Don’t worry, I’m still alive! It’s nearing the end of my exam period, with three exams already done and dusted. My last exam – Principles of Genetics – is on Friday, and then I’m free. Stress levels haven’t been too bad, but as you’re probably aware, it’s taken the wind out of my blogging. Oof!1 I’ve also learnt that I’m not a huge fan of medical microbiology, especially when it comes to memorising specific antibiotics. Why would you ever want to kill bacteria? Sure, some of them cause disease – but I’m sure they’re just misunderstood. We need to listen to their side of the story before we go on another specicidal rampage!
Anyway, what I actually need to write about happened yesterday: back in March (on my birthday, actually), I linked to a new pro-ID/anti-evolution blog I’d recently found, called How To Debate Evolution, and the author has responded to my linking with some words on my brief analysis of their blog’s content (edited by me to remove pointless rhetoric):
According to our young friend one short sentence is all that is required to summarize the entire content on my site:
“In other words, ‘Intelligent design can be secular and is hypothetically possible, and therefore the burden of proof is on the evolutionary biologist/ID critic to prove that intelligent design didn’t happen.’”
[...]
But what exactly WAS I saying regarding the burden of proof?
Well, it’s quite simple actually. The burden of proof always rests on the person making a claim. Since this is a website about how to debate evolution I am telling the reader not to go into a debate arguing for Creationism or ID and thus taking the burden of proof on themselves. Rather, they should go in simply asking ‘what is the evidence for Evolution’ and thus leaving the burden of proof on the evolutionist.
So then why all this talk about alien bio-engineered ID?
It’s sort of like this:
Say a person is debating an evolutionist and asks, like I mentioned above, for the evidence for evolution.
And say the evolutionist begins presenting the various lines of evidence.
At some point during this presentation the non-evolutionist will jump in and say, how do you know this happened through evolution and wasn’t just designed that way?
To which the evolutionist will respond with, ‘Designed Eh? Or don’t you mean created since we all know that ID is nothing more than rehashed Creationism?’ Well this is a discussion about science and Creationism is not science so…”
If however the non-evolutionist had prefaced the conversation with the 8 points mentioned on my homepage, this would no longer be a problem and the debate could continue on.
Just to refresh your memory, this was the part of their original post I was taking issue with (bolded for utter clarity):
But whether they admit it or not, they have just acknowledged that intentional/intelligent design is very much possible and not at all a “religious” belief. They have just admitted that living organisms could be the result of something other than evolution. So the question then becomes, how can we know for certain that living organisms are in fact the product of evolution and not the product of this other process, intentional design, which the person has already admitted could also produce similar thing? [sic] The burden of proof is thus placed on the evolutionist.
This wording is highly ambiguous: it seems like the author is suggesting that the evolutionary biologist prove that design was not involved, or that design is the default position if evolution is shown to be discordant with the data.
The author is right, the burden of proof is always on the person making the claim. As such, if two people want to get into a discussion about the evidence for evolution, mentioning design as a rival hypothesis is rather irrelevant, as the inadequacy of one hypothesis does not make another more plausible. So why bring it up at all, ala. the recent post’s “At some point during this presentation the non-evolutionist will jump in and say, how do you know this happened through evolution and wasn’t just designed that way?”? If the discussion is solely about evolution, design shouldn’t be mentioned at all.
Contrary to what many ID proponents and creationists believe, evolutionary biology has not survived to this day as a field of science due to the fact that no credible alternative explanations for the diversity of life on Earth have ever been put forward. It is not our “blind, feeble attempt at making sense of the world of biology”, as someone at the Discovery Institute might likely say. We don’t hold onto it as a vestige of a past age, desperate to appear knowledgable, but at our core accepting of the fact that we know nothing. It is not a vacuous placeholder. We do not fear some greater truth that we dare not accept. It is not a reactionary orthodoxy, put in place to shield the eyes of the many.
Evolution stands on its own. That any number of culturally-competing ideas about the origins of life’s diversity may or may not be religiously based is completely irrelevant to its ability to explain and predict biological facts. I’m not really sure if my anti-evolutionary friend understands this. Not to say that they don’t, just that they haven’t made it entirely clear if they do.
Returning to the text of the original post (the second quote), what should have been said is that the burden of proof is on the evolutionary biology supporter to support evolution, and the burden of proof is on the ID proponent to support ID. People defending evolution should not have to find some way to discredit an alternative hypothesis in order to complete their defence, unless that hypothesis is being actively proposed by someone (and that person won’t sit down and be quiet for a few minutes) – after all, there are infinite potential hypotheses out there for every scientific problem, but they only become meaningful when minds happen to stumble upon them and claim them as their own.
You want to know the proper way to debate evolution? Have a look at the evidence and the constituent hypotheses at the same time. Judge if it has been a useful theory, if it has predicted data, if it explains data, and if there are significant problems with it. Leave discussion about alternative explanations out of it, unless you’re willing to go into sufficient detail about why that alternative explanation is better, with as much depth as you did analysing evolution in the first place.
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- Does a greater onomatopoeia exist than “oof”? Challengers welcome. ↩
Ha! (Greater onommatopoiea hath no man…)
If one says there was an intelligent designer, the burden of proof is on them to prove several things: who it was, how he/she did it, and if they reality were all that intelligent. So far, we’ve yet to see any of these things come to pass. All we get are vague shifting arguments about how we can tell something was designed, and how it couldn’t “possibly have evolved on its own” (argument from ignorance) and apparently, that’s supposed to be enough. I predict we’ll see this happen in the pro-ID comments which will inevitably appear below. :)
He is pulling another fast one as well:
"how can we know for certain that living organisms are in fact the product of evolution and not the product of this other process, intentional design"
There are several "burdens of proof" used in the law: "preponderence of the evidence"; "clear and convincing evidence"; and "beyond a reasonable doubt" are three common ones.
Why should science have the burden to prove "for certain" that it is a better alternative than ID?
It's been said that evolution has been demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt, just not beyond *unreasonable* doubt. It's proof beyond unreasonable doubt that this guy wants science to come up with.
Jack, the simple error/misunderstanding in your reasoning is this:
Let's say that the Chinese of old had a theory that the Moon-dog would come and eat the Sun-god every time there was a solar eclipse. In order to counteract this fact, that they all observed, they would beat a gong to make the Moon dog leave the Sun god alone. Every time they did it, it worked! So they were convinced of its validity.
Take another example. There are alphabetical letters in a book. Every book we know has alphabetical letters in it. Therefore books are made of alphabetical letters. This is true to some extent, but books do not arise from the simple combination of alphabetical letters. Much more is involved than that.
The point is that truth is not determined by a simple correspondence theory of idea and experience. We can be fooled. That is our inherent nature as finite beings. You can call it our absolute fallibility. This has been known to philosophers and sages since antiquity. But they have all come up with the solution to this epistemological problem. That is where the whole idea of scripture or revealed truth comes from. And the ancients knew this, although it is completely forgotten in the modern age by so called skeptics – who are not skeptics in the traditional sense, who actually were skeptical of everything including empirical knowledge.
Science can only give us idealizations, models of reality. There is no one to one correspondence between scientific models or conception and reality. That is why mind, intelligence, consciousness, spirit are totally absent in scientific theories. Consciousness, we can say, is the most important aspect in reality, otherwise what is it we are talking about if it is not what is present in our thoughts or consciousness as scientists?
Neither do they know what consciousness is, or the process by which the objects of consciousness are perceived by the consciousness of which they are the object.s. Nor do they know how the objects of consciousness are produced by the consciousness itself – for how else can they be related if they are intrinsically different?
The naturalistic fallacy that tries to equate consciousness with molecularity and electricity fails to grasp the being-for-itself of conscious experience. Being as such can never comprehend that essential dimension that defines every conscious being. Modern science is positivistic; that means it accepts only being and cannot encompass the negation of being without its annihilation, which is the actual significance of being for self or subjectivity.
Evolutionists are living in a very small and unrealistic world of mental abstractions. Yet you think it is so concrete. This is the power of illusion. In the ancient Sanskrit scripture called the Bhagavad-gita, this powerful material energy of illusion is called Maya. Scientist today know nothing of this knowledge, neither of reality nor of illusion. They are arguing on the basis of complete ignorance. And those who are innocent and have never been taught these things are easily being misled by such persons who have, shall we say, a poor fund of knowledge.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy,." W Shakespeare.
(Why are you censoring my comments?) Will
MMMMMMMM!!!! (onomatopoeia anyone?) Word salad is delicious! And the dressing tastes of tangy Philosophy 101!!! Yummy!
Since you have devastatingly destroyed any cohesive argument for evolution, or for that matter math, science, or any form of knowledge at all, please enlighten us as to your theory of existence.
"Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler." Einstein
Why do we believe that existence/reality has to be encompassed in a theory? That our finite puppy brains are capable of fitting the whole universe to a mere mental concoction? Nature, even if we think of that only, is not ultimately subordinate to us or to our understanding and control. We have a limited range of control and understanding of things, but not unlimitedly or ultimately. Let's put it this way: We are not God.
We (finite conscious beings of all stripes) are in large measure subordinate to Nature. But beyond Nature there is also second nature or Spirit. The historical, personal, social, cultural, artistic, linguistic, religious, philosophical arena of human existence overlays our natural existence. That too we have limited control over. Thus in both ways — naturally and spiritually, we have limited domain.
At the smallest level there is infinity, and at the largest level there is infinity. We occupy a very small range somewhere in between. Whatever we know is countered by what is unknown to us. As Newton himself said, he had only found a few pebbles on the beach, while the great ocean of uninvestigated truth lay before him. This is reality. Get used to it.
How we relate to what is beyond the tiny circumference of the known – that is what determines the true nature of a man. How we relate to that (the negative) – what is absent from our theories – that infinite bulk, is actually the major portion of our existence. It is the real measure of what kind of man or woman you are.
We don't live in a world of scientific rationalism. That is an idealized existence. An abstract idealization that has no representation in reality. In other words, whoever thinks that world is real is a crazy person. It exists as an idealization only, and that's it. We should not then tout court imagine that to be reality.
Reality is ambiguous, subtle, gross and contradictory all at the same time. The ancient Vedic sages described it most essentially in three phases, in the Sanskrit term satcidananda — i.e. consisting of being, cognition of being and fulfillment of being. These are the three phases we all experience: being, awareness or consciousness of being, and fulfillment of being or enjoyment. It is not simply being, and that being is not simply matter. As Descartes said, ergo sum, "I am." The I also is or has being. That being is not the body. It is the identity that we refer to when we say "my body." We don't say "I body." My implies a possessor of something possessed.
You may dismiss all this as mere talk and go back to your world of moronic molecules. But Man is meant to know these things and to contemplate them, to wonder and to discover and ultimately to find that which gives him being without cessation (eternality), perfect knowledge of being (of what he is), and true fulfillment of being (ecstasy). But where is that to be found? You wont find it in molecules or mathematics. And once you realize that, then you are ready to search for the really real.
The problem with modern education is that there is no science of the soul and of how to make progress in that region that makes up the bulk of your existence. The positivist attitude is not applicable in the anti positivist or negative world. It is not that this knowledge does not exist. It does. But it is not found anywhere in the modern educational institutions. Because you are enthralled by that world only, you miss the real opportunity to know the true length and breadth of reality the beautiful, and are forced into the mental straight jacket of molecular mornoism and so-called rationality.
The "Horatio" in Shakespeare's quote mentioned in my previous comment, means 'ho ratio' or the rational. Shakespeare is pointing out that there is much more involved than the rational in life.
When you postulate an alternative to science that works as well and better, Will, you’ll get a Nobel prize. So why aren’t you busy working at it?
hi fp –
If you read again my previous comment, what merely "works" is not knowledge.So to say that science works when you have no idea of what is what, is a utilitarian ideal of truth that may as well be true as false. Generations of Man got along without modern science and even today most people live their lives without knowledge of it, and most find it even a nuisance and destruction in their lives and environs because of the horrible consequences of so-called scientific knowledge.
You know, they don't give the Noble prize for being real. Rather it is automatically expected that everyone should be normal, sane and reasonable. It works quite well and better than any other ideology of which you can think.
Science has its place. Just like lithography has its place in the printing of a book. Or cartography has a place in making maps. They are all, of course, of great use. But we should not be so crazy as to think that the particular knowledge and skills associated with those various endeavors are the final word on reality.
The study of lithography does not explain grammar, how to write a book, literary criticism, etc. The study of cartography requires careful survey skills as well as drawing and art. A map can provide a valuable guide when traversing a given terrain. However, it should not therefore be considered an actual substitute for the real landscape, environment, and inhabitants.
Science too may be useful in providing general, abstract patterns of the regular behavior of physical and chemical substances. But when you become mature in your understanding of science, by practical application of it in real world scenarios, you will know just how much assumptions and approximations play a role in creating such idealized models that serve only as maps to actual reality.
I encourage you to become a good scientist, lithographer, cartographer or whatever it is you want to be, but always remember that you are a real person, and being a person involves much more than any of those specialized subjects or skills can comprehend. Science is very much incomplete and incompetent when it ignores, and cannot even understand the scientist.
There is much more to life than chemistry and physics. You can not say anything about life when you don't
even know what it is. The study of chemicals is not the study of life. It is the study of dead molecules. The philosophy of spirit studies life and comprehends it. But you will never study or understand such subjects because you are more interested in playing games with molecular marbles.
Maybe when you grow up you will understand, but in light of PZ Mired (in ignorance) and DIcky Dorkins, there is a real possibility you may end up as ludicrous a vulgarity of human stupidity as them.
Soooo…. you’ve got nothing. Again.
hi fp –
Abraham Maslow once wrote, "If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail."
In other words, those who lack sufficient knowledge or skills in problem-solving generally stick to one way of finding solutions, or else they see nothing.
Another way to illustrate this point is the following story.
A man was searching for something under a street light in the middle of town.
A friend came up tot him and said, "what are you looking for?"
The man said, "I lost a gold ring while I was walking through the woods on the outskirts of town."
The perplexed friend then asked, "Then why are you looking for it here!"
"It is the only place where there is some light," replied the foolish man.
[Seems this comment got "lost" the first time it was posted. Interesting that I seem to be the only one having any problems. I wonder why that could be?]
Soooo…. all’s you got is stories but no supporting evidence.
Will is boring, because he never talks about biology. You want to deny evolution? Fine, but at least tell us why it's false *in the context of biology*. Will's posts are, without fail, a flurry of semantics, word salad and stories and allegories from undergraduate philosophy tutes. It's amusing arguing this stuff for a while, but eventually one wants to actually talk about, you know, evolution. If you think that the entire accumulated body of science and materialism and methodological naturalism is bankrupt, that's great, but why bother targeting evolution? You might as well rail at the arrogance of spherical-earthers.
"Simply putting quotation marks around something does not make it any more authoritative than it would otherwise be," – Franz Nopcsa von Felső-Szilvás
We are addressing the topic of this blog post. If you can't recall the original topic, then you either have an extremely short memory, or an extreme form of evolutionist conditioning that you can't find anything else of interest except mechanical Darwinist molecularism. Maybe both. I consider this a psychotic condition, and it is no small part attributable to the kind of educational system students are exposed to in schools that have been overtaken by scientistic reductionaism.
The topic under discussion is about where the burden of proof lies for the evolutionist or creationist. Jack tries to claim that the creationists have that burden and not the evolutionists. I have pointed out the numerous difficulties and errors in defending that position. He boldly proclaims he wants to be challenged by the creationists, but when it actually comes he either disappears behind a wall of silence or makes excuses why he can't engage, or transitions to some mindless diversion by which he impishly thinks he can avoid answering any difficult challenges. "If you can't stand the heat then stay out of the kitchen. "
No problem. It is not my expectation that anyone should be a hero, or have anything forced down their throat. You have already had plenty of that kind of abuse already by the cult of evilutionists. But I am here in the midst of all your braggadocio, your boastful and arrogant talk, and directly challenging you and your leaders, without so much as a wimper of any real defense from anyone. Then what does that say about the foundations of your beliefs? That in itself should speak volumes about the fact of your evolution baloney.
First you must be able to recognize the fact that life is not simply a combination of biochemicals acting according to chemical and physical laws. Secondly, that there is a whole hierarchy of factors contributing to what we call life. And thridly that the concept of life is far beyond the abstract idealized molecular models that we try to explain its reality with. Once you understand these basics, then you realize that first you have to know what life is before you can even think about whether it evolves or not, and what that even means.
It is this lacuna in your education that has to be addressed. And these things should be discussed in the classrooms, along with a proper understanding of the position and limiations of science as an essential part of science education, as well as preparing students for how to think about life and reality in the much wider context in which science is positioned.
If you haven't studied the philosophy of Mind or of Spirit then of course, everything beyond molecules seems like empty words (salad) to you, because your intelligence and thoughts are not cultivated to think anything but molecules. This is called conditioning — a polite word for brainwashing. It means your mind has become salad with a few molecular olives to give it some variety. This is a very, very sad commentary on evolutionist cult members' mentality.
If you want to study and discuss evolution, fine. But stay in the samll cell of your limkited field of study. Do not think you can pronounce on whatever schools should teach or not, what religion or the concept of God or creation has to offer people, how science should be taught, and any number of wider problems in the larger society that people have to deal with. You belong in your own social cell, and have the freedom to work there in whatever way you like. But if you think that you can dictate to the wider world what they should think or how they should do things, then you have overstepped your very limited bounds.You have made scinece into an ideology that you think you can use to challenge and dictate to the rest of society who more maturely understand where you are coming from. This is disgusting. It is this mentality that has to be checked, and a proper adjustment made for your own good, for the good of science, for the good of humanity and for the glory of God. If this change doesn't come from within your own ranks, then it has to come from without, and that is certainly what is rightly happening now.
“If this change doesn’t come from within your own ranks, then it has to come from without, and that is certainly what is rightly happening now.” no it’s not, and you’ve fail to prove it, yet again.
fp — prove it!
Well, I was actually referring not only to this blog post, but every blog post you comment on. No matter what the topic of discussion, you reply with the same thing: a flurry of semantics, word salad and stories and allegories from undergraduate philosophy tutes. And how do you respond to this charge? Over 700 words of pomp and bluster seemingly not even directed at me, or even Jack, but to some imagined arch-'evilutionist' that exists only in your mind! Isn't this blog supposed to be about evolution? Why am I being castigated for wanting to discuss that (whether you're for or against it) instead of philosophical irrelevancies?
You are not offering a challenge to the methodological naturalist. You are becoming a predictable sideshow railing against an army of strawmen.
OK, cambrianexplode. Let's just stick to this blog post then. You write,
"You are not offering a challenge to the methodological naturalist."
Where on this page have I NOT offered a challenge to methodological naturalism.? Rather, that is the whole point of everything I have written here. I reassert my original claim about your mental state: "you either have an extremely short memory, or an extreme form of evolutionist conditioning."
"Pointless metaphysics"???
Jack, if you think metaphysics is pointless, then you have missed the point entirely. Of course, this is not unexpected coming from evolutionists. You 'think' you are scientists, and you 'think' you are dealing with facts, but you cannot understand that such thoughts are metaphysical presuppositions, as is the nature of thought.
You have a "callout to creationists' as if you are inviting challenge. Someone accepts your challenge, then you claim they are not open to your ideology. Of course they are not going to accept your ideology, That is what a challenge means. They disagree with you!
Your attitude is, "if someone isn't willing to agree with me, then I wont accept their challenge." Then you are not interested in challenge, you are interested in putting your point of view over on others in the name of challenge without ever putting you own views on the line, and perhaps being convinced by your opponents on the basis of their better arguments.
If you don't want to engage in dialog that is fine, but stop your boastful pretension of "challenging" or "calling out" anyone.who may disagree with you (as long as they don't disagree too strongly). This is what I object to.
You claim, as the basic thesis of your blog, "The only real controversy in the scientific community surrounding ID is whether it is non-science, bad science or pseudo-science." In other words, this presupposes that you have a privileged conception of what science is that supposedly others opposed to evolution do not have. This is not an argument based on scientific evidence, it is a metaphysical argument about what science itself is. It is thus meta-science or metaphysics.
You are the one who is not open to other ideas. You are brainwashed and your whole intention is to brainwash others with the same dogmatic ideology you have been taught. But you do it in a devious way. You present yourself as open to challenge, and as willing to challenge others, but you really have no interest in dialog or real debate. You only want to feed them your own dogmatic beliefs – if they would just be open to them.
If you want to blog about Dogmatic Darwinism there is no one stopping you. But don't pose as if you are challenging anyone. It is simply your own dogmatic monologue. as if there were no other opposing views in the world. Well, good luck with that attitude. It's a great characteristic for anyone who wants to become a dictator, or a militant screwball like anyone of your idols.