This reply (on a listserve of high school history teachers) to ID apologists
on the Kansas school decision may be of interest to people on the ASA list
so I forward it to you. One of the arguments I read recently in Chritianity
Today on the subject would lead a person to believe that ID is in the
mainstream of science making significant inroads in countering Darwinism.
Who is right?
Ron Schooler
Los Angeles, California
----- Original Message -----
From: H-High-S (Ferreira, Jr.) <ferreiraj@kingphilip.org>
To: <H-HIGH-S@H-NET.MSU.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, July 06, 2000 4:03 PM
Subject: Re: Kansas Board Decision
> From: "Jim Eighmey" <eighmey@attglobal.net>
>
> In regards to ID theory in High School Science Class:
>
> The primary argument de jour put forward for intelligent design in nature
is
> that of the principle of "irreducible complexity". This argument has at
its
> root a logical and operative fallicy which confuses hueristic dogma with
the
> characteristics of an independant physical reality. In other words, it
is
> an apologetic for an oddly radical objectivism: the fact that we cannot
> grasp the complexity of a system in its entirety or find a means to reduce
> it implies that it is, in fact, inherently irreducable. This is a
> Schroedinger's Box argument, but I don't think most folks would agree that
> just because we can't break open a rock to find a fossil that it is
> irreducible, that no fossil can exist there, and that some deity made it
> that way. As point of fact there are no irreducable systems known to
> Science. There are only systems which are difficult or impossible for us
to
> understand if we break them into their constituents. This is a critical
> point. A critique based upon the fact that we do not have complete
> post-hoc accomodative arguments that will explain how they arose and
operate
> is really a straw man. As most of us with children know, it is often
> impossible to reconstruct with certainty the events leading up to a broken
> flower vase, let alone the self-assemblage of complex molecules 5 billion
> years ago. We do not usually conclude, however, that the broken vase was
an
> act of God.
>
> Anthropologists deal with the problem of intent and intelligent design on
a
> regular basis. If you fall on the scientific side of the discipline it is
> understood, that "intelligent design" is a manifest extension of, not a
> departure from, the normative physical laws. After all, we are ourselves
> complex manifestations of these same processes. We infer a quantitative,
not
> a qualitative, difference in that complexity which we know reflects itself
> in patternings which are themselves more complex than found associated
with
> simpler physical systems. To assert otherwise implies a dualist
metaphysic
> which frankly undermines the extention of causal models accross the
> sciences (i.e. violates the principle of Telic neutrality). Emergent
> properties may at first appear to be irreducable or random, yet even in
> chaotic systems regular patterns often emerge at certain scales. This
simply
> indicates that we cannot begin to grasp the level of complexity involved,
> not that they were designed that way .
>
> Again, it is a facinating subject for Philosophy and History discussions,
> and should by no means be dismissed! However, it is not a concept
> compatable with mainstream biology curricula. No one publishes on ID
theory
> in serious journals. It really has no explantory use in a materialist
> system, which the natural sciences are. You do a great disservice to the
> kids if you portray these trends as mainstream Science.
>
> Jim E.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 06 2000 - 22:24:47 EDT