Latest info on the ID debate from e-skeptic

[meinmachine]

Sorry for posting the whole article instead of a link. I have noticed that in some cases links will not work, so here it is for your consideration.

God & Evolution:
Intelligent Design Theory,
George W. Bush & the Question of God
by Michael Shermer

Intelligent Design (ID) creationism has resurfaced in the news again after President George W. Bush’s remarks were (mis)taken by IDers to be a solid endorsement by the president and his administration for the teaching of ID in public school science classrooms. There was considerable media hype over the story, and I did a number of interviews, including a live debate on CNN with lead Intelligent Design theorist William Dembski. As this story unfolded, however, I discovered (to no great surprise) that IDers, along with many in the media, and pundits on both the right and the left, greatly exaggerated Bush’s remarks.

On Monday, August 1, Bush gave an interview at the White House to a group of Texas newspaper reporters in which he said that when he was governor of Texas “I felt like both sides ought to be properly taught.” When a reporter asked for his position today on whether ID should be taught alongside the theory of evolution, Bush replied that he did “so people can understand what the debate is about.” But when pressed as to his opinion on whether ID is a legitimate scientific alternative to the theory of evolution, Bush wisely equivocated:

I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought. You’re asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, and the answer is yes.

Well of course, but that’s a different question.

So, the claim by IDers and several Christian groups, along with complaints by liberals that President Bush endorses ID, is exaggerated. In fact, Bush’s science adviser, John H. Marburger 3rd, said in a telephone interview with the New York Times that “evolution is the cornerstone of modern biology” and “intelligent design is not a scientific concept.” He added that the president’s comments should be interpreted to mean that ID be discussed not as science but as part of the “social context” in science classes, and that it would be “over-interpreting” Bush’s remarks to conclude that the president believes that ID and the theory of evolution should be given equal treatment in public school science courses.


When a reporter from Time magazine asked for my opinion about whether one can believe in God and the theory of evolution, I replied that, empirically speaking, yes you can, the proof being that 40 percent of American scientists profess belief in God and also accept the theory of evolution, not to mention the fact that most of the world’s one billion Catholics believe in God and accept the theory of evolution. But then this reporter wanted to know is if it is logically consistent to believe in God and the theory of evolution. That is, does the theory of evolution — if carried out to its logical conclusion — preclude belief in God? This is a different question. My answer appeared in truncated form in an Opinion Editorial that ran in the Los Angeles Times on Sunday, August 7, under the title “Why God’s in a Class by Himself.” This was the editors’ title choice, and it is an interesting one considering what I have to say on the subject. Here is my longer answer.

You can believe in God and evolution as long as you keep the two in separate logic-tight compartments. Belief in God depends on religious faith. Belief in evolution depends on empirical evidence. This is the fundamental difference between religion and science. If you attempt to reconcile religion and science on questions about nature and the universe, and if you push the science to its logical conclusion, you will end up naturalizing the deity because for any question about nature — the origins of the universe, life, humans, whatever — if your answer is “God did it,” a scientist will ask, “How did God do it?, What forces did God use? What forms of matter and energy were employed in the creation process?” and so forth. The end result of this inquiry can only be natural explanations for all natural phenomena. What place, then, for God?

One could argue that God is the laws and forces of nature, which is logically acceptable, but this is pantheism and not the type of personal God to which most people profess belief. One could also argue that God created the universe and life using the laws and forces of nature as his creation tools, which is also logically fine, but it leaves us with additional scientific questions: which laws and forces were used for to create specific natural phenomena, and in what matter were they used? how did God create the laws and forces of nature? A scientist would be curious to know God’s recipe for, say, gravity, or for a universe or a cell. For that matter, it is a legitimate scientific question to ask: what made God, and how was God created? How do you make an omniscient and omnipotent being? Finally, one could argue that God is outside of nature — super nature, or supernatural — and therefore needs no explanation. This is also logically consistent, but by definition it means that the God question is outside of science and therefore religion and science are separate and incompatible.

One more analogy may help make the point. In my January, 2002, Scientific American column, entitled “Shermer’s Last Law,” I modified Arthur C. Clarke’s famous “Third Law” (Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic) thusly: Any sufficiently advanced Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence is indistinguishable from God. God is typically described by Western religions as omniscient and omnipotent. Since we fall far from the mark on these traits, how could we possibly distinguish a God who has them absolutely, from an ETI who, relative to us, has them in copious amounts? Thus, we would be unable to distinguish between absolute and relative omniscience and omnipotence. And if God is only relatively more knowing and powerful than us, then by definition God would be an ETI!


Therefore, when Intelligent Design Theorists use science to go in search of their God, what they will find (if they find anything) is an alien being capable of engineering DNA, cells, complex organisms, planets, stars, galaxies, and even universes. If we can engineer genes, clone mammals, and manipulate stem cells with science and technologies developed in only the last half century, think of what an ETI could do with, say, 10,000 years of such science and technology. For an ETI a million years more advanced than us, engineering the creation of planets and stars will be doable. And if universes are created out of collapsing black holes, which some cosmologists think is highly likely, it is not inconceivable that a sufficiently advanced ETI could create universes at will.

Since IDers say they make no claim on who or what the intelligent designer might be, I contend that if they continue to try to reconcile their religion with science the end result can only be the discovery of an extra-terrestrial intelligence and the naturalization of their deity.


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[noodle]

I like what my husband says about ID. He says that if there was "intelligent design," the urethra wouldn't go through the prostate. ;)

[cactus jack]

If it was such an intelligent design then the snack bar wouldn't be parked next to the outhouse....

[meinmachine]

Some are Boojums
Who cares what I think?
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« Mmm … DDT … Yum!Ten Questions to Ask Your History Teacher
One of my objectives in self-improvement is to stop correcting people who misuse the phrase “begs the question.”
As has been said about teaching a pig to sing, it wastes your time and annoys the pig.
But even if we feel awkward telling people “that’s not what ‘begging the question’ means”, we still need an example of what it does mean.

Luckily, the Discovery Institute has supplied a valuable teaching tool in the form of a list of ten questions, each one more question-begging than the last, for students to ask their biology teachers.

Now, some people would recommend that anyone who starts a sentence with “Why don’t textbooks discuss the ‘Cambrian explosion’,” be smacked with a rolled-up newspaper until he stops peeing on people’s brains.

But not me!

I think what we need is a lot more question-begging, willfully ignorant, smug, supercilious hooey posing as innocent requests for fairness and balance!

I feel so strongly about this that I’ve even generated a starter kit for those who want to bring this noble crusade to the rest of the academic disciplines.

So — kids, the next time your history teacher starts trying to force-feed you Revolutionary “theory” as if it were “fact”, you know what to do!

Ten Questions to Ask Your History Teacher

Q: ORIGIN OF GOVERNMENTS: Why do history textbooks claim that the modern British monarchy originated with the “Norman conquest”, in “1066″, when nobody has ever seen a calendar for that year, and there has never been an English king named “Norman”?

Q: WASHINGTON’S BRANCHES OF GOVERNMENT: Why don’t textbooks discuss the “Civil War,” or the fact that all US governmental bodies appear together at that time, instead of branching from a Constitution — thus contradicting revolutionary theory?

Q: THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE: Why do history textbooks claim that the “Revolutionary War” started with a “Declaration of Independence” and quote its words, then claim that a suspiciously old-looking document in Washington D.C is the same document because it contains the same words, — a circular argument masquerading as historical evidence?

Q: GEORGE WASHINGTON. It is well known that the infamous “cherry tree” story was faked, and that “George Washington” never said “I cannot tell a lie” — that is, if he ever existed. Why do textbooks use drawings or “artist’s conceptions” of “George Washington” as evidence that he existed? Why does no single history textbook anywhere point out that there are no photographs - zero! - of “George Washington” in existence?

Q: ALEXANDER HAMILTON. Why do some history textbooks give Alexander Hamilton’s year of birth as 1755, and others as 1757? Why do historians refuse to discuss, or even acknowledge, the controversy? Why do many textbooks even claim that this (probably imaginary) figure was killed in a duel with “Aaron Burr”? Take out a $10 bill and see whose picture is on it. Do you think this duel actually occurred, and that the US then decided to put the loser’s picture on its currency?

Q: WASHINGTON CROSSING THE DELAWARE. Why do history textbooks all use the same picture of “Washington Crossing the Delaware” — when historians have been aware for years that the picture was staged? Any idiot knows that you can’t get ten guys in a canoe without capsizing, and “Washington” is standing up? Get real.

Q: SILLY HATS. Why do textbooks claim that Revolutionary Fashion can explain the use of Tricorner Hats by the colonists — even though these hats were not used in the French Revolution, and there are no such silly hats anywhere else in history?

Q: REVOLUTIONARY WAR. Why do textbooks represent the Revolutionary War as having been won through a series of “small victories” when, every time you look at an actual battle the colonists fought against the British, as likely as not they got their asses handed to them? Do you think a nation as magnificently complex as the United States could come about through a random, undirected sequence of military engagements?

Q: GOVERNMENTAL ORIGINS. Why are artists’ drawings of a bunch of middle-aged guys in poofy wigs used to justify Revolutionary claims that we are all descended from a parcel of ninnies who didn’t have the sense to be at the beach in July — when historians cannot even agree on who they were or what their actual hair looked like?

Q: THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION A FACT? Why are we told that the American Revolution is an historical fact — even though many Revolutionary claims are based on misrepresentations of the facts?

And remember — when some liberal revolutionist starts spouting off about imaginary events supposed to have taken place in 1776, all you have to do is look him in the eye and ask “Were you there?”