Because the role they give to God is purely honorary. He’s a private theological gloss which they happen to endorse, for personal emotional reasons, but entirely redundant from an explanatory point of view. The universe and its development have exactly the same causal explanation, all the way from the Big Bang to man, in their thought as in the thought of, say, Carl Sagan. The moment Miller or Collins crossed the line and used intelligence to explain any arrangement of nature, their atheist colleagues would turn on them like a pack a wild dogs, and tear them to shreds.
But of course, it doesn’t have to be a birthday. It could be, for example, the date of publication of the Principia.
The correct answer is simpler than that:
Miller and Collins (as did Newton, Boyle, Wallace and most other illustrious scientists prior to the 20th century) do good science and believe in God.
Behe and the rest of the ID brigade do bad science because they believe in God.
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I believe that the chip on Eddie’s shoulder is acting as a beam in his eye.
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They say that’s the reason, but the rhetorical approach of Behe et al. is much, much easier and more lucrative than actually doing the science some of them did before quitting.
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Actually, they are usually careful to avoid saying that in public, as that would give the whole game away.
Not to disregard your other point regarding the ancillary benefits they realize from their chicanery.
In the case of Miller, I think you may have to change “do” to “did”; I’m not sure he has produced any new research in the past 20 years. But this is a side point. More important is that Miller and Collins do the two things you mention in a compartmentalizing way; they don’t offend the scientific establishment because they hold to a version of faith that has no empirical consequences, at least regarding origins questions.
Yet Behe believed in God all during the period when even Mercer concedes that he produced proper peer-reviewed science. So his belief in God didn’t contaminate his science then. Why should it do so now? He still has the same Catholic beliefs he had before. He didn’t change his theology any when he started hanging out with ID people. So if he’s doing bad science now (which I don’t concede, but suppose for the sake of argument he is), it’s not his belief in God that’s causing it. The cause must be something else.
In any case, your statement is too crude. It is not the belief in God as such that leads some Christians to do what you call bad science; it is belief in a certain interpretation of Genesis – which is not the same as belief in God. And of course Behe does not hold to that interpretation of Genesis, nor do a number of other ID proponents.
Note also that it’s possible to do bad science for reasons other than believing in God, e.g., ideological reasons. Lysenko’s notions of evolution, for example, were driven by political ideology, an ideology which was de facto atheist.
And my main point, which you have completely ignored, was that the highly competent scientists you cited both lived several centuries ago. Unless you have some reason to think they would have thought the same way if they’d had access to the data available today, your main point has been blunted.
But I suspect you know this too, and also know how weak your ‘point’ is - which is probably why you only responded to the side-point and have only now repeated your ‘main point’ as if it went unanswered.
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Incorrect. The reason “they don’t offend the scientific establishment” is because they practice science with honesty and competence. The same cannot be said for Behe and the rest of the ID Brigade.
That is not a logical statement. That his bad science is motivated by his religious beliefs does not mean he could not also do good science when, for example, he does not feel to do so would contradict those beliefs.
That’s true, but you’ve given no explanation of how his “religious beliefs” caused a change in the way he did science. Everything he says of a biographical nature indicates that his religious beliefs have remained more or less the same – conventional core Catholic beliefs – and that what changed was his assessment, as a trained biochemist, of what unguided mechanisms could and could not accomplish.
You can of course disagree with his assessment regarding unguided mechanisms, and you can try to argue (albeit as a layman in biochemistry) that his scientific claims are not very strong, but you are not merely arguing that his scientific claims are weak; you are arguing that his claims are weak because of his religious beliefs. And you have argued something narrower than even that: you specified that the cause of the weakness of his scientific work was that he “believed in God.” And that contradicts your own point, that scientists can believe in God but do good scientific work. If the latter statement is true, then it cannot be that it’s Behe’s “belief in God” that is causing his science to be defective. It must be something other than Behe’s “belief in God” that is at the root of the problem. Simple logic should enable you to see this.
I tried to help you out by indicating that, for some of Behe’s colleagues, and certainly for creationists such as Ham, the cause is not “belief in God,” but belief in a particular interpretation of the Bible. But you’ve ignored the suggestion. This surprises me, as I would have though you would agree with it. But of course, an explanation that would cover Ken Ham’s motives would not cover Behe’s, and perhaps that’s why you are silent about it.
Notice that at no point in this discussion have I stated that Behe is correct or that his scientific arguments are all valid. I have merely challenged your interpretation of his religious motives. Your interpretation does not make sense of either his actual procedure in his books (which never involves arguing from the Bible, from Catholic theology, or from his personal faith) or of his own autobiographical statements about why he thinks what he thinks.
This is not surprising, since your interpretation of the alleged theological motives of many members of the Discovery Institute (particularly the Jews and Catholics) is not a coherent one. If they are all in on a plot to turn America into a theocracy, then they are all in on a plot which, if ever successful, would make Bible-based Protestants the dominant citizens of the USA, and would make Catholics and Jews second-class citizens. So you if you really hold to the theocratic interpretation of the ID movement, you must believe that the Jews and Catholics who belong to it are exceptionally stupid or naive about political questions and are being used as tools by the Protestant Biblicists in the group.
Your analysis of religious matters suggests to me that you do not have a very clear understanding of religious people from the inside, and that you don’t know a whole lot about religions and their claims from the outside. I can’t help but think that you would have benefited from taking an undergraduate course or two in Religious Studies, courses which are easily available at the University of Toronto (where you now work) and at most Canadian universities, where (if I understand your sketchy biographical remarks correctly) you did your undergraduate science education. Undergraduate science programs have room in them for elective courses. If I had such strong anti-religious feelings as you, I would have been sure to take some courses in Religion during my undergraduate days, to gain a greater understanding of the thing that I was opposing.
I do, (a) because there are many examples of first-rate scientists today who believe that design was involved in the construction of the world and life, and (b) because they use, in slightly updated language, lines of argument similar to those found in the older scientists.
I don’t believe that Newton would have altered the claim he made in the General Scholium, that the universe shows “wise contrivance,” were he alive today. In fact, given what we know about life – things that Newton could not have known – it would appear that the “wise contrivance” is found not only in the macro-world of the solar system, but also (and to a much greater degree) in the micro-world at the heart of life. I think Newton would see modern developments as very much confirming his basic insight.
Name three.
Make sure they actually fit the original criteria, which was thinking that something is impossible without the input of intelligence, and so “God must have done it”.
Your opinion is not a reason to believe Newton would have thought differently. Nor is your argument convincing, not least because it is rejected by many who know far more about life than you do.
P.S. If you reply, at least try to quote whole sentences, even if that means including uncomfortable truths.
Yes, and that is an extremely easy position to support based on a number of facts:
Behe’s scientific arguments, such as they are, are wholly without merit and have been roundly dismissed by the overwhelming consensus of experts (not laymen) who have assessed his claims.
Behe has stubbornly refused to accept this consensus despite his inability to mount any scientifically sound response.
Behe has also strongly and repeatedly proclaimed his religious beliefs and also his belief that what he calls “Darwinism” has been a pernicious and destructive force that threatens these beliefs. Moreover, he is a founding and one of the most prominent members of the Discovery Institute, an organization that shares his beliefs about “Darwinism” and whose primary goal is to discredit it.
From these facts it is more than just reasonable to conclude that Behe’s commitment to his particular religious faith is the reason he is unable or unwilling to objectively assess the evidence supporting evolutionary theory nor to accept the valid criticisms of the work he has done on this subject.
My conclusion is soundly based on evidence, and does not require that Behe issue a signed confession or anything of that sort…
Once again, it falls upon me to rectify what have been obvious failings in your education regarding basic logic.
That Behe’s theistic beliefs have corrupted and compromised his scientific work does not entail that everyone’s scientist’s theistic beliefs will have the same effect on their work.
Does that help, or do you need further explanation?
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Being pedantic, Behe’s claims are not weak because of his religious beliefs, they are weak because of his willingness to ignore, misrepresent or make unreasonable demands on evidence that might be inconsistent with the position he has adopted based partly on his religious beliefs, while simultaneously embracing uncritically anything that might be consistent with that same position. It’s not his beliefs that are the problem, it’s his double standard.
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As a trained and accomplished biochemist, I don’t see how any understanding of biochemistry has anything to do with Behe’s claims or many misrepresentations of objective evidence. As someone who was trained in biochemistry late in life, I can confidently state that Behe’s position was ridiculous before and after my training; however, my training in biochemistry made me see that Behe’s positions have no biochemical basis, making the whole shebang slightly more ridiculous.
Speaking of training, can’t you see how your relentlessly authoritarian emphasis on training over contributions reveals that you have little other than training academically?
And also speaking of training, isn’t it interesting that none of the people YOU hold up as intellectual giants has any training in evolutionary biology? That they end empirical careers in other fields and posture as lofty theorists, in a field in which none of them had ever done anything, including theory?
There are? Please name them and the criteria you used to judge them to be “first-rate.”
And obviously, partly on the human desires for attention and money.
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Isn’t that better than not bothering to do and misrepresenting the empirical part, as the IDcreationists routinely do?
But hey, I’m glad to see you acknowledging the importance of empiricism for once.
He does not agree.
The word “stubborn” implies motive or attitude; a more objective phrasing would be “Behe does not agree that the arguments of his critics are decisive.”
And of course, the consensus of specialists has been wrong before.
Behe does not agree that his response is not scientifically sound.
He rarely raises that subject, unless he is asked. At such points, he openly admits that he is a Catholic, and therefore believes in a Creator God. But at such points, he also stresses that his arguments for design are based on what he sees as a biochemist, not on any holy book or church doctrine.
He may or may not have said this on some occasion. I cannot think of an example. If you want me to believe that he said it, you are free to provide quotations.
In any case, he does not rest his argument against Darwinian thought on his religious convictions. He rests it entirely on things he observes as a biochemist.
Which does not prove that his own personal motivation for criticizing Darwinian theory is religious. People in organizations have all kinds of motives, especially when the organization is a “big tent” organization, as Discovery is.
I would not say so.
His behavior is entirely consistent with a more straightforward motive, i.e., that he is not persuaded by the arguments and speculations of Darwinian and kindred theories, and does not think the rebuttals to his arguments are compelling. That is, it is consistent with the explanation that he simply has intellectual disagreement with his critics over the causes of evolution. Given that his behavior is entirely consistent with this non-religious explanation, the non-religious explanation has nowhere near the force you think it has.
At some level, he clearly does agree. Otherwise, he would be doing the scientific work of testing his hypotheses instead of writing books for the gullible.
The consensus is only changed by new evidence, typically from testing hypotheses, not by misrepresentations of the evidence to laypeople.
Behe has clearly stated his refusal to do science under oath, so he has agreed that he is rejecting science itself.
His arguments for design boil down to ignoring most of the evidence and misrepresenting some of the most important evidence.
Therefore, his arguments are pseudoscientific, not scientific.
Really? Where did Behe observe that no new HIV protein-protein binding sites have evolved? Why didn’t Behe observe the evidence relevant to his argument regarding chloroquine resistance? Why did he quote mine words from a review instead?
Eddie, you have no business claiming to know what Behe has or has not observed.
You’re the guy who defended Meyer’s falsehood about the ribosome for months without even figuring out what was false about it, right?
Science isn’t high-school debate; it’s not just arguments. The evidence is compelling, so he and you avoid evidence.
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It’s not reasonable to expect me to respond in terms of a characterization that I think misrepresents the position of many people. Phrases like “God must have done it” or “God did it” are in these debates almost always used to suggest a crude “God of the gaps” notion, i.e., that God has to jump in with miracles all the time. But that has not been insisted on by defenders of design, or at least, not by a good number of them. The position of defenders of design is that, in addition to whatever efficient causes contributed to the result under investigation, design had to be involved in some way. This is no different from saying that, in addition to whatever “natural” forces are involved (in digging, sawing, hammering, etc.) when a construction team builds a house, a design guiding the construction must exist (at the very least, in the mind of the construction foreman, but usually also set down on paper). The house would not exist without the design. The design is therefore a real cause of the existence of the house. My point was that there are well-trained and accomplished scientists who have believed that, in addition to all the efficient causes involved in evolution, the origin of life, or the origin of the cosmos, design also played a role.
The fact that such scientists may be a minority is irrelevant to my claim.
I have not forgotten your request for names. I’m preparing a list now. But bear in mind that my list will not pretend to be a list of scientists who have said “God did it” in some crude interventionist way. It will be a list of scientists who think that design (more often expressed in their language as “teleology”) is involved in the universe at some level – whether they go on to identify the designer or not.
Of course not. Or at least he does not publicly express agreement.
He knows full well that his lavish living is subsidized by people such as yourself who lack either the necessary ability or interest (if not both) required to understand the relevant scientific evidence and who consider the mere fact that Behe “does not agree” sufficient reason to dismiss the scientific arguments made against him.
Whatever else Behe may or may not understand, he does understand that.
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