Discussion of Big Science Today, by an Important Member of the National Association of Scholars

Conversation Side Conversation
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You misread my motives. I don’t “want you to talk about” anything. I was responding to Arthur Hunt, not you. If you choose to jump in as third party and drag in my remarks about Eugenie Scott, it’s you who is trying to control what people are talking about, not I.

No, it was sincere, but if you want to read it cynically, I can’t stop you. But I record here the fact that you have for a second time sidestepped my questions about your academic background. I don’t know why. Most people here are quite open about their academic background. The only other poster I can think of who has refused to give any indication of his academic background when asked is “Tim Horton” (not to be confused with just plain “Tim”).

It doesn’t take any “deep reading” to understand that if the NCSE, the NABT, Ken Miller, etc. are going to accuse ID proponents and creationists of contaminating the teaching of science with religious teachings, declaring that evolution is “unguided and purposeless” will make those critics look like people living in glass houses and throwing stones. Scott immediately understood that in order to keep the social-political “high ground” against “creationists”, her side would have to drop all claims that evolution was unguided, purposeless, aimless, unplanned, etc. There was no “deception” in this; she was quite up-front about the reason for dropping the religious/metaphysical language. I’m not accusing her or anyone of deception for advocating dropping that language.

Where the deception lay was in not indicating that the phrase “natural causes”, given the way most people (scientific and lay) use the word “natural” in English, subtly conveys the notion of things that work by an automated necessity, driven by forces or laws, not aiming at anything, not planning anything, etc. The deception was in the pretense that “neutrality” had been achieved by sticking with the language of “natural” causes.

In fact, the popular conception of evolution (being also the conception of Darwin and of the majority if not all of those who founded the Modern Synthesis in the 1940s, which Synthesis was the basis of most popular evolutionary discussion from the 1950s onward) has always been that evolution “just happened” due to natural laws, contingent events, etc. When we say that an apple falls to the ground due to the “natural law of gravity” we are tacitly also saying (even if we aren’t thinking it consciously in most cases) that the apple was not trying to fall to the ground, that purposes or aims have no effect on what happens in events caused by gravity. When we say that evolution produced the African elephant through “natural processes”, we are tacitly also saying that evolution was not trying to produce elephants (or anything else, including us). Thus, it was never necessary to say out loud that evolution was “unguided” or “purposeless”; the popular conception already had that “feel” to it. The notion that it was a “natural” process, though not strictly indicating purposelessness denotatively, strongly indicated it connotatively.

Scott is no fool, and she knew the connotative effects of evolutionary language. She knew that dropping all explicit references to purposelessness and lack of guidance would not eliminate those connotations. So there’s no deception in the crude sense, i.e., she did not actually lie about anything. The deception lies in omission, in not being completely frank about what her view of “natural” entails.

The only other interpretation I can think of is that she is so inept at thinking about words and their implications and so philosophically ignorant (due, perhaps, to being a scientist rather than a philosopher or historian of ideas), that she simply didn’t perceive that “natural” had a lot of connotative baggage attached to it. I can’t rule out that possibility, logically, and if you want to believe that, you can go ahead and do so. But my impression from reading many of her essays and watching her speak on videotaped events is that she is very shrewd and calculating about the language she uses, and I doubt she did not perceive the connotative flavor of “evolution by wholly natural causes.”

Regarding your question why TE/EC folks (Christians who accept Darwinian evolution) would accept Scott’s account of “natural” causes as metaphysically and religiously neutral, that is where detailed knowledge of the religious beliefs and philosophical orientation of the various TE/EC people comes in, and I don’t believe you can understand that unless you are willing to do a lot of reading, of a large number of TE/EC writers. The religious/theological landscape, and even more, the personal biographical landscape, of American TE/EC, is immensely complex and requires study (not general armchair speculation about what people would likely think) in order to understand.

Later I hope to provide a detailed historical run-down on the events which will corroborate with my interpretation. I will place it in a new topic. That’s all I’ll say about Scott on this subject until then.

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So you differentiate “scientific creationism” and “intelligent design” because “scientific creationism” is supported by young earth creationists only, while “intelligent design” is supported by young earth creationists and old earth creationists, as well as a few non-creationists.

That’s the ID ‘big tent’ approach. But that difference is not a difference between “scientific creationism” and ID. It’s only a difference between their respective proponents.

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Not at all. You are free not to respond. That is nothing like your insistence on controlling the conversation, which I have seen more than once.

Because it’s irrelevant and I expect you to abuse it.

To the extent it was needed it seems a positive. Especially since there is the whole question of natural selection. Your inferences about motives are still, however, full of hostility.

Well that “deception” is not going to fool any Christians who object to “unguided”. Indeed, it seems more like desperate reaching on your part.

And in the absence of any scientifically demonstrable guidance, or potential guides that would be the reasonable position.

I don’t think so. I am familiar with the notion that natural events are subtly and indetectably guided by God, and the “natural processes” terminology is neutral with regard to that. But short of putting an outright denial of that into the curriculum there is very little that could go against that.

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That might be a reasonable question, but it’s not the one I asked. I asked If ID is not ready to be taught in schools, why are the DI producing school textbooks [on ID] at all?.

But the DI are doing just that. Why?

That has nothing to do with the question I asked, which had nothing to do with states mandating anything.

That has nothing to do with the question I asked either, since it had nothing to do with trying to teach ID without proper materials.

That has nothing to do with the question I asked either, which again had nothing to do with the difference between public and private schools, nor about teaching ID with or without ID textbooks. I will note that unless Casey Luskin is proposing to teach ID in private schools and private homes in person, his expertise is irrelevant since ID might still be taught “by incompetent ninth-grade biology teachers who would get it wrong”, whether in public schools, private schools, or homeschooling.

Excellent. The question, which you still haven’t answered, is then why haven’t the DI followed their own advice? If ID is not ready to be taught in schools, why are the DI producing school textbooks [on ID] at all?

Your answer seems to be that private schools and homeschoolers can cope with teaching something that isn’t ready to be taught. As if homeschooling parents are somehow better at teaching science than professional science teachers. That makes no sense - unless ID isn’t science, but creationism, and the reason it’s not ready for teaching in public schools is actually because it’s religious. That would make sense.

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I thought my question about why the DI believes some of their books are suitable for private, but not public, schools was also a pretty good one. But I guess @Eddie disagreed. I can’t think of another reason he refused to answer it.

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I’m pretty sure that TE/EC folks accept non-Darwinian evolution too. Weren’t you thoroughly schooled on that upon your arrival here by our host?

I mean, if you’re going on and on about definitions, shouldn’t you have your own definitions straight?

I would hope that such filtering would correct some of the silliest misrepresentations of Behe and Dembski. In the case of the latter, would you want high-school biology teachers to teach the falsehood that peptidyl transferase is a protein?

I think that, given the abysmal understanding of basic biology you demonstrate here, you have no basis for looking down on high-school biology teachers.

I’m pretty certain that everyone’s point here isn’t that schools aren’t fit to teach X (if X=the pseudoscience of ID), but that X is not fit to be taught.

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No, that’s not exactly what I meant. I spoke of reading Genesis “literally”, and from my point of view, both OECs and YECs are literalists. YECs are arguably narrower literalists, but I see both of them as literalists. But you’re right; “scientific creationism” was a YEC project, so your substitution of YEC for “literalist” works for me.

However, the “few non-creationists” you mention make all the difference in the world. That ID includes even a few non-creationists means that the definition of ID does not require anti-evolutionism, whereas creationism does require it. (The fact that some YECs allow “microevolution” within families after the Flood doesn’t alter their rejection of “evolution” as most scientists and most lay people mean the term, i.e., microorganism to man.) To be a creationist (where that term is used without “evolutionary” stuck in front) is to reject evolution as evolution is generally conceived. If ID does not require rejecting evolution (microorganism to man), then ID per se is not creationism (though as I’ve already conceded, most ID proponent are also creationists).

Let restate what I see as the difference. I understand “scientific creationism” as:

“the belief that the account of creation in the early chapters of Genesis is scientifically as well as religiously valid and that it can be supported by scientific evidence apart from scriptural authority”

It is also my understanding that what is called “Flood Geology” is universally or almost universally held by “scientific creationists” and that the term “scientific creationism” frequently is used to refer to the scientific defense not just of Genesis 1-3, but of the Flood narrative of Genesis 6-9, and, more broadly, of Genesis 1-11 as a whole.

If this is the case, then what “scientific creationism” is, is the assertion that the account of origins in Genesis 1-11 is something close to a live newsreel report of what actually happened in the past, and that it can be defended on the basis of scientific evidence, without appeal to the authority of the Bible. But note that while the arguments for the truth of 6-day creation, the Flood, etc. may be wholly scientific, the belief in the historicity of Genesis 1-11 remains mandatory. One cannot be a scientific creationist unless one believes that the events in Genesis 1-11 actually happened, and happened in more or less the order and way described.

One can, however, be an ID proponent without believing that the events in Genesis 1-11 actually happened. The belief that the events in Genesis 1-11 happened at all (let alone in exactly the way and order described) is optional within ID. The difference between “optional” and “mandatory” is massive. It means that ID per se is not scientific creationism, despite any overlap between the supporters of the two views.

Regarding your other post, I will ignore all the complaints about how I didn’t get this or that statement in your post exactly right, and will move directly to the main issue:

I was trying to give a rationale for DI behavior, one that would make sense of their activity. I agree with you that the rationale isn’t a very convincing one. Here is my own explanation of the contradiction you perceive.

I’ve already said many times that the DI is the center of both ID as a social movement (which is predominantly Christian and apologetic) and ID as a theoretical perspective on nature. You see products of both aspects in what the DI produces. Their six-volume series of Denton’s books are entirely concerned with ID as a theoretical perspective on nature; their curricula for private schools and home schools are predominantly concerned with the defense of theistic beliefs against atheism and materialism in the public square. I’ve already indicated that if I had my way, Discovery would focus only on the theoretical side. But I’m not in charge.

In any case, whatever the inconsistencies produced by the dual mission of Discovery, I’m grateful that Discovery exists and puts out books like Denton’s, and that it has steadily produced books and articles making a case for design in nature that does not depend on accepting any religious confession. It has provided an institutional focal point for a wide range of people, religious and non-religious, who for various reasons dissent from the reigning anti-teleological conception of nature and of reality. It thus complements, in the popular sphere, the work being done by maverick physicists, biologists, philosophers, theologians, historians, in the academic world.

If it weren’t doing this, the public would be getting a one-sided narrative from places like the NCSE and BioLogos. I don’t have to agree with or defend everything Discovery says and does in order to affirm that it has been a constructive entity, keeping alive intellectual options which certain other people and organizations would like to delete from human consciousness.

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I see. You don’t trust me. Well, we’re even on that, because I don’t trust you. Anyone who represents himself as holding the moral high ground in a discussion, reprimanding some people in the discussion (i.e., on the side he opposes) for showing irritation or aggression, or for imputing motives to others, while letting others in the discussion (i.e., on the side he agrees with) off for the same things, is exhibiting a double standard, and therefore cannot be entirely trusted. In any case, I’ve tried to answer your latest questions civilly, honestly, and at length, and if you’re not satisfied with my answers, we’ll have to leave the discussion here for the time being.

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I’d want them to classify molecules by whatever is their proper classification, but more important, I’d want them to teach: (a) that we are nowhere near a detailed account of the origin of life; (b) that there are immense problems in the notion of an unguided origin of life, based on what we have learned from modern synthetic chemistry; and ( c ) that there is no guarantee that science will ever understand the origin of life, because the origin of life might have involved the action of an intelligent mind, in which case science could not fully explain it. After those three things were made clear, teachers could then go ahead and present the current, incomplete, shaky suggestions for the “natural” [sotto voce, “unguided”] origin of life. I’d have no objection to such presentations.

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Indeed, however the reason I don’t trust you is because of repeated dishonesty. I have not done anything to earn your distrust.

If that applies to anyone here it’s you.

But obviously you can’t substantiate your accusations of dishonesty against Eugenie Scott. Even if the evasiveness and shifting story were not enough, this settles it.

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Exactly.

Which is why Intelligent Design is creationism. I have been saying this all along.

Your failure to understand this largely stems from the fact that, as a scientific naif, you do not know what the term “evolution” refers to:

No, the scientific theory of evolution is not adequately nor accurately defined as “microorganism to man.”

Well, I dunno, Roy. Who are we supposed to believe? Henry Morris in his own written words? Or the words that “Eddie” just completely made up out of his own head? Tough choice…

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No, I’m happy with your version.

You differentiate “scientific creationism” and “intelligent design” because “scientific creationism” is supported by creationists only, while “intelligent design” is also supported by a few non-creationists. That doesn’t detract from my point at all. It makes it stronger.

Not if those non-creationist IDers are also anti-evolutionists.

I have no idea where you got that from, but it wasn’t from the description of “scientific creationism” I provided. I reject it because, among other reasons, Henry Morris’s description of “scientific creationism” does not include religious validity.

Your understanding is wrong, then. “Scientific creationism”, as described by Morris etc, makes no mention of Genesis, and is not a scientific defense of any part of it.

You are completely wrong.

But it doesn’t matter. You’re still trying to differentiate “scientific creationism” from “intelligent design” based on the beliefs of their respective proponents, not on their actual contents.

You might as well try to argue that there are two types of physics because some physicists support Manchester and some support Liverpool.

So the “Discovering Intelligent Design” curriculum and textbook is primarily a defence of theistic beliefs[1] - but ID is supposedly nothing to do with religion.

  1. Extending the resemblance between ID and “scientific creationism” ↩︎

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Come on, Eddie. This isn’t some dry recitation of classifications. It was a major empirical prediction (Meyer even cited the Nature blurb that explained it) of the RNA World hypothesis–you know, that scientific method that the ID movement pretends to follow but never does?

The fact that all proteins are assembled by a ribozyme is a major step. The DI deceives people about that.

I’d want them to know Nobel-winning evidence supporting the RNA World hypothesis instead of silly ex cathedra pronouncements.

What specific ID hypothesis explains the fact that we are stuck with a ribozyme doing such an important job? Any intelligent, omnipotent designer could easily replace it with a protein.

I think the lack of any explanation explains why this “alleged error” was a deliberate deception.

Have you and your ID buddies, who allegedly discuss

ever discussed a design explanation for peptidyl transferase not being a protein? It’s right there between the first two items in your list.

I’d want them to point students to the evidence, not any suggestions. That way, they are teaching the scientific method, which will help students spot pseudoscientific frauds later in life.

Note how throughout, you avoided all mention of the scientific method while literally prescribing what science teachers should or should not teach. That speaks volumes.

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And, indeed, about almost every subject the DI addresses. The books they’re publishing these days are profoundly dishonest – so much so that any reasonable review of their contents is taken by some as some sort of dogmatic anti-ID posture when it is in fact just a reasonable, even-handed take.

I have found it very interesting that nobody is really prepared to actually defend these books and their strange assertions most of the time, and that when they do venture to do so, the results are so utterly and completely disastrous. Whether it’s Stephen Meyer asserting that mammals appear abruptly in the fossil record with no evident precursors, or Douglas Axe claiming that the evolutionary consensus is that evolution has now completely stopped, or Wells and Dembski claiming that nothing but a “bone count” really underlies the explanation of the evolution of the mammalian jaw, there either is a complete silence in the defense camp or something comically atrocious, like one attempt here some time ago to claim that Axe was right, after all.

But the complete inability to offer even a decent excuse for all of this plain and flagrant dishonesty does not stop those people from tone-trolling. Yes, Meyer, Axe, Wells and Dembski are all liars, as the lack of any plausible defense admits. But how uncivil to point it out! How can anyone tell a decent lie, and be treated kindly while so doing, if people are going to call the teller a liar? And surely one who calls such a person a liar must be the crudest sort of atheistic, materialistic dogmatist.

The liars do contribute something to our culture, but not all contributions to culture are positive. They contribute something to conversation, but not all conversations are worthwhile. And they preserve certain ideas against the contrary flow of reason and evidence, but all ideas are not worthy of preservation. There is something odd in the mood that praises the retrograde, the awful, the dishonest and the incoherent against the reliable growth of genuine understanding. It is a kind of nostalgia for barbarity.

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I specified it.

Non sequitur. Read carefully: “evolution as generally conceived”, not “evolution as conceived by atheist culture-warriors on internet origins sites.” “Evolution as generally conceived” is, e.g., the picture they used to show on Bill Nye, the Science Guy’s show, with the primitive forms building up to – Bill Nye. (Modest of him to represent himself as the peak of evolution, but I guess we can excuse it as an attempt at humor.)

Paul King tells me that we should not “raise the temperature” with friction-generating remarks like that. But it’s OK, he will not reprimand you for doing it, because you’re on his side. He only issues the reprimands for allegedly unacceptable manners to people he disagrees with. You can even tell me (obliquely) to **** myself, and he won’t mind (since he didn’t object when someone else here obliquely did so). So let her rip! Surely you can come up with stronger abuse than “scientific naif”. (In fact, if memory serves, you have done better in the past, and some of your posts directed to me were grayed out for that reason.) I’m counting on greater polemical creativity from you, Faizal.

I was not talking about the theory of evolution but the process commonly called evolution – the process of descent with modification. All creationists believe that process never happened, except on a very small scale, i.e., within families at the most.

But they aren’t, using the definition of “evolution” that I’m using (and one Joshua deemed acceptable a long time ago): descent with modification, going back to primitive unicellular forms. Behe, Denton, and many other ID people accept evolution in this sense. No creationist will accept evolution in that sense.

I got it from the Collins online dictionary. You can find a similar one on Merriam-Webster. And here’s what everyone’s top authority here, Wikipedia, has to say:

Creation science or scientific creationism is a pseudoscientific form of Young Earth creationism which claims to offer scientific arguments for certain literalist and inerrantist interpretations of the Bible.

Now, note what the “scientific arguments” are being produced for: “certain literalist and inerrantist interpretations of the Bible.” Hmmm. Did Henry Morris produce any “scientific arguments” for certain readings of the Rig Veda or other Hindu texts? Let me know if you find any places where he did. The “scientific arguments” were produced to match a list of events recorded in Genesis. The whole project of “scientific creationism” was to vindicate the details of the stories in Genesis. And there’s a reason for that: every last breathing “scientific creationist” believed that the stories in Genesis 1-11 were virtually an eyewitness news story of what happened in creation and in the centuries afterward, up to the time of Abraham. If those guys didn’t have a prior religious commitment to a literal reading of Genesis they wouldn’t have done a shred of their “scientific research.”

In ID, this is not the case. Behe, Denton, Sternberg, etc. aren’t the slightest bit interested in proving there was a global flood or that the world was created in six 24-hour days. Their investigations into nature are aimed at establish the existence of design, not the historical truth of Genesis. ID as a theoretical project is inherently detached from any particular reading of Genesis (or even of a general commitment to Genesis as a sacred, revealed text); scientific creationism / creation science is inherently wedded to a particular reading of Genesis.

As for the fact that Morris doesn’t say out loud in your paragraph that he’s only doing his “scientific creationism” to vindicate his belief (held for personal religious reasons) in a literal Genesis, that means nothing when we know from his other writings (in apologetics and so on) what his motive is. In the case of Behe, Sternberg, and several others, on the other hand, you can produce no writings, private or public, indicating that vindicating a literal reading of Genesis is the motivation for their work on design. In fact, we know that Denton does not accept a literal reading of Genesis because he says so, and Catholics like Behe and Sternberg are just going to yawn at the Protestant Biblicist franticness about verifying the historicity of every sentence in Genesis. In short, “creationism” is not driving those ID proponents. If ID were inherently or by definition creationist, Behe, Denton, Sternberg, and many others would simply have to leave the ID camp. But I notice they’re not leaving.

No. See above. The “actual contents” of scientific creationism map pretty much one-to-one with the narratives in Genesis. Even if every single argument adduced makes no use of Biblical authority, it’s obvious that the contents – the list of things that the scientific arguments are meant to prove – have been selected with Genesis in mind. That is not the case with ID, which is trying to establish only the existence of design in nature, not the historical accuracy of Genesis, so that is a difference not just in private beliefs but in the public contents presented.

Already covered, in my remarks about ID as a social movement versus ID as a theoretical account of nature. Your memory is short, or you aren’t reading carefully.

It goes without saying that science teachers will and should teach the scientific method, so I didn’t have to add that. What I added were some things that aren’t generally included in science lessons about origins, but should be. But after that, yep, lets have lots of scientific method. Let’s let the science students do experiments where they try to produce complex life-related molecules by accidental mixtures, and let them discover empirically how likely that is. Let’s have the ninth-grade science teacher, or heck, even the twelfth-grade science teacher, guide the students in setting up the experiments, checking for contamination, measuring the kind and amounts of products from the reactions, etc. And at the end, let’s have the students write a “critical inquiry” paper on the question: “Based on your lab results, what would you say are the main difficulties that seem to stand in the way of an accidental production of your target molecules, and what improvements could you suggest for future experiments which might provide ways of lessening those difficulties?” I’m all for it! Physical experiments and data, as opposed to woulda, coulda, mighta speculations about RNA world or other such armchair scenarios.

I don’t have a nostalgia for barbarity, but I do have a nostalgia for the older, more boring style of lawyer, who gave the world exhibitions of calm, stepwise reasoning, as opposed to flashy, hyperbolic polemics.

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False. Many are now claiming that evolution happened on an enormous scale and at enormous speed after the Flood.

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More like their rhetorical pretense at investigating nature is aimed at making money.

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But everything that follows is not the scientific method, as it involved no hypotheses and empirical predictions. It was a parody of science.

Thanks, though, for clarifying your lack of understanding.

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Very few of them think that even the accelerated pace cracked the “family” barrier, but you are welcome to provide examples of creationists who think that new orders, classes, and phyla appeared after the Flood.

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No more than much origin-of-life speculation.