Thanks for point this out. Intelligent Design is anti-science, with one ID theorist actually claiming that science leads to killing people. Another negative is that they’ve been trying to push ID into the public school science classrooms.
Spot on. Regardless of the merits of Gonzalez’s tenure application, Hector Avalos behaved abominably and cowardly. If I had been the chair of the review committee, I would have had to be physically restrained. A faculty making public comments about a tenure candidate, especially at their own institution, is a major no-no.
The whole episode left me with two uncharitable views of Avalos. One was that in going through life as an atheist in a Religious Studies department he is a cliche right out of central casting. And the other is that while this incident resulted in many accolades directed at him on the atheist corners of the internet, Avalos, while basking in them, didn’t seem to realize that in all likelihood if those types took complete control of academia there would be no Religious Studies departments. [1]. In other words, he was a useful idiot.
[1] And strangely, perhaps, I’d be okay with that.
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How does being an atheist do anything but help one be a religious studies academic?
It seems that there is a lot of distinctions to be made here far beyond what can be captured by the dual choice of small versus capital letters.
- Intelligent design as a political movement.
- Intelligent design as an opposition to theoretical biology, by trying to change the science into something philosophical by calling it names like “Darwinian.”
- Intelligent design as a scientific hypothesis alternative to evolution.
- Intelligent design as claim that evolution cannot work because of irreducible complexity.
- Intelligent design as a claim that biological species are in fixed uncross-able categories.
- Intelligent design which casts God into the role of the great watchmaker.
- Intelligent design of living organisms.
- Intelligent design of natural law governing the physical universe.
- Intelligent design as an opposition to atheist attempts to hijack science for their theology.
I am strongly opposed to 1-7.
- I am in general opposed to politicization of issues and the use of them as political capital for parties to abuse in order to further ends which are quite different.
- Theology and rhetoric has no place in science.
- An intelligent being which is not measurable or falsifiable in any way has no legitimate role in any hypothesis which can be called scientific.
- This is anti-science and a foolish god of the gaps argumentation which is totally unjustified.
- This is completely absurd in the face of the abundant evidence. It is downright childish.
- This non-Biblical thinking is more Deistic than Christian. The Biblical role of God is that of a shepherd NOT a watchmaker or clever designer. To be sure all of the universe is God’s accomplishment in the Bible but it says nothing about the means by which God does so, only that we cannot do what God has done having inadequate understanding of it. As scientific inquiry increases our understanding, we find more questions than answers, only increasing our appreciation of what God has done.
- Intelligent design is fundamentally inconsistent with the very nature of life which is a process of self-organization. As we rapidly approach mastery of the machinery of life, it is becoming more and more obvious that this is the only difference between living things and machines. Machines are a product of design, nothing more than what they are made to be, but living things are a product of self-organization, growth, learning and choice. This is why the God of the Bible is a shepherd not a watchmaker.
I strongly support 8 and 9 however.
How? 8 is an oxymoron and 9, what theology? Science needs none.
Well, I read the original articles, Kettlewells and Majerus’ posthomously results published by other researchers.
Kettlewell explicitly says his placement of the moths most likely doesn’t match reality, and the selective pressure is likely less than his experiment indicates.
Majerus’ posthomous results also depended on manually placed moths. Additionally, the branch situation, quoting from the posthomous paper:
Of the moths on lateral branches, the majority (89%) rest on the lower half of the branch.
Hard to see how that is equivalent to moths sitting exposed on tree trunks.
so, can’t remember if i’ve asked you before, but would you then classify SETI as also being inappropriately labeled as “scientific”?
You have asked before. My reply was something saying that although you cannot falsify their existence you can falsify more limited goals like whether there is a signal coming from a certain section of sky. After all you can at least theoretically put the alien under a microscope and other measuring devices. I think the likelihood of finding anything is extremely low and most scientist would think it is better not to spend money on something like that without having a good reason to do so first.
What do you mean by “placement of moths”? The only manual placement I am aware of was to take a few pictures to illustrate what the phenotypes looked like on different substrates. The results weren’t dependent on manually placing the moths on anything.
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Have you read either Kettlewell’s or Majerus’ paper? Reading their papers will answer your question.
I am familiar with their work. The only manual placement was for pictures. None of their results are dependent on manual placement of moths.
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The paper is available via Google Scholar but it is apparent you didn’t read it. A description of the experiment from a followup paper.
For reference, here’s the Wikipedia page on Kettlewell’s experiment:
The most important thing to note about it is that regardless of its merits, it is just one data point out of many, and that it only concerns one of the finer details of one specific example of the theory of evolution. You can not falsify a scientific theory in its entirety merely by pointing out that a single data point at the fringes is faulty. The data points that you have to falsify must be essential to the theory.
This is the problem that I see with far too many anti-evolution arguments. They are like a wannabe lumberjack who thinks he can cut down trees by plucking off a few dead (or even not-so-dead) leaves here and there. Real lumberjacks, on the other hand, cut down trees by taking a Stihl power saw to the base of the trunk.
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Hi EricMH,
Checking back in here a week later, since you said you’d be “happy to discuss it further”. Just wondering if you’ve had an opportunity yet to reach out to Stephen Meyer or John West, asking them about it, since you wrote: “Especially your distinction between small and big ID, I think is an important distinction and you raise an important question”? Again, I take no credit for that distinction which others have well made, and now prefer to distinguish “Divine Design” from “human design”, as a clear way to avoid the unfortunate ideology of “design universalism”. Personally, I believe that not just atheists and agnostics, but also religious theists should avoid that ideology.
As someone who spent a considerable amount of time honestly and faithfully giving “ID theory” a hearing before ultimately rejecting it, it seems to me that if you’d actually like to better understand the “Academic Persecution of ID proponents” by fellow religious theists (though I wouldn’t call it ‘persecution’ in this case, rather something like ‘legitimate push back’), then it really behooves you to ask Meyer and West. Don’t you agree? Otherwise, it would seem to support the “persecution complex” mentioned above, of preferring NOT to accept proper criticism and fair rebuke of ID theory, not even by fellow religious believers.
The distinction between “Divine Design” and “human design” is likewise something that you could write about for the blog “Mind Matters”, as it appears you are employed there to write about the IDM and ID theory. If you can’t get an answer from Meyer or West, would you consider trying that instead, as a potential way to help answer your apparently heartfelt query in the OP?
It does seem that a lot of people would like this issue to finally be “put to rest”. Fwiw, it also seems to be in your power to assist others now, given your current position with the Discovery Institute, because we have tried and just can’t get a straight answer from Meyer, West or anyone at the DI about this “important question.” Can you, will you, and if so, would you please report your findings here?
Thanks,
Gregory
Here are some interesting quotes from Kettlewell’s paper:
Each insect, having been marked on its underside with a small dot of quick drying celulose paint with a colour-position for each day, was shaken from its box on to the bough or trunk. They generally wandered about for a few moments, and rapidly took up the optimum position available. … Having done this, they did not move again.
I admit that, under their own choice, many would have taken up position higher in the trees, and that since the surface area of a tree increases proportional to the distance up the trunks and boughs, in so doing they would have avoided concentrations such as I produced.
And then Majerus’ paper:
Each night one moth was released
into each of the 12 netting ‘sleeves’ surrounding a branch selected randomly from among the 103 (reduced to 97 by 2007) branches used in
the study. Sleeves and any moths resting on them were removed
before dawn, and positions of moths remaining undisturbed on bark
were noted. Release density averaged less than 10 moths per ha per night.
Moths absent from resting positions 4 h after sunrise were presumed
eaten by predators as they rarely fly away during daylight unless greatly
disturbed.
Sounds like manual placement to me.
That is not the method he used to determine if there was a selective pressure.
The manual placement argument I have heard most from creationists is that all the moths were glued to places they would never actually rest. That’s not true.
No idea who those creationists are, certainly not the DI authors writing on the topic, but it doesn’t matter. Fact is Kettlewell manually placed the moths, so the experiment is entirely dependent upon his own subjective opinion where moths naturally rest, which by Kettlewell’s own admission is most likely significantly innaccurate.
That’s not what I’m reading:
Well, read the original paper and all shall become clear. The sections I quoted start bottom of page 332 and middle of page 340.
Kettlewell captures some moths, marks them with a dot of paint on their underside, and then releases them into a wild forest where the moths determine for themselves where to land. Later, he sets up traps and recaptures the moths, noting the ratios of the different phenotypes.
Where do you think there is manual placement in this experiment?
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