Author:
Wade A. Tisthammer
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Date Posted: 10/ 3/04 1:32pm
In reply to:
Duane
's message, "I think I've figured it out..." on 09/28/04 8:11am
>I tried to find research journal articles written by
>Michael Behe where he presents
>
>evidence of design, or at least lays some evidentiary
>foundation for his theory.
>
>Guess what, folks? They don't exist. Michael Behe
>has published in peer-reviewed
>
>scientific journals, but only research that has
>nothing to do with ID.
Peer-review has its strengths--but it also has its weaknesses. Introducing a major paradigm-toppling theory into peer review isn't likely to have immediate success due to the tenacity of scientists, even if there's no real good scientific reason to reject it. To get a brief taste of this issue of peer-review and ID theory, I recommend you go to here, where you see a correspondence between Behe and a publisher. Note also that one of the persons whom he corresponded with was "painfully aware of the close-mindedness of the scientific community to non-orthodoxy."
>ONE article about it published in a very obscure
>journal? You'd think that if the
>
>idea has some merit, there'd at least be... oh, I
>don't know... TWO articles?
Research regarding ID theory has been shunned due to the current paradigm, at least in orthodox circles. Even old-school creationism has done a lot of research via ICR. But of course, don't expect any of them to appear in the mainstream. The "upper tier" ID movement is more respectable, but is understandably having a difficult time publishing in mainstream scientific literature. It seems to "outlandish" for many people. Research is still being done, but again not in mainstream circles. ID (in its more legitimate scientific form) is still in its initial phases.
>By the way, I guess I'm going to pre-emptively address
>the response I'll probably
>
>get about what I just wrote.
>
>-------------------------------------------------------
>----------------------
>PRE-EMPTIVE REBUTTAL:
>-------------------------------------------------------
>----------------------
>Which is more likely?
>
>a) The scientists who support Intelligent Design have
>made a landmark,
>
>revolutionary discovery (or discoveries) that clearly
>support the theory that life
>
>was designed by an Intelligent Designer, and the
>scientific community, as a whole,
>
>have banded together in an extremely effective and
>pervasive conspiracy to prevent
>
>ANY word of this amazing discovery from leaking out,
>and hope to forever quash this
>
>looming scientific coup. (note that this also assumes
>that the scientists involved
I don't think it's the result of any conspiracy. On the contrary, ID theorists have tried to publish their ideas. The problem is this little thing called tenacity that has been observed throughout the history of science. ID is pretty radical, and involves the uprooting of a major paradigm. This sort of thing doesn't happen overnight. Many opponents of ID recognize the problems with the non-ID paradigm, but continue to say that they will eventually be solved (a common response when a paradigm faces a difficulty). We may have to wait a few decades to see if this really is the case (and this wait may be quite reasonable). But I don't think the problems will be solved.
Speaking of peer-reviewed journals, confer what Behe said about this issue in his “Publish or Perish” section of his book. Test this for yourself and see if you can find, for instance, published work in peer-reviewed journals regarding, say, a rigorously developed explanation of how blood cascading could have evolved.
>b) The scientists who support Intelligent Design have
>made no new discoveries at
>
>all that support the theory that life was designed by
>an Intelligent Designer.
Or (c), what I said above about tenacity and that we might have to wait a few more decades to see if the current paradigm solves its problems and if the ID prediction I mentioned continues to be confirmed.
>So I decided to get it straight from the horse's
>mouth, and look at Behe's book, Darwin's Black Box to
>see if he, himself, demonstrated some new discovery
>that might have prompted the creation of Intelligent
>Design theory.
>
>Behe is a biochemist, which (I thought) is rather
>fortunate, because I happen to have a degree in
>biochemistry. So I figured I'd be able to accurately
>evaulate his discovery (or discoveries).
>
>But I was dismayed to discover that he hadn't observed
>some new phenomena that supported ID theory. His
>argument consisted completely of a re-interpretation
>of well-known, commonly observed phenomena.
>
>Well, that's OK, I thought. Maybe his interpretation
>is right. I mean, his statement of ID theory
>certainly didn't directly contradict anything we know
>to be true. In fact, he concedes that a lot of things
>that evolutionary theory says ARE true!
>
>So I was at a loss as to why ID theory was created:
>
>It wasn't created because we discovered anything new
>that supports it.
We've got a lot of new stuff that (allegedly) supports it, e.g. the details of certain biochemical systems, the observed currents of nature and its relevance to biological information…
>It wasn't created because it explains any natural
>phenomena better than evolutionary theory.
What about the irreducible complexity of, say, the blood cascade? What about the fact that we have yet to solve the problems of abiogenesis? Or is your response that "we'll solve these problems eventually"?
>All it is is an alternate, possible explanation for
>existing observed phenomena - that we already have a
>perfectly good explanation for!!!
No we don't!!! Even the critics of Behe acknowledge that the systems he describes are extremely complex and currently unexplained [by the current paradigm]. We don't have any good explanations how (e.g. the blood cascade, the origins of life) via non-artificial means. Again, is your response that "we'll solve these problems eventually"?
If so, I suggest you be a part of the process in refuting the prediction of ID (though I suspect you will only continue to confirm it) by actively finding a possible means the systems could have been developed (abiogenesis, biochemical systems etc.). But ignoring the problems and pretending we have a “perfectly good explanation” will not do anybody any good.
>So I was left with only one choice - go to the roots
>of each theory. Look at the assumptions each makes,
>and see if maybe ID theory wuld come out on top in
>this comparison - if it did, then there'd be at least
>ONE reason for it to exist.
>
>But ID theory requires every assumption about nature
>and ultimate origins that evolutionary theory does - I
>mean, it concedes that most of evolutionary theory is
>true!!!
>
>On top of that, it also includes the assumption of a
>designer - something evolutionary theory DOESN'T have
>to assume to explain observable phenomena. So ID
>theory fails here, too, because we, as scientists, all
>things being equal, would choose a theory with less
>assumptions.
Except abiogenesis has assumptions of its own that ID theory doesn't have, not to mention ID having a confirmed prediction and other things....
>So I must assume that since I've eliminated every
>possible scientific reason that Intelligent Design
>theory would have been created for
You missed a few. To see one scientific reason, confer what I said about an alternate answer to the currently accepted paradigm.
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