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Intelligent Design, Modern Science

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... about the complexity of the reproductive system used by the penguins ... system of the Emperor Penguin IC? ... beak sizes in Galapagos. The Case for Darwinism ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Intelligent Design, Modern Science


1
Intelligent Design, Modern Science Your
Grandchildrens Future
  • Will the Bible be relevant in 2050?
  • Will Darwinism be relevant in 2050?

2
Session 4 Topics
  • Introducing the TNPC ID Blog
  • Comments from the video Unlocking the Mystery of
    Life
  • Homework Assignment March of the Penguins
  • Pro or Con ID?
  • The Dover Decision
  • The implications
  • The Case FOR Darwinism
  • The definition of science
  • A critique by Phillip Johnson

3
The TNPC ID Blog
  • To make a comment or ask a question, send email
    to john.dishman_at_comcast.net
  • To view blog comments go to www.tnpc.org/idblog
    or other URL to be announced

4
Comment from last weeks class
  • Wow ... being an "Information Architect" myself,
    I was completely blown away by the 2nd half of
    the "Unlocking the Mystery of Life" video. I was
    honestly speechless at the end when Doug asked
    for comments. The concept that "information"
    should be regarded as evidence on the same level
    as matter and energy is at the same time obvious
    and yet completely new. It's amazing how Crick
    and the others use an assumption that all
    evidence has to support an evolution rather than
    a design. I caught just a bit of Sproul's radio
    show last week on Romans 1 discussing the
    "psychology of atheism" that I think would be
    worth reading/listening to as well. Sorry for
    the rambling, but I just wanted to let you know
    how many synapses this content is firing in my
    designed brain! Mark Kramer

5
Matter
  • A cube of marble

6
Energy
  • A cube of marble in motion
  • When it hits something damage occurs due to its
    energy of motion

7
Information
  • Assertion a cube of marble contains a bust of
    Beethoven
  • True or False?

8
Information
  • True all you have to do is remove a bit of marble

9
Information
  • But that takes a sculptor an intelligent agent
    who chooses what marble to remove!
  • The sculptor creates information

10
Biological Information
  • The DNA molecule in every cell is the most
    efficient information storage element known
  • Think of it the complete program that took you
    from a single fertilized egg to the you, you are
    now was encoded in DNA

11
Biological Information
  • The fundamental challenge for a biological theory
    is to explain how this information got there
    chance, necessity, or design
  • We will focus on this issue in a later class

12
March of the Penguins
  • Does this movie support Darwinism or Intelligent
    Design?

13
March of the PenguinsDarwin Approach
  • Create a just so story showing how innumerable
    small evolutionary steps led to one kind of bird
    evolving into another (the penguin) along with
    the complex process it uses in reproduction

14
March of the PenguinsID Approach
  • Make observations about the complexity of the
    reproductive system used by the penguins
  • Males/Females march 70 miles to a special area
    (always the same)
  • Male/Female pair bonds for a season
  • Egg is laid by female
  • Egg transferred from female to male who keeps it
    warm in dead of winter
  • Female marches 70 miles back to shore feeds
    while males cluster in pack for warmth

15
March of the PenguinsID Approach
  • Egg hatches in custody of male
  • Female returns to feed baby chick
  • Female is able to pick out her husband in big
    crowd by auditory signs
  • Male/baby signal each other prior to father
    leaving to feed
  • Male makes 140 mile round trip
  • Females leave maturing chicks alone for another
    feeding
  • Males able to identify its baby by sound on their
    return

16
March of the Penguins IC
  • A system is IC if removing any single component
    causes the system to no longer function
  • Is the reproduction system of the Emperor Penguin
    IC?

17
The Dover Township, PA Decision (aka Kitzmiller
vs Dover)
Dover a small township south of Harrisburg
18
The Setting
  • Dover School Board (old) mandated a statement be
    read each semester to biology classes that said
    in part Intelligent Design is an explanation of
    the origin of life that differs from Darwins
    viewWith respect to any theory, students are
    encouraged to keep an open mind.

19
The Case
  • A group of parents (with assistance from ACLU
    others) sued to remove this statement
  • Leading ID and anti-ID spokespersons testified at
    trial
  • ID leadership felt that the Dover school board
    made a strategic error in forcing this issue in
    this way
  • In the meantime the old school board was voted
    out of office and replaced with new members
    against the old members ID approach

20
The Verdict
  • Judge John Jones III found that the Dover school
    board members in their public statements clearly
    had in mind the Christian God as the Designer,
    and so their actions violated the so-called
    establishment clause of the US Constitution (no
    establishment of religion by the government)

21
The Verdict Plus
  • The judge could have left it there, but rather
    chose to write a 139 page opinion that was
    scathingly against ID
  • In his ruling, Jones said that while ID arguments
    may be true, a proposition on which the court
    takes no position, ID is not science. Among
    other things, he said intelligent design
    violates the centuries-old ground rules of
    science by invoking and permitting supernatural
    causation it relies on flawed and illogical
    arguments and its attacks on evolution have
    been refuted by the scientific community.
    (msnbc.com)

22
The Judges Points
  • ID not science because it invokes permits
    supernatural causation
  • The argument of irreducible complexity, central
    to ID, employs the same flawed and illogical
    contrived dualism that doomed creation science in
    the 1980's
  • Its attacks on evolution have been refuted by the
    scientific community

23
ID is Not Science
  • Is there a logical contradiction in the judges
    point?
  • ID may be TRUE
  • But, ID is not SCIENCE
  • Therefore,
  • SCIENCE is not equal to TRUTH
  • In other words, scienceby this definitioncan
    miss the truth
  • This definition of science is often called
    methodological naturalism

24
Irreducible Complexity Has Been Refuted
  • Testimony involved two expert witnesses Michael
    Behe (inventor of the term IC) vs. Kenneth Miller
    (representing The Establishment)
  • The judge bought into Millers argument that IC
    has been disproved in peer reviewed literature

25
From the Opinion (p 76)
First, with regard to the bacterial flagellum,
Dr. Miller pointed to peer reviewed studies that
identified a possible precursor to the bacterial
flagellum, a subsystem that was fully functional,
namely the Type-III Secretory System.
26
The Bacterial Flagellum (BF)
  • Classic dispute among experts requiring
    biochemical training to fully understand/appreciat
    e
  • Miller The type III secretory system could be
    precursor to the BF
  • Behe Could be is not the same thing as was
  • Nowhere does the scientific literature describe
    in detail how successive small steps required by
    Darwin lead to a structure such as the BF

27
ID has been refuted by the scientific community
  • Hinges on peer reviewed literature
  • At Bell Labs, when I published a scientific
    paper, the editor first sent the draft out to
    peers who worked in the field to determine
    credibility make suggestions on improvements
  • Judge Jones claimed that no ID paper had been
    published in peer reviewed journals
  • He was wrong about this
  • BUT when the Establishment controls the
    peer-reviewed journals, a theory proposing a
    paradigm shift will likely not be received kindly

28
To preserve the separation of church and state
mandated by the Establishment Clause of the First
Amendment to the United States Constitution, and
Art. I, 3 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, we
will enter an order permanently enjoining
Defendants from maintaining the ID Policy in any
school within the Dover Area School District,
from requiring teachers to denigrate or disparage
the scientific theory of evolution, and from
requiring teachers to refer to a religious,
alternative theory known as ID.
The Parting Shot
29
Reactions to the Ruling
  • John West, Discovery Institute
  • Jones is an activist judge
  • Time and again, Judge Jones makes assertions in
    his opinion that are unambiguously factually
    wrong--even though the correct information was a
    part of the official record before him.
  • Charles Colson, Breakpoint
  • Bad cases make bad law
  • No way judge would find other than he did

30
Reactions to Ruling-2
  • Adam Wolfson, Weekly Standard
  • The popularizers of Darwinism are as religiously
    motivated (atheists) as ID proponents
    (Christians)
  • Only Darwinist orthodoxy is allowed to be
    taught in public schools
  • Leon Kass, Fmr Head, Presidents Bioethics
    Council
  • ID right to raise issue of causality, a question
    that should be at the center of a true science of
    nature.
  • However, unwarranted for ID to claim that the
    only possible answer is a Designer-God. Evidence
    does not warrant this assertion.

31
Was this the Alamo for ID?
  • How can I be an optimist, you ask, in the face
    of yesterdays decision? Because I know that if
    we equip ourselves and do our job, truth will
    out. We should not despair. Our case is
    compelling if we frame it carefully, ask the
    right questions, and expose the claims of
    Darwinists. Colson

32
The Case for Darwinism
  • What is it about Darwinism that makes some
    scientists so sure that it is correct?
  • First, observe that even the ID community agrees
    with the fact of evolution at least as it
    occurs within a single species
  • Resistance to antibiotics
  • Cycling of bird beak sizes in Galapagos

33
The Case for Darwinism-2
  • However, ID supporters say that extrapolation
    from evolution within a species to
    macro-evolution from single celled entity to
    man, is not warranted
  • Why do Darwinist feel that macro-evolution is
    true?

34
Fundamental ConceptNatural Selection
  • In a population of living things, there will be a
    variation of characteristics
  • Some of these will improve reproductive success
  • These characteristics are naturally selected,
    i.e., are favored because they enhance the
    further production of offspring
  • Dog breeders use this process to produce new
    varieties of dogs in this case it is artificial
    selection

35
Analysis by Phillip Johnson
  • Prominent law professor at UC Berkeley
  • Recognized as the leader of the ID movement
  • Wrote Darwin on Trial after reading Dawkins
    Blind Watchmaker while on sabbatical

36
Darwinism as a Tautology
  • Tautology An empty or vacuous statement composed
    of simpler statements in a fashion that makes it
    logically true whether the simpler statements are
    factually true or false for example, the
    statement Either it will rain tomorrow or it will
    not rain tomorrow.
  • Survival of the Fittest means that the
    individuals which produced the most offspring
    must have been the ones who produced the most
    offspring.
  • I.e., fitness is strictly limited to success in
    reproduction

37
Karl Popper, Philosopher
  • Darwinism is not really a scientific theory
    because natural selection is an all purpose
    explanation that can account for anything, and
    therefore explains nothing.

38
Example The Peacock
  • Which better explains the existence of the
    peacock natural selection or design?

39
Peacock Natural Selection
  • The males plumage is favored by natural
    selection because it attracts the most favorable
    females.
  • Never mind that it also makes the male more
    vulnerable to predators because of its bulkiness

40
Johnsons Rejoinder
  • Why would natural selection, which supposedly
    formed all birds from lowly predecessors, produce
    a species whose females lust for males with
    life-threatening decorations? The peahen should
    have developed a preference for males with sharp
    talons mighty wings.

41
Evolutionist Futuyma
  • Do the creation scientists really suppose their
    Creator saw fit to create a bird that couldnt
    reproduce without six feet of bulky feathers that
    make it easy prey for leopards?

42
Johnsons Response
  • It seems to me that a peacock a peahen are just
    the kind of creatures a whimsical creator might
    favor, but an uncaring mechanical process like
    natural selection would never permit to develop.

Remember the ostrich In Job
43
Johnsons Conclusion
  • With the weaknesses so noted, why do scientists
    hold on to Darwinism?
  • The National Academy of Scientists told the
    Supreme Court that the most basic characteristic
    of science is a reliance upon naturalistic
    explanations, as opposed to supernatural means
    inaccessible to human understanding. In the
    latter, unacceptable category contemporary
    scientists place not only God but also any
    non-material vital force that supposedly drives
    evolution in the direction of greater complexity,
    consciousness, or whatever.

44
Johnson Continued....
  • If science is to have any explanation for
    biological complexity at all it has to make do
    with what is left when the unacceptable has been
    excluded. Natural selection is the best of the
    remaining alternatives, probably the only
    alternative.

45
Conclusion
  • Given this legal/scientific climate ID will have
    significant challenges in making headway
  • ID can advance if/when it is able to make
    predictions, better explain biological systems
    than Darwinism.
  • We will consider these issues in the next class
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