So far my question raised on March 29, 2006 hasn’t been answered, I think.

Also, somewhat related, is our own inate ability to recognize complexity. With the above example, we recognize the M&M wrapper as not just created, but as something WE created. We can identify the familiar text that has been especially designed by humans to be recognizeable by other humans. What if it was not covered by the well recognized M&M logo but by apparently random dots and scratches. We might be more likely to see it as naturally occuring since the markings may appear more like those dirived from a natural phenomenon.

The truth is, our ability to recognize ‘design’ and patterns is incredibily powerful and incredibly biased. The number of sightings of the face of the holy Mother Mary every year is testiment to this. We see faces in natural phenomona far more often than they ‘really’ occur (the moon, burnt sides of pancakes, rock formations, calcium deposites under freeways …). But, faces don’t really get created naturally, we just (for survival reasons ) have a strong bias toward recognizing faces. However, if you take a real face and encode it in binary and represent the binary as dots on a TV screen, it looks no different to us then the naturally occuring electromagnetic noise we see when no signal is provided to the TV. Our ability to recognize that pattern hasn’t been developed.

I think humans are not as good at recognizing complexity, design, and functionality as we would like to believe we are.

ID claims that IC must have been designed, after the Big Bang, by a highly intelligent being (often described as God) because the universe hasn’t existed long enough for natural laws and chance occurrences to produce IC. I believe this argument is seriously flawed. Consider the following:

1. If a wrapper for, say, M&M’s were discovered on a planet in a distant galaxy, we would immediately know that it was designed by an intelligent being, as opposed to coming into existence by the same “mindless� processes that produced non-living structures like stars, planets, oceans, etc. The probability that those processes could have produced the candy wrapper is so small as to rule out anything but intelligent design.

2. The simplest life is far more complicated than a candy wrapper, and hence far less likely to have occurred through the aforesaid “mindless� processes. Can we then conclude that even the simplest life could never have arisen without intelligent design?

3. Doesn’t the argument that IC is too complex to have arisen by “mindless� evolution therefore suffer from the defect of proving that all life, not just IC, could never have evolved?

I would appreciate comments or citations to comments that address this matter.

You mention that ID suggests irregularities in the fossil record as evidence for “the advent of IC uncaused by a natural process.” This could potentially be a prediction in the scientific thought process that leads to ID. We first observe that life is highly complex, then we hypothesize that an intelligent being guided the evolutionary process, we then predict that there would be anomolies in the fossil record that are incongruent with Darwinian evolution. However, this test is really a test of our leading theories about the formation of rock layers, techtonic motion, and the nature of evolution itself. The leap in logic from “There are unexplained anomolies in the fossil record” to “A supreme being must have intervened” makes as much sense as jumping from “Some quantum aspects of gravity are not explained,” to “Gravity is controlled by invisible anomolous creatures called Graviton Fairies.” Ascribing intelligence and autonomy to some aspect of a natural process requires a test that can actually demonstrate intelligence and not just throw doubt on our own understanding of the process. There do exist scientific test of intelligence brought to us from psychology, however, I am unaware of any proposition about how to apply these test to the Designer.

I believe that one of the most powerful and important aspects of scientific thought is its ability to make meaningful predictions. That is fundamentally what makes it useful. If a scientific theory did not have that ability, it would be of no more use than any other myth. This is not to say that a belief that is incapable of making novel predictions is necessarily false, it just means it isn’t scientific. It has no testability. The difference be gravtions and Graviton Fairies is only in the acription of personality. Unless I can make a novel prediction about the interaction of massive objects due to this personality, and can then subsequently test that prediction, I don’t have a scientific theory. I absolutly believe that all scientific theories should be held to the same standard, and an exeption should not be made for ID because it hypothesizes itself free of prediction. That is fundamentally what all faith based beliefs do. If they were testable, they wouldn’t be a faith.

I definately agree about the use of ID by fundamentalists to attack “atheistic materialism.” Although, I believe that the rise of fundamentalism and the weakening of logical Socratic and scientific thought walk hand in hand. If students are taught how to rationalize the differences between faith and religion, and the differences between science and faith, fundamentalism will not have any ground in which to take root.

“. . . the idea of ID is that all of the observed phenomena and species are far too complex to have evolved from particles in a big bang, or that the big bang itself must have had some motivation.�

I don’t understand ID to claim the latter. ID, as I understand it, says that after the Big Bang, there were acts of designing that stand apart from the natural evolutionary process and therefore elude Darwinian understanding. If these acts occurred at the moment of the Big Bang, I don’t think evolutionary biologists would have a problem, just as they don’t have a problem with the idea that evolution occurred before and after “irreducible complexity� (IC) came into being. The essence of ID is that the act of designing/creation occurred during the history of evolution, not at the very beginning of it.

Mr. Bryan next argues ID isn’t science because, although it hypothesizes that a creator designed IC, it fails to offer an essential element of the scientific method: the means to test for a creator. I have two problems with this. First, as I understand it, ID suggests the existence of evidence in the form of irregularities in the evolutionary records (fossil and otherwise) that would imply the advent of IC uncaused by natural processes. Of course, no such evidence has been found (at least not to my satisfaction), but that isn’t to say ID doesn’t at least propose the existence of such evidence.

Second, as I understand it, ID isn’t a substitute for evolutionary theory. Instead, it purports to determine scientifically, through the science of probability and by means of necessary inference as well as the premise that all natural phenomena are caused, that evolutionary theory is flawed. Why? Because IC couldn’t have occurred “by accident� in evolutionary development, so that something else must have caused it. This being the primary thrust of ID, we shouldn’t demand that it make predictions the way the theory of evolution does, except, as noted, that there must be irregularities in the history of evolution after the Big Bang.

The major respect in which ID partakes of religion or faith is in the presupposition that a designer or designers (D) intervened in the history of evolution. This view, which parallels the widely accepted belief that God and other supernatural beings intervene in the world to bring about events that couldn’t occur according to the laws of science, cannot be proven. Yet virtually no critics of ID have attacked it on that ground.

Finally, Mr. Bryan, like so many others, fears that teaching students about ID will damage scientific education. Frankly, that’s a minor footnote. The real importance of ID is its use as a tool by fundamentalists to attack “atheistic materialism.� Once the attack succeeds, the way will be open to the establishment of a theocracy here in the U.S. similar to what we recently have observed in Afghanistan. I have in mind Dominionism or Christian Reconstructionism. I believe it’s vital that those of us who believe in freedom of thought devote our most considered attention to removing ID from the fundamentalists’ arsenal.

Let people pay voluntarily to teach others what they believe. Let them pay to have their kids and others taught what they believe. Let people educate their children as they see fit, and with whatever resources and help they can find.

Teach them all the religions, theories – whatever – let the student draw their own conclusions from a fact based program. Is this not what school is about anyway!

Jim
Tired of this debate but confused as to why it’s become an issue in the first place!

I think the vehement opponents of ID will have to admit that for once, George Bush has a point. As cpurrin1 (8/4/05, 1:17 p.m.) points out, there’s fervent interest in the controversy. Why should children be shielded from this? I would have been consumed as a young man, almost as now, with a question like, “Explain in five pages or less why intelligent design is, or is not, science.� (Or rather, for the kids, “Write as least five pages explaining . . .�). What a great way to get a discussion going.

Science can be freely taught in publicly funded schools because it isn’t religion. The trick in getting ID into the curriculum is to avoid advocacy of a religious belief, which ID does when it posits a “designer.� I think a teacher could explain that the student isn’t forbidden or requested to believe there is a designer. The student could be instructed just to compare ID’s method of addressing the problem of origins to the methodology of science. And for good measure, have students learn about other origins “theories,� such as Biblical (“Creationism�), ancient philosophy, Hindu, Muslim, American Indian, etc. The kids could discuss ID’s claim that it’s different from the others because it’s science.

Allowing children to examine the issue as stated above is very different from banning the theory of evolution or questioning its basic acceptance in the scientific community. That certainly shouldn’t happen.

Learning what something isn’t can sometimes be a good way to better understand what it is. So by all means, let our kids in on the action.

It’s one of the most Orwellian trends in an Orwellian time: the use of pseudoscience to undermine authentic scientific method and theory. The doublespeak the most maddening and, I think, dangerous aspects of the culture of the most powerful nation in the world. Theology is science. Attack is defense. Wealth is charity. Hierarchy is equality. Pollution is progress. Crime is war and war is crusade. To paraphrase Phil Ochs, if you made a movie about our country, John Wayne would play George Bush. And George Bush would play God.

*** NOTE TO PRODUCERS ***: You should have Robert Write and Martin Seligman [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Seligman] (read last chapter of “Authentic Happiness”) on to discuss the evolution of morality (goodness), knowledge, and technology (power) — all properties theists want in a god — which correspond to being the creator, all good, omniscient, and omnipotent, respectively. It may be that biological and cultural evolution is creating those properties we value in a god, but doing it bottom-up and incrementally, not top-down and all at once. You should have Kurzweil on too (although he may be too controversial for other reasons) to talk about the Singularity, because I think he shares this bottom-up, naturalistic view of spirituality.

This argument can cut through all the crap about science and the natural world being souless and amoral.

So far as I can see, the crux of the matter is whether you believe that God did things top-down, or a “god” principle (or set of principles) does it bottom-up. Top-down means you believe in a closed Universe, where everything is known and determined ahead of time, and nothing new can happen. Bottom-up means an open Universe where more knowlege, power, and goodness can continue to be created and higher and higher levels of organizational abstraction can continue to come into being. Personally, I find more meaning in the latter kind of Universe.

The answer to Sen. Santorum’s fear that without a master designer pulling
the strings, there’s no basis for morality is, in fact that if there was
master puppeteer, we wouldn’t need morality – it’s because we have free
will that morality is necessary.

As to what is the basis for morality, my dad used to say that he found
that getting someone to see why they should act morally could be done by
showing that it was in line with their long-term self-interest. This is
commonly-referred to as “enlightened self-interest.” In philosophy, this
is taught as the Immanuel Kan’s “categorical imperative”: “Act so that
the axiom of your actions could be made a universal rule.”

The best known version of this is the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as
you would have them do unto you.” Thus, Sen. Santorum need not fear -
religion and scientific rationality end up recommending the same test for
moral conduct.

What’s the evidence that evolution favors moral, not immoral, conduct?

Evolution favors species that engage in mutual support. That mutual
support takes many forms. The sharing of resources leads to disaster
relief and social insurance – and makes the society a safe place for
individual experimentation.

In a long-term view, social evolution is profoundly progressive, once one
realizes that social arrangements like the New Deal, which encouraged
experimentation and innovation by providing social insurance to mitigate
the the risk of losing, were what propelled American economic power in
the period after World War II.

Only in a snapshot view is evolution a “Republican” concept. But
evolution is precisely the opposite of a snapshot view – it is the long
view. Thus, the political prescription of Hobbsean “social darwinism” in
which life is “cruel, brutish and short” was a perversion of evolutionary
teaching, as such policies do not favor the long-term survival of a
society.

The best-known contemporary example of this is the allowing of the
libertarian capitalists to make the tax system subsidize the outsourcing
of manufacturing and even service jobs in the recent past. That has
weakened our society, and can be seen as writing a virus into the social
DNA.

I will go back and listen again for the whole of it but I agree about his comments that the show came down on the side of religion ot the reliigious approach ( have you cake and eat it); that struck me too. It was a tough show to do in the time alloted even without the pledging.

Cheers.

But I did have a number of concerns about this program, which I’ll proceed to share with you.

I initially heard the program in real time (or so I thought) through the WGBH stream that is linked to your website. While I am a very long time financial supporter of public radio, and often even enjoy enlightened fund-raising efforts, I found myself close to a state of rage this evening, an evening of potentially very poignant discussions on Open Source, and there I found myself listening to what I’m afraid was pretty mindless drivel in the fund-raising room. I wondered through these time outs whether or not other people in the country, such as those listening on XM satellite, were hearing parts of this story that would lead to a fuller appreciation of the evolution vs ID discussion. So, I stayed up a bit late to listen to the rebroadcast from Seattle (at midnight, Eastern time). Sure enough, I now heard a version that was far more successful to my ear. Not only did I hear my own post-sputnik experience referenced a second time in context with the ongoing discussion, but I heard a missing first link to the Stephen Gould reference, I heard a fuller explanation of the scientific objections to ID, and all-in-all I heard a critical continuity of the discussion. For a live call-in program, where callers at later points in the program really are at a terrible disadvantage if they’ve been forced to miss what can be key parts earlier in the broadcast, I think you have a serious structural problem. Perhaps no one can be immune from fund drives–but I just don’t see how a live call-in program can have part of the listenership and not other parts of that listenership blocked out of the evolving shared experience. It’s then no longer a truly open source for all.

Even though the Seattle airing was far better than the Boston one, I still have serious concerns about tonight’s program. I’m sure no one ever thought it would be easy to pull off this particular show. Yes, Ken Miller was a terrific talker. He also made very real contributions to putting ID in an appropriate perspective. And to have someone on the program who appeared as a credible tutor to the Pope was indeed a sort of coup. But even though Open Source characteristically structures the programs differently from the point-counter-point debate style so common on the airways, this time I really felt a lack of balance that disturbed me. Here’s the crux of it: Ken Miller represents a compelling combination of Catholic believer and ID-bashing pro-evolutionist. Wes McCoy similarly appeared to be a teacher who supported evolution, but also delivered a significant dollop of Christian faith (albeit in a manner seeking to preserve a degree of separation from his science teaching). During the course of the program, there was a strong permeation of everything discussed by religious belief–even the beauty of nature was repeatedly tied together with some sense of God. I believe Ken Miller at one point spoke of “a God big enough to believe in”. Or, when Theresa phoned in with what sounded like a modern-day sequel to how to tell her child about the birds and the bees–only now it was creation versus evolution, the answers provided seemed to be restricted to and couched within a religious approach. But in allowing the program to proceed to completion in this manner, Open Source effectively sent its own message to the listenership of such a religious approach to our world being so central a norm that it ended up being quite alienating. Without going all the way to aggressive point-counter-point radio, there should have been at least one other strong voice on this very program representing a poetic, appreciating view of this wonderful world that did not necessitate a theistic approach to achieve this. And while Ken Miller’s achievements are certainly remarkable and admirable, in my view it was just too narrow to have the only people supporting evolution also constantly be showing their religious credentials–as if supporting evolution without a concomitant religious orientation was somehow off-target for this program.

I was also disappointed over a certain lack of poignancy that I think was missed in tonight’s program. For example, this morning I too heard the amazing interview of Senator Santorum on Morning Edition, and like Ken Miller I thought that this was worth commenting upon. But I think it may well be precisely because of Ken Miller’s own religious convictions that he failed to verbalize what was so notable about the Santorum statement. Santorum implies that in order to avoid the catastrophic conclusion of a lack of moral meaning in life for himself and those who think like him, it is imperative that the theory of evolution be rejected. Thus, he’s now publically gone way beyond the argument of simply wanting to maintain scientific objectivity until the very last piece of evidence is found to bolster a theory. Rather, he is pretty clearly stating that the decision must come out in a particular direction, because too much else of importance to him is at stake if any other conclusioin emerged. I think this really blows away the cover of the anti-evolution forces in a way that people usually guard against more carefully. But even with two listenings to tonight’s show, I found the treatment of this event relatively superficial, and perhaps a bit timid.

I never thought it would be easy putting on this show–it’s such a huge topic, and one is constantly in danger of disagreements growing into battles royal that are difficult if not impossible to moderate. But I do hope Open Source will find some way to return to this topic at some point, to provide yet more viewpoints.