intelligent?
Behe's basic problem with evolution in Darwin's Black Box is a biochemical version of the argument from design: many cellular systems are irreducibly complex such that they could not have evolved because to be missing a part would mean that the system would be nonfunctional. Thus he draws the analogy of a moustrap which if it were designed missing a part would not work. Since natural selection (the MO of evolutioN) works only with incremental genetic mutations, he argues that precisely tailored molecules of such stagerring complexity must be designed, hence the need for a designer.
Dembski ressurects one of the most famous arguments from design, the 'specified complexity' of the eye, that the eyes with its sensitivity to light and focusing ability are too complex not to have been designed in cosmic blueprints. But this denies the primacy of reproductive fitness: if a sophistacted structure like the eye is advantageous, its owner has more offspring. But if destroying a sophisticated structure like the eye increases the number of children produced, evolution will just as happily destroy the eye. Species of fish and crustaceans that have moved into the total darkness of caves, where eyes are both unnecessary and costly, often have degenerate eyes, or eyes that begin to form only to be covered by skin-crazy contraptions that no intelligent agent would design. despite the extended analogy to blueprints and machines and engineering, evolution is not striving to fufill a master plan, but just trying to leave more offspring.
Many of the mathmetical theorems used to prove the improbablity of evolution don't factor in complications like co-evolution. Organisms do not spend most of their time adapting to rocks; they are perpetually challenged by, and adapting to, a rapidly changing suite of viruses, parasites, predators, and prey.A theorem that doesn’t apply to these situations is a theorem whose relevance to biology is unclear.
Like all arguements from design this is just an argument that life is too improbable not to have been created by will, be it celestial or extraterrestrial. Improbablity is not impossibility, and as Dawkins points out, 'invoking a supernatural Designer' to 'explain the origin of the DNA/protein machine is to explain precisely nothing about the origin of the Designer.' When you are dealt a hand in bridge of thirteen cards, the probablity of receiving that particular hand is less than one in 600 billion. Still it would be a bizarre person who is dealt a hand in a bridge game, examines it and upon calculating that the probability of getting that hand is less than one in 600 billion concludes that they were not dealt those cards.
Or, another argument against design is the truly poor design mentioned by Bartelt: if we assume that Behe is correct, and that humans can discern design, then I submit that they can also discern poor design (we sue companies for this all the time!). In Darwin's Black Box, Behe refers to design as the "purposeful arrangement of parts." What about when the "parts" aren't purposeful, by any standard engineering criteria? When confronted with the "All-Thumbs Designer" - whoever designed the spine, the birth canal, the prostate gland, the back of the throat, etc, Behe and the ID people retreat into theology.* [I.e., God can do whatever He wants, or We're not competent to judge intelligence by God's standards, or being an intelligent designer does not mean being a good or perfect designer.]
As the years go by in the promotion of intelligent design, it has produced no nontrivial experiments or surprising insights in biology. ID is a pseudoscience because it confuses the empirical with the scientific. Freud's theory of the Oedipal complex is empirical but it is not scientific. Jung's theory of the collective unconscious is empirical but it is not scientific. Scientology's theory of engrams is empirical but not scientific. Poetry can even be more empirical, but not scientific.
Dembski ressurects one of the most famous arguments from design, the 'specified complexity' of the eye, that the eyes with its sensitivity to light and focusing ability are too complex not to have been designed in cosmic blueprints. But this denies the primacy of reproductive fitness: if a sophistacted structure like the eye is advantageous, its owner has more offspring. But if destroying a sophisticated structure like the eye increases the number of children produced, evolution will just as happily destroy the eye. Species of fish and crustaceans that have moved into the total darkness of caves, where eyes are both unnecessary and costly, often have degenerate eyes, or eyes that begin to form only to be covered by skin-crazy contraptions that no intelligent agent would design. despite the extended analogy to blueprints and machines and engineering, evolution is not striving to fufill a master plan, but just trying to leave more offspring.
Many of the mathmetical theorems used to prove the improbablity of evolution don't factor in complications like co-evolution. Organisms do not spend most of their time adapting to rocks; they are perpetually challenged by, and adapting to, a rapidly changing suite of viruses, parasites, predators, and prey.A theorem that doesn’t apply to these situations is a theorem whose relevance to biology is unclear.
Like all arguements from design this is just an argument that life is too improbable not to have been created by will, be it celestial or extraterrestrial. Improbablity is not impossibility, and as Dawkins points out, 'invoking a supernatural Designer' to 'explain the origin of the DNA/protein machine is to explain precisely nothing about the origin of the Designer.' When you are dealt a hand in bridge of thirteen cards, the probablity of receiving that particular hand is less than one in 600 billion. Still it would be a bizarre person who is dealt a hand in a bridge game, examines it and upon calculating that the probability of getting that hand is less than one in 600 billion concludes that they were not dealt those cards.
Or, another argument against design is the truly poor design mentioned by Bartelt: if we assume that Behe is correct, and that humans can discern design, then I submit that they can also discern poor design (we sue companies for this all the time!). In Darwin's Black Box, Behe refers to design as the "purposeful arrangement of parts." What about when the "parts" aren't purposeful, by any standard engineering criteria? When confronted with the "All-Thumbs Designer" - whoever designed the spine, the birth canal, the prostate gland, the back of the throat, etc, Behe and the ID people retreat into theology.* [I.e., God can do whatever He wants, or We're not competent to judge intelligence by God's standards, or being an intelligent designer does not mean being a good or perfect designer.]
As the years go by in the promotion of intelligent design, it has produced no nontrivial experiments or surprising insights in biology. ID is a pseudoscience because it confuses the empirical with the scientific. Freud's theory of the Oedipal complex is empirical but it is not scientific. Jung's theory of the collective unconscious is empirical but it is not scientific. Scientology's theory of engrams is empirical but not scientific. Poetry can even be more empirical, but not scientific.