12.22.05
Dover Ruling: quicksand?
Due to various distractions, I was a bit delayed in a response to the Dover ruling, perhaps just as well: food for thought. This one will be around for a while. This deserves a webpage essay, but some early thoughts are ‘par for the blog’. Looking at a print out of the ruling I was surprised, despite the great interest, and surface plausability of the court’s judgment, by the way in which the ruling left itself open to some fatal counterattacks.
I had little sympathy with the attempt to invade class room, but have equal objections to the domination tactics of biologists here.
Darwinists are fortunate in their opponents. This case was so badly pursued by the IDM (intelligent design movement) as to be a softball pitch to its opponents. That disguises the vulnerability of Darwnists on a score of points. The court was handed an easy demonstration of the religious tactics, ‘concealed’ out in the open, behind the school policy, and thus it was easy to show the violation of the relevant precedents pertaining to the Establishment clause, etc.
But the question of science in the ruling leaves a hole a mile wide in the decision. Here is the intro to the main section on the science aspect.
After a searching review of the record and applicable caselaw, we find thatwhile ID arguments may be true, a proposition on which the Court takes no position, ID is not science. We find that ID fails on three different levels, any one of which is sufficient to preclude a determination that ID is science. They are:
(1) ID violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation;
(2) the argument of irreducible complexity, central to ID, employs the same flawed and illogical contrived dualism that doomed creation science in the 1980’s; and
(3) ID’s negative attacks on evolution have been refuted
by the scientific community. As we will discuss in more detail below, it is
additionally important to note that ID has failed to gain acceptance in the scientific community, it has not generated peer-reviewed publications, nor has it been the subject of testing and research.
Some thoughts, to be amplified.
The court takes no position on ID?! Are you kidding. The ruling pretty much accepts the ‘refutation’ of the so-called ‘expert’ testimony.
There is no monolithic ‘ID’. The incompetent presentation of the School Board was easily cashiered, but the sources of much ID thinking are more sophisticated. I don’t agree myself, but overall ID has forced a hearing on the issues.
To say that ID is not science doesn’t really work at this point. Popperian ‘conjectures and refutations’ are ’scientific activity’, hence science of some kind. Dembski’s The Design Inference and No Free Lunch are university published texts (presumably peer reviewed in some fashion) and have long arguments using advanced statistics (which few Darwnists bother to study) to make a point that may be false, but to simply dismiss them as not being science is unfair. It is cash on the barrel. Darwinists are so badly educated by cliche science and garbage statistics they can’t even read Dembski’s work.
To be sure, the IDM, given half a chance, wouldn’t be fair either, but one should distinguish valid counterargument from paranoia.
It is true of the School Board and many ID-ists, that they invoke supernatural explanation, but I note that in Dembski’s version, this is not necessarily the case.
A good case can be made (although I am not sure I would want to make it using this language) for a ‘design’ factor that is naturalistic. Face it, nature shows ‘design’ of some kind, and this is not amenable to simplistic arguments using natural selection. The inability of the scientific community by and large to grasp this point tokens an alarming failure of education.
The IDM has done a disservice by the tacit collation of ‘naturalistic design-something’ with ’supernatural design by innuendo (and stealth tactics)’.
There is no absolute reason for the exclusion of supernatural arguments, a tough point, no doubt. Anything goes, but you need evidence. The correct procedure then would be that supernatural arguments are fine in principle but highly unlikely in practice.
The problem is that while ID doesn’t achieve proof, neither does natural selection. I dislike supernatural explanation as much as any scientist, but biologists are stuck in reductionist thinking that is as bad as arguments about supernature.
The more important point here is that ’supernature’ and ‘nature’ are metaphysical concepts, and we can’t just throw around ideas of ‘methodological naturalism’ to exclude new forms of explanation.
What about Spinoza, by the way? The whole issue of ‘nature’ is improperly defined.
Behe’s point about irreducible complexity is still up in the air. This line of thinking has certainly not been refuted. Behe had at one point an ace up his sleeve, but because he couldn’t restrain the temptation to inject ID into what was a strong argument against natural selection, he has lost his advantage.
The counterargument of exaptation is a good one, but it doesn’t prove the argument by natural selection. The ruling cites a number of ‘peer reviewed’ papers claiming to refute Behe. I am not convinced at all. Scientists have a problem here, explaining complexity. The mangled ID version of this simply caused ’slam the shutters shut’ on a critical problem for Darwinists, one that doesn’t require supernatural explanations, but a decent theory of evolution.
The question of peer review is silly, if not impudent. The failure to generate peer reviewed literature is proof of nothing. Anyone who tried to produce such literature would be just about crucified. Anyone who subscribes to internet listserves learns quickly that the majority are too afraid to speak out. The dangers are severe. Thus we have no idea whatever of the degree of dissent in the science community. The peer review system is grossly biased, and part of the problem.
Such is the reign of Darwin dogma that any peer reviewed text is immediately suspect.
In any case there are any number of good scientific critics of Darwinian selectionism, so the claims for unanimous views among scientists are total baloney.
Enough for now. But I think that this ruling is flimsy. It thrives on the tactics of the IDM which forever hand Darwinists victory in advance, and leave the public with incorrect impressions about the degree of proper science in the field of evolution.
It is a situation worthy of Feyerbendian scorn, and will prove the undoing of modern science in the end, if Darwinists don’t wise up.
island said,
December 25, 2005 at 12:12 pm
I agree… although Dembski’s motivations and actions are as dishonest as guised creationism gets, but I’ve always said that it should not matter if you’re wearing a cross, if you’re holding science in your hand.
The law looks at it differently, all they had to prove was religious motivation.