Evolution: Theory or Fact. or Are there signs of intelligent design in Pennsylvania

[Pure]

how did you get so damn subtle, shang? damn, you're a menace to right thinking persons everywhere

myself, I'm not crazy with the 'stickers' that were mentioned, BUT I think any course might contain a week on its proper scope and limitations*. E.g., I don't think it's out of place in a 'deductive logic' course to point out when and where deductions don't work or are not necessarily appropriate. Nor is it out of place in a med school program to spend a few weeks on what drugs and surgery cannot do; when they *shouldn't* be used; indeed, when any medical intervention is NOT appropriate.

*i.e. the 'meta' or philosophic problems

 

[BlackShanglan]

I really respect your intellect BS. Are you honestly telling me you support something like this? Not that I will think less of you if you do, but I would really like to understand how you can if you do.

Very well. Let me make another attempt, because I believe that we are at cross purposes here and would like to embrace the wide areas in which we quite agree.

In my closing paragraph, I was attempting to seperate out two different issues, which I evidently didn't seperate quite as much as I had hoped. Those two issues are the question of the stickers and the question of the general idea of intelligent design. The first was the original topic of the legal decision; the second was the topic of your last post, but I think not closely related to the topic of the stickers. (See below, however - I think we were looking at two different versions of what the stickers said.)

(Below, some quotes - I will put yours in bold and mine not so that they are easier to distinguish.)

I don't understand what you are saying here. It seems you are advocationg teaching all fields that cross in the same class. If thats the case, then why even have classes labled? Philosophy will have something to say about nearly all subjects, as will theology. Poli sci will need to be adressed in everything from home ec to econ to health.

No. I am not advocating that. This is what I meant when I said:

I should contextualize this by adding that I think science class, of course, the place to teach science. However, I think that observing the limitations of scientific hypotheses is part of science, and that the stickers - which did this, and which did not advocate any other specific theory or religion - dealt stuitably with a scientific question.

My point here is that the habit of seperating disciplines is generally helpful to students at this level - although I do like to see some attempts made to bridge absolute divides, and in practice one learns much about history in a literature class, and chemistry in biology, etc. I am not suggesting that one must teach every thing and possible approach in one class. Rather, I am stating that identifiying evolution as a theory and explaining the nature and limitation of a theory is a reasonable part of a science class. As I understood them to read, the stickers did not attempt to advocate intelligent design but instead only observed that evolution is a theory and open to question and new information (as all theories are), they form part of the discourse of science and are not out of place in a science classroom.

You aren't talking about stickers here that say evolution is just a theory. You are talking about an administration endorsement of an alternative theory to evolution. One that cannot stand up to the light of scientific inquiry and thus is fostered from on high, with no counter provided and no arguments to be made against it.

I was talking about stickers when I was addressing the school issue. However, as you had brought in the topic of intelligent design, I was talking about that as a general theory open for debate in the public sphere. I was not addressing the presence of intelligent design in the classroom because, to the best of my understanding, the school in PA had made no attempt to introduce any such program. My comments on intelligent design were thus not about its inclusion in a science classroom, which I agree would be inappropriate. They were about its debate in society as a whole.

The Pennsylvania Academic Standards require students to learn about Darwin's theory of evolution and eventually take a standardized test of which evolution is a part.

Because Darwin's theory is a theory, it continues to be tested as new evidence is discovered. The theory is not a fact. Gaps in the theory exist for which there is no evidence.

A theory is defined as a well-tested explanation that unifies a broad range of observations.

Intelligent Design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin's view. The reference book "Of Pandas and People" is available for students who might be interested in gaining an understanding of what Intelligent Design actually involves.

With respect to any theory, students are encouraged to keep an open mind. The school leaves the discussion of the origin of life to individual students and their families.

As a standards-driven district, class instruction focuses upon preparing students to achieve proficiency on standards-based assessments.

I was going by the original news article post, which stated that "the sticker does not specifically reference any alternative theories" and which gave the text of the sticker as below:

The stickers were put inside the books’ front covers by public school officials in Cobb County in 2002. They read:

“This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered.”

I'm a little confused on the rest of the statement you made above because I'm not sure if you're saying that that appears on the stickers, or that that's your interpretation of the text of the stickers. Did that come from a fuller news story?

Given the two possible texts for the stickers, I suppose I need two responses now. For the first, I stand by what I said above. There's nothing wrong and a good deal right about clarifying the difference between fact and theory.

As for the latter - assuming that the sticker reads as in my last quotation from you - nowhere in here do I see any sign that ID is being taught or presented as science. It's an alternative theory. It's like the note in my copy of "Dorian Gray" about the Cleveland Street affair. That doesn't suggest that Wilde wrote DG in order to inflame the alarmed public, or that he didn't, or that the two must be intimately connected. It's just there as a "in case you're interested" additional reading that I can take or leave as I like.

Note intelligent design is an explanation, not a theory. Note that it provides a book to read endorsing intelligent design and offers no rebuttals.

Surely the textbook's own scientific presentation of evolution, which would take up a great deal more time and space than this sticker, might count as a rebuttal?

I hope that this clarifies. It all gets a bit confusing what with issues and texts fragmenting ... I hope that my own poor organization does not utterly discourage.

Shanglan

 

[BlackShanglan]

Edited to add: Least I be thought to be being facetious here. I thought string theory was a bunch of mularkey, until someone who believed it explained it to me. I still think it's hooey, but I at least understand. I am not tryihng to insult you BS, I just would like to understand.

Rest easy. I've always enjoyed your posts, and I have faith in your good will. I do believe that most of our differences sprang from confusion over what the stickers say and what I was endeavoring, rather poorly, to communicate. I enjoy the debate and am not at all insulted.

Shanglan

 

[Colleen Thomas]

The text I posted isn't on a sticker, it's a statement that the administration wanted teachers to read and the teachers refused, so the school board is reading them en mass to students. From a diferent story I think, as the sickers were on books in Cobb Cty. Ga.

It would seem we are arguing about differnet articles

I had far less objection to the stickers, although I still object as they single out evolution among a book filled with theories. I also object because I know creation science to be what it is and know that the schol board is partisan.

Science would rebut the claims in the book. And if you applied sceintific methodology to it, it becomes pretty obviously a statement of theology rather than science. But it isn't something that is presented in an open debate.

In principal, I don't see any problem with taking an intrafield approach to any class. Obviously, all the separations are made with an eye to making the information more digestible by narrowing the confines of what is taught. they are extremely arbitrary in their designations. But if a school system plans on taking that route, then it would seem you would have to aply it across the boards. Do you not find it slightly suspicious that the only place they are adocating and implementing such an approach is the rather specific instance of the theory of evolution?

It is, quite possible, that my view is tainted by my suspicion of the religious right. Lord knows, I have several grudges against them. I still feel strongly my take on it is correct and in line with the facts as I know them.

Thanks for the clarification. I can agree with your assessment in the abstract, but in the specific instance here, in Pa. not Ga., I think there is more than enough evidence it isn't part of a wider plan to open up classes to information from other disciplines, but a callous attempt to apply a basically religious doctrine in the place of science.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Rest easy. I've always enjoyed your posts, and I have faith in your good will. I do believe that most of our differences sprang from confusion over what the stickers say and what I was endeavoring, rather poorly, to communicate. I enjoy the debate and am not at all insulted.

Shanglan

I thank you for the benefit of the doubt.

*HUGS*

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

Colly- I think I'll let you write the rest of the posts on here. People actually listen to you. Plus you know what you're saying. Yea! Genki.

doc- I'm sorry. I was surprised to find such an unscientific response from someone who I had previously believed to be the King of Science facts on this site. One of the most intelligent men on the subject here and whose posts teach me much. I tried to restrain myself from offending. I should have restrained further. I am sorry.

You no doubt understand conditioning. The basic method by which the young of all species "learn" quickly all the basics (who's mother, what're common actions of my species, etc...) Such can also be "learned" of basic position. I was born in a caterpillar, I will lay my eggs in a caterpillar. Something like that. Also there may be autonomous reactions, similar to the reflexive actions of humans which aren't "learned" but are a natural product of quasi-behavioral neural actions. The full story however I do not know. I have not studied insects pretty much at all and I don't know the full ins and outs of their existence. My point was that you're objection is part of basic Genetics and Evolutionary Science. Conditioning and Genetic Defect I was introduced to way back in High School even before college. It seemed odd that someone so brilliant as yourself wouldn't have caught that.

Again, deepest apologies and I will try and censor myself more when speaking with you.

bullet- No, not fact. Just scientific theory. It's not guaranteed set in stone and it's not complete. It's just horrifyingly plausible with streams of successful experimentation producing correlation and evidence supporting it.

It's science. And like Colly says, that's why I'm a little upset here. It's someone mucking up science just cause they don't get it. It'd be like someone like me saying put a sticker on physics textbooks saying Einstein's theory of relativity is a theory based on my limited understanding of said theory.

BS- No stickers. I don't like the idea of one theory being singled out on a book cover. One theory insinuated to be worse than the others because of assholes who don't understand it. But every introductory science textbook should teach scientific methods and processes in the first chapter and every teacher should spend at least 1 day explaining it. People should no what they're saying when they mention theory, hypothesis and fact or what scientific research really entails. When people don't understand, debates like this one erupt.

In other words I agree with you emphatically. A science class that does not teach what science means before what science entails is doing a disservice to science.

Pure- I assume you are digging at me specifically with the "evidence based" jab. I talk about evidence backings on scientific theories because that's what a scientific theory contains. Evidence that supports the claim. Such evidence exists in quite large numbers for current evolutionary theory. Which is why it has merit in the scientific community. Intelligent Design doesn't which is why it has merit in the philosophical community.

The blurring of these lines all over an issue that at its heart religious is silly to me. It doesn't mean that the philosophy might be non-religious or possibly secular. It still is not science and shouldn't be presented in a science class. Put it in humanities.

By the way, I have read at least one of them. I didn't care for his philosophy. I also read its antithesis (yes, written more than 10 years ago) by Richard Dawkins called the "Blind Watchmaker".

BS2- In reference to earlier post: Really? My textbooks all had a flowchart talking about the evolution of scientific concepts from wild guess to fact and noting the near impossible set of criterion for fact. Similarily in at least two of my classes we watched a 10 minute video explaining the tough criterion a theory must face and how independent review works. I also remember many books containing the history of a theory if it was one of the big ones. Genetics especially loves to tell the tale of early Greek philosophy of genes, the 19th century obsession with the homunculus in the sperm, Mendel's experimentation, and the scientists that confirmed his work.

Because these items were so well hammered in my classes, I am surprised they were not universal. Some publishers have much explaining to do.

Or do you mean something else like how "common truth" has been changed by scientific discoveries? Like how Copernicus's discovery shattered the belief that everything revolved around the Earth or the effects misinterpretation of Darwin's theory led to the rise of Social Darwinism? I usually learned these in Humanities and believed there a good place to learn it. It is after all sociology and history rather than "true science". The methods by which a theory arises and maintains itself and by which the scientific community validates, updates, and sometimes discards a theory (see homunculus) though should be week 1 science repeatedly in high schools of America.




All right. Did I miss anybody or any point raised?

Phew. This debate is a bit rollercoastery.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Luc, your apology is fully accepted with no hard feelings. I know it’s easy to get emotional about these things, and I want you to know that I didn’t mean to sound like I was defending intelligent design, just that I do hate dogma and smugness, whether it comes from the creationists or scientists themselves, who can be as closed-minded and dogmatic as any biblical literalist. To my understanding there are problems in evolutionary theory that (I think) are more than just matters of personal ignorance on my part, although I freely admit I might be wrong.

As for those unpleasant wasps, I know that behaviors can be inherited. Instincts are inherited behaviors, but presumably they have physical causes: brain wiring and neurochemistry, and that’s what’s really passed on genetically. As I understand evolutionary theory, it’s simply not possible to pass on acquired traits through the genes. That’s Lamarkian evolution, right? And that’s been pretty thoroughly discredited.

So how did this egg-laying bahvior come about? Apparently it’s instinctive, and so it’s hard-wired into the wasps. Maybe it was a sudden mutation, but that’s kind of hard to believe, or it was a gradual adaptation. Maybe the wasps were laying sticky eggs on living caterpillars and some of them fell off, and it was touch-and-go for the wasps in the survival sense until one of them suddenly developed the ability to paralyze caterpillars. Once you had both mechanisms operating, nature would select for the best venom and the stickiest eggs.

Maybe a better example would be in protein folding. Proteins are very long strings on amino acids that have to take on very specific configurations in order to do their job. They fold in on themselves in certain ways, the folding being in large part guided by the relative solubility of their amni acid side-chains. Some proteins can fold spontaneously, others require other special proteins to guide them in their folding, otherwise they’re useless.

So how does this happen? The protein is useless without the folding guide, and the folding guide is useless without a protein to fold. It’s simply impossible for both to suddenly arise at once in the same cell by random mutation. Some sort of natural selection must have been at work, but it’s difficult to see how or why natural selection would work on two compounds that, until they meet and interact, have no survival value for the cell.

(Please note that this is not the same argument as that used by the creationists who say that the odds of any particular protein arising out of random amino acids is a kazillion to one. That’s a specious and ignorant argument. Proteins don’t form randomly. They have evolutionary histories.)

The best explanation I’ve seen for this kind of complexity is that it was a stepwise evolution, but that the intermediate steps are no longer apparent. Kind of like going from fish to man without knowing about any of the transitional forms or fossil record in between. But that’s just assumption and faith at this point.

There are lots of problems like this. Look at the Darwin’s finch that uses a cactus thorn to pry insects out of the bark of trees. How did that evolve? Was it just a behavioral mutation where one day some mutant finch picked up a thorn and started digging and therefore lived while the others starved? Or was it evolution by variation, where ficnhes have this behavioral gene that makes them pick up things and poke, so that maybe one finch picked up pebble and tried to dig, and another poked another finch or maybe a leaf with a thorn, etc. etc. until one by blind chance not only got it right, but was able to pass on his behavior to his progeny? How long were finches hopping around and randomly picking things up and poking things before one got it right, and, more importantly, why would they keep on doing this when for most of them it clearly had no survival value to the individual? And what happened to all the other finches with the survivor-neutral picking-up-and-poking behaviors? Why aren’t there any of them around anymore?

Or look at aphid-herding ants (bugs are good for these kind of compexity problems because they’re simple organisms that show complicated behaviors). These ants actually herd and tend to plant-sucking aphids, moving them around and protecting them from predators, and in return the aphids secrete a sugary fluid that the ants like to eat. How do you explain this in terms of mutation or evolution? If it came about by random mutation of ants’ behavioral genes, then shouldn’t we be seeing a lot more manifestations of weird behaviors that are survivor neutral?

Or look at the human genome itself. Scientists were absolutely shocked to find that the number of human genes is something like a quarter of what they expected. The idea of one gene-one protein is out the window. So how do genes work to express themselves? Suddenly we don't know. It's not what we thought at all.

Ah, I could o on but the list is endless. There’s just so much we don’t know.

---dr.M.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Colly - Yes, I realized when I re-read more carefully that there were two events that I was blurring, the second of which I had missed and that therefore led to my confusion over your post. I'd read an article recently on the stickers in the biology books, and with that much on my mind, missed the other one. I do agree that if one wants to teach intelligent design as a scientific theory, it needs more scientific grounding to stand with the big boys. I'd think it fine to teach in a course like comparative philosophy or comparative religion, but most state schools don't teach those.

Both you and Luc have similar points on the singling out of evolution for stickers, so I will place them together (hoping that I'm not once more confusing seperate issues to the detriment of all) to answer. Just to make it fun, my answer has two parts. This is because I think that the question is really twofold: 1) Do the textbooks adequately communicate the inherently tentative nature of theories as a whole? and 2) Should a theological consideration of a mutually examined topic be referred to in a science book?

I'll quote Luc for the first on, both because I think he lays clear the ground and in the interest of fairness in trying to answer you both.

BS2- In reference to earlier post: Really? My textbooks all had a flowchart talking about the evolution of scientific concepts from wild guess to fact and noting the near impossible set of criterion for fact. Similarily in at least two of my classes we watched a 10 minute video explaining the tough criterion a theory must face and how independent review works. I also remember many books containing the history of a theory if it was one of the big ones. Genetics especially loves to tell the tale of early Greek philosophy of genes, the 19th century obsession with the homunculus in the sperm, Mendel's experimentation, and the scientists that confirmed his work.

Because these items were so well hammered in my classes, I am surprised they were not universal. Some publishers have much explaining to do.

Or do you mean something else like how "common truth" has been changed by scientific discoveries? Like how Copernicus's discovery shattered the belief that everything revolved around the Earth or the effects misinterpretation of Darwin's theory led to the rise of Social Darwinism? I usually learned these in Humanities and believed there a good place to learn it. It is after all sociology and history rather than "true science". The methods by which a theory arises and maintains itself and by which the scientific community validates, updates, and sometimes discards a theory (see homunculus) though should be week 1 science repeatedly in high schools of America.

It is indeed the latter and not the former to which I refer. That is, I would interpret the stickers in the textbooks as being an attempt to discuss where science intersects with other disciplines, and how they affect each other. I don't agree that these are better covered in non-science classes, or at least that there should be no substantial commentary on them in the sciences. That would perpetuate a tendency to see science as the land of fact and the "soft" disciplines as the land of guesswork. While science ideally does work with more empirical data, the main issue at stake in covering the social and cultural shifts in scientific thought is to remind students that critical thinking is necessary at all levels and that there is a difference between data and "truth." Yes, it makes us all uncomfortable to be reminded that much of what we take to be true is in fact theory and may change - but history has this to teach science: such changes happen constantly. We learn not merely new facts, but whole new systems of thought and ways of relating data sets to each other, and even new ideas about what discipline should be consulted.

As an example, 150 years ago, when Krafft-Ebbing interviewed patient #126 and found that her grandfather, father, sister, and brother had all killed themselves by the time she was 29, he made the assumption appropriate to the science of the day, within the limits of medical science. He decided that the family had a bad nervous "taint," generally used in his comments to indicate an inherited flaw or genetic problem. A more modern observer, with the benefit of 100 year of development in the field of psychology, might be more tempted to ask just what the hell was going on in that family's behavior, with a strong hunch of abuse. This does not mean that medical science itself is a bad discipline, or that KE's observations or method were flawed. It only means that he followed a different paradigm for mental illness - a disease-based one - and therefore missed what might seem obvious to a modern reader.

An awareness of such historical variances not only in the practice of science, but in what science was thought to answer, what was considered empirically measurable, what data meant and what data should be considered, and how science interacts with other fields is invaluable to developing both an understanding of science itself and an understanding of its role and value in the world. Only by recognizing the limitations science has revealed in itself throughout its history can we understand how best to weigh empirical data and analysis based thereon against other considerations and come to better, more consistant and more useful answers. Part of this, I think, is talking about the sort of intersections that evolution inevitably brings to mind - what to do when multiple disciplines have strong opinions not only on what the facts are, but how they should be interpreted and what facts are the important ones.

As for why one should single out evolution, I think it much better that the school address the debate and talk about how science interacts with other disciplines and how people have historically reacted to such tensions than to bury it and present a purely empirical answer. That may tells us physically what happens, but it drains the meaning and value out of science to present it as existing in a vacuum in which it affects nothing and has no ramifications or conflicts with other fields. Thinking critically about how to work with science in one's actual life, both intellectual as well as physical, is an intrinsic and essential part of the pursuit of science itself, and to dismiss this sort of debate from science classrooms is to stifle some of the most important questions students will ask.

I think that this takes me some way to answering that second issue I raised far back at the beginning of this post - "Should a theological consideration of a mutually examind topic be referred to in a science book?" I think that above I've given you my science-driven answer - that is, that I think the study of science must address such fraught and difficult liaisons with other arts, or it becomes merely a mechanical repetition of what one can do rather than a living practice animated by imagination, application, and interest. However, I would also like to offer another answer, one that will be rather less popular but that for which I have some feeling. I will hasten to add that my theory would limit me in the daily practice of my own profession, and so I think is reasonably free of the charge of bias or personal interest.

Compulsory public education carries with it some responsibilities. If we are to require people to send their children to school to to taught, then the schools and teachers have duties to execute. Their duties include not merely an adherence to what is true, but also an understanding and synchronicity with the goals of the community. Put more simply - if one insists that all children attend school, one cannot reasonably ask the parents to surrender all say in what is taught their children. While I would never take this principle so far as to support falsehood, deceit, or inaccuracy - hence my agreement with Colly that ID does not belong in a science classroom - I think that schools should address issues of concern to the community if this can be done without unduly derailing the educational process. In the case of the stickers in the books, I think the gesture a fair compromise between a textbook that, by its nature, presents only the science end of things, and a community concerned that science may not be the best lens through which to view the appearance and development of species. By presenting the query briefly and simply identifying it as an area for critical thought, the school does not drive students to any specific theory, but does acknowledge that there is debate about how this bit of science fits into the social and intellectual fabric of the community. This I think a reasonable and courteous gesture to both sides of the debate, and one that does no harm either to the religiously persuaded or to the scientifically minded.

As a last note, and only to forestall the most common objection - yes, one could in theory home school or send one's children to a private school in order to avoid having them exposed to the theory of evolution. However, I think this a poor option for several reasons. First, an offer that one can sacrifice one's money and/or time in order to obtain that which others get for free is not a particularly fair compromise. One might as easily argue that parents could homeschool or private school to avoid the stickers. The point is not that one can opt out of public education, but that public education ideally should address itself to the public, and make some reasonable accomodations for their concerns when such do not interefere with the educational mission. With that in mind, a second objection to the homeschooling/private schooling option is that it does violence to the educational process. Education and learning should be about learning to support one's ideas and critically examine others, not to utterly silence any voice of dissent. Ideally, such debates have a great deal to teach, whereas ignoring the debate only leaves it to fester. Finally, I would suggest that if one is really interested in fostering an understanding of evolution, it's much better to have students in school and subjected to the very minor comments of a sticker than to have a number of them pulled from school altogether and sent to an institution where evolution is never mentioned and no debate takes place at all. Surely that would be the worst possible result.

Apologies again for the confusion on Colly's earlier post. I hope that this one makes a bit more sense.

Shanglan

 

[rgraham666]

Interesting reading all.

Dr_m? I actually saw an ant 'dairy herd' about a decade ago. It was one of the most wonderful things I've ever seen.

They don't just eat the honeydew, as it's called. They store it in a special stomach, take it back to the nest and give it to other ants who store it for the winter. I've seen pictures of the storage ants. Imagine huge barrels with legs.

Next on my list is to see an ant slave taking raid. Yes, some species of ants kidnap the larvae and pupae of other ants. The slaves back at the nest raise them to become slaves as well. I recall at least one species of slaver can't even feed itself. Their jaws are weapons, not tools. Without their slaves, they would starve.

It is a strange and wonderful world we live in.

 

[rgraham666]

Oops. One more thing.

Evolution says nothing about the origins of life. Only how live changes once it exists. That's the purview of chemistry. Or paleo-chemistry, if there is such a discipline.

I've seen many creationists get confused about this. I've even seen them try to apply evolution to geological phenomena.

 

[BlackShanglan]

As I understand evolutionary theory, it’s simply not possible to pass on acquired traits through the genes. That’s Lamarkian evolution, right? And that’s been pretty thoroughly discredited.

(...)


Look at the Darwin’s finch that uses a cactus thorn to pry insects out of the bark of trees. How did that evolve? Was it just a behavioral mutation where one day some mutant finch picked up a thorn and started digging and therefore lived while the others starved? Or was it evolution by variation, where ficnhes have this behavioral gene that makes them pick up things and poke, so that maybe one finch picked up pebble and tried to dig, and another poked another finch or maybe a leaf with a thorn, etc. etc. until one by blind chance not only got it right, but was able to pass on his behavior to his progeny? How long were finches hopping around and randomly picking things up and poking things before one got it right, and, more importantly, why would they keep on doing this when for most of them it clearly had no survival value to the individual? And what happened to all the other finches with the survivor-neutral picking-up-and-poking behaviors? Why aren’t there any of them around anymore?

I'd offer the thought that all of this makes more sense if we consider that many behaviors are jointly constructed both from instinct and from observation. Through imitation, non-genetic behaviors can be passed from generation to generation. Through genetic selection, those with the best genetic complement to those behaviors will rise to dominate. For example, if the "pick up a tool and poke" behavior is instinctive to some degree, but poorly directed, then you will have many birds hopping around the landscape poking at random objects and other finches. However, if one of them succeeds with a cactus, that reward - food - helps to reinforce the behavior. The bird is more likely to repeat it. Other finches, observing the first finch, may take up the behavior themselves. Some won't; they don't pay much attention to other finches. And they deselect themselves in that decision. Others do pay attention to what other finches do, and learn the cactus behavior; they select themselves to survive at greater rates. Similarly, once the behavior is underway, those that learn it faster and more easily - whether because they are better observers, or stronger carriers of the "pick something up and poke things with it" gene, or stronger expressors of the "I'm interested in cacti" gene - will select themselves. Eventually, behavior and genetics combine to select those that practice the behavior, creating finches that have a strengthened instinct to poke at the cacti. What would be most interesting, of course, would be to see whether finches raised in isolation did the thorn behavior. Is it instinctive, or just very common?

The issue reminds me of a study done with dogs, wolves, and chimps. In the study, food was placed in one of several containers, carefully sealed and controlled so that the food itself did not exude enough scent to identify the container. In various groups, wolf puppies, dog puppies (I believe it was 8 weeks old) and chimp young all could observe the containers while a human walked up, marked one, and then left. Then they had to work out where the food was. Surprisingly, the domestic dog puppies out performed both of the other two groups in figuring out where to look for the food. The researcher's conclusion was that it was instinct rather than intelligence that helped the puppies; their advantage was that it was now instinctual to them to pay attention to what humans did, as it was likely to be important. I'd have to know more about how the puppies were raised to know whether I thought this truly an inherited behavior or simply a learned one, but I think it illustrated nicely the fact that evolutionary advantages are not always straightforward. We all know that the better hunter will prosper and breed more, but which will be the better hunter - the one with the stronger build and greater speed, or the one that pays attention to the behavior of other animals?

Shanglan

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Colly - Yes, I realized when I re-read more carefully that there were two events that I was blurring, the second of which I had missed and that therefore led to my confusion over your post. I'd read an article recently on the stickers in the biology books, and with that much on my mind, missed the other one. I do agree that if one wants to teach intelligent design as a scientific theory, it needs more scientific grounding to stand with the big boys. I'd think it fine to teach in a course like comparative philosophy or comparative religion, but most state schools don't teach those.

Both you and Luc have similar points on the singling out of evolution for stickers, so I will place them together (hoping that I'm not once more confusing seperate issues to the detriment of all) to answer. Just to make it fun, my answer has two parts. This is because I think that the question is really twofold: 1) Do the textbooks adequately communicate the inherently tentative nature of theories as a whole? and 2) Should a theological consideration of a mutually examined topic be referred to in a science book?

I'll quote Luc for the first on, both because I think he lays clear the ground and in the interest of fairness in trying to answer you both.



It is indeed the latter and not the former to which I refer. That is, I would interpret the stickers in the textbooks as being an attempt to discuss where science intersects with other disciplines, and how they affect each other. I don't agree that these are better covered in non-science classes, or at least that there should be no substantial commentary on them in the sciences. That would perpetuate a tendency to see science as the land of fact and the "soft" disciplines as the land of guesswork. While science ideally does work with more empirical data, the main issue at stake in covering the social and cultural shifts in scientific thought is to remind students that critical thinking is necessary at all levels and that there is a difference between data and "truth." Yes, it makes us all uncomfortable to be reminded that much of what we take to be true is in fact theory and may change - but history has this to teach science: such changes happen constantly. We learn not nearly new facts, but whole new systems of thought and ways of relating data sets to each other, and even new ideas about what discipline should be consulted.

As an example, 150 years ago, when Krafft-Ebbing interviewed patient #126 and found that her grandfather, father, sister, and brother had all killed themselves by the time she was 29, he made the assumption appropriate to the science of the day, within the limits of medical science. He decided that the family had a bad nervous "taint," generally used in his comments to indicate an inherited flaw or genetic problem. A more modern observer, with the benefit of 100 year of development in the field of psychology, might be more tempted to ask just what the hell was going on in that family's behavior, with a strong hunch of abuse. This does not mean that medical science itself is a bad discipline, or that KE's observations or method were flawed. It only means that he followed a different paradigm for mental illness - a disease-based one - and therefore missed what might seem obvious to a modern reader.

An awareness of such historical variances not only in the practice of science, but in what science was thought to answer, what was considered empirically measurable, what data meant and what data should be considered, and how science interacts with other fields is invaluable to developing both an understanding of science itself and an understanding of its role and value in the world. Only by recognizing the limitations science has revealed in itself throughout its history can we understand how best to weigh empirical data and analysis based thereon against other considerations and come to better, more consistant and more useful answers. Part of this, I think, is talking about the sort of intersections that evolution inevitably brings to mind - what to do when multiple disciplines have strong opinions not only on what the facts are, but how they should be interpreted and what facts are the important ones.

As for why one should single out evolution, I think it much better that the school address the debate and talk about how science interacts with other disciplines and how people have historically reacted to such tensions than to bury it and present a purely empirical answer. That may tells us physically what happens, but it drains the meaning and value out of science to present it as existing in a vacuum in which it affects nothing and has no ramifications or conflicts with other fields. Thinking critically about how to work with science in one's actual life, both intellectual as well as physical, is an intrinsic and essential part of the pursuit of science itself, and to dismiss this sort of debate from science classrooms is to stifle some of the most important questions students will ask.

I think that this takes me some way to answering that second issue I raised far back at the beginning of this post - "Should a theological consideration of a mutually examind topic be referred to in a science book?" I think that above I've given you my science-driven answer - that is, that I think the study of science must address such fraught and difficult liaisons with other arts, or it becomes merely a mechanical repetition of what one can do rather than a living practice animated by imagination, application, and interest. However, I would also like to offer another answer, one that will be rather less popular but that for which I have some feeling. I will hasten to add that my theory would limit me in the daily practice of my own profession, and so I think is reasonably free of the charge of bias or personal interest.

Compulsory public education carries with it some responsibilities. If we are to require people to send their children to school to to taught, then the schools and teachers have duties to execute. Their duties include not merely an adherence to what is true, but also an understanding and synchronicity with the goals of the community. Put more simply - if one insists that all children attend school, one cannot reasonably ask the parents to surrender all say in what is taught their children. While I would never take this principle so far as to support falsehood, deceit, or inaccuracy - hence my agreement with Colly that ID does not belong in a science classroom - I think that schools should address issues of concern to the community if this can be done without unduly detailing the educational process. In the case of the stickers in the books, I think the gesture a fair compromise between a textbook that, by its nature, presents only the science end of things, and a community concerned that science may not be the best lens through which to view the appearance and development of species. By presenting the query briefly and simply identifying it as an area for critical thought, the school does not drive students to any specific theory, but does acknowledge that there is debate about how this bit of science fits into the social and intellectual fabric of the community. This I think a reasonable and courteous gesture to both sides of the debate, and one that does no harm either to the religiously persuaded or to the scientifically minded.

As a last note, and only to forestall the most common objection - yes, one could in theory home school or send one's children to a private school in order to avoid having them exposed to the theory of evolution. However, I think this a poor option for several reasons. First, an offer that one can sacrifice one's money and/or time in order to obtain that which others get for free is not a particularly fair compromise. One might as easily argue that parents could homeschool or private school to avoid the stickers. The point is not that one can opt out of public education, but that public education ideally should address itself to the public, and make some reasonable accomodations for their concerns when such do not interefere with the educational mission. With that in mind, a second objection to the homeschooling/private schooling option is that it does violence to the educational process. Education and learning should be about learning to support one's ideas and critically examine others, not to utterly silence any voice of dissent. Ideally, such debates have a great deal to teach, whereas ignoring the debate only leaves it to fester. Finally, I would suggest that if one is really interested in fostering an understanding of evolution, it's much better to have students in school and subjected to the very minor comments of a sticker than to have a number of them pulled from school altogether and sent to an institution where evolution is never mentioned and no debate takes place at all. Surely that would be the worst possible result.

Apologies again for the confusion on Colly's earlier post. I hope that this one makes a bit more sense.

Shanglan

Homosexuality is viewed as an abberant and anhorant practive in my home town. to encourage critical thinking, would you endorse a stcker on sociaology books, that reminds students we don't know for sure what causes homosexuality and the sociological view isn't the only one they should consider?

 

[BlackShanglan]

Homosexuality is viewed as an abberant and anhorant practive in my home town. to encourage critical thinking, would you endorse a stcker on sociaology books, that reminds students we don't know for sure what causes homosexuality and the sociological view isn't the only one they should consider?

You don't regard it as abhorent. Would you prefer that your own view never be presented? These questions have a way of looking very different when one's own view is not the one in the textbook.

On this specific topic, I'd start with the question of whether the book covered homosexuality at all. If it doesn't, then there's really no reason to lug the debate in by the ears. If the book does choose to cover an issue that is the subject of hot debate within its community, I have no problem acknowledging that the debate exists. So long as the book does not make inaccurate or groundless claims and does not advocate a specific theory or principle - merely confining itself to saying that debate exists - I don't see a problem. We must teach students to engage in debate and learn to apply critical thinking and analysis, not pretend that the debate doesn't exist. If nothing else, I think that leaving only a social interpretation of homosexuality open ignores a fair bit of information suggesting that some homosexual behavior may be genetically driven.

But this is the debate on evolution all over again: how do we read the intersection of science, social mores, and religious theory, or other intersecting fields and arts? I think that that question is important to the pursuit of knowledge in any field. When Macaulay ripped Southey's "Colloquies" for prizing aesthetic principles and emotional reactions over hard figures in determining the benefits or problems of industrialization, I think he demonstrated a problem that persists today. A thing can be true, and yet not be the ultimate answer. That is the point I wish to make - that evolution may be strongly supported as a physical process, and yet tell me nothing significant about the presence of a guiding impulse. Similarly, one may prove that homosexuality is a behavior sometimes expressed in the animal kingdom. That tells me nothing about the behavior of a specific person and how s/he relates to other disciplines like faith, morals, or ethics. And to take the possible unpleasantness from the constant focus on one group out of this, the same goes for heterosexuality. Observing what is, which is the proper sphere of examination for science, tells me little about what should be, or what is beautiful, or what is right, or even, in many cases, whether there are other causes or sources for the behavior beyond the immediately obvious.

Debate is good for all of these things.

Shanglan

 

[Colleen Thomas]

You don't regard it as abhorent. Would you prefer that your own view never be presented? These questions have a way of looking very different when one's own view is not the one in the textbook.

On this specific topic, I'd start with the question of whether the book covered homosexuality at all. If it doesn't, then there's really no reason to lug the debate in by the ears. If the book does choose to cover an issue that is the subject of hot debate within its community, I have no problem acknowledging that the debate exists. So long as the book does not make inaccurate or groundless claims and does not advocate a specific theory or principle - merely confining itself to saying that debate exists - I don't see a problem. We must teach students to engage in debate and learn to apply critical thinking and analysis, not pretend that the debate doesn't exist. If nothing else, I think that leaving only a social interpretation of homosexuality open ignores a fair bit of information suggesting that some homosexual behavior may be genetically driven.

But this is the debate on evolution all over again: how do we read the intersection of science, social mores, and religious theory, or other intersecting fields and arts? I think that that question is important to the pursuit of knowledge in any field. When Macaulay ripped Southey's "Colloquies" for prizing aesthetic principles and emotional reactions over hard figures in determining the benefits or problems of industrialization, I think he demonstrated a problem that persists today. A thing can be true, and yet not be the ultimate answer. That is the point I wish to make - that evolution may be strongly supported as a physical process, and yet tell me nothing significant about the presence of a guiding impulse. Similarly, one may prove that homosexuality is a behavior sometimes expressed in the animal kingdom. That tells me nothing about the behavior of a specific person and how s/he relates to other disciplines like faith, morals, or ethics. And to take the possible unpleasantness from the constant focus on one group out of this, the same goes for heterosexuality. Observing what is, which is the proper sphere of examination for science, tells me little about what should be, or what is beautiful, or what is right, or even, in many cases, whether there are other causes or sources for the behavior beyond the immediately obvious.

Debate is good for all of these things.

Shanglan

My only real point with the question was don't you find it suspicious that a single theory is singled out? If you put a sticker in there that said remember all theories are just that, theories and there are alternate views, it's one thing. Perhaps a gas exists where boyle's law of partial pressures dosen't apply and we just havn't found it yet.

With the stickers, I find singling evolution out is a chaep shot by those with a religious view on the origin of life to insinuate that view. An end run around the myriad court cases that hold you can't teach religion in the public schools. A kind of, if we can't teach you not to believe it, we will single it out for our collective scorn.

I don't have kids, due to a biological problem, I can't have them, so the question isn't as hot to me as it would be if I had school age kids. Having attended aparochial school, I understand the depths of hatred that drive members of the religious right to attack evolution. I've seen it in action, biology teachers who have to grit their teeth when they discuss natural selection. It always seemed that the cahpel program for the week biology classes discussed evolution had a creationist speaker.

I think, on an intellectual level, I can agree with your ideas on what is fair, equitable and sane. It's on a political level, where I see the spectre of the religious right using public education as a form of religious indoctrination, that we disagree. That fear of the political power and fanaticism of the religious right drives me to approach these situations with a built in biase. One that no amount of rationality can overcome.

I think we are in essence, arguing apples and oranges. I see this in a political context as well as a philosophic one, while you are able to view it without the political trappings. So I will be glad to simply agre to disagree with you.

 

[BlackShanglan]

I think we are in essence, arguing apples and oranges. I see this in a political context as well as a philosophic one, while you are able to view it without the political trappings. So I will be glad to simply agre to disagree with you.

I do see the political ramifications. However, I also see the actual actions. Whatever I think of the motives of a group of people, I don't think it right to criticize them for what I imagine they think. We'd all go mad jumping at shadows if we did that. I think the only basis on which to make a fair decision is on what is actually done, and I think that the stickers are not outrageous. I don't mean by this that your concerns about these groups is necessarily unfounded - only that I think the only way to balance the desires and goals of many groups in a civil society is to address the measures proposed one at a time as they are. It may well be that they would like to teach religion in the public schools, but I don't want to let that lead me to the assumption that a sticker identifying a theory as a theory constitutes such religious instruction.

Yes, they do single out an idea. I don't want to rehash that one, so I'll just stick with what I said above. Community values should be permitted some voice in the educational process when that voice would not derail education itself, and confronting those sorts of views and subjecting them to critical analysis is not outside of the mandate of education. It is, in my opinion, one of the highest purposes of real education to encourage people to question their own values, assumptions, and motives, and this sort of address to a topic of community concern allows that. It also, I would argue, would bring to truly specious and ugly arguments the only thing likely to end them: careful, rational, and critical analysis. I can't think of any better answer.

Shanglan

 

[rgraham666]

Which community are you going to use, BS?

How small or large are you willing to draw the line?

The limitations of evolution are the limitations of science itself. There are some questions that can't be answered by science. The purpose of our lives for example.

But by singling out evolution, the creationists are not trying to improve science, they are trying to destroy it.

We've lived in societies where a religious view is the only view allowed. Some places still do. They have never been and are not pleasant.

And if evolution goes, it will be the end of science. When evolution goes, biology will have to go because nothing biology makes sense without evolution. If biology goes, chemistry has to go because biology is just chemical reactions. And if chemistry goes, physics has to go. Chemistry is ruled by physics.

Then we'll be back to the days when the only explanation required is "God wills it." With the caveat of "Don't ask any more questions unless you want to be used for a demonstration of combustion."

 

[Pure]

A first cause with some kind of intelligence

Writings of the "Intelligent Design" grouping; one of the bigger guns-- Full Professor of Philosophy, University of Texas. Many professional awards.

From A New Look at the Cosmological Argument, by R Koons, American Philosophical Quarterly.

available at access research network website

http://www.arn.org/docs/koons/cosmo.pdf

A newer reworking of the argument, for the nonAdobe folks is at

http://www.arn.org/docs/koons/rk_defeasible.htm



{In the first sections a version of the cosmological argument is laid out, with definitions and axioms. The conclusion is that there is a necessary first cause to the Universe. Below are some of Koon's concluding reflections on the metaphysical and scientific situation-- this is not the main argument, but a kind of reflective overview.}


9 God and the Metaphysical Hyper-darwinists

Two great creation myths contend for dominance. According to the first, in thebeginning was Chance. Chance was responsible for the origin of the cosmos andfor its causal constitution. Hence, all subsequent events, including the origin of life and consciousness on earth, are ultimately attributable to the agency ofChance and of Chance alone. The impression that something more has beeninvolved is an illusion generated by the operation of natural selection over long periods of time and (perhaps) by the statistical bias necessitated by the fact that conscious observers can only occur in very special kinds of universes.

According to the alternative myth, the cause of the cosmos is a positive reality that is not, with felicity, referred to under the name of "Chance". Instead, this first cause bears some analogy to intelligence and purposefulness. We can even glean something of its quasi-purposes: the eventual emergence of complex life, consciousness and meaningful agency.

It is one of the ironies of history that the devotees of the first myth have claimed the authority of Science for their doctrines, attributing all convictionattaching to the competing myth to dogma, wishful thinking, and a variety of psychopathologies. In fact, there is nothing especially scientific about the first myth: in some form it antedates science by millennia, being one of the first
explanations (or pseudo-explanations) of the cosmos.

It is the second myth that has the far greater claim to the allegiance of Science, both because it was first formulated at the inception of science in antiquity, and also because it fostered the growth of scientific knowledge through promoting a faith in the contingent intelligibility of the universe.

Pierre Duhem and Alfred North Whitehead have both argued persuasively that it is not accident that the scientific revolution of A New Look at the Cosmological Argument 23 the thirteenth through sixteenth centuries occurred in Christian Europe, where the second myth had become for the first time deeply rooted in a society's official worldview.

Defenders of the Chance myth have in recent years resorted to the authority of Charles Darwin ( [26] [9] [10]). In this they have been assisted by some misguided defenders of the alternate myth who have saddled it with pseudoscientific baggage, such as a 10,000 year old cosmos or a dogmatic rejection of human evolution. Darwin himself was, at least in his public pronouncements, a believer in the theistic creation myth. He believed that God was needed as an explanation of the orderly cosmos we observe (see [8], pp. 395-6). He was opposed, not to creation as such, but only to the theory of the special creation of each of the world's species.

Metaphysical hyper-darwinists (likeMonod, Dawkins and Dennett) are helped in their misappropriation of the support of Darwinism by a confusion between randomness and Chance. Modern neo-Darwinian theory postulates that genetic variation is the result of the random introduction of mutations. The relevant notion of `randomness' has a precise, mathematical characterization: it means that the sequence of mutations is non-computable, and possesses thereby certain statistical properties.

The randomness of a sequence does not entail that any member of the species is wholly unintended. Many events studied in social science form random sequences even though every single event is intended by some person or other. Moreover, the randomness of a sequence is compatible with the entire sequence being intended by an agent, so long as the agent has the capacity to generate non-computable intentions. It is a matter of controversy whether or not human beings have such capacities, but there is no reason to deny such a capacity to God. The plans of an infinite mind can constitute a random sequence of events, in the precise sense of the word.

To demonstrate that the cosmos can be explained wholly in terms of chance, therefore, it is not sufficient to show that life is the product of a random sequence of mutations, filtered through natural selection. Instead, one must show that the actual universe (including its history) belongs to a space of possible universes and that, when some natural probability measure is defined over this space, the measure of the region of universes relevantly like this one is reasonably high.

Recent evidence concerning the anthropic principle has decisively refuted this conjecture. In addition, work by mathematicians concerning the likelihood of the chance origin of life and the chance development of highly complex forms of life points to the same conclusion (see for example, the symposium of biologists
and mathematicians hosted by the Wistar Institute [28], and the recent book by Hubert Yockey [45]).

The future progress of science, and the successful defense of science against its post-modernist and relativist opponents, depends on the severing of the mistaken connection between science and the Chance creation-myth. The inherent hostility of the Chance creation-myth to the rationality to science is made clear A New Look at the Cosmological Argument 24
by the final, definitive form of the myth: the junky cosmos hypothesis. [That our universe, possibly one of several, is lacking in order; that its phenomena are 'ill behaved' so as not to be capturable in scientific laws.} This hypothesis egregiously violates the fundamental canon of scientific rationality {the preference for economical explanations] and it undermines that canon inm all of its applications.

References [for the above passage]


[8] Darwin, Charles. 1871. The Descent of Man and Selection According to Sex. John Murray, London.
[9] Dawkins, Richard. 1987. The Blind Watchmaker. W. W. Norton & Co., New York.
[10] Dennett, Daniel. 1995. Darwin's Dangerous Idea. Simon & Schuster, New York.

[22] Leslie, John. 1989. Universes. Routledge, New York.
[23] Lewis, David. 1966. "An Argument for the Identity Theory", Journal of Philosophy 63:17-25.
[24] Meynell, Hugo A. 1984. The Intelligible Universe. Macmillan, London.
[25] Millikan, Ruth. 1984. Language, Thought and Other Biological Categories. The MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.
[26] Monod, Jacques. 1972. Chance and Necessity: an essay on the natural philosophy of modern biology. Vintage Books, New York.
[27] Montague, Richard. 1970. "Pragmatics and Intensional Logic," Synthese 22:68-94.
[28] Moorhead, Paul S. and Kaplan, Martin M. (eds.) 1967. Mathematical Challenges
to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution. Wistar Institute
Press, Philadelphia.
[44] Swinburne, Richard. 1979. The Existence of God. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
[45] Yockey, Hubert P. 1992. Information Theory and Molecular Biology. Cambridge University Press, London.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Which community are you going to use, BS?

How small or large are you willing to draw the line?

School district seems reasonable to me.

I understand your concern about the slippery slope that this seems to lead to, but I feel that with the caveats I've included in my own arguments - when it doesn't interfere with the educational process, when it doesn't involve falsehoods or inaccuracies, and when it does not advocate a specific theory or course of action, but merely acknowledges or surveys the debate - we're not headed back to the dark ages. Rather, we're headed toward a more enlightened society in which no one is raised to accept things on a "because I said so" basis - whether from the church, the scientific community, or the school board.

Shanglan

 

[haldir]

OK - wasnt goin to dip my toes in these murky waters but as a PhD in Botany I cant let this go any further without throwin in ma tuppence ha'penny worth as we say in the wilds of Scotland.

1. The fossil record (incomplete tho it is) clearly demonstrates the reality of evolution.

2. The existing fauna (and flora to give credit to my training) clearly demonstrate intermediate evolutionary steps. We all have to remember as the late great SJ Gould says - final function may not be the original evolutionary driving process that gives an organism an advantage.

3. There is NO verifiable evidence for creationism/inteilligent design. If there was then we wouldn't have spent so much enjoyablke time on this thread. Therfore it is dead in the water. End of arguement.

4. The "chaotic" nature of the flora and fauna from the fossil record clearly demonstrates that evolution is the reality. All those in doubt please at least look at "Wonderful Life" by SJ Gould (those who don't like his philosohpical position should still read it - open minds after all).

5. Fundamentalists (of any persuasion) are ruled by belief. Therefore it is imposssible to have a reasoned discussion with them about anything. They are trained NOT to use their brain, but to rely on faith instead.

If anyone wants to believe increationsim thats fine by me, but they should not seek to impose this on any education system anywhere. Religion and education should be kept well apart.

End of my kilted rant

 

[BlackShanglan]

OK - wasnt goin to dip my toes in these murky waters but as a PhD in Botany I cant let this go any further without throwin in ma tuppence ha'penny worth as we say in the wilds of Scotland.

1. The fossil record (incomplete tho it is) clearly demonstrates the reality of evolution.

2. The existing fauna (and flora to give credit to my training) clearly demonstrate intermediate evolutionary steps. We all have to remember as the late great SJ Gould says - final function may not be the original evolutionary driving process that gives an organism an advantage.

3. There is NO verifiable evidence for creationism/inteilligent design. If there was then we wouldn't have spent so much enjoyablke time on this thread. Therfore it is dead in the water. End of arguement.

4. The "chaotic" nature of the flora and fauna from the fossil record clearly demonstrates that evolution is the reality. All those in doubt please at least look at "Wonderful Life" by SJ Gould (those who don't like his philosohpical position should still read it - open minds after all).

5. Fundamentalists (of any persuasion) are ruled by belief. Therefore it is imposssible to have a reasoned discussion with them about anything. They are trained NOT to use their brain, but to rely on faith instead.

If anyone wants to believe increationsim thats fine by me, but they should not seek to impose this on any education system anywhere. Religion and education should be kept well apart.

End of my kilted rant

Pretty much with you in all of your main points there, Haldir, and welcome from the wilds of Scotland. Have I ever mentioned just how delicious I find a man in a kilt? Ah, fond memories of Edinburgh.

*snaps self to*

At any rate. I do agree that evolution occurs. I do agree that teaching ID/creationism in a public school is inappropriate. My chief point has been that in the specific instance of the stickers on the textbooks in Georgia, no theory was being advanced, no argument for creationism was being made, and it was reasonable to identify evolution as what it is - a theory. Personally, I would like to see that expanded into more comprehensive coverage of how science and other disciplines interact and how science as we know it has come to develop in its intellectual, social, and cultural ramifications.

Shanglan

 

[Pure]

Behe on evolution, problems, the 'design' question

Wellcome, Haldir.
Just so the folks have something to chew on; don't want the old points vs. William Jenning Bryan re-circulated forever: Two articles, one on the Kansas debate [school board removing requirement to study evolution in the science curriculum, I gather] ; one on the eye, biochemistry, and 'design.

http://www.arn.org/docs/behe/mb_ksnytb81399.htm

New York Times, August 13, 1999, Friday, Page A21, Editorial Desk

Teach Evolution and Ask Hard Questions

By Michael J. Behe

Michael J. Behe, Professor of Biological Sciences at Lehigh University, is author of Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution.

BETHLEHEM, PA.The debate leading the Kansas Board of Education to abolish the requirement for teaching evolution has about the same connection to reality as the play "Inherit the Wind" had to the actual Scopes trial. In both cases complex historical, scientific and philosophical issues gave way to the simplifying demands of the morality play. If the schoolchildren of Kansas and other states are to receive a good science education, however, then we'll have to forgo the fun of demonizing each other, take a deep breath and start making a few distinctions.

Regrettably, the action of the Kansas board makes that much more difficult. Not only are teachers there now discouraged from discussing evidence in support of Darwin's theory, results questioning it won't be heard either.

For example, let's look at three claims of evidence for Darwinian evolution often cited by high school textbooks. First, as the use of antibiotics has become common, mutant strains of resistant bacteria have become more common, threatening public health. Second, darkcolored variants of a certain moth species evaded predation by birds because their color matched the sooty tree trunks of industrial England. Third, the embryos of fish, amphibians, birds and mammals look virtually identical in an early stage of development, becoming different only at later stages.

A relevant distinction, however, is that only the first example is true. The second example is unsupported by current evidence, while the third is downright false. Although light and darkcolored moths did vary in expected ways in some regions of England, elsewhere they didn't. Further, textbook photographs showing moths resting on tree trunks in the day, where birds supposedly ate them, run afoul of the fact that the moths are active at night and don't normally rest on tree trunks. After learning about the problems with this favorite Darwinian example, an evolutionary scientist wrote in the journal Nature that he felt the way he did as a boy when he learned there was no Santa Claus.

The story of the embryos is an object lesson in seeing what you want to see. Sketches of vertebrate embryos were first made in the late 19th century by Ernst Haeckel, an admirer of Darwin. In the intervening years, apparently nobody verified the accuracy of Haeckel's drawings. Prominent scientists declared in textbooks that the theory of evolution predicted, explained and was supported by the striking similarity of vertebrate embryos. And that is what generations of American students have learned.

Recently, however, an international team of scientists decided to check the drawings' reliability. They found that Haeckel had, well, taken liberties: the embryos are significantly different from each other. In Nature, the head of the research team observed that "it looks like it's turning out to be one of the most famous fakes in biology." What's more, the embryonic stages shown in the drawings are actually not the earliest ones. The earliest stages show much greater variation.

If I were teaching a high school biology course, I certainly would want my students to understand Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, which explains antibiotic resistance and a lot of other things. I would want them to know the many similarities among organisms that are interpreted in terms of common descent, as well as to understand the laboratory experiments that show organisms changing in response to selective pressure.

But I would also want them to learn to make distinctions and ask tough questions. Questions we might discuss include these:
If it's so difficult to demonstrate that small changes in modern moths are the result of natural selection, how confident can we be that Darwinian selection drove large changes in the distant past? If supposedly identical embryos were touted as strong evidence for evolution, does the recent demonstration of variation in embryos now count as evidence against evolution? If some scientists relied for a century on an old, mistaken piece of data because they thought it supported the accepted theory, is it possible they might even now give short shrift to legitimate contrary data or interpretations?

Discussing questions like these would help students see that sometimes a theory actively shapes the way we think, and also that there are still exciting, unanswered questions in biology that may require fresh ideas.

It's a shame that Kansas students won't get to take part in such a discussion. We should make sure that the students of other states do.

Emotions run very deep on the subject of evolution, and while the morality play generally casts religious people as the ones who want to limit discussion, some scientists on the "rational" side could fit that role, too. But if we want our children to become educated citizens, we have to broaden discussion, not limit it.

Teach Darwin's elegant theory. But also discuss where it has real problems accounting for the data, where data are severely limited, where scientists might be engaged in wishful thinking and where alternative even "heretical" explanations are possible.

Copyright ©1999 Michael J. Behe. All rights reserved. International copyright secured.
File Date: 9.28.99

http://www.arn.org/docs/behe/mb_idfrombiochemistry.htm

Evidence for Intelligent Design from Biochemistry
From a speech delivered at Discovery Institute's God & Culture Conference

Michael J. Behe
Discovery Institute
August 10, 1996

A Series of Eyes

How do we see? In the 19th century the anatomy of the eye was known in great detail, and its sophisticated features astounded everyone who was familiar with them. Scientists of the time correctly observed that if a person were so unfortunate as to be missing one of the eye's many integrated features, such as the lens, or iris, or ocular muscles, the inevitable result would be a severe loss of vision or outright blindness. So it was concluded that the eye could only function if it were nearly intact.

Charles Darwin knew about the eye too. In the Origin of Species, Darwin dealt with many objections to his theory of evolution by natural selection. He discussed the problem of the eye in a section of the book appropriately entitled "Organs of extreme perfection and complication." Somehow, for evolution to be believable, Darwin had to convince the public that complex organs could be formed gradually, in a step-by-step process.
He succeeded brilliantly. Cleverly, Darwin didn't try to discover a real pathway that evolution might have used to make the eye. Instead, he pointed to modern animals with different kinds of eyes, ranging from the simple to the complex, and suggested that the evolution of the human eye might have involved similar organs as intermediates.


Here is a paraphrase of Darwin's argument. Although humans have complex camera-type eyes, many animals get by with less. Some tiny creatures have just a simple group of pigmented cells, or not much more than a light sensitive spot. That simple arrangement can hardly be said to confer vision, but it can sense light and dark, and so it meets the creature's needs. The light-sensing organ of some starfishes is somewhat more sophisticated. Their eye is located in a depressed region. This allows the animal to sense which direction the light is coming from, since the curvature of the depression blocks off light from some directions. If the curvature becomes more pronounced, the directional sense of the eye improves. But more curvature lessens the amount of light that enters the eye, decreasing its sensitivity. The sensitivity can be increased by placement of gelatinous material in the cavity to act as a lens. Some modern animals have eyes with such crude lenses. Gradual improvements in the lens could then provide an image of increasing sharpness, as the requirements of the animal's environment dictated.

Using reasoning like this, Darwin convinced many of his readers that an evolutionary pathway leads from the simplest light sensitive spot to the sophisticated camera-eye of man. But the question remains, how did vision begin? Darwin persuaded much of the world that a modern eye evolved gradually from a simpler structure, but he did not even try to explain where his starting point for the simple light sensitive spot came from. On the contrary, Darwin dismissed the question of the eye's ultimate origin:


How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light hardly concerns us more than how life itself originated. He had an excellent reason for declining the question: it was completely beyond nineteenth century science. How the eye works; that is, what happens when a photon of light first hits the retina simply could not be answered at that time. As a matter of fact, no question about the underlying mechanisms of life could be answered. How did animal muscles cause movement? How did photosynthesis work? How was energy extracted from food? How did the body fight infection? No one knew.


To Darwin vision was a black box, but today, after the hard, cumulative work of many biochemists, we are approaching answers to the question of sight. Here is a brief overview of the biochemistry of vision. When light first strikes the retina, a photon interacts with a molecule called 11-cis-retinal, which rearranges within picoseconds to trans-retinal. The change in the shape of retinal forces a change in the shape of the protein, rhodopsin, to which the retinal is tightly bound. The protein's metamorphosis alters its behavior, making it stick to another protein called transducin. Before bumping into activated rhodopsin, transducin had tightly bound a small molecule called GDP. But when transducin interacts with activated rhodopsin, the GDP falls off and a molecule called GTP binds to transducin. (GTP is closely related to, but critically different from, GDP.)
GTP-transducin-activated rhodopsin now binds to a protein called phosphodiesterase, located in the inner membrane of the cell.


When attached to activated rhodopsin and its entourage, the phosphodiesterase acquires the ability to chemically cut a molecule called cGMP (a chemical relative of both GDP and GTP). Initially there are a lot of cGMP molecules in the cell, but the phosphodiesterase lowers its concentration, like a pulled plug lowers the water level in a bathtub.


Another membrane protein that binds cGMP is called an ion channel. It acts as a gateway that regulates the number of sodium ions in the cell. Normally the ion channel allows sodium ions to flow into the cell, while a separate protein actively pumps them out again. The dual action of the ion channel and pump keeps the level of sodium ions in the cell within a narrow range. When the amount of cGMP is reduced because of cleavage by the phosphodiesterase, the ion channel closes, causing the cellular concentration of positively charged sodium ions to be reduced. This causes an imbalance of charge across the cell membrane which, finally, causes a current to be transmitted down the optic nerve to the brain. The result, when interpreted by the brain, is vision.

My explanation is just a sketchy overview of the biochemistry of vision. Ultimately, though, this is what it means to "explain" vision. This is the level of explanation for which biological science must aim. In order to truly understand a function, one must understand in detail every relevant step in the process. The relevant steps in biological processes occur ultimately at the molecular level, so a satisfactory explanation of a biological phenomenon such as vision, or digestion, or immunity must include its molecular explanation.


Now that the black box of vision has been opened it is no longer enough for an "evolutionary explanation" of that power to consider only the anatomical structures of whole eyes, as Darwin did in the nineteenth century, and as popularizers of evolution continue to do today. Each of the anatomical steps and structures that Darwin thought were so simple actually involves staggeringly complicated biochemical processes that cannot be papered over with rhetoric. Darwin's simple steps are now revealed to be huge leaps between carefully tailored machines. Thus biochemistry offers a Lilliputian challenge to Darwin. Now the black box of the cell has been opened and a Lilliputian world of staggering complexity stands revealed. It must be explained.
Irreducible Complexity


How can we decide if Darwin's theory can account for the complexity of molecular life? It turns out that Darwin himself set the standard. He acknowledged that:

If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But what type of biological system could not be formed by "numerous, successive, slight modifications"?
Well, for starters, a system that is irreducibly complex. Irreducible complexity is just a fancy phrase I use to mean a single system which is composed of several interacting parts, and where the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to cease functioning.


Let's consider an everyday example of irreducible complexity: the humble mousetrap. The mousetraps that my family uses consist of a number of parts. There are: 1) a flat wooden platform to act as a base; 2) a metal hammer, which does the actual job of crushing the little mouse; 3) a spring with extended ends to press against the platform and the hammer when the trap is charged; 4) a sensitive catch which releases when slight pressure is applied, and 5) a metal bar which connects to the catch and holds the hammer back when the trap is charged. Now you can't catch a few mice with just a platform, add a spring and catch a few more mice, add a holding bar and catch a few more.

All the pieces of the mousetrap have to be in place before you catch any mice. Therefore the mousetrap is irreducibly complex.
An irreducibly complex system cannot be produced directly by numerous, successive, slight modifications of a precursor system, because any precursor to an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctional. An irreducibly complex biological system, if there is such a thing, would be a powerful challenge to Darwinian evolution. Since natural selection can only choose systems that are already working, then if a biological system cannot be produced gradually it would have to arise as an integrated unit, in one fell swoop, for natural selection to have anything to act on.


Demonstration that a system is irreducibly complex is not a proof that there is absolutely no gradual route to its production. Although an irreducibly complex system can't be produced directly, one can't definitively rule out the possibility of an indirect, circuitous route. However, as the complexity of an interacting system increases, the likelihood of such an indirect route drops precipitously. And as the number of unexplained, irreducibly complex biological systems increases, our confidence that Darwin's criterion of failure has been met skyrockets toward the maximum that science allows.

The Cilium
Now, are any biochemical systems irreducibly complex? Yes, it turns out that many are. A good example is the cilium. Cilia are hairlike structures on the surfaces of many animal and lower plant cells that can move fluid over the cell's surface or "row" single cells through a fluid. Inhumans, for example, cells lining the respiratory tract each have about 200 cilia that beat in synchrony to sweep mucus towards the throat for elimination.

What is the structure of a cilium? A cilium consists of bundle of fibers called an axoneme. An axoneme contains a ring of 9 double "microtubules" surrounding two central single microtubules. Each outer doublet consists of a ring of 13 filaments (subfiber A) fused to an assembly of 10 filaments (subfiber B). The filaments of the microtubules are composedof two proteins called alpha and beta tubulin. The 11 microtubules forming an axoneme are held together by three types of connectors: subfibers A are joined to the central microtubules by radial spokes; adjacent outer doublets are joined by linkers of a highly elastic protein called nexin; and the central microtubules are joined by a connecting bridge. Finally, every subfiber A bears two arms, an inner arm and an outer arm, both containing a protein called dynein.

But how does a cilium work? Experiments have shown that ciliary motion results from the chemically-powered "walking" of the dynein arms on one microtubule up a second microtubule so that the two microtubules slide past each other. The protein cross-links between microtubules in a cilium prevent neighboring microtubules from sliding past each other by more than a short distance. These cross-links, therefore, convert the dynein-induced sliding motion to a bending motion of the entire axoneme.
Now, let us consider what this implies. What components are needed for a cilium to work? Ciliary motion certainly requires microtubules; otherwise, there would be no strands to slide. Additionally we require a motor, or else the microtubules of the cilium would lie stiff and motionless. Furthermore, we require linkers to tug on neighboring strands, converting the sliding motion into a bending motion, and preventing the structure from falling apart.

All of these parts are required to perform one function: ciliary motion. Just as a mousetrap does not work unless all of its constituent parts are present, ciliary motion simply does not exist in the absence of microtubules, connectors, and motors. Therefore, we can conclude that the cilium is irreducibly complex; an enormous monkey wrench thrown into its presumed gradual, Darwinian evolution.

Blood Clotting
Now let's talk about a different biochemical system of blood clotting. Amusingly, the way in which the blood clotting system works is reminiscent of a Rube Goldberg machine.
The name of Rube Goldberg; the great cartoonist who entertained America with his silly machines, lives on in our culture, but the man himself has pretty much faded from view. Here's a typical example of his humor. In this cartoon Goldberg imagined a system where water from a drain-pipe fills a flask, causing a cork with attached needle to rise and puncture a paper cup containing beer, which sprinkles on a bird. The intoxicated bird falls onto a spring, bounces up to a platform, and pulls a string thinking it's a worm. The string triggers a cannon which frightens a dog. The dog flips over, and his rapid breathing raises and lowers a scratcher over a mosquito bite, causing no embarrassment while talking to a lady.

When you think about it for a moment you realize that the Rube Goldberg machine is irreducibly complex. It is a single system which is composed of several interacting parts, and where the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to break down. If the dog is missing the machine doesn't work; if the needle hasn't been put on the cork, the whole system is useless.
It turns out that we all have Rube Goldberg in our blood. Here's a picture of a cell trapped in a clot. The meshwork is formed from a protein called fibrin. But what controls blood clotting? Why does blood clot when you cut yourself, but not at other times when a clot would cause a stroke or heart attack? Here's a diagram of what's called the blood clotting cascade. Let's go through just some of the reactions of clotting.


When an animal is cut a protein called Hageman factor sticks to the surface of cells near the wound. Bound Hageman factor is then cleaved by a protein called HMK to yield activated Hageman factor. Immediately the activated Hageman factor converts another protein, called prekallikrein, to its active form, kallikrein. Kallikrein helps HMK speed up the conversion of more Hageman factor to its active form. Activated Hageman factor and HMK then together transform another protein, called PTA, to its active form. Activated PTA in turn, together with the activated form of another protein (discussed below) called convertin, switch a protein called Christmas factor to its active form. Activated Christmas factor, together with antihemophilic factor (which is itself activated by thrombin in a manner similar to that of proaccelerin) changes Stuart factor to its active form. Stuart factor,working with accelerin, converts prothrombin to thrombin. Finally thrombin cuts fibrinogen to give fibrin, which aggregates with other fibrin molecules to form the meshwork clot you saw in the last picture.


Blood clotting requires extreme precision. When a pressurized blood circulation system is punctured, a clot must form quickly or the animal will bleed to death. On the other hand, if blood congeals at the wrong time or place, then the clot may block circulation as it does in heart attacks and strokes. Furthermore, a clot has to stop bleeding all along the length of the cut, sealing it completely. Yet blood clotting must be confined to the cut or the entire blood system of the animal might solidify, killing it.

Consequently, clotting requires this enormously complex system so that the clot forms only when and only where it is required. Blood clotting is the ultimate Rube Goldberg machine.

The Professional Literature
Other examples of irreducible complexity abound in the cell, including aspects of protein transport, the bacterial flagellum, electron transport, telomeres, photosynthesis, transcription regulation, and much more. Examples of irreducible complexity can be found on virtually every page of a biochemistry textbook. But if these things cannot be explained by Darwinian evolution, how has the scientific community regarded these phenomena of the past forty years? A good place to look for an answer to that question is in the Journal of Molecular Evolution. JME is a journal that was begun specifically to deal with the topic of how evolution occurs on the molecular level. It has high scientific standards, and is edited by prominent figures in the field.

In a recent issue of JME there were published eleven articles; of these, all eleven were concerned simply with the comparison of protein or DNA sequences. A sequence comparison is an amino acid-by-amino acid comparison of two different proteins, or a nucleotide-by-nucleotide comparison of two different pieces of DNA, noting the positions at which they are identical or similar, and the places where they are not. Although useful for determining possible lines of descent, which is an interesting question in its own right, comparing sequences cannot show how a complex biochemical system achieved its function; the question that most concerns us here.

By way of analogy, the instruction manuals for two different models of computer putout by the same company might have many identical words, sentences, and even paragraphs, suggesting a common ancestry (perhaps the same author wrote both manuals), but comparing the sequences of letters in the instruction manuals will never tell us if a computer can be produced step by step starting from a typewriter.

None of the papers discussed detailed models for intermediates in the development of complex biomolecular structures. In the past ten years JME has published over a thousand papers. Of these, about one hundred discussed the chemical synthesis of molecules thought to be necessary for the origin of life, about 50 proposed mathematical models to improve sequence analysis, and about 800 were analyses of sequences. There were ZERO papers discussing detailed models for intermediates in the development of complex biomolecular structures.

This is not a peculiarity of JME. No papers are to be found that discuss detailed models for intermediates in the development of complex biomolecular structures in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Nature, Science, the Journal of Molecular Biology or, to my knowledge, any science journal whatsoever.

"Publish or perish" is a proverb that academicians take seriously. If you do not publish your work for the rest of the community to evaluate, then you have no business in academia and, if you don't already have tenure, you will be banished. But the saying can be applied to theories as well. If a theory claims to be able to explain some phenomenon but does not generate even an attempt at an explanation, then it should be banished. Despite comparing sequences, molecular evolution has never addressed the question of how complex structures came to be. In effect, the theory of Darwinian molecular evolution has not published, and so it should perish.

Detection of Design

What's going on? Imagine a room in which a body lies crushed, flat as a pancake. A dozen detectives crawl around, examining the floor with magnifying glasses for any clue to the identity of the perpetrator. In the middle of the room next to the body stands a large, gray elephant. The detectives carefully avoid bumping into the pachyderm's legs as they crawl, and never even glance at it. Over time the detectives get frustrated with their lack of progress but resolutely press on, looking even more closely at the floor. You see, textbooks say detectives must "get their man," so they never consider elephants.

There is an elephant in the roomful of scientists who are trying to explain the development of life. The elephant is labeled "intelligent design." To a person who does not feel obliged to restrict his search to unintelligent causes, the straightforward conclusion is that many biochemical systems were designed. They were designed not by the laws of nature, not by chance and necessity. Rather, they were planned. The designer knew what the systems would look like when they were completed; the designer took steps to bring the systems about. Life on earth at its most fundamental level, in its most critical components, is the product of intelligent activity.

The conclusion of intelligent design flows naturally from the data itself, not from sacred books or sectarian beliefs. Inferring that biochemical systems were designed by an intelligent agent is a humdrum process that requires no new principles of logic or science. It comes simply from the hard work that biochemistry has done over the past forty years, combined with consideration of the way in which we reach conclusions of design every day.
What is "design"? Design is simply the purposeful arrangement of parts. The scientific question is how we detect design. This can be done in various ways, but design can most easily be inferred for mechanical objects.

While walking through a junkyard you might observe separated bolts and screws and bits of plastic and glass, most scattered, some piled on top of each other, some wedged together. Suppose you saw a pile that seemed particularly compact, and when you picked up a bar sticking out of the pile, the whole pile came along with it. When you pushed on the bar it slid smoothly to one side of the pile and pulled an attached chain along with it. The chain in turn yanked a gear which turned three other gears which turned a red-and-white striped rod, spinning it like a barber pole. You quickly conclude that the pile was not a chance accumulation of junk, but was designed, was put together in that order by an intelligent agent, because you see that the components of the system interact with great specificity to do something.


It is not only artificial mechanical systems for which design can easily be concluded. Systems made entirely from natural components can also evince design. For example, suppose you are walking with a friend in the woods. All of a sudden your friend is pulled high in the air and left dangling by his foot from a vine attached to a tree branch. After cutting him down you reconstruct the trap. You see that the vine was wrapped around the tree branch, and the end pulled tightly down to the ground. It was securely anchored to the ground by a forked branch. The branch was attached to another vine, hidden by leaves so that, when the trigger-vine was disturbed, it would pull down the forked stick, releasing the spring-vine. The end of the vine formed a loop with a slipknot to grab an appendage and snap it up into the air. Even though the trap was made completely of natural materials you would quickly conclude that it was the product of intelligent design.

A Complicated World
A word of caution; intelligent design theory has to be seen in context: it does not try to explain everything. We live in a complex world where lots of different things can happen. When deciding how various rocks came to be shaped the way they are a geologist might consider a whole range of factors: rain, wind, the movement of glaciers, the activity of moss and lichens, volcanic action, nuclear explosions, asteroid impact, or the hand of a sculptor. The shape of one rock might have been determined primarily by one mechanism, the shape of another rock by another mechanism. The possibility of a meteor's impact does not mean that volcanos can be ignored; the existence of sculptors does not mean that many rocks are not shaped by weather.

Similarly, evolutionary biologists have recognized that a number of factors might have affected the development of life: common descent, natural selection, migration, population size, founder effects (effects that may be due to the limited number of organisms that begin a new species), genetic drift (spread of neutral, nonselective mutations), gene flow (the incorporation of genes into a population from a separate population), linkage (occurrence of two genes on the same chromosome), meiotic drive (the preferential selection during sex cell production of one of the two copies of a gene inherited from an organism's parents), transposition (the transfer of a gene between widely separated species by non-sexual means), and much more. The fact that some biochemical systems were designed by an intelligent agent does not mean that any of the other factors are not operative, common, or important.

Curiouser and Curiouser

So as this talk concludes we are left with what many people feel to be a strange conclusion: that life was designed by an intelligent agent. In a way, though, all of the progress of science over the last several hundred years has been a steady march toward the strange. People up until the middle ages lived in a natural world. The stable earth was at the center of things; the sun, moon, and stars circled endlessly to give light by day and night; the same plants and animals had been known since antiquity. Surprises were few.

Then it was proposed, absurdly, that the earth itself moved, spinning while it circled the sun. No one could feel the earth spinning; no one could see it. But spin it did. From our modern vantage it's hard to realize what an assault on the senses was perpetrated by Copernicus and Galileo; they said in effect that people could no longer rely on even the evidence of their eyes.
Things got steadily worse over the years. With the discovery of fossils it became apparent that the familiar animals of field and forest had not always been on earth; the world had once been inhabited by huge, alien creatures who were now gone.

Sometime later Darwin shook the world by arguing that the familiar biota was derived from the bizarre, vanished life over lengths of time incomprehensible to human minds. Einstein told us that space is curved and time is relative. Modern physics says that solid objects are mostly space, that sub atomic particles have no definite position, that the universe had a beginning.
Now it's the turn of the fundamental science of life, modern biochemistry, to disturb. The simplicity that was once expected to be the foundation of life has proven to be a phantom. Instead, systems of horrendous, irreducible complexity inhabit the cell.

The resulting realization that life was designed by an intelligence is a shock to us in the twentieth century who have gotten used to thinking of life as the result of simple natural laws. But other centuries have had their shocks and there is no reason to suppose that we should escape them. Humanity has endured as the center of the heavens moved from the earth to beyond the sun, as the history of life expanded to encompass long-dead reptiles, as the eternal universe proved mortal. We will endure the opening of Darwin's black box.


Michael J. Behe is Associate Professor of Chemistry at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania and a Fellow of the Discovery Institute?s Center for Renewal of Science & Culture.
Copyright © 2000 Michael Behe. All rights reserved. International

 

[rgraham666]

Shanglan, I've been trying to figure out where you're coming from, without much success. Now I think I see where the problem is.

As I said earlier, you're confusing theory with hypothesis. Understandable, as in common usage the two words are used interchangeably.

But in science, theory has a very specific meaning. It is the highest accolade an organisational system can attain. A theory offers an over arching system of perception that gives, to date, the best method of explanation of how a particular part of the universe works.

It might not be true. One of the hallmarks of science is that it can be falsified. There have been many theories that have been overturned. The terro-centric model of the solar system for example.

But if something is regarded as a theory it is believed to be the most useful method for discovering new knowledge.

One thing I notice about the creationists. They spend most of their time proving evolution is false. I believe that is because they believe that if evolution is proved false, creationism must therefore be true. That is not the same thing. Eventually creationism is going to have to find evidence that supports 'intelligent design' I don't think that is possible. I don't believe God can be studied by scientific methods.

And finally, the people who put those stickers on the books did not do so in order to clarify the philosophy of science. They did it to falsify evolution. If they wanted to clarify, they would have put the stickers on all science textbooks.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

I feel sorry for kids inKansas. Coming up through classes and not being exposed to Evolutionary theory is going to really hurt them in college.

 

[rgraham666]

I feel sorry for kids inKansas. Coming up through classes and not being exposed to Evolutionary theory is going to really hurt them in college.

Wanna open an underground school in Kansas, Colleen?

It would be like an Anthony Burgess story I read many years ago. All the 'bad' kids studied the classics and science because they weren't supposed to in school. They could only study things that made them 'good citizens', read consumers.

 

[haldir]

blood clots etc

Shang - thanks.

Pure - where 2 start.

Let us look at your blood clotting analogy.

The clotting cascade is indeed complex and it SEEMS as if it cannot work unless every part of the cascade works. However, I recommend that you speak to someone who has haemophilia. The fundamental reason for their problem is a fault in the cascade and yet many haemophiliacs live to provide a next generation. I am not arguing that haemophilia has a positive "selection" advantage, rather that not all complex ssytems can be defined by their absolute extremes.

Next - you really do choose your own ground to fight on and it is undermined.

The Pepper Moth evidence in unequivocal - the lighter coloured moths did (and still do) persist only in un-polluted environments and the dark coloured varieties survive in polluted environments. FACT.

Whether your assertion that comparative embryo morphology is based on a misunderstanding is correct or not is actually irrelevant. (AlthougH i feel you are pulling your supporting evidence from selected sources. Have you ever looked at amd compaired emryos from different species? - I have).

DNA analysis clearly supports the theory that we all share a common ancestor.

Finally, after boring you all so much - one final point Pure. You are making the common mistake of confusing the PROCESS of evolution i.e. natural selection etc with the REALITY that this is what takes place - vis your accepted example of bacterial resistance to anti-biotics.