[Note: This is the second part in the list of ways in which critics of Expelled and other neo-Darwinist apologists are helping to promote the theory of intelligent design. Click here to read Part I]
#6 By invoking design in non-design explanations. Anyone who wonders why so many people find intelligent design explanations plausible need only to listen to scientific community discuss the evolutionary process. Scientists have a complete inability to talk about and explain processes like natural selection without using the terms, analogies, and metaphors of design and teleology.
Take, for instance, the finding that leads researchers to believe they have found a second code in DNA in addition to the genetic code. On The New York Times science page we find an explanation by Eran Segal of the Weizmann Institute in Israel:
A curious feature of the code is that it is redundant, meaning that a given amino acid can be defined by any of several different triplets. Biologists have long speculated that the redundancy may have been designed so as to coexist with some other kind of code, and this, Dr. Segal said, could be the nucleosome code. [emphasis added]
Or consider this, my favorite example, taken from a primer on evolutionary psychology:
Design evidence. Adaptations are problem-solving machines, and can be identified using the same standards of evidence that one would use to recognize a human-made machine: design evidence.... Complex functional design is the hallmark of adaptive machines as well. One can identify an aspect of the phenotype as an adaptation by showing that (1) it has many design features that are complexly specialized for solving an adaptive problem, (2) these phenotypic properties are unlikely to have arisen by chance alone, and (3) they are not better explained as the by-product of mechanisms designed to solve some alternative adaptive problem. Finding that an architectural element solves an adaptive problem with "reliability, efficiency, and economy" is prima facie evidence that one has located an adaptation (Williams, 1966).
Design evidence is important not only for explaining why a known mechanism exists, but also for discovering new mechanisms, ones that no one had thought to look for. [Proponents of this theory] also use theories of adaptive function heuristically, to guide their investigations of phenotypic design.
After reading that passage you might wonder if I had copied the wrong passage, providing a selection from a primer on ID rather than on evolutionary psychology. It seems improbable that a paper on evolutionary processes would use the word design 85 times(!), often in conjunction with explaining how natural selection "designed" a certain function (i.e., "Principle 2. Our neural circuits were designed by natural selection to solve problems that our ancestors faced during our species' evolutionary history.")
Such uses of design, however, are not uncommon. In fact, some neo-Darwinists, such as Richard Dawkins, admit that while certain biological forms may have the appearance of design, they are only designoids. (As Dave Barry would say, I'm not making this stuff up.)
The world is divided into things that look designed (like birds and airliners) and things that don't (rocks and mountains).Things that look designed are divided into those that really are designed (submarines and tin openers) and those that aren't (sharks and hedgehogs). The diagnostic of things that look (or are) designed is that their parts are assembled in ways that are statistically improbable in a functional direction. They do something well: for instance, fly. Darwinian natural selection can produce an uncanny illusion of design. An engineer would be hard put to decide whether a bird or a plane was the more aerodynamically elegant.
So what is the "explanatory filter" (to borrow a phrase from the ID'ers) that naturalism uses in order to distinguish between what is "designed" by an intelligence and what are, in the words of Richard Dawkins, "designoids," phenomena that only have the appearance of being designed? Since ID theory claims to have a method for differentiating one from the other, we might presume that naturalism does as well.
Evidence for design that requires an intelligent designer? Unscientific nonsense. Evidence for design that requires only undirected, unintelligent processes? An important mechanism for explaining known mechanisms. Even people who have never taken a course in logic can spot the special pleading required to make this argument.
Whether intelligent design will ever become the primary explanation in evolutionary biology remains to be seen. But the use of design language in explaining the process will ensure that ID remains the most plausible explanation in the minds of the public.
#7 By claiming that the criticism of ID has nothing to do with a prejudice against theism -- and then having the most vocal critics of ID be anti-religious atheists. -- Let's first dispel the ridiculous notion that most evolutionary biologists believe in God. Somehow this has become a dominant theme in these discussions, even though it remains patently false. In 1998, the journal Nature polled the members of the National Academy of Sciences on their belief in God. Of all those questioned, biological scientists had the lowest rate of belief -- only 5.5 percent were theists.
When 94.5 percent of the "scientific elite" has a plausibility structure that rejects the possibility of a Supreme Intelligent Being, it is not surprising that they would reject the very concept of an intelligent designer.
As Expelled makes clear, the most vocal critics of ID are also vocal critics against religion in general. Dawkins, P.Z. Myers, Daniel Dennett, Bill Provine, and Michael Shermer are but a few examples of prominent ID critics who spend an inordinate amount of time railing about the ignorance of religious beliefs. They are the rule, not the exceptions.
Even fellow ID critic Michael Ruse (the guy who believes that life was created "on the backs of crystals") thinks that Dawkins and Dennett are hurting their own case. As he wrote in a letter to Dennett, "I think that you and Richard are absolute disasters in the fight against intelligent design... what we need is not knee-jerk atheism but serious grappling with the issues...more than this, we are in a fight, and we need to make allies in the fight, not simply alienate everyone of good will."
Continued in Part III
Anyone who wonders why so many people find intelligent design explanations plausible need only to listen to scientific community discuss the evolutionary process. Scientists have a complete inability to talk about and explain processes like natural selection without using the terms, analogies, and metaphors of design and teleology.
Dawkins, IMO, addressed this very well. Evolution does indeed appear designed, after all it is an algorithm to find a design!
Since ID theory claims to have a method for differentiating one from the other, we might presume that naturalism does as well.
Claims is a generous word there. IDers, including you, have consistently refused to explain their method. The best I've ever gotten was along the lines of "Easy, Mt. Rushmore was designed!". Their method is essentially if evolutionary theory cannot explain a particular trait RIGHT NOW to any arbitrary level of detail then it must have been designed by an IDer. That's not even a 'God of the gaps' explanation. It's essentially a parasite on evolutionary theory.
Lie 7 #7 By claiming that the criticism of ID has nothing to do with a prejudice against theism -- and then having the most vocal critics of ID be anti-religious atheists. --
Notice everyone how Joe plays the game here? If 95% of biologists don't believe in God, then they must be biased against ID. But it's a lie to assert that ID must be a religious theory because almsot all ID supporters are theists?
As Expelled makes clear, the most vocal critics of ID are also vocal critics against religion in general. Dawkins, P.Z. Myers, Daniel Dennett, Bill Provine, and Michael Shermer are but a few examples of prominent ID critics who spend an inordinate amount of time railing about the ignorance of religious beliefs. They are the rule, not the exceptions.
Communists were probably the most vocal critics of the Nazi's. Therefore if you reject Nazism you're soft on communism.
It's interesting that Joe (and I suppose Expelled) mixes up popular ID critics with scientists. While Dawkins, Dennett, Myers etc. are indeed well known ID critics they are not scientists for the most part. They are popularizers of science but it is a fallacy to pretend there is no difference. The scientific community itself has rejected ID and not because theists are unwelcome in their playground.
Their method is essentially if evolutionary theory cannot explain a particular trait RIGHT NOW to any arbitrary level of detail then it must have been designed by an IDer. That's not even a 'God of the gaps' explanation. It's essentially a parasite on evolutionary theory.
And the alternative is what? It is (the position you reject in your earlier post) that there is a scientific explanation that science will someday explain. Naturalism has its own "god" to fill its gaps. Naturalism is metaphysical.
The alternative is to treat ID like any other idea or theory. It must make its case on its own. All theories are going to have gaps. Those gaps are either going to be explained by the theory itself or will result in a totally new theory that will replace the original.
Simply saying ID is ok because it purports to explain some gaps is not sufficient to even put it in the same league as evolutionary theory. If you want an analogy it's kind of like a soduku puzzle. It's easy to think of a number that could fill one open square but to do the puzzle correctly you need to only enter numbers that not only fill the open square but are consistent with all the other squares.
It's easy to toss out theories that just fill gaps. Note, for example, the 'gaps' in Newton's gravity. I could toss out a 'gap theory' that says invisible angels randomly smack into matter just enough to modestly alter their momentum from what Newtonian gravity would hold but these angels are too weak to make significant deviations. That's a nice gap theory and before Einstein I suppose I could use the "what's the alternative line" on you. If you weren't as smart as Einstein you'd have to scratch your head and say you don't have one. That doesn't mean, though, that you should accept my theory.
When the real 'gap' was explained, a new theory revised the older one. But the new theory not only addressed the gap but also was equal or better than the old theory at addressing the 'non-gaps'.
Boonton,
So you're going to toss out ID because it is incomplete but you're going to praise Darwinism though it is still incomplete?
Informatin theory fills a serious void in Darwinism and bio-mechanics.
ID is not information theory. And all theories are incomplete (except trivial ones). Therefore you don't get to unseat a theory by simply saying it is incomplete. You have to show that your theory is less incomplete than the current one in ALL areas...not just cherry picked gaps.
To return to gravity; again Einstein not only closed some of Newton's gaps but also did as good or better job at covering the old ground Newton did with the older theory. Therefore it is proper to say Einstein's theory supplants Newton's.