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Why Intelligent Design Fails: A Scientific Critique of the New Creationism
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Average Rating:  out of 51 Reviews
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Price: $24.95
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Sale: $19.84
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Manufacturer: Rutgers University Press
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EAN (European Article Number): 9780813538723
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Number of Items: 1
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Binding: Paperback
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Publisher: Rutgers University Press
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Dewey Decimal Number: 213
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Publication Date: 2006-03
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Reading Level: 238
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Description: "Highly recommended." —Choice "A terrific book that explores, fairly and openly, whether proponents of ID have any scientifically valid gadgets in their toolbox at all . . . accessibly written throughout and an invaluable aid to teachers and scientists."––Kevin Padian, professor and curator, University of California, Berkeley, and president, National Center for Science Education Is Darwinian evolution established fact, or a dogma ready to be overtaken by "intelligent design"? This is the debate raging in courtrooms and classrooms across the country. Why Intelligent Design Fails assembles a team of physicists, biologists, computer scientists, mathematicians, and archaeologists to examine intelligent design from a scientific perspective. They consistently find grandiose claims without merit. Contributors take intelligent design’s two most famous claims––irreducible complexity and information-based arguments––and show that neither challenges Darwinian evolution. They also discuss thermodynamics and self-organization; the ways human design is actually identified in fields such as forensic archaeology; how research in machine intelligence indicates that intelligence itself is the product of chance and necessity; and cosmological fine-tuning arguments. Intelligent design turns out to be a scientific mistake, but a mistake whose details highlight the amazing power of Darwinian thinking and the wonders of a complex world without design.
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Customer Reviews
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Review Summary: Neo-Darwinists or Intelligent Design? |
Date: 2007-06-01 |
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Details: From the 1980's we've been waiting for scientists of the Darwinian and Neo-Darwinian persuasion to provide explanations for - e.g., the "nano-robotic-information management function at the chromosome levels." We've heard about "hopeful monsters," "extraterrestrial interventions" "dynamic universe potentials." Even with the advent and use of high-tech scientific tools and simulators for scientific research, proponents of these two movements have yet to provide some `scientific' explanations. The fact is that, after 20+ years, or anytime in the near future, scientific answers are not likely to be brought from the neo-/evolutionist camp simply because philosophically and methodologically these theories are not designed to address information/programming and intelligence-based issues. These are materialist-analog mechanistic and organic paradigms. If Darwin and his scientists were aware of what we now know about the cell, the evolution theory would now be a forgotten notion. Yet today science has to progress and some kind of tentative and constructive overall hypothesis must exist to remove the bottleneck that out-dated theories seem to offer. For example, as early as 1957, the Dean of Evolution, Julian Huxley pinpointed the ideology's fatal weakness. In his book "Evolution in Action," he wrote that: "the mysterious agencies `natural selection' and `struggle for existence' had been `highly metaphorical terms.'" He then clarified his view by stating that based upon empirical data, he ruled out all evolutionary agencies, orthgenesis and every other means that lead in an upward direction. However, this information had never been included in the academic textbooks, and students using these deficient textbooks continue to teach magic and critique science.
Because Darwinism and Neo-Darwinism are not really designed to address new information intelligence-based science, some scientists ventured to see if some other theory would allow opening the door to scientific research and the forthcoming breakthroughs instead of stalling it in its track for 20+ years. Thus far, I haven't read or been able to identify a single constructive scientific alternative to or critique of the Intelligent Design hypothesis, methods and productivity. However, I've seen galleries of Darwinian ideologues and commissars, who stealthfully continue to distort the issues.
If FALSIFIABLE EVIDENCE should be brought to light by the ID, it would be more scientific to allow for a series of `alternative' evidences - identify human fossils, tools or `footprints' in ANY of the geologic ages (this has already been done). However, this is a falsifiable evidence/point for Creation Science not for Intelligent Design, whose objective is quite different (to observe, describe, interpret, hypothesize... e.g., nano-robotic information & programming at the chromosome level). FALSIFIABLE EVIDENCE for I.D. would be more like: the discovery of EXTERNAL nano-technology with SELF-programming information systems that interact in the construction and induce changes in this INTERNAL nano-robotic information & programming at the chromosome level. These two observations bring out evidence for two chronic `blind spots' among the neo-/Darwinians:
1) neo-/Darwinist critics 'jump the gun' and accuse that anyone who may suggest any supra-intelligent force for explaining consistent scientific data, is automatically classed as a "faith-based,""cultist irrational" and therefore pseudo-`scientist.' Unfortunately, this approach represents not a scientific but a materialist approach (ideology). Note that MODERN SCIENCE and its many disciplines have originally been developed in Christian Europe between the Renaissance and the 20th century - scientists who had even been priests, Jesuits and deeply religious Christian people. In this history of science, the materialists are but a Johnny-come-lately group, who has done more to arrest science than to help its progress.
Defintely, a new alternative method must be found, and the Intelligent Design scientists are the only ones on the field today.
2) Neo-/Darwinists have yet to provide, after more than 20 years, an alternate scientifically verifiable explanation or solution, to that provided by ID scientists. This shows that the problem lies with the pre-ID scientists and theorists and not with the ID scientists, who based on rapidly accumulating evidence, have designed a highly workable hypothesis that provides verifiable solutions - Intelligent Design. |
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Review Summary: Why this book fails miserably |
Date: 2007-02-11 |
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Details: After reading this book I was amazed to read the praise for this book on the back cover again. Although I am not an intelligent design advocate as such (I am a young-earth creationist), I decided to read this book to see what (if any) arguments evolutionists could muster in support of evolutionism. This book claims to give a naturalistic explanation for the 'evolution of complex systems' (pge xiii) however the book fails completely to explain any such thing. Here is a quick overview of some of the chapters.
In Chapter 2, 'Grand Designs and Facile Analogies', the author Matt Young presents a series of feeble arguments in an attempt to refute Behe's mousetrap argument and Dembski's archer argument. He claims 'Thus, we could expect a mouse to evolve from a protomouse by a succession of small changes, whereas we can never expect a mousetrap to evolve from a mousetrap.' (pge 23) This argument is nothing but hand-waving and explains the origin of nothing. On the same page, Young claims that mousetraps propagate by blueprints, whereas mice propagate by recipes, with errors propagating during reproduction. By definition, errors are defects, so the propagation of errors over time would eventually result in auto destruction (death), not the development of new complexity. He also mentions the functioning of the eye: 'The eye is not irreducibly complex. You can take away the lens or the cones, for example, and still have useful if impaired vision.' (pge 24) This type of reasoning is flawed, because it fails to account for the evolutionary origin of any part of the eye, where each mutation needs to have a selective value, otherwise it won't take over the population. Young claims that Behe uses 'God-of-the-gaps' type of arguments, however this is complete hypocrisy because in his attempt to explain the origin of chlorophyll, Young needs to resort to hand-waving speculation about unknown types of chlorophyll: 'There may be potentially many more that have never evolved' (pge 26), and (incredibly) 'other universes' (pge 27). Young elsewhere claims: 'If the genetic algorithm can generate complexity, then so can evolution by natural selection.' (pge 28). However genetic algorithms do not generate complexity, they are deterministic so Young's argument collapses. On page 29 Young discusses 'fitness function', and on page 30 he discusses simple, ordered structures such as snowflakes. These arguments fail to account for the origin of the complexity of life, and are therefore irrelevant to the discussion of origins.
In Chapter 3, 'Common Descent', Gert Korthof attempts to show that the history of life is supported by the evolutionary belief in common descent. However Korthof fails because only a partial analysis of the data is done. There is no mention in the chapter of the enormous discontinuities in the supposed tree of life, such as the gap between single-celled organisms and complex multi-cellular invertebrates, and vast gap between invertebrates and fish. Korthof attempts to use the geological column to support common descent (pge 37), however this is dubious at best because 99% of the supposed geological column does not even exist. It is claimed that shared body structures between animals can be explained by Darwinian theory (pge 38), however there is no mention of the similar structure between a person's arm and leg, which makes nonsense of the whole argument. In a similar way, Korthof argues that DNA similarities are evidence for common descent, however what he fails to mention is that 50% of human DNA is similar to that of a banana. Korthof ignores the scientific case against common descent, which is described in numerous anti-evolution writings such as 'Evolution: A Theory in Crisis' (Dr Michael Denton).
In Chapter 4, 'Darwin's Transparent Box', David Ussery attempts to show that the bacterial flagellum is not irreducibly complex, but can be accounted for by mutation and natural selection. However any skeptical reader of this chapter would not be convinced by Ussery's arguments. In a nutshell, Ussery first of all assumes that evolutionism is true, then he merely mentions that some of the flagellum's proteins are similar to proteins found elsewhere. 'But what if you already had each of the three components lying around, doing other functions in the cell, and then put them together?' (pge 51). Ussery not only fails to account for the origin of these 'components', but he makes absolutely no attempt to explain the origin of the assembly instructions for the flagellum, nor does Ussery explain the origin of the other protein machines needed to time the expression of these assembly instructions. All Ussery does is the usual trick of waving the magic evolutionary wand, and the complex structure appears!
In Chapter 5, 'Evolutionary Paths to Irreducible Systems', Alan D. Gishlick makes a failed attempt to show that the fossil record explains the origin of the Avian Flight System. He argues that archaeopteryx is an intermediate between dinosaurs and true birds, however this is nonsense because dinosaurs that some evolutionists consider 'feathered' have been dated 20 million years more recent than archaeopteryx by evolutionist's dating methods. Gishlick fails to mention the enormous differences between feathers and scales, nor is there any explanation for the origin of the primary, secondary and tertiary feathers found in birds. The evolutionary origin of the warm-blooded circulatory system found in birds is also omitted, and there is also no explanation for an evolutionary origin of the avian lung from the reptilian lung.
Chapter 6 of the book attempts to show that the origin of the bacterial flagellum can be accounted for naturally, but the author (Musgrave) claims: 'Given our finite state of knowledge, there is always the possibility that if we currently do not have an explanation due to natural laws, we may find one in the future.' (pge 73). Here Musgrave is really admitting that there is presently no naturalistic explanation for the origin of the bacterial flagellum. Musgrave fails to specify any details of nucleotide substitutions that would be required for an evolutionary origin of the flagellum, nor does he present any probability calculations to support his hypothesis. Musgrave's arguments are little more than story-telling, and he virtually acknowledges this himself (pge 83). Pointing out that different systems have homologous proteins/enzymes does absolutely nothing to show a naturalistic origin of these proteins/enzymes.
Chapter 7, 'Self-Organisation and the Origin of Complexity' is completely irrelevant to the evolution/creation issue because it fails to give a naturalistic origin for life. The authors of this chapter (Shanks and Karsai) present examples of simple self-ordering systems such as the Benard-cell system and they claim that examples such as these 'constitute a threat to Dembski's creationist enterprise...' (pge 93). But the crucial question is whether examples such as this are relevant to the origin of life and the answer is no. Explaining the origin of life involves explaining the origin of software on the DNA molecule that codes for proteins, enzymes, etc, and Shanks and Karsai fail to explain the origin of this coded information. It is pitiful that evolutionists are still using arguments such as this that were thoroughly debunked 30 years ago.
In Chapter 8, 'The Explanatory Filter, Archaeology, and Forensics', Gary Hurd presents arguments that do nothing to show that evolutionism is true, or that ID is false. On page 110 Hurd mentions that the appearance of comets used to be attributed to the supernatural, implying that advances in scientific knowledge remove the need for supernatural explanations. However this is nothing but the standard evolutionist's argument of confusing origins science with operations science. Hurd spends 3.5 pages discussing forensics and concludes with: '...the entire ID rubric cannot distinguish whether these events were suicide, murder, accident, or divine retribution. Dembski cannot tell you what category they belong to based on his EF. The real world is a hard place to sort out.' (pge 119) This may be true for these examples, however there is no analogy between these examples and life, which is characterized by genetic information. Hurd mentions Paley's famous watch argument: 'Can someone without any knowledge or even awareness of metallurgy, gears or springs correctly discern the nature of the watch? Would that person necessarily recognize it to be a built object and reject a supernatural origin?' (pge 120) Hurd misses the point here, which is that machinery always has an intelligent source, it does not occur naturally.
In Chapter 9, 'Playing Games with Probability' one would expect the authors (Shallit and Elsberry) to show it is possible mathematically for the information encoded on the DNA to originate naturally. However the authors fail to address this crucial issue. The problem for evolutionism is that when naturally occurring changes are introduced to software, errors are introduced which cause the software's function to degrade and to eventually stop functioning completely. The problem is even worse for software encoded on DNA because it is digital information. Shallit and Elsberry fail to explain the naturalistic origin of even a single protein, let alone life. Shallit and Elsberry are also wrong when they claim that events related to the origin of life are not known (pge 130). The probability of a nucleotide substitution occurring during reproduction is about 1 in a billion, which is an event, so probabilities can be calculated. It has been discovered that most DNA sequences are poly-functional, meaning that when a DNA sequence is read in different ways, different information is extracted. For example, most human DNA sequences encode for different RNAs, read in opposite directions. Poly-functional DNA is also poly-constrained, which means that changing nucleotides will affect different levels of information. This is absolutely devastating to evolutionism, because such DNA sequences cannot be improved, they can only degenerate. The DNA code itself is controlled by another layer of complexity, the epigenetic code. Shallit and Elsberry make no mention of poly-functional DNA or of the epigenetic code, because they simply have no naturalistic explanation for the origin of this genetic information, instead the authors present a series of 'red-herring' arguments.
In Chapter 10, 'Chance and Necessity - and Intelligent Design?', Taner Edis attempts to show that chance and necessity are all that are required to account for life. Edis fails totally in showing this. In fact, he barely even addresses the issue of explaining the origin of encoded information on DNA. In one of the rare instances that he mentions this he claims '...all of the information we see in genetic material might be due to the initial conditions of the universe...information embedded in the microscopic physics became apparent at the macroscopic, biological level.' (pge 144). If Edis believes in this absurd nonsense then the burden of proof is on him to show that this is true. Anyone who understands information knows that genetic information is an entity that is carried on the DNA molecule only. Edis makes feeble attempts to explain the origin of complexity with ideas such as 'All that is important is being able to reproduce...competitors are themselves always changing.' (pge 150), '...evolutionary arms races' (pge 151), '...systems driven away from thermodynamic equilibrium' (pge 151) (this produces order only, not complexity), '...a changing world, one in which, by accident, history [life] can take a genuinely new path' (pge 151). However all Edis is doing is presenting a series of vague, hand-waving type arguments that do absolutely nothing to explain the origin of the DNA information that is required to explain the origin of the complexity of life.
In Chapter 11, 'There Is a Free Lunch after all', Mark Perakh attempts to show that Genetic Algorithms support evolutionism. However Perakh fails to do anything of the sort. Dawkins' METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL algorithm does not model anything real because it is a deterministic computer program that is programmed to give a specified output. This flatly contradicts evolutionary theory, which claims that life is an accident. Perakh's discussion of 'fitness functions' (pge 166, 167) is also misguided because to account for life requires accounting for the information that programs for new body parts such as the heart, lungs, kidneys, etc. For Genetic Algorithms to model life, random changes to the computer program's machine instructions (not the data that the program executes) would be required. This, of course, would quickly lead to catastrophic failure of the program, not the generation of any new information.
In Chapter 12, 'Is the Universe Fine-Tuned for Us?', Victor Stenger reveals that his belief in evolutionism is based on a commitment to naturalism, not because it is the inference to the best explanation. He claims '...science is always hard at work trying to solve its puzzles within a materialistic framework.' (pge 182) His faith in evolutionism is evidenced by his hand-waving speculation with statements such as '...we can easily imagine life based on silicon' (pge 178), '...perhaps they might be able to do so in a universe with different properties and laws' (pge 178), 'Someday we may have the opportunity to study different forms of life that evolved on other planets' (pge 179). However, in the conclusion Stenger claims that arguments from design for the existence of God are based on '...making many unjustified assumptions and being inconsistent with existing knowledge' (pge 184). It is evolutionists who need to resort to speculation about non-observable, non-testable 'other universes' who are inconsistent with existing knowledge.
Chapter 13, 'Is Intelligent Design Science?' attempts to discredit Intelligent Design by claiming that ID is not compatible with a self-serving definition of what science is. Arguments such as these are logically flawed because such definitions of what science is are arbitrary and do absolutely nothing to show that ID is false, neither do these definitions do anything to show that evolutionism is true. The authors Perakh and Young claim: 'What is unscientific is to decide ahead of time on the answer and search for God to come up with a positive result...Knowing the answer in advance and being immune to contrary are typical of pseudoscience.' (pge 185) No doubt one of the reasons ID advocates don't believe in evolutionism is because it has failed to explain the origin of life after 150 years of fruitless research (as confirmed by the abysmal evidence for evolutionism presented in this book), they have not decided 'ahead of time'. Later in the chapter, the authors claim: '...we might as well throw in the towel and not even try to understand the evolution of the flagellum' (pge 196) So who is deciding ahead of time the origin of the flagellum?! Such incredible hypocrisy.
In summary, the creation model of origins is the inference to the best explanation, because it is observed that intelligence is required to program software. For evolution to be credible, evolutionists have a staggering burden of proof to show that the information encoded on DNA can occur naturally. As this books shows clearly, evolutionists have failed totally in giving a naturalistic origin for life, and unless they can do this evolutionism is doomed, and self-serving definitions of science won't be able to save evolutionism. As expected, this book also fails to give a naturalistic origin of the process of meiosis (sexual reproduction with the sperm and the egg). Of course absurd events like this don't occur in the real world, or even in 'other universes'! |
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Review Summary: Very good book but not objective |
Date: 2006-11-13 |
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Details: This is a very good book, several parts of this book were over my head as I am not an expert in biology or mathematical statistics, however the book was clearly written and contributed to by a number of very intelligent people. This being the case I wonder how they came to some of the conclusions that they did in the book. Unfortunately the author(s) tend to contradict themselves in this book and also come up with almost silly arguments for their inflexible belief of what is true, that being Darwinian evolution.
They (the author and contributors) disguise their certainty of Darwinian evolution by indicating (correctly) that evolution is not a fact but a theory, one in which they feel they have great evidence towards proof. The say that ID may at some point acquire significant enough science backed data to become a reasonable theory. But this indication is, page by page, shown to be a disingenuous remark as they continue to tell us that it does not work based on scientific evidence and ultimately calling ID pseudoscience. One key argument they have is that ID enthusiasts would not eliminate evolution as a possibility if they were looking at it scientifically. This is an absolutely a true statement. It is simply not scientific to take any possibilities off the table when trying to find the answer. However they are inconsistent because they indicate that ID must be taken off the table because they don't like it as a solution. In essence they do exactly what they say is not scientific.
The author wants apparently for ID to stay out of the school system and out of any education environment put to our children. I wonder (personally) why they want this if they are right about ID not being able to stand on its own then why not teach ID next to evolution and then it will die (right). My guess is that they feel educators or the education process inevitably indoctrinates the educated to whatever the teaching. So why are they so happy to indoctrinate the students with evolution? It is, I assume, because that is their personal belief system instead of a different belief system? Would we not be putting an end to indoctrination if we forced the students to think about more than one possibility? I say any possible true answer to unanswered questions should be put to the students. Stop the indoctrination all together and start forcing our children and ourselves to "think" about it. Why do scientists so often disagree with this or even, in a few cases are afraid of it?
The book makes some nearly silly arguments an example of this is as follows. At a point early in the book the author takes a stab at Behe's mouse trap example the author clearly does not like this example, O.K., but he then makes a statement that I found ridiculous he said if the analogy is poor then the theory must be wrong. Imagine if a scientist at any point in time made a poor analogy of how gravity worked? According to this author we would all cease to be held to the planet. Poor analogies do not unavoidably equal poor theories. I am sure I have made poor analogies in the past; many people have, including possibly the author of this book.
A few points about Behe's book and critics of it, Behe in chapter 2 of his book brings up the mousetrap and he does reference his analogy in ensuing chapters of his book but when people criticize his analogy they always say that a person can make a mousetrap with only 2 parts. Please don't assume you have to read a review of behe's book to find this out. If you have read Behe's book then you already know that he indicates you can indeed make a different mouse trap than his example mouse trap, but you cannot make the same mousetrap, which is his point. Why critics would choose to pretend that Behe will not admit this means that either they have not read the book they are criticizing or that they hope you have not read it and you will take what they say as acurate. In reality their point that you can make a different mouse trap but not the same mouse trap supports Behe's argument I wonder if they realize this? If they have read his book they might. Also in Behe's book he makes other analogies but you will not get that from his critics. No one mentions his vaccine getting to the children analogy. Perhaps they were afraid to attack this one perhaps they did not read past chapter 2. I don't know.
I choose not to discuss their dislike for Dembski (whom they have no respect for) because statistical probability mathematics does very little for me. I guess it is a nice thing for creationist to have on their side but it is not convincing to me.
The author is guilty of the same thing that he claims creationists are guilty of the difference being that creationists use God to fill the gaps, in other words inserting God into any of the unexplainable portions of how things have come to be. Whereas the author does not use God to fill gaps rather when it comes to something he cannot explain he says "it could have happened this way" or "might have evolved that way" or perhaps he avoids it all together and does nothing to satisfy why something happened or even might have happened. For example he does a good job of explaining how he thinks an eye could have developed thru a series of slight modification he indicates that a relatively undeveloped eye would have been one that could identify light direction and the receptacle for such an eye would be bowl shaped. But the author does nothing explain how the cells would have started to form themselves in a bowl shape prior to being that way. Or why they would have known to start to become bowl shaped to make an eye. My understanding is that a bowl shape is not a natural shape that cells would form themselves to. How did the cells know to become bowl shaped? Evolutionist saying it just happened or could have happened this way is logistically no different than the creationist who says because God made it that way.
Is ID right? Is evolution right? I personally do not know. But I am curious and love the topic and the debate. The book is quite good makes some good arguments for evolution but you should read it with the knowledge that the author clearly has an agenda. Just as the ID authors have an agenda. I recommend to anyone who (like me) is hoping to figure out how we came to be here today would keep an objective mind, enough so that you will read all arguments all sides and consider the things you learn from those arguments. The more we teach ourselves and the more we teach our children the more likely we are to finally learn the answers that have been eluding us. Again this is a very good book but clearly written with a preconceived notion to what the truth is, knowing that will help you use the book to increase your own knowledge. Read this book but also read Behe's book and read other books that discuss this topic. Lets keep our minds open to all possibilities. Throughout history sciences have known definitively things that later were shown to be wrong. Never close your mind. Read on.
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Review Summary: Presents the Science, Won't Convince the ID'ers |
Date: 2006-04-04 |
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Details: Back in Galileo's time the church had a big argument with physics. The church held that the sun went around the earth. By looking through a telescope Galileo Galileo saw moons moving across the face of Jupiter that added impossible complexities to the Earth centered theory.
In today's world the church sccepts the Sun centered theory but has big problems with biology. Specifically the argument is the Bible vs. Darwin. There is a lot of science that supports Darwin's theory. There's no science to support ID, but a lot of very conservative Christians have a strong belief, a faith if you will that Darwin just can't be right.
This book looks at ID from a scientific point of view and points out that each of the psudo problems raised by the ID supporters doesn't challenge Darwin's theory. It is sad that this book will be ignored by the ID supporters who would like our children tought what amounts to the biology of ancient Greek. |
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Review Summary: How It Rates |
Date: 2006-04-01 |
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Details: There's a number of ways one might rate a book. Perhaps it is well written. In this case, it's an anthology, and some of the chapters are well written, some not as well written. I'd probably give it a 3. You might rate the book on how much you enjoyed it. I found some of the chapters way over my head, and didn't enjoy them. Others I thoroughly enjoyed. I'd again have to give it a 3. And then, you might rate it purely on how much you recommend it to others. In this context, that might be the best way to rate a book. And so I give it a 5.
I'm trained as a biologist, so I enjoyed the chapters focused more on biology, and struggled through the chapters on statistics. This is not to say that they were badly written per se, but merely that I don't have the expertise to fully comprehend them. It could be argued that, in a general work like this, those chapters might have been expressed in terms more easy to comprehend. But I'm glad the chapters are included, even if I don't understand them. The Intelligent Design community has gone far afield from the original subject of biology, using needlessly complex language to give the appearance of complexity, in order to attempt to prove their point. Therefore, those who are experts outside the field of biology need to properly respond.
But I completely enjoyed what I could understand, and I would recommend this to...well, everyone who can read. The rest of you should definitely buy the Book on Tape. There is a great and dark force out there, and it needs to be combated. This book explains point by point, why the Intelligent Design hypothesis fails. Having heard many of these ID arguments officially taught at the school where I teach biology, it is encouraging to hear how devastating the rejoinder is when the full brunt of science comes to bear.
Of particular interest was Perakh and Young's article on why Intelligent Design is not bad science, but rather pseudoscience, for it uses the language of science and claims to be representative of it, yet ignores basic aspects of the Method. I also enjoyed Young's other article on how easy it is to create a mousetrap with only one moving part- and the mousetrap is really Behe's central argument. Yes, it's only an analogy, but it's what Behe builds his entire case on. Young shows how it's also a flawed analogy. Korthof demonstrates how little science is done by those in the literal creationist community who speak of "kinds", for the fatal flaw in most anti-evolution work is a lack of definition. No one can agree on what a "kind" is, even when only one person is in the room. There is certainly no agreement on how kinds are related to each other.
Stenger's chapter on the fine-tuning of the universe was perhaps a bit disappointing. His arguments appeared to be more directed at religion than at that minority who oppose science. It is good to keep those two different perspective clear. While religion is wrong to stray into the domain of science, science should equally be wary of setting down correct philosophy for religion.
Perhaps the best arguments came from Ussery, Gishlick, and Musgrave, showing how the avian wing and the bacteria flagellum could have evolved, step by step. The key problem in the arguments of Behe and his ilk is they assume that the purpose of the "irreduciably complex" structure in front of them was always it's purpose. This seriously ignores some foundational concepts of evolution. We know that, if there was design (as the ID folks speak of it), it was quite unintelligent, because objects don't work as they were intended to. They don't work as they were intended to, because most of the time, the original function of the body part is far different from it's current function. I was quite surprised to learn from Musgrave that the original function of the flagellum is secretion, not locomotion. Yes, no way it could have evolved without outside influence if were made for locomotion. There would have been no way for it to continue to function through all those intermediary steps, and still be selected for. (For a body part, if it is to continue and the individual is to spend energy on maintaining it, should not only not harm the animal, but the body part should also assist the animal, through every step in it's development.) When we realize that the original function of the flagellum was secretion, it is ridiculously easy to see how it evolved, step by step.
Whether or not you agree or disagree with Intelligent Design, you should read this book to see how fully the arguments are arrayed against this pernicious hypothesis, and to see what science actually teaches. If you still disagree with the book after reading it, then at least you can honestly reject science. |
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