones, with their unique particular shapes) had to make their way and make up that particular beach, exactly the way it now at this instant in time.
Literally incomprehensible odds were against it happening the way it did.
LoL! By Patty’s “logic” evolutionism is strictly atheistic and as such falls under the establishment clause.
Yes and yes. Although no one uses it for anything.
Not one that you have managed to understand.
Here’s how to understand what I was talking about: Try reading the comment immediately before mine, to which I was reacting. It was about “directed evolution” by a Designer tweaking mutations to make them nonrandom. You didn’t understand.
Why has the Mt Everest, or the particular shape of the South-American continent, or the particular arrangement of branches and leaves on some particular tree, only happened once?
I’m not sure that you are not describing theistic evolution here. I actually think that theistic evolution (where God creates the Universe that creates Nature that creates life as we find it on Earth) a harmless idea of itself. Whether or not God is pulling the strings remains an unfalsifiable conjecture for those that prefer to hold to such ideas.
Joe Felsenstein,
I don’t think you answered his question. Could rocks falling downhill have formed stonehenge?
The Catholic college teacher, Ed Feser, (from what I recall from reading his blog) claims that God holds every particle of the Universe in existence from moment to moment. Good job he’s not easily distracted. (God – not Feser!)
There does seem to be an element of burden-shifting in some (if not all) ID claims.
Not just time, wrong. For life to diversify there has also to be an element of genetic variation (such as arises from mutations etc) and a resultant phenotypic variation which will result in differential reproductive success.
Richardthughes,
Sorry for repeating your point. I’m catching up!
Moves some posts to guano. Remember the
toothrules.Uh huh, that’ll be of little use when the universe blinks out of existence in three minutes, as a squirrel dashes by God.
No problem for God, he’ll just reset, maybe leaving out a few things (people? I might have some suggestions…) that weren’t convenient.
Glen Davidson
phoodoo,
No, I don’t think rocks falling downhill could have formed Stonehenge. The ground around isn’t very hilly at all.
I’ve been away from TSZ a while.
Has J, Gallien been rehabilitated?
If so, I’ll stay away some more. I have limited capacity for his inanities
I still think the entire ID argument is predicated on a misunderstanding of the word “random” as used in the phrase (not one I even use much, and not one used by Darwin) “random mutation plus natural selection”.
Random is a terrible word, as it has so many meanings, and most of them don’t apply to Darwin’s theory.
Random can mean:
Unintended
Accidental
Unmodelled
Stochastic
Drawn from a flat distribution
Drawn from a binomial distribution
Drawn from a symmetrical distribution
Orthogonal to some other process.
And it appears to be the first two that IDists object to, and the fifth, sixth and seventh that most of the efforts seem to go into refuting.
Lizzie, you might add Uncaused to that list. What do you think?
Yes,I think sometimes people mean “uncaused” by “random”. They also mean “unexpected” sometimes. (“woah, that was random!”)
It’s terrible word! Or rather, far too multivalent to be terribly useful unless we say pretty precisely what we mean by it.
And I think a lot of the problems in discussion about ID do boil down to people bringing different sets of meanings to the word.
And one point possibly worth making is that Darwinian evolution will work fine whether or not the mechanism that produce heritable variation are “random” in any of those senses, or not. All you need is some source of variance that will result in differential reproductive success (preferably a little of which is a slight improvement on ancestral success rates).