Intelligent Design Creationism is struggling to maintain scientific credibility. The movement claims to be scientific, not religious, and it's strongest defense is that it offers credible scientific explanations of biological phenomena.Most of us don't see it that way. All we see is a bunch of people who attack science in general and evolution in particular. They publish lots and lots of stuff that raises questions about standard scientific explanations—some of the criticisms are valid but most are nothing more than wishful thinking. What we never, ever, see is a true explanation of how intelligent design creationism actually works.
This video was published on the Evolution News & Views (sic) blog [Stephen Meyer on Intelligent Design: What is the origin of the digital information found in DNA?]. Watch it to see if Meyer1 explains the origin of information according to the Intelligent Design Creationism Model. Wait right 'till the end to make sure you don't miss the explanation of how an intelligent creator put information into DNA. Learn who the creators(s) is/are and why they did it. Find out when she did it. Wait to see how this accounts for life as we know it today.
Folks, this is the best they have to offer. It's why we call them IDiots. There's nothing there but obtuse rhetoric about the origin of life and information. They have nothing to offer but criticism of evolution.
1. Stephen Meyer is one of the founders of the Discovery Institute in Seattle. He has a Ph.D. in the History and Philosophy of Science from Cambridge University (UK).
22 comments :
Digital.
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
The key error is that the information always comes from the intelligent source. That's not true, although, of course, it depends on the definition of "information"
What an astonishingly ignorant and yes, stupid, man!
Truti
I honestly think he is a liar. His book shows that he is obviously very knowledgeable about biology, and very familiar with evolutionary theory. And yet...this bullshit.
At least they got the handedness of the helix correct; one of my pet peeves. ;)
The rest, of course, is just nonsense.
"maintain" credibility? That would assume they had any in the first place.
They have nothing to offer but criticism of evolution.
That is so untrue!
They also offer (poor) criticism of abiogenesis.
Glen Davidson
Intelligent Design Creationism is struggling to maintain scientific credibility.
Not really, most proponents of ID are seeking the truth while in my experience most biologists are mainly seeking to maintain their professional identity, scientific credibility, grants and so on.
The movement claims to be scientific, not religious...
That distinction probably has more to do with the fact that modern biologists used to be amateur natural theologians than anything else.
Most of us don't see it that way.
Most biologists were eugenicists a short time ago, so perhaps the "community" is wrong again.
What we never, ever, see is a true explanation of how intelligent design creationism actually works.
It's biologists themselves who have claimed to know how creationism works, probably because they used to be creationists. Darwin claimed to know how it works and the tradition continues in "panda's thumb" arguments to this day. So apparently there is a way it works and a way it does not.
Watch it to see if Meyer1 explains the origin of information according to the Intelligent Design Creationism Model.
He explains it by what we know by experience as sentient beings. On the other hand, if one agrees with you then the illusion of language that emerges from your brain events here generally reduces to blind and ignorant processes like natural selection operating on the reproductive organs of ancient ape-like creatures. Once we realize that this illusion is based on another and so on, why keep discussing it?
Wait right 'till the end to make sure you don't miss the explanation of how an intelligent creator put information into DNA.
How did you put information into those words? Blind and ignorant mechanisms and processes?
A "true explanation" according to biologists would be one based on blind and ignorant mechanisms so it would seem that you want to see something that you will never see unless you're willing to step outside of your community.
Wait to see how this accounts for life as we know it today.
If knowledge/scientia can be reduced to blind and ignorant processes as biologists claim then our knowledge of life "as we know it" is generally an illusion brought about by ignorance. Apparently it takes a lot of training in order for someone to believe that they can make arguments about knowledge based on brains created by ignorance.
It's why we call them IDiots.
Not at all, biologists generally call them idiots for political reasons in order to safeguard your community from the Other and to protect your professional identity. That is all. Their level of intelligence is often higher than average.
Wow, I think mynym deserves a "Most words strung together without meaning anything" award.
Wait, who am I kidding, all IDers deserve one of those.
Not even wrong.
ID will eventually become the new paradigm by which to study biological origins. In fact, it already is, subconsciously. Every time some scientist marvels at how "clever" Nature is, they are really marveling at self-evident design.
This will happen as younger idealistic minds, who are primarily interested in getting at the truth and aren't obligated to spout the same old Darwinist dogma, enter the field.
Darwin's origin of species was a fascinating idea at first, but one that has ultimately served only as a religious crutch for those biologists inclined to make theological assertions. Time to let go and admit it cannot account for either the origin of mind or matter, rather than keep being an apologist for it and defending it with the religious fervor of one whose god has been blasphemed.
Those "younger idealistic minds", once they get to graduate school and have to really learn the subject in order to teach it, will open to accept the facts of the natural world, and will find that evolution provides the only explanation for the diversity of life on the planet. The combination of excellent adaptation, adequate adaption, constrained adaptation, and maladaptation that we see in nature is well explained by natural selection and drift, but not well explained by an intelligent designer.
Anonymous (of course) says,
This will happen as younger idealistic minds, who are primarily interested in getting at the truth and aren't obligated to spout the same old Darwinist dogma, enter the field.
Some of us with older idealistic minds rejected the "old Darwinist dogma" four decades ago.
Modern evolutionary theory is very different from that proposed by Charles Darwin 150 years ago. Biology has moved on. Why don't you? Why are all IDiots fixated on old ideas from the past?
...And in 150 years from now it will be vastly different (provided the Darwinist brain has not been selected for extinction by then).
In 150 years theories of "evolution" will more resemble the thoughts (or should I say randomly-evolved neuro-chemical brain events) of guys like Meyer.
So, let's let your god Nature work it out by wielding her almighty Power of Natural Selection, and see which meaningless, ignorantly-constructed concoction of brain molecules survives.
latentbird said...
The key error is that the information always comes from the intelligent source. That's not true, although, of course, it depends on the definition of "information"
Information (at least information we can effectively use) is always subjective. It simply cannot effectively exist until there is a meeting of the minds of both giver and receiver. Without this meeting of the minds, complex information appears as noise.
For those who deny they have a mind, and assert that their brains are derived from primordial noise, and "intelligence" is an illusion that reduces to blind and ignorant processes, it is no wonder that they can't grasp this reality.
I love how these ID-advocates march over here in there hero-worshipping defense of Meyer the disinformation peddlar.
it is really all they have - hero worship and hero protection - because most of them seem unable to formulate a cogent thought on their own. ID advocates are the Tea Party nutballs of the intellectual world.
Modern evolutionary theory is very different from that proposed by Charles Darwin 150 years ago.
And yet it has been said:
Darwin…continues to bestride our world like a colossus-so much so that I can only begin this book on the structure of evolutionary theory by laying out Darwin’s detailed vision as a modern starting point, a current orthodoxy only lightly modified by more than a century of work.
(The Structure of Evolutionary Theory by Stephen Jay Gould :96)
Biology has moved on. Why don't you? Why are all IDiots fixated on old ideas from the past?
Why do most biologists seem to be trained to imagine that their "hypotheses," i.e. mythologies of progress are actually true? Apparently they have lower intelligence than average and therefore never wonder why everything seems to blend together so perfectly, just so.
I love how these ID-advocates march over here in there hero-worshipping defense of Meyer the disinformation peddlar.
Ironically no one has mentioned Meyer as instead we generally tend to focus on principles and ideas. Yet you make the point of my original comment, biologists are generally only interested in safeguarding their professional identities, proving that they are the real scientists and so on. In my experience they spend the majority of their time on such topics and that is where you are leading as well.
Very well, let's say that Meyers is not a Real Scientist© but you are. And? Do you have anything to say about what he said about origins? On a side note, were the eugenicists Real Scientists©? For that matter, are biologists in general Real Scientists©? In my experience biologists have been imbeciles, so I'm led to wonder.
Wow, mynym, so seldom have I encountered someone with their wires so thoroughly crossed. You've really swallowed the whole conspiracy angle hook, line and sinker.
The thing is, Intelligent Design 'Theory' as practiced by the Discovery Institute members is a bankrupt endeavour even giving them the benefit of the doubt, and by that I mean not worrying about whether they are "true scientists" or acting from the Wedge document or what have you.
I am talking about the CSI definition that can be nailed down only "intuitively", the NFL theorem which does not apply to evolutionary theory, the three big "mousetraps" of Behe that were actually reducible, the strange wrangling over the purpose and meaning of Dawkins' "weasel" program and even the very, very large question of whether common descent is a yes or a no.
Where exactly do you expect them to go from here?
Conversely, perhaps, why would you suppose that Big Academic Suppression is stopping renegade scientists from doing proper research with funding from - oh, I don't know - some kind of Institute?
What do you think the Discovery Institute is missing that mainstream academia has that is preventing at least a modicum of research?
How conspiratorial can you get? Would you go as far as accusing scientists of doctoring genomic databases?
Maybe biology post-docs are under-reporting their salaries by 90% and they are not allowed out of their posts without surgical removal of the ability to read journals and the guarded secret of the null hypothesis and P-values?
Help me out here.
Apparently mynym's intelligent designer is 'a transcendent God incarnating in immanent Nature', unless he's changed is mind since posting on this comments thread:
http://www.intelldesign.com/2009/01/04/who-is-qualified-to-criticize-evolution/
hypothetical goo, indeed
- Steven Sullivan
'Intelligent Design Creationism is struggling to maintain scientific credibility'.
English 101
ID can't 'maintain' scientific credibility because it never had any.
Perhaps you mean 'establish' credibility amongst those who never had basic schooling and those who have but realize that they can become rich by pretending ignorance.
I've never actually seen Meyer talk; he presents very well.
Then he says that "all information comes from an intelligent source" and I realize that he's either lying or genuinely stupid. Apparently he's never heard of sensors.
He says that program code comes from programmers. Yes. That's true. I'm a programmer myself. And I, too, have fooled around with machine learning. Anybody who's done that already grasps the basics of evolution: things that can be copied with small perturbation, then compared for quality against a metric, can solve problems in ways the programmer never envisaged. I've written that kind of code myself, and watched it work. Other people have, too.
And that's all there is to evolution. Any fifteen-year-old can understand it easily: carry out your copy-with-perturbation step every couple of minutes, on ten trillion processors, for three billion years: voila. The world.
Meyer does speak well, though. He just sounds so reasonable. It's no wonder people not in the habit of thinking believe him.
Without commenting on the content of the video as I haven't had the opportunity to watch it yet, I do want to make the observation that these comments are remarkably unscientific and reside in the realm of totally emotional rubbish. You haven''t by one iota convinced me of the value of evolutionary theory, i.e. wishful thinking for the dictatorship of atheistic science. Good luck.
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