The key to science's success during the hundreds of years since The Enlightenment has been skepticism (in the scientific sense), rationalism, empiricism, and naturalism, as best embodied by the scientific method. I've included a diagram of the scientific method from this website. This method is a predominant reason for why we have achieved the technological progress as a species that we have today.
The green oval is a lynchpin of the whole thing. Every theory in hard science must be falsifiable by natural evidence - there must be the potential for the theory to be demonstrated wrong in the natural physical world. For instance, if we found some fossils that were significantly out of line with Darwin's theory, then that would be cause for us to look at the new evidence and refine the theory of evolution so that it is improved and once again encompasses the overwhelming majority of evidence. The theory would change since we found out that it was wrong to some degree (small or big) by looking around in the natural world.
Intelligent design/creationism is not science because it are not falsifiable. Period. Full stop. End of discussion. This like explaining why a giraffe is not a piece of fruit. (Don't be confused about the fact that intelligent design and creationism are the same thing – comment if you'd care for a discussion on that which includes a hilarious and embarrassing piece of evidence.)
For that reason, those claims do not belong in the science classroom. Some other classroom, sure, but the claims are simply not science since they are not susceptible to contradiction. They are "invincible" in that sense: how do you test intelligent design? How could anyone ever prove that the world was not created by a higher intelligence? There's no way to do such a thing. This is why Dr. Philip Pettit, Dr. Daniel Dennet, and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend J.D. call intelligent design "not a research programme", "propaganda", and "a distraction". A higher intelligence means "supernatural" as far as humanity is concerned and that means outside of the boundaries of science. Sure, maybe someday science will identify a higher intelligence that we can actually interact with in some way within the natural world. But until then such discussions are inappropriate (indeed, fruitless) in scientific disciplines.
Stein attempts to frame this whole movie as a freedom of speech "battle." The authors who are putting forward creationism/intelligent design as science have been spurned from the science community and had their submitted articles rejected since they have abandoned an essential pillar of scientific practice, falsifiability. This is not a free speech issue in anyway. These are professionals who are being held accountable for their speech in a purely professional way. It means something to be a scientist, and if your writings contradict the very foundations of science, then your participation will not be welcomed in that community. The same thing would happen in any professional community; if a lawyer seriously misrepresented a client or lied in court, they would be ousted or even jailed.
For this abuse of his (false) authority, perversion of the issue of freedom of speech, and blatant pandering, Ben Stein has fallen from my list of enjoyable celebrities. Expelled indeed.
8 comments:
I feel very similarly. And that's disappointing. Have I told you about my dad's movie? http://www.kansasvdarwin.com/
I do remember that, but I don't think I've seen the website before. Thanks for sharing.
Can I get a free copy? ;)
I do appreciate that comment, but I'm put off by the anonymity. Could you please add your name? I'll delete your comment in a few days otherwise.
Within that interview you referenced, the producer of the movie says that the scientific community feels threatened by intelligent design because it "shakes the foundation which science has become captive to." Captivity is not the case: it's the foundation that science has found to be the most useful and conservative (in the avoiding false positives sense). ID does ignore and "shake the foundation," it's just that the foundation is a really good one that should not be shaken.
In my favorite part of the interview, the producer explains Intelligent design.
"We are saying [Darwinism's random mutation]’s becoming more and more untenable based on what we see in the DNA, the operations of the cell, the intelligence of the cell, the code that’s driving structures and driving changes—this has got to be designed."
This has got to be designed. Yep, that's science. Right.
I’ll agree with you to the extent that the melodrama stifles what might have been a convincing, if not convincing then at least moving, film about two sides of an apparent dichotomy. Anything that slides towards propaganda, such as “hush” editing for effect should certainly be questioned, if not scrutinized.
This is probably an insufficiently formulated thought, but I can't help but notice the things in life that can not, and will not, be mediated or explained through the scientific method. I agree, there is quite a linchpin at the green oval, but it doesn't just filter out things that are not falsifiable—it filters out things that deny falsification entirely. The idea that this system is the end all be all of what can exist, not just what can we prove exists, is the central problem. If the Universe (what we can “prove” exists, or does not, or how it works, or where it came from) can be boiled down to the chart of the scientific method that we all learned in 9th grade Biology, then quite frankly, I’m uninterested in being alive.
I would go so far as to say that the whole of human integrity, that is the state of being wholly undivided, can not nearly be explained in terms of scientific reason. I think the best thing this video does is encourage everyone to question what has, since Darwin’s days, been, to a degree, unquestionable. The scientific method, after all, is man-made, and subject to the same kind of questions that anything mediated by human beings, and language for that matter, is subject to: questions of fallibility. This questioning, and I’m sure you’ll agree with me on this, should be applied to both sides of this “debate;” proponents of intelligent design should question God, their reasoning behind the functioning of the universe. Proponents of the scientific method, and Darwinism, should also question the systems in place that are far from infallible. Is the scientific method wholly and incomparably above the same kind of questioning as religion? I don’t know, but I tend to think not.
Thanks for the discussion starter, Frisbone. Much love.
On a separate note, check out The Felice Brothers. Fun music.
Nick, where've you been? You need to post again because I need something interesting to read in class!
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