August 30, 2005
Show me the Science
From The Edge:
UNINTELLIGENT DESIGN: (SCOTT ATRAN:) In recent days President Bush has echoed conservative religious calls to give belief in intelligent design equal time with evolutionary theory in public schools. If heeded, this would debase both religion and science by muddling and weakening their different missions.
SHOW ME THE SCIENCE:
"The proponents of intelligent design use an ingenious ploy that works something like this," writes Tufts philosopher Daniel C. Dennett, and author of Darwin's Dangerous Idea. "First you misuse or misdescribe some scientist's work. Then you get an angry rebuttal. Then, instead of dealing forthrightly with the charges leveled, you cite the rebuttal as evidence that there is a "controversy" to teach." To date, scientists have held back with regard to engaging the proponents of "intelligent design" on the battlefield of scientific discourse, reasoning being that by simply having a discussion, the ID crowd gains a respectable platform for their views.
More here.
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Professor Dennett seems to be saying that it is allright to question science with science, but before the questions begin, we must have a debate on whether the questioning is science or a hoax.
He also compares the teaching of evolutionary biology to teaching quantum mechanics and special relativity in physics: "Fortunately for physicists, there is no powerful motivation for such a band of mischief-makers to form. They don't have to spend much time persuading people that quantum physics and Einsteinian relativity really have been established beyond all reasonable doubt. There are doubters of even these subjects, but the results of these subjects provide almost immediate results which can be checked for consistency with others in our lifetimes. Yet, in spite of this, there are still doubters, or have been doubters, like David Bohm or Einstein himself. The point is that proof, in science, is very difficult to come by, and the longer the time interval involved in "proving something", the more difficult it is.
Another example might be the current quark theory in physics. Do I not have the "right" to question this theory because most of the physics orthodoxy has "accepted" it, notwithstanding that no particles with fractional charge have ever been observed, no quarks have every been observed directly, and no calculation, from first principles, has been performed, to the same precision as one has done, many years ago, with an hydrogen atom from electron and proton, of a proton or neutron from three quarks, from first principles? Am I nothing more than a religious zealot for raising these issues although I do not have a multibillion dollar machine to contradict or conform the handful of results of the physics orthodoxy which have attached themselves to this theory, however elegant it may be? And what about the quarks, what are they made of? Oh, that is a question for another day and another generation. The physics orthodoxy wants immediate gratification and public acclaim in their lifetimes, and must have something "of value" to report to their government research directors for all that money extracted from unwitting taxpayers, which was used to construct all those fancy machines to "prove" their theory in their lifetimes.
Suppose one tries to think of something to prove over a longer period of time, within a lifetime, but not so long as the fossil record over multi millions of lifetimes. For example, suppose you or a loved one got breast cancer. A tumor was obwerved and verified with a biopsy. Suppose you wanted to prove that a particular exposure to medical X-rays say, in a particular medical doctor's office, say 25 years ago, "caused" this breast cancer observed today? Imagine how you might accomplish this? Even if you could find that doctor's office today, assuming it was still there, and assuming the same mammography machine was still there, so you could have it "tested" to see how much radiation was being released into a patients breasts, and even if you could show that the amount of that radiation was say 100 times what current machines may use to obtain the same image, do you think you could make a "convincing" argument to persuade a jury of your case in a court of law? I doubt it.
It is perfectly acceptable for professor Dennett to question lack of science on the other side. He is indignant about their failure to present adequate scientific arguments or to distort them. However, perhaps the "other side" learned their techniques from those in the medical orthodoxy, who have been doing exactly that in misleading a gullible and unwitting public in defending multi billions of dollars wasted in cancer research and in defending the orthodox cancer treatment, which may kill more patients than the cancer itself, but we don't know for sure since autopsies of dead cancer victims are not required and certainsly not required from outstanding, independent laboratories. I urge Dr. Dennett to read the book "The Cancer Industry" by Ralph W. Moss, Ph.D., Equinox Press, N.Y., 1996 and its predecessors, 1989 and 1980, and become just as indignant on this subject, as he is on the lack of acceptance of evolution. Or would Dr. Dennett defend the medical orthodoxy as he has the evolutionary biologists by attacking the opponents with ad hominem attacks, like "Dr Moss has a Ph.D. in classsics" so his views are just "hair-splitting" with about 500 references. This is the same book which describes the "scientist" at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York who painted spots on laboratory animals.
Posted by: Winfield J. Abbe | Aug 30, 2005 7:37:30 AM
Atran's comments on evolution theory are reasonably correct as far as I can tell, but his view of religion is rather flawed.
He states: "In the broadest case, mutual faith in an omniscient and omnipotent agent (the supreme deity of Abrahamic religions) mitigates cheating and the mentality of 'every man for himself.' " On the one hand, there are many societies which have never recognized an Abrahamic-type deity but which operate on moral rules at least as adequate as that of the societies which have such a deity. Morality is not at all the exclusive possession of Abrahamic-deity-believing societies. On the other hand, there are plenty of believers in this "supreme deity" who have rather dubious ideas about morality, George W. Bush and Rev. Robertson being only the latest prominent examples. Though they presumably believe that their god is omniscient and omnipotent, and that they will have an eternal afterlife, they don't seem to be worried in the slightest about what this god has in store for them.
Posted by: JonJ | Aug 30, 2005 1:16:30 PM
There's a funny thing about intelligent design. It tells you only that God is intelligent and not that he is good. Therefore, it is an Unchristian notion. Intelligent design, theologically speaking, is a can of worms. It opens up the possibility that whoever or whatever designed the world was intelligent but not all good. Indeed, there is a great deal of evidence for this theory.
Posted by: J. M. Tyree | Aug 30, 2005 2:48:57 PM
Well, sure. But the ID folks explicitly state that they are not trying to prove that the Christian god exists -- that would be making a religious statement, and their goal is to get their "wedge" into the public school curriculum, where religious statements are legally ruled out. (Of course, now and then they let their mask slip and admit that they are really Christians in disguise.)
Once they've destroyed science as an authority in the culture, they can be openly religious. They call it "restoring science," an Orwellian statement if I ever heard one.
Posted by: jonJ | Aug 30, 2005 11:03:08 PM
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