You define the “greatest figures” by who has written books, so it is a circular argument.
If I did read Wagner’s book, would you be willing to discuss it?
I do no such thing. There is general consensus among the specialists that Darwin, Mayr, Julian Huxley, Gaylord Simpson, Dobzhansky, Gould, Futuyma and others are great figures in evolutionary theory, in the sense of having made important contributions and of showing a wide grasp of the subject. I never said they were great scientists because they wrote books. I said they were regarded as great leaders in the field, and they wrote books, and read them, read lots of them.
You continue to avoid the issue. How do you explain the close correspondence between top evolutionary thinkers and book-writing and book-reading? Why do so many of the undeniably great thinkers in the field write books and read books, while you think that writing and reading books is of no value for the field of evolutionary theory? Are they all so stupid that they don’t realize they are wasting time on non-useful activities? Do you think Futuyma wasted all the time he spent reading all those books he alludes to?
You have a phenomenon to explain, and you are avoiding explaining it. I could conjecture why, but I will leave to you explain. If you want to give a clear, non-evasive answer, fine. If you refuse to answer, fine, then just refuse to answer. But please stop wasting my time by evasive answers which shift the questions, mischaracterize my statements, etc. You know what I’m asking you here. Either answer me without the song and dance, or drop the subject. I don’t care which you do.
Great, I will start reading books.
If I read one of Wagner’s books, will you discuss it with me?
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I would be happy if we could read even just the opening chapter of Wagner’s book that I mentioned, and discuss it. I am sure I would learn something from you by discussing it, and I think you might see a wider tapestry of thought in Wagner that would better help you to understand why I am interested in him and in other such people. Right now I have read only bits and pieces of his book, from various chapters. I need to buy a copy so that I can read it through. It may be that all we need to get the general idea is the first chapter, and won’t have to cover the whole book, which would save you reading more than is necessary. But right now only part of the first chapter is available online. So if you give me time to order the book and read through a major chunk of it, we could begin the discussion then. Give me a few weeks, as I’m very busy with personal matters at the moment. Let me know when you are ready to talk about the first chapter, and I’ll try to join in as soon as possible.
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When you decide to buy the book I will also buy it. I would be happy to discuss it with you.
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Hi Eddie,
Now that the noise level has dropped a little bit, this may be a propitious moment to point out why ID is best viewed as a metaphysical school rather than a scientific one, in my opinion. This thread offers a couple of illustrations–namely, arguments from analogy.
- You argued that evolutionary mechanisms were insufficient to explain change by drawing an analogy to travel from London to New York.
- @colewd argued that evolutionary algorithms in computing show the importance of an algorithm designer.
These arguments from analogies seek to illuminate why the existence of a design shows that somewhere in the causal chain there must be an intelligent designer. I agree that there is a designer, and this weekend I will be celebrating His dramatic self-revelations in human history approximately 2000 years ago. However, it’s important to recognize that these arguments from analogy are metaphysical, not scientific. A scientific argument would have to show mechanisms and make predictions that can be falsified. These arguments from analogy can do neither.
I have read much (not all) of Behe’s oeuvre, and I appreciate that he has attempted to bring a mathematical treatment (via irreducible complexity) to the design inference. Unfortunately, his math has been based on critical misunderstandings of the peer-reviewed biology literature. Multiple threads on this forum have already been dedicated to biologists’ analyses of Behe’s misunderstandings, so I see no need to re-litigate that subject in this post.
Other design proponents have been critical of at least some aspects of evolutionary theory, but none have to my knowledge advanced any scientific framework that would show:
- How the design inference would ineluctably yield certain predictions…
- …that would be distinguishable from standard evolutionary predictions, and…
- would be testable by the scientific toolkit.
Since the field of biology has trumped the science card Behe tried to play, only the metaphysical card is left in the design camp’s hand. I happen to think it’s a pretty good card! Not the God-of-the-gaps argument some (not all) design proponents make, but the existence of design implies a designer argument.
That said, it’s clearly a metaphysical argument, not a scientific one. Stephen Meyer doesn’t answer to me, but if he did I would urge him to hoist his metaphysical sail and furl his scientific one. In the long run, the faith and wisdom of the church would grow much more strongly with this approach, in my opinion.
Yours,
Chris
P.S. Happy Resurrection Day!
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ID (cdesignproponentism), is like “creation – maybe through evolution and maybe not”. It’s a confusing beast, especially when IDers say this on the one hand, and then claim on the other hand that ID is not creationism and does not oppose evolution, all while arguing hotly against evolution.
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Yes. The problem is, ID wants to dress itself up as science. It can’t get into schools if it openly acknowledges it’s actually theology.
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Agreed. Nobody should have any doubts about that!
Perhaps an easy majority of Christian supporters of Evolution also argue (or would) against the modern theory of [unguided] Evolution!
Be mindful of where you write.
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You’re wasting your time here with that. Most of the members (the reasonable ones, anyway) already acknowledge that ID Creationism is not a scientific movement. It is the ID Creationists who keep up the ruse that they are doing science. So go off and try to explain this to them. If you can find a venue where they actually allow comments and won’t ban you for trying to talk sense. Good luck.
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Never mind doubts. @Eddie’s claim is factually wrong. ID is completely driven by religious presuppositions, and is not supported by a single scrap of “evidence provided by nature.”
The error here is in denying the fundamental deceitfulness of the ID Creationist movement, which is extensively documented in their own words:
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Not the claim of @Eddie’s that i was affirming.
This is a pretty hard claim to support. Sure it is partially driven by ideology as evolutionary theory is but there is some scientific work going on.
If you’re affirming the claim, what is “ID theory,” exactly?
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Evolutionary theory is driven 100% by science. Stop making up crap.
And there is no good scientific work going on in ID Creationism. There is just bad religious propaganda made to look like science. This is obvious to any informed and unbiased person. Of course, you are neither, hence your opinion.
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I think it’s more accurate to say that ID theory has not yielded any scientifically valid research to date. Occasionally, ID proponents have published peer-reviewed research by following the standard scientific paradigm and practices, but those articles (e.g., Axe1997 and Behe 2010) have not succeeded in supplying a scientific foundation for ID.
@Agauger feels that she is on the cusp of a major scientific leap forward for ID. Given the previous publications that have emerged from the ID community, caution is of course the appropriate stance.
I have already enumerated above a three-part standard that an “ID” paper would need to fulfill to say that ID is scientifically tenable. Is that a good standard? What do you all think?
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In my opinion, ID (all caps) is a political advocacy program based on the optimistic (and unprovable) position that science can detect/demonstrate design!
Seems good to me. Of course design is implicit and a given for Christians, and it would not at all break my heart if it could be demonstrated. I’m still thinking that it is or analogous to a fine-tuning argument until demonstrated otherwise.
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