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Intelligent Design Theory and the Poverty of Anti-Scientific Thought

Intelligent Design Theory and the Poverty of Anti-Scientific Thought. George Kampis Wayne G. Basler Chair ETSU, Spring Semester 2007. Wayne G. Basler. Basler lectures 2007 Spring. This lecture. A medley/variant of several earlier works and talks

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Intelligent Design Theory and the Poverty of Anti-Scientific Thought

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  1. Intelligent Design Theory and the Poverty of Anti-Scientific Thought George Kampis Wayne G. Basler Chair ETSU, Spring Semester 2007 Intelligent Design and Poverty of Thought, ETSU Basler Lectrure I

  2. Wayne G. Basler Intelligent Design and Poverty of Thought, ETSU Basler Lectrure I

  3. Intelligent Design and Poverty of Thought, ETSU Basler Lectrure I

  4. Intelligent Design and Poverty of Thought, ETSU Basler Lectrure I

  5. Basler lectures 2007 Spring Intelligent Design and Poverty of Thought, ETSU Basler Lectrure I

  6. This lecture • A medley/variant of several earlier works and talks • Kampis, G and Mund, K (eds.): Evolution and Religion in Hungary, Typotex, 2006. • Metanexus LSI „3Cultures” Group (a Templeton Grant) • ID debates in Hungary • Lecture on Hungarian national TV channels • 2006. May 9., Tuesday, Duna TV,  22:15 2006. May 13., Saturday, Duna TV, 10:402006. May 14., Sunday, m1, 10:002006. May 14., Sunday, m2, 01:30 • Lecture downloadable from the Net: http://www.mindentudas.hu/kampisgyorgy/20060510kampis1.html http://www.mindentudas.hu/kampisgyorgy/20060510kampis2.html Intelligent Design and Poverty of Thought, ETSU Basler Lectrure I

  7. Summary • ID and evolution theory are not alternatives • ID not scientific • Evolution not theory Intelligent Design and Poverty of Thought, ETSU Basler Lectrure I

  8. Charles Darwin Intelligent Design and Poverty of Thought, ETSU Basler Lectrure I

  9. The ID controversy Intelligent Design and Poverty of Thought, ETSU Basler Lectrure I

  10. Con books Intelligent Design and Poverty of Thought, ETSU Basler Lectrure I

  11. Intelligent design • Evolving  but essentially… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design • Irreducible complexity • Specified complexity • Intelligent designer • An intellectual debate? Insider’s business ? • Quote Johnson, and we can go home, "This isn't really, and never has been a debate about science. It's about religion and philosophy." -- Phillip E. Johnson, World Magazine, November 30, 1996 Intelligent Design and Poverty of Thought, ETSU Basler Lectrure I

  12. ID and creationism • Varieties of creationism: • 6-day (young Earth), flat Earth (?) • Invisible hand creation/continuous special creation • Fine tuned/open universe creationism • Panspermia creationism • …… • ID • ID has a clear identity, pretends to be science, an alternative „from within” Intelligent Design and Poverty of Thought, ETSU Basler Lectrure I

  13. What is really at stake • Future of education and the credibility of „regular” science • Dover (Penn) 2005 • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District •  Judge's 139-page opinion: • http://www.aclupa.org/downloads/Dec20opinion.pdf • Kansas 2005 Intelligent Design and Poverty of Thought, ETSU Basler Lectrure I

  14. Science in defense I. • Evolution „just a theory” • Does not explain X • Hence alternatives are legitimate Intelligent Design and Poverty of Thought, ETSU Basler Lectrure I

  15. Science in defense II. • Steve Fuller testimony: http://www.aclupa.org/downloads/Day15AMSession.pdf http://www.aclupa.org/downloads/Day15PMSession.pdf • Steve Fuller: http://www.warwick.ac.uk/~sysdt/Index.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Fuller_%28social_epistemologist%29 • „Tory history”: science is essentially a social phenomenon. Anything that people do is OK, so let’s proliferate ideas rather than suppressing them. • Science as we know it is nothing but one system of thought Intelligent Design and Poverty of Thought, ETSU Basler Lectrure I

  16. Where to go from here? • Darwin on trial, science in defense – inadequate situation • Dover trial: ID’s origin and sociology, not method or content • The Royal Society: Intelligent Design and Poverty of Thought, ETSU Basler Lectrure I

  17. Offensive without offending Intelligent Design and Poverty of Thought, ETSU Basler Lectrure I

  18. Faith based and evidence based • Duplex veritas • Lord of the Gaps, busy God for human needs Intelligent Design and Poverty of Thought, ETSU Basler Lectrure I

  19. Philosophy of science I. R. Carnap (Vienna Circle) W.v.O. Quine D.C. Dennett Intelligent Design and Poverty of Thought, ETSU Basler Lectrure I

  20. Philosophy of science II. • Theory and explanation • Empirical language – theoretical language Facts theories (ie. verified true knowledge) • 2 crisises: protocol sentence debate, verificationism debate (e.g.induction). • 2 conclusions: facts yes, foundations no; verification no („just a theory”), explanation yes Intelligent Design and Poverty of Thought, ETSU Basler Lectrure I

  21. Philosophy of science II. • Theory and explanation • Empirical language – theoretical language Facts theories (ie. verified true knowledge) • 2 crisises: protocol sentence debate, verificationism debate (e.g.induction). • 2 conclusions: facts yes, foundations no; verification no („just a theory”), explanation yes Intelligent Design and Poverty of Thought, ETSU Basler Lectrure I

  22. Facts and explanations • Fact: cant’ pump up 30 ft water from above • Explanation: Pascal’s Law • Fact: evolution (species origin by descent w/ modification) • Explanation: evol. theory • Facts: empirical and theoretical (cf. how voltage meter works) • Explanations in science: • phenomena by phenomena (!) • express our best knowledge (e.g. compatible with same/other facts) • open to criticism and revision Intelligent Design and Poverty of Thought, ETSU Basler Lectrure I

  23. Research programs • I. Lakatos (Budapest and LSE, London) • Expands a body of knowledge, gives rise to new generalizations and insights Imre Lakatos Intelligent Design and Poverty of Thought, ETSU Basler Lectrure I

  24. „Darwinism” is actually 2 things • Knowing that evolution happened and knowing how it happened (unfortunately, both go back to Darwin in Origin) • „Knowing that” and „knowing how” (G. Ryle) • I. A phenomenon grounded in facts • II. An explanation that constitutes a successful research program (cf. Darwinian medicine, or Dobzansky’s dictum) • cf. gravity (I. Aristotle II. Newton, and…) G. Ryle Intelligent Design and Poverty of Thought, ETSU Basler Lectrure I

  25. Evolution as theory • Explanation of life’s forms, function, structure and diversity • Genetics, population genetics, population dyamics, embriology and development („evo-devo”), physiology, ecology, and… and… • Vulnerable, undergoes continual revision, incomplete • Problems: origin of complexity, open-ended evolution, directionality, internal constraints, adaptationism/exaptation, great transitions, statis vs saltation, micro-and macroevolution, neutrality, etc etc. Intelligent Design and Poverty of Thought, ETSU Basler Lectrure I

  26. Evolution as a fact • Independent of any „evolution theory”, based on natural selection on not • Separate, solid and immutable • Expresses the unity of life via common descent Intelligent Design and Poverty of Thought, ETSU Basler Lectrure I

  27. Evolution as a fact • Independent of any „evolution theory”, such as natural selection • paleontology: fossil record I don’ cover this here. Intelligent Design and Poverty of Thought, ETSU Basler Lectrure I

  28. Evolution as a fact • Independent of „evolution theory”, such as natural selection • paleontology: fossil record • unused organs and other errors (Darwin, Dennett, „plagiarism”) The „Easter egg” problem Intelligent Design and Poverty of Thought, ETSU Basler Lectrure I

  29. Evolution as a fact • Independent of „evolution theory”, such as natural selection • paleontology: fossil record • unused organs and other errors (Darwin, Dennett, „plagiarism”) • biogeography (Darwin, Humboldt, MacArthur, J. Diamond…) Intelligent Design and Poverty of Thought, ETSU Basler Lectrure I

  30. Spatiotemporal patterns of variation prove migration with modification -> unity of all life Intelligent Design and Poverty of Thought, ETSU Basler Lectrure I

  31. Discovery: Species are not discrete/disjunct • The fundamental unity is the variant individual • Variations can be (often are) continuous between species (and higher taxa) • Spatial diversity is a memory of populational modification in the composition of individual variants Intelligent Design and Poverty of Thought, ETSU Basler Lectrure I

  32. The alternative to descent with modification is…. Intelligent Design and Poverty of Thought, ETSU Basler Lectrure I

  33. The alternative to descent with modification is…. • A Santa Claus theory! • (The Santa Claus problem: „How can the Santa put all the boxes to the right place at the right door, every door?”) Intelligent Design and Poverty of Thought, ETSU Basler Lectrure I

  34. The alternative is…. • A Santa Claus theory! • (The Santa Claus problem: „How can the Santa put all the boxes to the right place at the right door, every door?”) • Can we believe in the Santa if it’s about putting organisms and variants to their place? Of course we don’t believe in Santa. Intelligent Design and Poverty of Thought, ETSU Basler Lectrure I

  35. The alternative is…. • Darwin chap 11We are thus brought to the question which has been largely discussed by naturalists, namely, whether species have been created at one or more points of the earth's surface. Undoubtedly there are many cases of extreme difficulty in understanding how the same species could possibly have migrated from some one point to several distant and isolated points, where now found. Nevertheless the simplicity of the view that each species was first produced within a single region captivates the mind. He who rejects it, rejects the vera causa of ordinary generation with subsequent migration, and calls on the agency of a miracle. (p. 352) • Darwin chap 14When we can feel assured that all the individuals of the same species, and all the closely allied species of most genera, have within a not very remote period descended from one parent and have migrated from some one birthplace, and when we better know the many means of migration, then, by the light which geology now throws, and will continue to throw, on former changes of climate and of the level of the land, we shall surely be enabled to trace in an admirable manner the former migrations of the inhabitants of the whole world. (pp. 486-7) • Essential idea: If (1) the "means of migration" are known, then (2) geographical and geological evidence (distribution, climate, land level, etc.) can be read to show "the former migrations" which show that (3) each species had a single center of origin, usually a distantly related species. Intelligent Design and Poverty of Thought, ETSU Basler Lectrure I

  36. „There is grandeur in this view of life” • There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved. Darwin, 6th ed (1872), chap.15, last paragraph. Intelligent Design and Poverty of Thought, ETSU Basler Lectrure I

  37. Conclusions so far (and practical advice) • Bringing it all together • ID not scientific (ie. not explanation): not our best knowledge, not research program (no progress), not by phenomena • Evolution not a „theory” (but there is evolution theory) • Practical advice (to follow up…) • ID not a partner (obstruction), don’t go into (too much ) details. • Mistake: ID can be ignored. Would be dishonest, and dangerous. • Mistake: ID is for the uneducated Intelligent Design and Poverty of Thought, ETSU Basler Lectrure I

  38. Common misbeliefs about evolution • Life on Earth is about humans… Wrong. • Whig history • It takes a miracle to… and hence impossible to… Wrong • Miracles are not • Isolated examples can refute a theory… Wrong • „Inference to the best explanation” • Origin cannot be an accident… Wrong • Homeobox genes and „macromutations” • Everbody has a right to (a different) opinion… Wrong • Science (as a body of knowledge) is not democratic, the scientific process is • Science takes away meaning and morality… Wrong • Takes away external support. Are you afraid of yourselves? Intelligent Design and Poverty of Thought, ETSU Basler Lectrure I

  39. Miracles happen all of the time F.J. Dyson J. Littlewood Intelligent Design and Poverty of Thought, ETSU Basler Lectrure I

  40. A small step for the organism.. … but a giant leap for the species. Intelligent Design and Poverty of Thought, ETSU Basler Lectrure I

  41. To sum up--- • I. Facts II. Explanations • Evolution is strong on I. • Evolution theory is doing well on II. Intelligent Design and Poverty of Thought, ETSU Basler Lectrure I

  42. Thank you! Intelligent Design and Poverty of Thought, ETSU Basler Lectrure I

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