Scientific Freedom

Science writer Denyse O’Leary is bringing her incisive humor to the blogosphere. Post-Darwinist is a must read. An excerpt from her discussion of the Nightline debate between Michael Ruse and William Dembski epitomizes her style:

Below are Dr. William Provine’s comments on the recent debate between himself and CSC’s Dr. Stephen Meyer.

I agree with Rob Crowther’s summary of the debate. Our debate was indeed between evolution and ID explanations for fossil and living organisms. I thought our debate would be between ID evolution and naturalistic evolution, but Steve Meyer championed many young-earth, anti-evolution doctrines. I was frank about the implications of really believing in naturalistic evolution. Steve Meyer refused to reveal religious assumptions that I think relate to his views about the origin of species.

Paul Pardi has an excellent post on his blog discussing the hysterical rhetoric of many critics of intelligent design (ID). Reading Pardi’s comments, one has to wonder why the most vocal critics of ID are so bitter, angry, and defensive. If the evidence for their views is so overwhelming, why are they so insecure?

Talk about insecurity. A pro-Darwin columnist for the Johnson County Sun in Kansas has revealed his definition of a fair public hearing on evolution: 10,000 Darwinists vs. 1 supporter of intelligent design. Anything else in his view would be a “stacked-deck” against Darwinists. The columnist urges evolutionists to boycott such events: Evolutionists should stop appearing at stacked-deck public “hearings” put on to trap evolutionists. By merely bringing “intelligent design” to a level playing field with evolutionary science, the ID proponents have managed to upgrade their faith-based theory to a quasi-scientific theory, and they have knocked the science of evolution down to the same level as faith. Furthermore, by presenting these as one-on-one debates, there is a gross misrepresentation. To be Read More ›

From “The Scientific Status of Intelligent Design“
By Stephen Meyer

Unobservables and Testability

[A frequent argument against intelligent design] that appears frequently both in conversation and in print finds expression as follows: “Miracles are unscientific because they can not be studied empirically. Design invokes miraculous events; therefore design is unscientific. Moreover, since miraculous events can’t be studied empirically, they can’t be tested. Since scientific theories must be testable, design is, again, not scientific.” Molecular biologist Fred Grinnell has argued, for example, that intelligent design can’t be a scientific concept because if something “can’t be measured, or counted, or photographed, it can’t be science.”

Gerald Skoog amplifies this concern: “The claim that life is the result of a design created by an intelligent cause can not be tested and is not within the realm of science.” This reasoning was recently invoked at San Francisco State University as a justification for removing Professor Dean Kenyon from his classroom. Kenyon is a biophysicist who has embraced intelligent design after years of work on chemical evolution. Some of his critics at SFSU argued that his theory fails to qualify as scientific because it refers to an unseen Designer that cannot be tested.

Barbara Forrest is at it again. In her latest review of Meyer & Campbell’s Darwinism, Design & Public Education Forrest substitutes strident affirmation for science and scorn for reasoned argumentation. Forrest never chooses to engage the arguments of design theorists but rather questions their qualifications: “John Angus Campbell, who also serves on the journal’s editorial board, is a rhetorician. Stephen C. Meyer is a philosopher.” What pray tell was your Ph.D. in Barbara? And why is it you don’t apply that same standard to Robert Pennock when he deigns himself fit to comment on evolution?

What Forrest more often than not fails to comprehend is that merely asserting that “there is no argument” and “ID is not science” doesn’t settle the issue when the nature of science itself is under question. Like a species of medieval inquisitor, Forrest will brook no debate on this issue. Instead of appeals to evidence or logic, she appeals, ad naseum, to authority. Could it perhaps be because where logic and evidence come into play, and where the game is not rigged, Forrest will lose?

John Derbyshire keeps reburying the design argument over at The Corner, with evidence he assures us is elsewhere. By assembling a host of misconceptions about design theory into a single, compact essay (generally unencumbered by supporting evidence), Derbyshire has done us a great service, providing us a forum to respond to each misconception in a series of posts over the next several days.

I’ve never met John Derbyshire. I love his name. It makes me think of England and Middle Earth. I imagine him wearing a stylish derby and living in a tasteful shire somewhere, an articulate conservative with strong opinions — but who just might stop and take a second look at a position with a much older pedigree than Darwinism, one that has gotten a boost in recent years from discoveries in molecular biology, big bang cosmology, astrobiology, information theory, and physics.

Derbyshire begins with a rhetorical flourish: “I like a good knock-down argument as much as the next person, but I must say, ID-ers are low-grade opponents, at least if a bulk of my e-mails are any indication.”

Hmmm. If Derbyshire likes a “good knock-down argument,” why is he arguing with his inbox instead of with the best design arguments (of which he appears oblivious)?

I don’t think Derbyshire likes to have his cherished opinions knocked down at all. Most of us don’t. So we have to fight our tendency to guard our pet scientific theories from contrary evidence. We have to put our theories in empirical harm’s way, and see if they continue to stand when assailed with fresh evidence. It’s called “The Scientific Method.”

But for Derbyshire, Darwinism is the damsel and he will not have her virtue besmirched, will not have her dragged into the dock to be cross-examined, will not have her competing for our affections like a common harlot. Intelligent design, he writes, “is, by the way, not a scientific theory, though it may be a metaphysical one.”

Rhetorically punchy, but is it a scientific way to defend a theory–victory by definition?
Derbyshire also informs us, “All the ID arguments have been patiently refuted many times over.” Were they refuted exclusively with metaphysical arguments? No. Leading Darwinists often rebut ID arguments with scientific arguments. Then when a design theorist rebuts the Darwinist’s scientific arguments by pointing to contrary evidence in the natural world, suddenly (according to Derbyshire) it’s no longer a scientific argument.

Such desperate efforts to keep design theory out of the ring should impress no one.

Notice, too, where Derbyshire retreats to the dogma that design theory isn’t science. It’s right after he states, “A good scientific theory fits the data better than a poor theory.” Hear! Hear! But Derbyshire immediately senses the danger. You see, Darwinism does a horrible job of explaining all sorts evidence in biology and paleontology (e.g., irreducibly complex devices like the mammalian eye, the bacterial flagellum, and blood clotting, the sudden appearance of numerous animal phyla in the Cambrian Explosion, the lack of any examples of macroevolution).

On these points, Darwinism is the aging boxer, past his prime. In contrast, the design hypothesis fits these data points nicely. Sensing this, Derbyshire quickly tries to get Darwinism’s strongest contender, intelligent design, out of the ring. “That other guy’s not a boxer. He’s a slugger, a ninja street fighter. I saw him down at the dojo last week! Watch out or he’ll use some of that Kung Fu voodoo on you!”

OK, that isn’t a Derbyshire quotation, but neither have leading design theorists made some of the silly arguments Derbyshire lists to the exclusion of strong design arguments. Consider what philosopher of science Stephen Meyer has to say about the Darwinist habit of defining intelligent design out of the competition:

After our blog highlighted errors in a news article about Larry Caldwell’s civil rights suit, so many people contacted the newspaper in question (the Press-Tribune) that the paper responded by contacting Caldwell. “As a testament to the power and value of your evolution blog,” Caldwell recently told us, “the Press-Tribune was getting so many complaints from around the country about the errors in their reporting that they contacted me and asked if I wanted them to correct any errors. The editor then invited me to write this letter.” Larry’s letter can now be read online, here. Kudos to the readers of this blog!

Today’s Wall Street Journal is running a shocking article reporting on an alleged campaign of harassment and intimidation by Darwinists at the taxpayer-funded Smithsonian Institution. The target? Biologist Richard Sternberg. Sternberg, you may recall, was the biology journal editor who had the courage to allow publication of Discovery Fellow Stephen Meyer’s article supportive of intelligent design after it had been approved through the standard peer-review process. At the time, Sternberg attracted a firestorm of criticism from Darwinists outside the Smithsonian. Now it appears that officials at the Smithsonian have tried to destroy Sternberg’s career and drive him from his position. The federal government’s Office of Special Counsel is currently investigating whether Sternberg’s civil rights have been violated. Among other things, Read More ›