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Subject: My point.

Author:
Wade A. Tisthammer

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Date Posted: 11/21/06 8:57pm
In reply to: Ben 's message, "The overall point" on 11/ 4/06 11:34am

>I basically think of it this way: if intelligent
>design were a valid theory in and of itself, there
>should be a large percentage of non-religious people
>who adhere to it.

This doesn't make sense. Why would non-religious people adhere to a theory that has implications contrary to their beliefs when another theory that does not have such implications is widely accepted?

Tenacity in the history of science is fairly well known, and I don't see any reason why we should not expect this principle to exist for the current reigning paradigm in biology. Intelligent design (by which I mean the theory that intelligent causes are necessary to create the type of life we see on Earth) is not seen as merely a mistaken theory but something akin to heresy.

>Surely there would be a few Nobel-prize
>winning evolutionary biologists who would see the
>power of ID and start writing books about it.

Not necessarily. Again recall the principle of tenacity and its role in the scientific community. Why would such a heretic be awarded the Nobel prize? Case in point: Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize not for relativity (even though the theory had been around for quite some time when the award was given) because relativity was too revolutionary for the committee to accept (or so I've read) on top of the great delay to award the Nobel Prize to this undisputed scientific genius. I can hardly expect the committee to award a Nobel Prize to a person upholding a much greater heresy.

Still, there is one Nobel Prize winning scientist who accepts some form of intelligent design: Charles Townes.

Charles Townes won the Nobel Prize for physics and the intelligent design view mentioned is that of the universe (obviously a subject more for physics than biology) using an argument popularly used by other ID proponents. Will this convince you? I doubt it. But it seems an interesting fact nonetheless. Additionally, there are many scientists that pack serious credentials from prestigious universities who accept biological intelligent design, though none of them (as far as I know) are Nobel Prize winners (it should be noted however that there is no Nobel Prize category for biology; the closest category I could find is physiology/medicine).

--Wade A. Tisthammer

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