Press ReleasesTruly Fair and Balanced: IDEA Mentioned on San Diego Fox News + Responses to Eugenie Scott & Calamus - March 1, 2005
Firstly, it should be noted that the segment was excellent. It contained segments with 2 people from each side of this issue, and accurately portrayed the views of people on 'both sides.' It was impressive that Greg Todd, the San Diego Fox 6 News Reporter, was able to get a one-on-one interview with prominent evolution-advocate Eugenie Scott, as well with ID critic Mark Perakh. The pro-ID side was represented by Casey Luskin, and Dr. Tom English, both affiliated with the IDEA Center. Dr. English was shown teaching his students at Palomar College about intelligent design. The UCSD IDEA Club was also briefly mentioned. The segment was also excellent because it took the liberty to help viewers understand the claims of intelligent design as they are made by its proponents. The segment actually contained a few brief segments from videos advocating intelligent design. In short, the segment came across as very objective in its portrayal of the issues. Mr. Todd should be commended for his accurate and in-depth reporting on this issue. Despite the fact that Mr. Todd and Fox 6 did a good job with the segment, the views of Eugenie Scott as she expressed them in her interview require a response. Below are 4 points made by Eugenie Scott in her interview, followed by 4 rebuttals (her claims are currently paraphrased but exact quotes may be inserted later): 1. ID is "creationism lite" It's not clear exactly what Scott means by "creationism lite." Intelligent design has key differences from creationism, which can be separated into differences in methodology, and differences in claims. At the heart of "creationism" is the claim that a supernatural creator created life. Intelligent design is different from creationism because it does not claim that a supernatural creator is responsible for life. (See Point 2 for details on this) In fact, intelligent design theory functions like a bona fide scientific theory: it cannot make statements about the supernatural realm. In short, scientific methods do not allow us to identify the designer, but they do allow us to tell if life was designed. Another key difference between ID and creationism is that ID only argues from the data using the scientific method, while creationism has some reliance upon religious texts (i.e. Genesis), faith, and divine revelation. As far claims go, ID makes no untestable theological claims about the supernatural, while creationism requires that a supernatural Creator created life. ID theory is also not a theory of the age of anything, while creationism typically has deep commitments regarding chronology. Unfortunately this question often gets caught in semantics, malleable definitions, and a public relations war over ID. Right or wrong, creationism has a bad reputation among most secular (and many non-secular) academics. This provides a motive to associate ID with creationism because it is an anti-ID P.R. tactic. The problem is that, stereotypes and motives aside, intelligent design is simply not creationism. Scott has a history of wrongly calling intelligent design proponents creationists. Many ID proponents may be creationists, but that does not mean that ID is the same as creationism. Similarly, many evolutionists may be atheists, but that does not mean that evolution is the same as atheism. Consider the following quote from Michael Behe who defends against Scott's charges that he is a creationist: ID may share a few similarities to creationism, but it isn't creationism. Scott may call ID "creationism lite" but perhaps it is "lite" because it is lacking the characteristics which made creationism unscientific in the first place. In this sense, creationism is the wrong label for intelligent design. Scott herself defines creationism as "the idea that a supernatural entity(s) created the universe and humankind..." (Scott & Sager, Review of Darwin on Trial, Creation/Evolution 31:47-58 (Winter, 1992).) Yet ID proponents explicitly state that the theory does not claim the designer was supernatural: "One of the worries about intelligent design is that it will jettison much of what is accepted in science, and that an “ID-based curriculum” will look very different from current science curricula. Although intelligent design has radical implications for science, I submit that it does not have nearly as radical implications for science education. First off, intelligent design is not a form of anti-evolutionism. Intelligent design does not claim that living things came together suddenly in their present form through the efforts of a supernatural creator. Intelligent design is not and never will be a doctrine of creation." (William Dembski, No Free Lunch, pg. 314, emphasis added) 2. ID is "throwing up your hands" and saying "God did it." A. Does ID state that "God" is the designer? Scott here has misrepresented intelligent design theory. While many ID proponents do believe in God, the theory itself is a scientific approach which cannot identify the designer. These many quotes from ID proponents below explain: "Although intelligent design fits comfortably with a belief in God, it doesn't require it, because the scientific theory doesn't tell you who the designer is. While most people - including myself - will think the designer is God, some people might think that the designer was a space alien or something odd like that." (Michael Behe, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 02/08/01). "One of the worries about intelligent design is that it will jettison much of what is accepted in science, and that an “ID-based curriculum” will look very different from current science curricula. Although intelligent design has radical implications for science, I submit that it does not have nearly as radical implications for science education. First off, intelligent design is not a form of anti-evolutionism. Intelligent design does not claim that living things came together suddenly in their present form through the efforts of a supernatural creator. Intelligent design is not and never will be a doctrine of creation." (William Dembski, No Free Lunch, pg. 314, emphasis added) "The conclusion that something was designed can be made quite independently of knowledge of the designer. As a matter of procedure, the design must first be apprehended before there can be any further question about the designer. The inference to design can be held with all the firmness that is possible in this world, without knowing anything about the designer." (Michael Behe, Darwin's Black Box, pg. 197) "Intelligent design is modest in what it attributes to the designing intelligence responsible for the specified complexity in nature. For instance, design theorists recognize that the nature, moral character and purposes of this intelligence lie beyond the competence of science and must be left to religion and philosophy." (William Dembski, The Design Revolution, pg. 42) "The most obvious difference is that scientific creationism has prior religious commitments whereas intelligent design does not. ... Intelligent design ... has no prior religious commitments and interprets the data of science on generally accepted scientific principles. In particular, intelligent design does not depend on the biblical account of creation." (William Dembski, The Design Revolution, pg. 40) "Intelligent design begins with data that scientists observe in the laboratory and nature, identifies in them patterns known to signal intelligent causes and thereby ascertains whether a phenomenon was designed. For design theorists, the conclusion of design constitutes an inference from data, not a deduction from religious authority." (William Dembski, The Design Revolution, pg. 42-43) "Natural causes are too stupid to keep pace with intelligent causes. Intelligent design theory provides a rigorous scientific demonstration of this long-standing intuition. Let me stress, the complexity-specification criterion is not a principle that comes to us demanding our unexamined acceptance--it is not an article of faith. Rather it is the outcome of a careful and sustained argument about the precise interrelationships between necessity, chance and design." (William Dembski, No Free Lunch, pg. 223) "ID is not an interventionist theory. Its only commitment is that the design in the world be empirically detectable. All the design could therefore have emerged through a cosmic evolutionary process that started with the Big Bang. What's more, the designer need not be a deity. It could be an extraterrestrial or a telic process inherent in the universe. ID has no doctrine of creation. Scott and Branch at best could argue that many of the ID proponents are religious believers in a deity, but that has no bearing on the content of the theory. As for being “vague” about what happened and when, that is utterly misleading. ID claims that many naturalistic evolutionary scenarios (like the origin of life) are unsupported by evidence and that we simply do not know the answer at this time to what happened. This is not a matter of being vague but rather of not pretending to knowledge that we don't have."(William Dembski, Commentary on Eugenie Scott and Glenn Branch's "Guest Viewpoint: 'Intelligent design' Not Accepted by Most Scientists) B. Is ID a science-stopper? Scientists should always work hard to find answers and never just "throw up their hands." Rather, they should follow the evidence where it leads. If we seek truth in science, then if design is what really happened, then inferring design would represent progress for science. Inferring design in no way stops science from achieving its goal to understand nature. Intelligent design is not simply "throwing up our hands" but in reality, it is based upon positive predictions which come from our observation-based understanding of how intelligent agents operate: (Stephen C. Meyer, Mere Creation, pg. 140). "Indeed, in all cases where we know the causal origin of 'high information content,' experience has shown that intelligent design played a causal role." (Stephen C. Meyer, DNA and Other Designs at http://www.arn.org/docs/meyer/sm_dnaotherdesigns.htm) "Intelligent design provides a sufficient causal explanation for the origin of large amounts of information, since we have considerable experience of intelligent agents generating informational configurations of matter." (Meyer S. C. et. al., "The Cambrian Explosion: Biology's Big Bang," in Darwinism, Design, and Public Education, edited by J. A. Campbell and S. C. Meyer (Michigan State University Press, 2003) Secondly, like any new paradigm, design opens up new doors to research. Many evolutionary biologists might not yet see these doors because they have been trained to think under the paradigm of evolution. That does not mean design could not bear fruit for science, once science is willing to "retool" to accept design. Much work could be done trying to learn to discriminate between design and evolution in fields such as biochemistry, paleontology, the origin of life, systematics, and genetics. In fact, there are some very recent examples where evolution made some very poor predictions, but intelligent design has made good ones. Here's a quickie: In 2003, Scientific American published an extensive article discussing how much "junk-DNA" may have functionality. ("The Gems of "Junk" DNA," Scientific American, Nov. 2003, by W. Wayt Gibbs.) The upshot of the article is that some types of DNA which biologists now see as playing important functional roles in the cell “were immediately assumed to be evolutionary junk” and "long ago written off as irrelevant because they yield no proteins." (emphasis added) The article states that the "assumption [that the DNA was junk] was too hasty" and "[t]he failure to recognize the importance of introns 'may well go down as one of the biggest mistakes in the history of molecular biology.'" (emphasis added) If the article is correct, then evolutionary assumptions caused "one of the biggest mistakes in the history of molecular biology." (emphasis added) This implies that sometimes expectations and predictions from evolutionary theory are not met, and the theory is not always very useful after all. Perhaps intelligent design could have changed the assumptions and led the researchers to seek function earlier on. Perhaps discovery of the function of "junk-DNA" leads to advances in medical technology. Intelligent design theory could also have contributed much to what today amounts to many popularly false notions about vestigial organs. For example, the appendix and the thymus were for long thought to be a completely functionless vestigial organ. Imagine the progress that would have been made if the thymus had not been assumed for some time to be a useless relic of our evolutionary history! There may be many such examples of evolutionary assumptions hindering scientific (and medical) progress, and the lack of intelligent design hindering science. Design could also lead to advances in paleontology as we learn to recognize where a designer designed things in earth's history, and in systematics as we compare parts in different species to see where a designer re-used parts. Additionally, William Dembski, in Design as a Research Program: 14 Questions to Ask About Design (http://www.discovery.org/viewDB/index.php3?program=CRSC%20Responses&command=view&id=259), offers the following philosophical and/or scientific avenues of investigation that could follow from research into intelligent design theory: 1. Detectability Problem --- How is design detected? 2. Functionality Problem --- What is a designed object's function? 3. Transmission Problem --- How does an object's design trace back historically? (search for narrative) 4. Construction Problem --- How was a designed object constructed? 5. Reverse-Engineering Problem --- How could a designed object have been constructed? 6. Perturbation Problem --- How has the original design been modified and what factors have been modified? 7. Variability Problem --- What degree of perturbation allows continued functioning? 8. Restoration Problem --- Once perturbed, how can original design be recovered? 9. Constraints Problem --- What are the constraints within which a designed object functions well and outside of which it breaks? 10. Optimality Problem --- In what way is the design optimal? 11. Ethical Problem --- Is the design morally right? 12. Aesthetic Problem --- Is the design beautiful? 13. Intentionality Problem --- What was the intention of the designer? 14. Identity Problem --- Who is the designer? Elsewhere, Dembski outlined a research program for design in detail in "Three Frequently Asked Questions about Intelligent Design" (at "http://www.designinference.com/documents/2003.09.ID_FAQ.pdf") which goes into much detail about fields where ID could contribute. Thirdly, design is not intended to "subsume" all science and will not force science to conclude that everything is designed if we apply the mechanisms of detecting carefully and properly. In a segment not shown on the TV, Casey Luskin described to Greg Todd how ID can easily coexist with evolution. Fears over intelligent design often come from the claim that intelligent design would mean "giving up" on evolution, or the end of scientific investigation. These objections may be less visible to the public eye, but are at least equally important in the mind of the scientist. Biologist Rudolph Raff objects to design theory saying, "as the influence of the intelligent designer grows … the relationships between the phenomena and explanations becomes increasingly arbitrary … [until] one reaches a point where all biological features are 'special creations' and other explanations become unnecessary." (Raff, Rudolf A., "The creationist abuse of evo-devo." Evol Dev, 3(6): 373-374 (2001)). In this case, Raff is not necessarily afraid that we are mixing science with religion, but that design is a sort of "science stopper." In fact, design theorist William Dembski sees Raff's arguments as typifying the reasons for the exclusion of design from science: It should also be recognized that today all scientists assume that all causes are mechanistic--even if some things are actually designed. Essentially, today, scientists often throw up their hands and say "evolution did it" without any explanation for how. If we worry about "stopping science," how much design-oriented science has materialism already stopped? In reality design theorists would never stop evolutionists from continuing to work. Inferring one answer never stops others from seeking and presenting other answers to problems. The remedy to something being a "science stopper" is not to refrain from posing new controversial theories, but that all scientists uphold the scientific value of tentativeness, and remain open minded to new theories and data, and the falsification of old theories. Intelligent design could easily coexist with evolution as one possible alternative explanation. It need not stop "science" nor "evolution." Scott's claim here is quite odd as the concept of intelligent design has a long tradition and history with arguments that go all the way back to the days of Plato and Aristotle, and was starkly debated by 18th and 19th century philosophers (see Michael Ruse, "The Argument from Design: A Brief History," in Debating Design, Cambridge Univ. Press 2004). Furthermore, during her talk at Scripps Institution of Oceanography on January 10, 2005, Eugenie Scott herself said that the modern intelligent design theory has its origins in the book The Mystery of Life's Origins, which incidentally was published in 1984, 3 years before the authoritative Edwards v. Aguillard decision was handed down to declare creationism "religion." Which of Scott's accounts of the origin of ID are we to believe--Scott's reasoning doesn't fit with the historical facts. In reality, the modern intelligent design movement has its roots in scholars who were not in any way affiliated of the creationist movement of the 1980's. People like Phillip Johnson, Michael Behe, Jonathan Wells, Stephen Meyer, and William Dembski, some of the most influential people of the intelligent design movement, had nothing to do with the creationist movement in the 1980's. But let's momentarily assume for-the-sake-of-argument that Scott is correct--let's assume that intelligent design did emerge as a way to circumvent the Edwards v. Aguillard decision. In Edwards, the Supreme Court declared creationism unconstitutional because it taught there was a "supernatural" creator--a "religious viewpoint." It is entirely possible that the idea that some aspects of life were created could have been formulated as a scientific theory--however creationists behind the law in question in Edwards failed to formulate their ideas in a scientific manner because they appealed to a "supernatural" being which could not be investigated by scientific methods, and thus required religious faith. If anything, intelligent design is the result of outsiders to the creationist movement who saw what was wrong with creationism, but also recognized that some of its ideas could be salvaged and formulated in a scientific manner. They then formulated a scientific approach--and there is nothing to be ashamed of in regards to this. If anything, these people should be commended for trying to create something which is appropriate for scientists and the science classroom rather than trying to bring religion into the science classroom, as was done in the creationist movements of the 1980's. In short, creationists of the 1980's saw that there were arguments from informational complexity which implied that a mind was behind life. However when these creationists formulated their ideas, they did something eminently unscientific in that they explicitly named that "mind" as a supernatural God. What if intelligent design theory finally had the boldness to excise the unscientific and unconstitutional aspects of creationist thought and formulate a pure scientific theory which could investigate the nature of objects caused by intelligent agents. If this is what happened, then the Scott should not be criticizing intelligent design proponents but praising them for taking creationism, looking at one of its propositions (i.e. that life was designed), and then excising the unconstitutional religious and unscientific elements (i.e. that the designer can be identified as God or a supernatural being), and focusing on the pure empirical claims and developing scientific methods such that intelligent design can be investigated. To reiterate, if Scott's pedigree of intelligent design is correct and intelligent design simply emerged in the wake of Edwards v. Aguillard intelligent design proponents have done something wonderful for education: they have taken the notion that life was designed, excised the religious components, and tried to formulate a pure scientific approach to testing if life was designed. If anything, they should be praised, whatever their pedigree may turn out to be. 4. ID proponents attempt to circumvent the usual process of doing scientific research by going directly to school boards. While Scott only had a few seconds on the air, noticeably absent from her comments was her previously commonplace argument that ID scholars have produced no peer-reviewed literature. In fact, ID proponents have produced peer-reviewed research which has been published in mainstream scientific journals. If some people want to prematurely teach ID, that's their business. But the fact of the matter is that the ID movement is building up a research program which is based upon science. Here are a few scientific sources on ID: Michael J. Behe & David W. Snoke, “Simulating evolution by gene duplication of protein features that require multiple amino acid residues,” Protein Science (13) 2004 (13). (demonstrating that standard evolutionary explanations for the origin of biological (i.e. irreducible) complexity--such as gene duplication and neutral evolution--are unlikely to produce even simple binding sites between interacting proteins unless the probabilistic resources available are unreasonably enormous) Stephen C. Meyer, Evidence for Design in Physics and Biology: From the Origin of the Universe to the Origin of Life, 9 The Proceedings of the Wethersfield Institute (Ignatius Press 2000). Michael J. Behe, Answering Scientific Criticisms of Intelligent Design, The Proceedings of the Wethersfield Institute (Ignatius Press 2000) Michael J. Behe, Darwin's Black Box (Free Press 1996). William A. Dembski, The Design Inference (Cambridge University Press 1998). William A. Dembski, No Free Lunch (Rowman & Littlefield, 2002). Also, see various essays in Uncommon Dissent: Intellectuals Who Find Darwinism Unconvincing (ISI Books, 2004). (Cornelius G. Hunter: "Why Evolution Fails the Test of Science; Roland F. Hirsch: Darwinian Evolutionary Theory and the Life Sciences in the Twenty-First Century; David Berlinski: The Fossil Record is Incomplete, The Reasoning is Flawed: Is the Theory of Evolution Fit to Survive?). Debating Design (Cambridge University Press, 2004). (William A. Dembski: The Logical Underpinnings of Intelligent Design; Walter L. Bradley: Information, Entropy, and the Origin of Life; Michael J. Behe: Irreducible Complexity: Obstacle to Darwinian Evolution; Stephen C. Meyer: The Cambrian Information Explosion). Mere Creation (InterVarsity Press, 1998). (Michael J. Behe: Intelligent Design Theory as a Tool for Analyzing Biochemical Systems; Siegfried Scherer: Basic Types of Life; Sigrid Hartwig-Scherer: Apes or Ancestors?; Jeffrey P. Schloss: Evolutionary Accounts of Altruism and the Problem of Goodness and Design; and also various essays regarding design in the cosmos and other aspects of the universe (see pgs. 363-445). Finally, see various chapters in Darwin, Design, and Public Education (John Angus Campbell ed., Michigan State University Press 2003). ----------------------------------------- Update: Reply to "Calamus" Blogger (by Casey Luskin) On March 3, 2005 a blogger named John Pourtless, at the "Calamus" blog wrote a response to the statements made in the Fox News clip (see http://calami.blogspot.com/2005/03/unimaginable-idiocy-of-casey- luskin.html for the original post). The response is entitled "The Unimaginable Idiocy of Casey Luskin". I do not know why he has attacked my character in such a strong way--I have nothing against Mr. Pourtless, and would not dream of making such ad hominem attacks against his intellectual abilities. Although this individual has leveled a number of insults against me on the blog, I wish Mr. Pourtless only the best in his life. I would like to respond to some of his substantive comments here. Mr. Pourtless then claims that ID proponents say the designer must be supernatural: So, as far as intelligent design theory is concerned, all the theory can do is recognize when an intelligent agent has been at work in the past. It does so by detecting "complex and specified information," (CSU) a tell-tale sign that an intelligent agent designed an object. However, the mere presence of CSI alone does not permit us to identify whether the designer was "natural," "supernatural," "God," "Yoda," or any other cosmic/alien/supernatural being or force. Through intelligent design theory, all we can state is that there was an intelligent agent at work. So, there are very good reasons for why ID theory itself cannot identify the designer, even if ID proponents themselves do have personal religious views on this subject. Furthermore, Mr. Pourtless suggests that we must specify an identity for the designer before we can claim that an object was designed. Again, this appears to be a misunderstanding of intelligent design theory. Intelligent design theory claims that when we find the tell-tale signs that an object was designed, that we can then infer design. So, let's say you're exploring islands in the South Pacific and come across one island covered in identical stone objects each of which is fashioned to resemble a human head. There may be no traces on this island that there were ever any humans. But, you will conclude that these giant "stone head sculptures" were designed regardless of whether you can specify beforehand the identity of their creators. So we don't have to have foreknowledge of who the specific designers were to infer design. All we have to be able to do is recognize the complex and specified information we see in the world around us. Mr. Pourtless then turns to the scientific claims of ID proponents: First, the misunderstanding: When I stated that ID limits its inferences to what can be learned through the scientific method, I was referring to whether or not ID can identify the designer as supernatural. Because science cannot study the supernatural, ID cannot identify the designer as supernatural. Absent a time machine, identifying the designer is simply beyond the power of the scientific method to uncover. Thus, in not identifying the designer, ID theory limits its inferences to those permitted by the scientific method. This stands in contrast to many forms of creationism, which make unscientific claims about the specific identity of the designer (i.e. some forms of creationism specifically will claim that the designer is "God". It is fine if creationism claims that belief, but it goes beyond what the scientific method can detect.) Now the possible misconstrual: Mr. Pourtless seems to construes my statements as if I implied that ID "posulates the existence of some unknown and potentially unknowable alien civilization as source from which life has originated and under the guidance of which it has diversified, is fundamentally untestable." I made no such statements and Mr. Pourtless provides no references to mainstream ID proponents to justify such an assertion. ID theory does not postulate any such unknowable alien civilizations which designed humans. In contrast, ID theory doesn't study the designer: it studies the objects to see if they were designed. Intelligent design theory doesn't study unknowable ancient "alien civilizations" but rather things we can know: objects in nature today which we can study to determine if they were designed. ID theory doesn't make statements about the identity of the designer, all it does is look at an object, and if it bears the right properties, the theory says "this object was designed." Mr. Pourtless then writes: Mr. Pourtless then makes a large presumption about my views which was unwarranted: I'm not going to comment on whether Kuhn or Popper was right, because I never intended to do so in the first place. However, for the record, I don't think it matters, because I think that ID is just as falsifiable as evolutionary theory. If evolution is science, then whether we use falsifiability as our standard, so is ID. Mr. Pourtless continues with his Kuhn conspiracy theory: and Mr. Pourtless then makes a comment which again, seems to have misunderstood what I was saying: Mr. Pourtless claims that I have gone into a deep foray into Kuhnian philosophy of science, when all I did was use the English word "paradigm." Mr. Pourtless clearly is thus inventing a conspiracy of statements I never made, simply because I used the word "paradigm." But let's analyze Mr. Pourtless's statements anyways: Mr. Pourtless then writes that Furthermore, when Darwinists have tried to explain the origin of such structures, they were not rejected "categorically on the grounds of simple incredulity" but rather because they have tried to explain the origin of biological features in ways which conflicted with the data. Take Ken Miller's account of the evolution of the bacterial flagellum: Miller relies heavily upon the "Type III Secretory System" (TTSS) as a precusor to the flagellum. William Dembski, in his response, simply notes that something like the TTSS can't be a precursor to the flagellum, due to the results of phylogenetic studies, and that that even if it could be a precusor, Miller still hasn't accounted for 2/3 of the flagellar components. There are other stabs at the origin of the flagellum from other Darwinists, but the point is this: they do not even come remotely close to explaining, as Mr. Pourtless alleges, "precisely how" these features evolved. Rather, they tend to rely upon appeals to the TTSS which conflict with the data, or they use exceedingly weak arguments for protein homology to make vague assertions about what could have possibly happen. Such explanations fail light-years short of the reference-less "precisely how" standard Mr. Pourtless boasts for them, and if they shouldn't be believed, perhaps its because no good reason has been given for believing them. Mr. Pourtless ends with a criticism about the arguments of ID proponents: I would like to thank Mr. Pourtless for his reponse on his blog and I wish him the best in his life. --Casey Luskin |
