(Replying respectfully:)
Mike Lee wrote:
> "As opposed to the creation/evolution debate where critics of evolution
> often have little or no formal training in the field of biology, the
advocates of intelligent
> design are for the most active and well-established professionals in their
field.
Again, that part is completely irrelevant. But I understand that was not
the crux of the response.
> The challenges that they raise are based on careful observation and must
be taken seriously by the scientific
> community.
Those challenges DO represent difficulties that evolutionary science must
work to resolve. It doesn't take much reading of evolutionary theorists'
work to see that evolutionary science DOES involve work on those challenges
(e.g., the complexity of the eye...). In many of the cases raised as "proof
of irreducible complexity", evolutionary scientists have already established
satisfactory answers, which are then ignored completely by "intelligent
design theorists", because they know that their argument sounds convincing
especially in light of those examples.
> "So the question facing biologists is clear: Do irreducibly complex
> systems represent an unbridgeable evolutionary chasm? If so, Darwinism
> is in a bad way and Behe has made an astonishing discovery. If not,
> Behe's case collapses and he has succeeded only in misleading large
> numbers of people.
"Unbridgeable"? Evolutionary theorists have already "bridged" the examples
given in some of the standard "ID" objections, but of course again the "ID
theorists" continue to use those examples. At times, at least, it's as
though the creationists say "Well, then, if you're so smart, what's 2+2? And
I won't take '4' for an answer...".
I know, the "ID theorist" claims that the "irreducible complexity"
challenge is a _proof_ that evolution cannot account for certain things that
it claims to account for. Such a "proof" (if it really were a proof) would
do nothing at all to support the notion of an intelligent designer, anymore
than does "airplanes weigh more than air, yet they fly, so the theory of
buoyancy must be false, and God holds airplanes in the air". But more
importantly, an ironclad proof of impossibility should be seen as a
_challenge_ to a theory, guiding inquiry, not halting it. The history of
science is littered with such proofs of what is and is not possible. Of
course as I've said in the past, that's not a valid argument on its own (it
sounds as though *I* just used the "well, they laughed at Einstein too, so
my theory must be correct as well" argument <grin>). But my point is that
the proper response is to try to meet the challenge, not to close off
inquiry.
We already today ignore claims of the development of perpetual motion
machines because we believe such a thing to be impossible, a violation of a
basic law of physics. Were I a creationist reading my post here, I'd raise
that as a response. But it would miss a subtle point. We ignore perpetual
motion claims _when those claims ignore the basic laws of physics_. A person
who claims that his or her machine is _so_ friction-free that it will stay
in motion forever is someone who simply doesn't understand physics well
enough. But what about someone who DOES understand the conservation of
matter and energy, and makes that clear, and proposes a perpetual motion
machine that somehow evades that law? In fact, in the mid-80s an article in
Physical Review B (IIRC) proposed that the energy that can be recovered from
the "quantum fluctuations" in space may not be subject to the conservation
of matter and energy (in other words, may arise from nothing with no
corresponding loss of anything). In short, a different kind of "perpetual
motion", one that was taken seriously _because_ the authors recognized and
addressed the problem. No different from the evolutionary theorists'
response to the claim of "irreducible complexity".
> To fail to do so would put scientists in the uncomfortable position of
being accused of
> being closed minded and dogmatic, rather than open to inquiry."
Scientists are regularly accused of being closed minded and dogmatic
whether or not they are so, by creationists as well as wild-eyed new agers.
In fact, they often seem to be most likely to face that accusation at just
the times when they are being the MOST "open to inquiry". The irreducible
complexity challenge is a perfect example. The evolutionary theorist's
response to that challenge is to ask "How can this mechanism arise as a
result of evolutionary processes?". If the answer is "I don't know", then
the problem remains a target of inquiry - which is exactly what has happened
over and over and over again in the history of biology. Some such questions
remain open - such is the nature of science. We are nowhere near the point
at which we know everything. Scientists are well aware of that fact.
At the same time, the creationists' position is "I know that God created
the universe. I don't believe in evolution. I have found a question for
which evolutionary theorists do not have an answer. Therefore evolutionary
theory is incorrect, and my theory is correct. Oh, and it's too late for
them to develop an answer. The bell has rung".
Now imagine that the evolutionary theorists had responded to the challenge
in the way that the creationists claim is more open minded... A challenge to
the theory comes up, and the evolutionary theorists realize that no-one in
the field currently has an answer to that challenge. So they declare
evolutionary theory to be a failure, and pack it all up to go out in the
trash. We no longer have a scientific theory of the origins of species.
Nihilism.
The notion is that a science that does not have in hand, today, answers to
all challenges is a science that should be thrown out. The creationists may
maintain that is a good policy, and will simply prune the uncertain edges
off of a body of science that is mostly sound, proven fact. But anyone
actually working in any scientific field is well aware that there are
similar challenges that could be raised against ANY scientific theory in any
of the scientific disciplines. What creationists portray as being "open to
inquiry" is in fact a response that would require us to throw out ALL of our
theories. Every single one of them, in every discipline. There is no field
in which a moderately well-informed graduate student (for example) could not
pose a challenge for which no one has a satisfactory answer. There are no
theories that have tied up ALL of the loose ends. The force of the "ID"
argument depends on the public misconception that sciences in general
involve collections of proven facts that we understand completely (and
therefore that the open questions in evolutionary biology make that field a
sort of pseudoscience).
What the creationists have discovered is not a fatal flaw in evolutionary
theory. What they have discovered is an intuition pump. "Irreducible
complexity" is a relatively easy to grasp challenge to evolution. Couched in
words suggesting that it is an unsolvable problem, surrounded by accusations
of dogmatism and outright dishonesty, and with dissent suppressed or
ignored, "irreducible complexity" provides creationists with a very
effective advertising slogan, especially in a world in which science itself
is so poorly understood.
There's a kind of irony here. The modern Western world's freedoms put
dogmatic creationists in the position of having to develop these elaborate
marketing strategies and to try to eliminate science education, where in a
world lacking the notion of basic human rights, the creationists would have
simply had the supporters of evolution suppressed by force and violence.
Paul Smith
Alverno College
Milwaukee
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