Evolution is about HOW, not WHO (orig. posted Oct. 24, 2005)

[arendt]

Evolution is about HOW, not WHO
by arendt

As many scientists have pointed out, the Intelligent Design (ID) argument strongly resembles a classic cartoon of a scientist standing in front of a blackboard full of equations and one arrow labelled "and then a miracle occurs". In other words, ID is such a bad way to do science, it is a joke.

The whole point of science is mechanism and reproducibility. If the phenomenon in question can't be reproduced, it can't be studied. That's why parapsychology has such a tough time being accepted as science.

For an theory to be scientific, it must make "falsifiable" predictions; and the experiments or observations that support the theory must be reproducible. In the case of evolution, the time scale is very long. So, most theories will be based on observation. (Although, bacteria evolve fast enough to do experiments.)

Here is an example of observation-based evolutionary science: someone discovers an old skull and makes claims about it, other scientists examining that single skull must be able to reproduce those claims (date it by radio-isotopes, measure its volume, observe the grinding marks on the teeth, etc., fit it into all the other observed facts about skulls).

Notice that for a theory to be valid, scientists don't look to WHO proposed the theory; they look at HOW the theory explains and predicts facts.

If the ID people could supply the MECHANISM that their god has used to actively intervene in the natural process of evolution or of the creation of the universe (big bang), that would be science. Saying that because we can't explain something, god did it - that is not science. By that reasoning, saying in 1800 that 'spontaneous generation' was a mystery would have been ID. Unfortunately for these fictitious Napoleonic-era IDers, 50 years later, Pasteur proposed the germ theory of disease and produced experiments to verify it.

If the ID people had one shred of scientific integrity, they would undertake a scientific research program to uncover the MECHANISM by which their creator caused evolution to happen. But, of course, they have no integrity. They are fighting the classic rearguard action against the truth. Two hundred years ago, they argued for instantaneous creation of all species, which remained fixed for all of history. When fossil EVIDENCE and millions of previously-unknown species made that argument ridiculous, they switched to a guerilla war against science, otherwise known as fundamentalism.

As Sam Harris recounts in "The End of Faith", religious types rush to put forward EVIDENCE in their favor, like the Shroud of Turin. But, when the evidence is against them (like the carbon dating of the Shroud of Turin), out comes the FAITH card. They then claim that they have FAITH that the EVIDENCE will eventually, someday, prove them right. This double standard about evidence is at the bottom of all the posing and posturing about ID being science. Science demands EVIDENCE, not FAITH.

So, the next time some IDer opens his mouth, ask him HOW god caused Intelligent Design to happen over billions of years of time. This ought to blow fuses. Since the "god created all species in the first six days" argument is out of bounds by the very premise of ID, they must talk about how god actively intervened. But the interventions would have to be at minute statistical levels in order not to already have been found. Basically, the IDers are looking for a biological equivalent of the "ether" in which electromagnetic waves were believed to propagate before Einstein.

Wouldn't it be simpler, in the sense of the beloved-by-scientists Occam's Razor, to assume that god arranged the laws of the universe so that these minute statistical interventions occurred naturally (god as the clockmaker of the universe, not the grubby mechanic of billions of species DNA code)? Of course, the IDers reject that theory, because it is Deism (you know, the religion of America's Founding Fathers).

What the average deliberately-miseducated person doesn't understand about science is that it is a million-dimensional jigsaw puzzle. There is very little "wiggle room" to change one single fact without disturbing millions of other observations in hundreds of scientific sub-disciplines. The IDers want the freedom to write "hippopotamus" into the crossword when the clue says "personal vehicle, 3 letters" and the crossed word is "dawn".

And, that is when you need to call them. Attacking the incompleteness of other theories is not a theory. It is not science. They have to be made to put up (a falsifiable theory) and some EVIDENCE to support it, or they have to shut up.

Just remember, HOW, not WHO. EVIDENCE, not FAITH.

[ulysses]

1. only one minor quibble, arendt.

ID proponents are no more interested in actual science than I am in the goings-on of Paris Hilton's dog. They don't have to shut up in the absence of evidence - on the contrary, they tend to become quite a bit louder.

All too well said, though. It's been a while since I told you how much I appreciate your (all too rare) essays. :thumbsup: