Arts & Culture
Now In Theaters: Ben Stein’s Intelligent Design Documentary “Expelled”
By JessM / April 15, 2008
Ben Stein has worn many hats throughout the course of his professional life. He has been a writer, a professor, a lawyer, a Hollywood consultant, and, famously, an actor and gameshow host. He even had a stint as a speechwriter for Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. Now Stein is simultaneously taking on some new roles: Documentary filmmaker, self-proclaimed rebel of our generation, and…Intelligent Design proponent? Beginning April 18, he’s bringing his rebellious self to a theater near you with his new movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, a documentary about the freedom of speech (or lack thereof) surrounding the Intelligent Design/Darwinism debate.
Stein lays the foundation for his quest in the opening to the film’s impending-doom-filled trailor:
Like most people, I also have questions. Very big questions, like how did we get here? Where are we going? Is there a meaning and purpose in life? Or are we, the universe, and everything in it, merely the result of pure dumb fate and chance? For most of my life, I believe the answers to these questions were fairly straightforward. Everything that exists was created by a loving God.
Fair enough. Respecting that very smart people, namely Darwinist scientists, believe otherwise, Stein remained untroubled by the matter, acknowledging that Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Inquiry entitles everyone to express his own opinion and to pursue his own research. But then the primordial soup hit the fan. Stein heard about Richard Sternberg, former managing editor of Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, a scientific journal affiliated with the Smithsonian Institute, who lost his job and suffered academic and professional persecution simply by allowing an article by Discovery Institute mastermind Stephen C. Meyer to be published. Stein regarded this event as a tragedy, with dangerous implications.
“We believe in a free society,” Stein says. “This isn’t Nazi Germany.” He claims that we are living in a “Era of Darwin” in which people must learn to shut up and play along with the paradigm of evolution, or to face dire consequences. And, according to Stein, everyone is in on the conspiracy, including the media, the academy, and the court systems. The logical conclusion: Darwinists are afraid and are hiding something.
His main argument is that in the time of Galileo, Intelligent Design theorists would have had no problem propagating and vocalizing their ideas. Too bad that in making such an argument, Stein completely overlooks the fact that Galileo was placed under house arrest, had his books banned, and was forced to discredit all of his research, simply for having the audacity to say that the earth revolves around the sun and not the other way around.
Ultimately, Stein concludes that “Darwinism is not only improbable, it might actually be dangerous.” In a November 2007 interview with Bill O’Reilly, Stein says that he sees gaps in Darwinism that no one is attempting to fill except for Intelligent Design Theorists. Whether or not these theorists turn out to be right is irrelevant, he says—the simple fact that they attempt to provide a counterpoint is noble in itself.
Even if this is a fair argument, it is hard to pick out amid Stein’s use of Design-smattered terminology. In the interview, he refers to Darwin’s theory as a “relic” left over from 19th century imperialism which states that humans evolved from monkeys (Darwin never said this, by the way) and that life started when some lightning hit a puddle of mud, a theory about which Stein says, “that has never struck me as convincing.” When he says that the cell’s perfectly moving thousands of parts can only be explained by the hand of a benevolent God, he sounds like Michael Behe in “Irreducible Complexity.” These little comments makes it seem like Stein has already made up his mind about which camp is emitting the most truth.
With the releasing of Expelled, Stein sets himself up to be the voice of the subjugated Intelligent Design theorist. And he’s expecting to change some opinions and to raise some controversy. He says:
I now realize that it was my duty to get the word out, to warn others before it’s too late. So I’m gonna begin by warning you. Feel free to watch this film if you must, and I hope you do. But you’ve got to know that doing so could land you in a heap of trouble. Some of you are gonna lose your friends for watching this film. Some of you may even lose your jobs. In fact, if you’re a scientist with any hope of a future, I suggest you leave right now…but if you do leave, will anyone be left to fight this battle? Anyone? Anyone?
Advanced screening reviews are, uh, mixed – according to the Expelled newsroom, Richard Dawkins gave it a thumbs down, but Rush Limbaugh thought it was great! But the question remains: Is it even possible to criticize the movie without being written off as narrow-minded? I guess we shall see, starting April 18.
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That is both a blessing and a curse. The technology we use also becomes part of our consciousness–you know, in a Zen way. Our entire tech world is based on Newton, and so our common sense, sense of cause and effect, sense of problems and solutions are all mired in the 18th century. If we could just work ourselves into the 20th century, I think we would see a drastic change in both behavior and nature.
That's one of the new things, Roger Penrose and company, that human consciousness is a force of nature. And this is why science belongs in religion class, but not the other way around.
"they" being relativity, of course.
Yeah, but the point still remains; there are a whole host of technologies and activities that are achieved by applying an understanding of Newtonion physics – the vast majority, in fact – and in these cases relativity wouldn't even be relevant. But they are still a part of that universe nonetheless. You are right on that.
Saw the Youtube, watched a few more interviews with Ben Stein. I think he's primarily concerned with debate, he's a law professor as well as many things. I'm not sure why he latched on to Intelligent Design, unless he felt that this is a gross attack on free speech, more so than other things. Who knows?
If I have a criticism of the video it's that the equation of science—Free Speech + Physical Evidence + Previous Knowledge would be more accurate if it were: Previous Knowledge Phrased and Formatted to Our Liking. That's where my criticism begins.
Here's another example. So the archaeologists have been studying a number of sites for years, primitive cultures, superstition based, blah blah. Well, for whatever reason some engineers, they didn't know each other, perhaps it was the architecture that drew them in, but engineers started to study these sites, many from the period of megaliths. And the engineers concluded that the cultures of many sites actually possessed astounding mathematical knowledge, written in their own ancient way. One of these sites is Teotihuacan, where they created a scale model of the earth, that is, they knew the circumference of the earth. Who knows how they figured that out? Who knows why they felt it was important to build it? But the conclusions of the engineer was completely different than the archaeologists.
Of course, later on the archaeologists gathered around the engineer and killed him. (Kidding about that.)
when I hit the round numbers. Comment 300.
Let's call conforming to evidence "grounding". All knowledge has to be grounded. I think we agree on that. And I think we are in agreement on everything you just wrote. Except for Newton. This isn't his universe anymore, it's not his cause and effect, it's not his definition of time or space. Newton has applications in this technological world–many. Unfortunately, our common sense is Newton's common sense. But it's a quantum relativitistic speed of light constant chaotic superstringy universe. That's what's out there. Planning on getting a rocket to the moon–Newton's your man. Want to know what they're flying through? Einstein, Planck, Lorenz, and Hungadunga.
Two Things. Even shorter responses:
1. Most new theories (in science) enhance "older" ones. Einstein didn't supplant Newton. Relativity and Mechanics are both pretty valid structures, with the former "completing" the latter.
2. If kids were taught logic and reason, they would know more about slippery slope fallacies – even humorous ones delivered tongue-in-cheek.
Other models conjured in a dream: Huckel's aromaticity.
Still conforms to the evidence. Nothing preventing the source of an explanation from doing just that.
I think all of us have doubts, somewhere, with regards to some field, about the overall utility of empiricism – or at least the state of it and its limits at that time. I'm still not sure the economists don't have more to go back to at the drawing board for working out a good way for measuring happiness.
Remember, science can only take stock of what humans have endeavored to measure or investigate. There is a limit on what humans have not only questioned, but devised an experiment for understanding empirically. And I seem to see this as the larger limitation.
I feel like I'm short changing you with brief answers, I don't mean to. But I'm just not into intelligent design, and your longest paragraph was about ID.
I'll say this though. If more emphasis–as opposed to our present no emphasis–were placed on teaching logic and reason in school, then this would be a non-issue. Either there wouldn't be a debate on ID or there would be one heckuva good debate on ID.
Of course, if kids were really taught logic and reason, then advertising wouldn't work, and that leads to economic collapse and no food and then we all die.
Bummer, man.
Yep, this is the route we have to pass through.
There is a big difference between creationism and acupuncture. In creationism, there is no way of proving or disproving the existence of Gd using conventional scientific method. Yet, there is plenty of evidence that acupuncture works. What you have said is that there is no way to accept something that is completely verifiable because you don't like the language it uses–although meridians and chi and yin and yang are tangible, empirical, observable phenomenon in that culture, which has been around for over 3000 years. And that is the crux of the myth of western science, that the method and reliance on nouns has been placed over and above the data one can clearly experience in some way. It is the insistence on putting new data into a western form, and if that can't be done, to ignore it completely. That necessity, that putting method over reality is just not scientific.
Your argument also invalidates Einstein's work, who found a hole in the established model and decided to create a new model. That creation of new models, new paradigms, is the essence of a scientific revolution–meaning, this has happened several times in western history. I am saying that the present (well, since Descartes) idea of what kind of data is acceptable and which is not is an arbitrary judgement. There are many methods of inquiry, qualitative, quantitative, phenomenological, dialectical, macrology, micrololgy–and then some. And there a quite a few styles of logic, all of which are fine and have some application.
Now, how can you say that there are a finite set of laws governing the universe–that's what Newton's world said, and that universe has been blown to smithereens by the discoveries in the last century (by the way Edward Lorenz passed away yesterday). Surely you aren't saying that there is nothing left to discover.
Many new discoveries have indeed come from outside of western culture–virtually all of the building blocks of our present world have come from China, the crank, the cam, gearing, the loom, the compass, explosives, block printing–to say nothing of the mathematical concepts that came from the middle east.
I know of a scientist, can't recall the story exactly, in nanotechnology I think, who was working on a problem for 18 years, and the answer finally came to him in a dream. Of course, he wrote the results of the experiment and left out the dream–but the reality is that he didn't use any acceptable method to solve the problem. But he solved it.
I'm saying that your idea of scientific method can't escape the fact that humans are involved, and there are many ways that humans get information. That is where debate comes in. In fact, can you really say that there is even one unifying scientific method in the west, with so many disciplines, with their own methods and jargon?
Let me specifically address the issue of the five elements. What superseded it? The periodic table. Why? Because using the tool of the periodic table we can create new substances, something which the five elements doesn't allow. If we need to create new substance, and we need raw materials for manufacturing, then the periodic table is quite useful, the five elements–not. But how hard is to reorganize the order of periodic table from atomic mass into groups of specific varieties of earth, air, fire, water, and wood? You could. Nothing would be lost. I'm saying that classification is arbitrary–subjective, and therefore open to debate.
And you've drawn an arbitrary line in the sand, saying you challenge me to find a better method for discovering the laws of the universe. Scientific method might be the best for discovering the laws of the universe, but it's not necessarily the best for discovering the movement of consciousness, or the best for treating all types of illness, or even some type of illness. I wouldn't place it at the heights for cooking a good meal, or even for raising fine children, and having a healthy family. I certainly wouldn't use it when playing music. It has a very specific use in human life. It is not or should not be the determining logic governing human life. And this brings us to another question–toward what purpose is this quest for knowledge? Should there be a purpose? Can we escape purpose anymore than we can escape our own subjectivity?
I'm not saying that acupuncture is unexplainable–I'm saying that is has been explained over and over, and it is indeed verifiable, but that the western world refuses to accept those explanations. Where is the scientific principle in this? And what happens if some dude at MIT discovers life force and machine to measure it–it's new to the west, but old to the rest of the world.
And finally, regarding your last paragraph, I see we are in agreement–but the myth of objectivity is there, my kids are taught it–and only when kids serious about science get to graduate school do the blinders come off. That can't be a good thing.
Debates will always continue in science as long as more evidence becomes known. When the evidence is static, Occam's razor works just fine. It works just fine because when one idea requires an extraordinary leap of faith based on rejecting current evidence in favor of more, hypothetical, or fantasized evidence that no experiment has revealed, then you are in essence rejecting evidence in order to replace it with something that doesn't, according to any observation, exist empirically. Re-interpretations may ask for new experiments or not, with technology that is currently available or that can be plausibly devised at some rational point in the future, but they do not ask for evidence that is not verifiable by empirical means. And no matter how much more complete they might be than their competing theories, they must still be consistent with the available, or with ostensibly available, evidence.
To my mind, this is not what the Intelligence Designers are doing. They are not re-interpreting the currently available evidence. They are rejecting it and replacing it with epistemologically unverifiable (and, more importantly, unverified) speculation. They have not explained what kind of experiments would confirm it. I suspect that's because an intelligently controlled, metaphorical finger from heaven that either drops lifeforms on the planet, or that makes their genetic codes change over time, is more consistent with the intellectual framework and belief systems of their intended audience. It's too simple-minded to conform to the intellectual rigor that actually tends to go into the real-life experiments that make a difference in advancing knowledge, and for that reason they duck for intellectual cover behind un-empirical philosophies.
Again, as Dan alludes to, scientists are fine with what I've explained. They are fine with this because it is not the province of science to provide a grand, complete understanding of everything that could possibly be in the universe at any one time. That's what religion tries, in its own way, to do. No scientist believes that knowledge is complete. And therefore, (or, that's why), experiments continue to be performed. Every day. The day that all knowledge has been accumulated will be the day that no more experiments need to be performed. And that will be the day that science has no reason to exist. Do you not see why this is?
Dan's reply to you answers more of what I don't understand about what you are trying to ask. I've still to read through your response and his second response.
The problem with your acupuncture example is exactly the problem with creationism. Science (yes, based on the Western epistemological tradition) has developed a comprehensive, if incomplete, understanding of how the human body works. If there is a hole in the picture when it comes to why acupuncture works, that doesn't give license to suggest a second physiological model that happens to be entirely incompatible with the scientific model except when it comes to acupuncture and chi and the like. It may not be known, but there does exist an explanation for why acupuncture works that is completely compatible with Western epistemology and science, and it is disingenuous to argue that we should be looking for an answer outside of science on the basis of circumstantial evidence.
How can we even do so? There is a finite set of laws which govern the universe and the interactions of all the particles and energy in the universe. To search outside "Western" science is to search outside of those very real laws, which is entirely nonsensical. It's like going to a restaurant in order to buy a plunger.
The only thing that makes science "Western" is that it has been primarily used by researchers in the West until the advent of the global exchange of ideas. It doesn't make a Chinese scientist any less able to utilize this method. And I guarantee that any modern scientist from a non-Western country would be just as likely to discount what you call "Eastern science" on the simple fact that it isn't science, i.e., a reliable method of coming to conclusions based on repeatable experiments. Acupuncture might have a 95% success rate, making it repeatable, but that's not the experiment in question. I have no doubt that acupuncture works for some reason. What I am unwilling to accept is that it works based on the concepts of the five elements and chi because there is no possible way of creating an experiment to prove the existence of either the five elements or chi. Once again, science is a method. There's no mythology in a method, it either works or it doesn't. In the case of the scientific method, it has a pretty good track record, and I challenge you to find any other method that will as reliably aid in determining the laws of the universe.
"If deductive reasoning is important, and it is, then debate is as
essential as telecscopes or microscopes in scientific advancement.
Because debate has a way of cleaning up deductive reasoning, sharpening
it, making it more precise." The problem is not that I, or the scientific community in general, is proposing that debate be stifled. There is vigorous and constant debate in the scientific community about which theory is better, which data supports which theory, why one solution fits the model better than another. That's science. But if you want to say that the traditional beliefs about acupuncture are being ignored by debate, you're not asking for a scientific debate. You're asking for a meta-debate on whether the scientific method or belief in the five elements is a more reliable method of gathering data about the world. Which is it?
The fact that acupuncture is currently unexplained by science doesn't make it unexplainable. That's the falicious argument you're putting forward about debate. It's the same falicious argument that Intelligent Designists put forward. An unverifiable explanation of the unexplained is not science.
I admit I jumped the gun a bit on the separation of teaching science and religion, as I agree with you that it is the place of religious people to incorporate scientific truth into their beliefs.
"Again, my overall point is that what actually happens in the lab is
closer to art than super duper objectivity, many findings are
accidental, come from a jolt of inspiration or a dream, and that the
only things wrong is that we try to cover this up–and thereby inhibit
debate by saying, hey this is a scientific fact–no debate allowed." Indeed what happens in each individual lab is an outpouring of creativity much similar to art, but the objectivity comes from the creativity of many people in many labs around the world. I don't think we cover this up at all. In fact, we laud researchers and award Nobel prizes to individuals who show immense creativity in solving a problem. In the end, though, their discoveries do become part of an objective, coherent whole. And sometimes those Nobel prize winners are proven wrong through useful, evidentially supported debate.
I hope my reply to Dan helped to clarify your question. But data is essential to debate. But raw data doesn't interpret itself. That's why debate is so important. And debates don't always have to conclude–it's quite possible for the thing to stop for halftime, saying we need more evidence, and then try to get the evidence.
Okay, we're getting closer to resolving this.
Doesn't mean we'll use less words, but we're getting closer. I'll check out the video, may not be today, but I will get to it. Pesach and all.
Now, to the Post–Your first full paragraph about Stein. Agreed.
Now comes the issue of de-mythologizing science. Perhaps this is the shortest route–I'll list a series of books that begins this, not an exhaustive list, but at least we'll have a context. I believe it all started with Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, James Burke's Connections, I've already mention Foucault and Feyerabend, and for a little bit of salt, let's add One-Dimensional Man into the soup. Essentially there is a European epistemology in which certain data is admissable, certain data is not. The example of acupuncture works very well, because even you insist or would like to redescribe it in Western terms, as if it is not acceptable for people to have several grand paradigms in their toolbelt. We do this now with Newton, that his mechanics are applicable in certain situations, as is Relavitivity, and Quantum Mechanics. Not to mention there are places where biologists tread, chemists, sociologists, those badass archaeologists, and they are very territorial. Why not add the Chinese model in there–not to explain the beginnings of the universe, but certainly to help diagnose and treat disease? Western scientists simply refuse, nothing empirical about this decision, to accept acupuncture on the Chinese' own terms, complete with pulse diagnosis (that's the data), pulse rate, tongue diagnosis, and statements from the patient. We insist on making this a chemical rather than energetic process, and the concept of chi simply can't be categorized according to our previously existing categories–so it is simply ignored, as is the system of meridians.
One of the problems in Western gathering of knowledge is that our categories (not exactly a priori, but certainly historically a priori) determine what we are going to see. You could make the case that this is the human condition–and I would agree, which is why we need debate to essentially keep the categories from becoming to calcified and rigid.
Not to the other points you make–and even if you aren't correct on a few, it doesn't affect the larger isssues we are talking about. Galileo didn't confirm Copernicus' hypothesis. He did however show through the telescope that certain beliefs about the solar system were wrong, and then he wrote the letter to the nobelwoman saying in no uncertain terms that the Bible was wrong in certain statements. Kepler and Newton put the sun in the center because they were able to predict with astounding accuracy the location of the planets–which brings us back to the role of deductive reasoning.
If deductive reasoning is important, and it is, then debate is as essential as telecscopes or microscopes in scientific advancement. Because debate has a way of cleaning up deductive reasoning, sharpening it, making it more precise. Jargon, different disciplines, rules of data and evidence have developed with no empirical basis–other than it worked neatly into a separation from the Church, which was necessary at that point in history–all of these things inhibit debate.
I actually think that science and religion can exist in the same classroom–but I think science belongs in a religious classroom, and religion doesn't need to be in a science classroom. I think it's the role of religion to incorporate science, not to defend against it. However, this is because of chaos theory, quantum physics, and so many new findings, such a neuropeptides–all of this, I believe, enhances one's religious beliefs. You could argue that even if this is true, it is still personal and shouldn't be in a classroom, and this would be a valid opinion.
Last paragraph. Whoops. Yeah, that's a good point. We need to know the guy's job description. But Ben has always argued his opinions fairly, and that's what I was going by.
Again, my overall point is that what actually happens in the lab is closer to art than super duper objectivity, many findings are accidental, come from a jolt of inspiration or a dream, and that the only things wrong is that we try to cover this up–and thereby inhibit debate by saying, hey this is a scientific fact–no debate allowed.
Before I get started, I'm going to link again to the video I placed in my other post, which, since it was at the end might have been buried. Anyway, here it is, and it does a much better job than I can of explaining why Stein isn't advocating anything useful: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiNGK3y5Ypg
The problem with Ben Stein isn't that he advocates debate in general, which is certainly desirable, it's that he advocates putting entirely different standards of knowledge on the same level. Intelligent Design belongs in a debate about how to reconcile scientific truth with religious belief, not in a debate about what theory describes the mechanics by which the diversity of life occurs. As I said above, a debate between evolutionary theory and Intelligent Design is exactly the same as debating whether energy and momentum cause changes in motion or God's unlimited knowledge and power cause changes in motion. Funny how, even if it is God's omnipotence that affects motion, God still makes sure that He/She/It/Whatever only makes changes to motion in a manner that appears to human beings to follow Newtonian mechanics. Sure, maybe outside of the currently observable universe God has some fun with physics, but as soon as human beings are able to observe it, God says, "OK, play time's over." Do you see why suggesting that such can be debated is ridiculous?
Now to address your point about evidence. What do you mean by "conventional methods of gathering data?" If you only mean by what is physically observed, then you're eliminating a massive set of scientifically accepted facts from empirical evidence. Evidence derived in a logically consistent manner from observable facts are equally as reliable as empirical data. We can't see the individual waveform of a beam of light, yet we've discovered through countless experiments that red light has a wavelength of 700 nanometers and blue has a wavelength of 400. These facts are unavailable by direct observation, but they're facts nonetheless, derived from reliable methods of gathering data. In terms of string theory, we're just talking about more complex methods of getting to that data, and, as I said, the more complex the less reliable the methods become (if only due to human error or inability to make a breakthrough). String theory might well turn out to be wrong, but if it is, it's wrong on its own terms: the evidence, whether empirical or derived, doesn't support the conclusions.
"You say that strings can be deduced. Okay…then through the complexity
of the universe, and the odds against the universe coming together, and
the difficulty in getting from the Big Bang to our existing universe
because the mathematical models keep failing…I could deduce the
existence of Gd. I don't, but I could, and it would be just as
plausible as the existence of strings."
Yes, it is just as plausible. What it is not, however, is a replacement for the specific models of what explain those phenomena. The fact that God exists in no way compromises the scientific method's ability to ultimately deduce the laws of the universe. Whether the laws of the universe were created by God at the moment of the Big Bang or whether they are the random result of some unexplainable but non-theological phenomenon doesn't change the fact that the laws exist. You have every right to speculate that the complexity of the universe is evidence for God's existence. What you have no right to do is to then say, "OK, I give up on trying to find out the laws of the universe," which is exactly what Intelligent Designists do.
"One of my concluding points was about the need to de-mythologize science." I don't understand what you mean by this. How does one de-mythologize a method? The only myth of science is the myth that it's supposed to have all the answers. The average Intelligent Designist argument tends to include the "science doesn't know so it must be God" argument. Science doesn't have a complete model of how everything in the universe works, and it probably never will. That doesn't mean that its impossible to make such a model. If acupuncture works, and there are many many people who say it does, there is a rational explanation for it that likely involves cognitive theory, psychology, and physiology in some combination. It might have been developed under the five elements model, but that's not why it works. If the theory is wrong but the practice works, then there is a different, correct theory that explains why the practice works. The data might even support the wrong theory, which you claim it does in the case of acupuncture. However, that theory has been disproved by a significantly larger body of evidence than just the results of acupuncture, and I submit to you that there is a correct model of why acupuncture works that the data supports just as well, if not better.
"And only because it was so much easier–his job was to create a
reliable calendar–did Copernicus place the sun at the center of the
solar system. He could not make an empirical observation placing it
there." We only know Copernicus was correct because then Galileo came along and proved through empirical observation that he was. There's a concept in epistemology called the KK Principle, which states that, in order to have knowledge, you must know that you have that knowledge. Copernicus didn't know he was right, so it certainly can't be said that he knew the sun was the center of the solar system. That doesn't somehow make Galileo wrong. This happens all the time: someone posits something not knowing whether it is correct and someone later comes along and proves it right or wrong. That's how scientific knowledge accrues to us as a society. Where's the empirical observation that the acupuncturist's five elements exist? That's how the scientific method works: you create a hypothesis (that the sun is the center of the solar system) then you test it (by looking through a telescope and measuring the movement and phases of mars). Sometimes, your hypothesis (there are five elements) and your test (acupuncture) accidentally work together, and you accept the theory as correct for now. But then, some other evidence comes along that refutes the theory.
"But at the moment, there is so much room for more vigorous scientific
debate. In many instances empiricism is used as a shield to stop
debate, much like certain religious folks use Gd as a shield to stop
debate. Not good, that stopping of debate."
And here you unintentionally stated the very crux of the matter: if science uses empiricism to stop debate and religion uses God to stop debate, then how is there even a debate in the first place? Science is empiricism and religion is God! They don't belong in the same discussion. Each has absolutely no effect on the truth or falsity of the other. You can't prove or disprove the existence of God empirically. You can't believe or disbelieve evidentially supported fact based on the existence of God. That is why asking for a debate on the matter is an absolute canard. Science should be taught in science class, religion should be taught in religious school.
"Ah, one last point regarding the straw man. You can't shred the
arguments of a straw man? If there is a proponent of Intelligent
Design, and the argument is flawed, take the false argument apart. And
keep the guy around and keep taking his arguments apart. Ben Stein made
the movie because a guy was fired for his beliefs–which I don't
believe is the scientific thing to do." Watch the video I linked to. It does exactly what you ask for. I don't know the details of the guy being fired, but if his job was to teach science or perform scientific experiments, and his beliefs were getting in the way of the job he was paid to do, then he deserves to be fired as much as a baseball player who fixes a game deserves to suspended. If my suspicions are incorrect, then please let me know otherwise, but if they are, then I can't see how firing someone for not doing his job is a good reason for debate.
Naftali, I'm confused. If science should devote itself to debating and arguing things regardless of whether or not there is any evidence to support them, would there be any benchmark left to determine whether sufficient efforts are actually being devoted to gathering and accumulating - let alone considering - evidence? Should evidence become optional?
dmt's point on string theory is well-put and a prominent criticism. When a field has to put the disclaimer "theoretical" in its title ("theoretical physics"), then the caveat of getting further away from evidence should be clear. But "popular" critics of science rarely debate the criticisms of string theory <i>qua</i> theory.
I think that if philosophy became more prominent as an intellectual discipline it would help quench this thirst that non-biologists have to either legitimize ID or use it as a cover to argue that science allegedly discourages debate. It's useful to debate ideas in and of themselves. It's folly to promote the development of science as an evidence-free endeavor.
has many opponents in the physics world because it indeed has no evidence to back it up. String theory might well be 100% incorrect. Right now there is no way to test it. Many consider it to be more of a fad than good science. See The Unraveling of String Theory.
Evolution, on the other hand, has evidence to back it up from paleontology, geology, genetics, sociobiology, neuroscience, and virtually every other science that might have something to say about it.
Scientists don't like ID because the whole point of the ID movement is to force science teachers to teach religion (a "competing theory") in science class. ID is not science – it's actually anti-science – and should therefore not be taught in science class.
First, I hope we're clear that I don't advocate Intelligent Design and, linking to the article above, I'm not sure Ben Stein does either. But I know that Ben does advocate strong debate, and so do I.
Now, to your posts.
I think you aren't being consistent regarding your reliance on empirical evidence. Of course, empirically, it is impossible to prove the existence of Gd by use of conventional methods of gathering data, but it is also impossible to find the existence of strings using the same methods of data gathering. You say that strings can be deduced. Okay…then through the complexity of the universe, and the odds against the universe coming together, and the difficulty in getting from the Big Bang to our existing universe because the mathematical models keep failing…I could deduce the existence of Gd. I don't, but I could, and it would be just as plausible as the existence of strings.
This brings me to my second point, on how you treated my anomaly of the accelerating planet, the voice of the Proponent of Intelligent design–straw man. I'm sure there are folks who use Gd to explain everything, and therefore nothing, but for our purposes, let's not. Judging from the article, haven't seen the movie yet, it's about free speech and free inquiry, not about characters straight out of Faulkner.
One of my concluding points was about the need to de-mythologize science. One way of doing this is knowing that throughout history most important beliefs, that is, beliefs on which a civilization rested, were based on empirical observation of some sort. Your empirical observation right now, is that you are sitting still. Closer to the truth, you are moving at a slightly accelerating 1000 mph. But can you fault the group who believes you are sitting still–a few thousand years ago? Can you say they didn't base their belief system on empirical data? Were they really less empirical–one could argue that they were more empirical.
If I go to an acupuncturist, as I have many times, he first takes in initial data, makes a diagnosis from that data, inserts the needles, takes data again to see the change, and lo and behold, I do get better. He's using the ancient 5 element model–where the world is composed of only earth, air, fire, water, and wood. It works. It's repeatable. It's scientific–but not western scientific. Something is wrong, not with the ancient science, but with our civilization's inability to have a dialogue with that science. We don't accept their data as being valid in any way. There is no empirical reason not to accept their data, but we don't.
Nor is there any empirical reason to construct hypothesis based on Occam's Razor. But we do. And only because it was so much easier–his job was to create a reliable calendar–did Copernicus place the sun at the center of the solar system. He could not make an empirical observation placing it there.
So, our science is empirical–to a point. And then our great scientists make the same leap of inspiration of artists, and religious folk. And there's nothing wrong with that. But at the moment, there is so much room for more vigorous scientific debate. In many instances empiricism is used as a shield to stop debate, much like certain religious folks use Gd as a shield to stop debate. Not good, that stopping of debate.
Ah, one last point regarding the straw man. You can't shred the arguments of a straw man? If there is a proponent of Intelligent Design, and the argument is flawed, take the false argument apart. And keep the guy around and keep taking his arguments apart. Ben Stein made the movie because a guy was fired for his beliefs–which I don't believe is the scientific thing to do.
"Just today I read that the earth is accelerating in orbit–which isn't supposed to happen by anyone's present theory."
This actually gives me the perfect analogy to how the creationist criticism of science works. The earth's acceleration is not supposed to happen according to any theory. This leaves us with two options for explaining the phenomenon.
1. An invisible force that cannot ever possibly explained by any empirical or calculated evidence is causing it. Let's call this force "the Hand of God," though it could just as easily be the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
2. Well, we can't explain it right now, but give us some time to take some astronomical data and make some calculations, and we'll come up with a theory that might explain it. Then, we'll keep searching for evidence and do more calculations to see if our theory is right. If it isn't we'll, revise the theory or come up with a new one, and if it is, we'll keep taking in more evidence and doing more calculations to corroborate our theory.
Do you see the difference? Creationism and Intelligent Design just say "there's something we don't know, so instead of trying to find out what it is, let's just say God did it and call it a day." Once upon a time, nobody knew why one object striking another caused the second object to go flying in the direction the first object was moving. We now have the laws of Newtonian physics which explain how the transfer of energy and momentum affects an object's movement. Imagine if, instead of performing experiments, Newton had instead theorized "every time one object strikes another, God sees that and makes the second object move and the first object move differently accordingly." Knowing what we know now about physics, doesn't that seem ridiculous? Intelligent Design proponents are doing the exact same thing with the question, "How did life on earth become as diverse as it is?"
Apologies for the double post. I saw that sentence I quoted at the top after I finished the first post and decided that this response didn't really fit in with the first one.
The point, Naftali, is that Intelligent Design doesn't peddle in evidence. As you say, "The point again, is that you get the empirical data, and then humans
have to interpret it and decide whether to patch the old or start the
new." There can be no observable facts regarding whether an intelligent force affected the evolution of life. If you don't have empirical data, then you have no reason to change your old theory and no foundation for a new one. Intelligent Design requires nothing less than proof of the existence of God in order for its logic to be deductively sound. Millions of pages have been written by philosophers, theologians, even scientists presenting proofs and refutations of the existence of God and the debate isn't settled. You can believe whatever you want on that question (personally, I believe in God in a fairly Maimonidean sense), but belief does not equate to empirical evidence. You can believe that apples fall upwards off trees, but that doesn't change the empirical fact that they fall down which supports the theory of gravity.
As for your question about String Theory: string theory, and all theoretical disciplines in general, are not based directly on empirical evidence, i.e., being able to see strings through a microscope. However, they are based on long chains of logically consistent calculations whose initial premises are empirically true. Obviously, the complexity of the calculations creates more room for error than the average "if I mix baking soda and vinegar, I'll get a fizzy reaction" hypothesis. I would imagine that such complexity limits breakthroughs in the field to immense creativity. You can argue that a string theorist is wrong, but you only have two relevant ways of doing so: "your calculation here is wrong" or "you misinterpret the evidence (empirical or calculated)." What you can't say is "String theory is wrong because God created the universe." There is no "God" variable in any string theory equations.
Anyway, an excellent video I stumbled upon criticizing Ben Stein (it also happens to address some of Naftali's questions about scientific method in general, and certainly does a better job than I can): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiNGK3y5Ypg
For those really really emphasizing evidence, does that mean that you cannot argue with proponents of String Theory either? Just a question.
Just debate. Here's what I did today in midst of Passover preparations. I talked to the head of neurology at a nationally respected medical school–he also thought that scientific inquiry and free speech go hand in hand. In his own field paradigms are changing faster than Pampers, no matter what empirical data someone comes up with, there must follow debate on how to interpret the data and whether to modify the previous paradigm or start another.
I can couple this with a person, physicist, who, if Princeton hasn't drastically improved the plumbing in a century, has peed at the same urinal as Einstein. His job is to keep patching up the Big Bang Theory–and he has resigned himself to this task. And so he has been instrumental in modifying this old theory–from inflation, to other developments–which would certainly identify him, and I don't want to do this without his permission. The point again, is that you get the empirical data, and then humans have to interpret it and decide whether to patch the old or start the new.
Just today I read that the earth is accelerating in orbit–which isn't supposed to happen by anyone's present theory.
I think it's important to de-mythologize science, protect free speech, and let the debates begin. And of course, have everyone check their weapons at the door. There are some badass archaeologists walking around.
While Naftali is right-ish on the contributions of people like Kuhn and Feyerabend to our understanding of how scientific knowledge is attained, he's misapplying the lesson here. Any criticism that can be made of "Darwinism" can be made ten-fold of Intelligent Design.
For example, if Naftali thinks that evolutionary biologists are ignoring the evidence to be continue their belief in evolution, I wonder what he would make of Bill Dembski's statement that "My thesis is that the disciplines find their completion in Christ and cannot be properly understood apart from Christ … The point to understand here is that Christ is never an addendum to a scientific theory but always the completion." Or, to get specific and discuss <i>Expelled</i>, this quote from a review appeared on the Expelled website: "In fact, Nazi Germany is the thread that ties everything in the movie together. Evolution leads to atheism leads to eugenics leads to Holocaust and Nazi Germany." Basically, evolution must be wrong, because Ben Stein thinks it leads to Nazism. Aside from the fact that this is obvious bullsh*t, this is not how science is done. It doesn't matter how horrible the consequences of a theory are, the evidence must come first. Intelligent Design advocates do not have any evidence in their favour. Evolution is supported by, and an integral component of, almost every strand of modern biology. Maybe even every strand. Intelligent Design is bad philosophy masquerading as science.
The closest thing to a good argument in its favour is the argument made by Berlinski, Dembski, and others as to the statistical unlikelihood of natural selection resulting in "complexity." Unfortunately, these arguments are also pretty atrocious. For solid take-downs of the mathematics that Dembski uses, check out Mark Chu-Carroll's blog at http://www.scienceblogs.com/goodmath .
A good strong debate within the scientific community is always a good thing. Intelligent Design advocates are not people with whom such a debate can be had. They are unscientific neo-creationists, peddling bad science, bad math, and bad philosophy.
Oh. Thank you for your correction on Michaelson-Morley, rather than Maxwell, being the precedent-setting piece of evidence by which Einstein could proceed to proposing a theory. The point still stands that it was based on evidence, which ID is not. And I am clear enough on the history of science to know and understand that, if I might paraphrase Protagoras, all knowledge (and science) is provisional. A wise man therefore proportions his beliefs to the evidence. But it's that whole evidence thing that all your other examples refer to – with the notable exception of ID. When evidence of your zero-sum demanding intelligent designer is available, then we can declare evolution by natural selection to have been a dominating theory that is completely wrong, not before. In the meantime, nor do you get to declare completely wrong a theory based on the abundant evidence provided by DNA, the fossil record, mate selection, genetic and ever-changing diversity in populations and the intuitive assertion that not every species is going to appear or function in the exact same way after thousands of generations.
"Perhaps a few fields other than religion need to do a thorough cleaning of their own internal myths."
That may be the case, but why should religion get a say in biology's "internal" affairs? Intelligent Design doesn't bring anything to the table that is useful to studying the origins of life. Regardless of the history of the theory, and whether that history colors the internal debate, the fact remains that such a debate needs to be resolved on its own terms, i.e., that of theory and evidence. Intelligent Design doesn't deal in the terms of empirical method, so it has no place in a scientific debate.
As our anonymous poster mentioned, science is not a belief or ideology; it's a method by which theories are either proven or disproved using available evidence. It is an entirely logically sound method. Intelligent Design might be a theory, but its one whose premises are unverifiable, which is why it can neither be confirmed nor denied by use of a logical method.
Maybe evolutionary biology has some cobwebs it should clean in its closet, but Intelligent Design is as useful as a broom without a handle for that purpose.
Please give some clarification, maybe a quote, where I talked about marriage, where you think I talked about marriage, it's still unclear to me. I just don't understand your point.
No, Einstein's primary evidence was not Maxwell's equations. Maxwell's equations connected electricity and magnetism. Yes there was some evidence for the speed of light, but to make that a constant, that took some very serious doing–since it defied all expectations set up by Newton. The key experiment that set Albert's mind to cogitatin' was the Michaelson-Morley experiment–the results of which he chose to interpret completely differently than, well, every other physicist in the world.
Now, you might be a scientist, and you know quite a bit about what you specialize in, but you're not clear on the history–because that wasn't emphasized in your training, and it doesn't matter a lick when you go in the lab. And there's nothing wrong with that, it just underscores the need for vigorous debate, free speech, some kind of common interdisciplinary language–and I think history, the field of history can provide this. Because this is part of science.
And I didn't even bring up the aspect of accidents, accidental discoveries. Or even the domination of theories that are completely wrong. The history of science is cluttered with these events.
I think that before any scientistific debate moves outside of accepted science, a good strong debate within science is necessary. For instance, I watched some footage of the debate between archaeologists and geologists on the age of the Sphinx. If they had guns they would have killed each other. The archaeologists basically said the field of geology is a fraud, since the geologists evidence of water erosion below a level of wind erosion is a fabrication. That is, the methods and findings which the geologists presented was just some sort of pseudo science.
Perhaps a few fields other than religion need to do a thorough cleaning of their own internal myths.
I'm sick of Darwinists saying that we all have to believe in evolution. There are other theories out there!
And I'm tired of the tyranny of the round-earth theory crowd. I've never bought the medieval canard that the earth is round. Some theorists say that below South America, there is Antarctica. Some think that below South America, "Thar be Dragons." We should teach the controversy in geography class, not exclude the "Thar be Dragons" theory just because "Big Science" doesn't like it.
Some say oxygen fuels fire, some theorists proposed Phlogiston. Why can't we have an open debate about it?!?!
Theory before data? Going on a hunch? No problem.The thing is Einstein had… uh, evidence for his theory. It was called Maxwell's light observations. The speed of which was always constant. Relativity was just an extrapolation of that. Data did indeed come first. The kind of data that Intelligent Designists not only don't deal in, but don't care to ever find for further corroboration of their ideas – which are not the same thing as theories.
Once again, this distinction also applies regardless of the scientific discipline in question – the distinction of an empirical basis.
Perhaps you think that the existence of reproduction outside of monogamous marriages means that reproduction is a completely random act, with no deliberation when it comes to mate selection. This must be a good example of throwing all and any sense of empirical observation out the window. Do these utterly random attempts at reproduction at least confine themselves to the same species, or at least attempts to mate with animate objects? Please clarify.
It's not that Foucault doesn't like scientific method–on the contrary he was a meticulous historian, and I think that's what lies at the heart of scientific method, being meticulous with the data. He uses qualitative methods, and you are right, he had nothing to do with developing technology or discovering the natural order of the world. But Kuhn's work and Foucault's work are necessary–they can certainly open the mind to inspiration and creativity, which are parts of science that are too often overlooked. And on a simple level, they are just being empirical.
Yes I have described science as divided into different disciplines with different epistemologies–I think that's the reality. It's also one of the critiques that many fine philosophers have put forth. I'd love to see the walls fall down so that they can reconcile. But religious folk don't have the monopoly on theories without evidence. How many years passed after Einstein's work before anyone could even take a measurement of light bending? Most times the theory comes before the data. That's just history. Wasn't Wegener laughed out of the profession of science when he proposed the theory of continental drift? I could list others–scientists that the community of scientists practically excommunicated for their theories.
The concluding sentence of my first paragraph is just paraphrasing what I've read in some statistical briefs. Long odds for this universe to work or for it to have been created by chance. But I'm just the messenger. I assume Roger Penrose knows more math than I do, and I'll just take his word for it.
I'm not talking about religion. I'm saying that in the history of science, frequently theory has come well before the facts that support the theory. That's normal science. That's empirical history. And part of this history, a part of scientific history just as important as laboratory procedures is free speech and all of the pitfalls that it contains.
I believe we have our wires crossed on what you think is my last point, because I don't understand what you are getting at in your last paragraph. I wasn't talking about marriages at all.
Free speech is not being stifled, Naftali. Idiocy is. A lack of intellectual authority or evidence is. Philosophers such as Foucault also don't like the scientific method? That's nice. But they don't need to give us explanations on how things work in the natural world either.
You are dividing up different scientific disciplines with language that parses them into different epistemologies – as if they have different meanings depending on the scientific perspective that's most pertinent. This gives the impression that they are irreconcilable, which is simply not the case. No one disputes (well, no scientist anyway) the existence of gravity as a general phenomenon, despite what remains not understood about it. It doesn't mean some philosopher or amateur theologian will show man's relation to it to be more "designed" and intentional someday, and it certainly doesn't mean that they have the evidence to do so today.
The concluding sentences of your first paragraph reveals a sense of innumeracy when it comes to basic biological and chronological phenomena. "Religion" can join a scientific debate when it decides to bring to the table the vocabulary of the same robust debates that have always existed in science: Evidence. If you don't like observable evidence then you can change the meaning of science to something that has less to do with credible explanations of the natural world as it exists. Just make sure to consult Webster first.
I'm dumbfounded that in a species of roughly 3 billion women and 3 billion men, someone can regard the generally monogamous (1:1) tendency for selecting a mate with whom to reproduce, who has traits that are naturally desirable to them, to be a "long shot". Ridiculous. I've never heard another human regard the reproduction of their species as a series of random events, rather than deliberate decisions. College hook-ups, maybe.
In that case, it would be nice if you could preface any such usage with the disclaimer that, at least in America such terms are, intentionally or otherwise, a way to propogandize the dispute and contribute to the sensationalizing of what is at most an eccentric and fringe notion in a field that has higher evidentiary standards than does the philosophy to which Ben Stein holds. Not all instances of marginalization are the result of a conspiracy. Unless, of course, having standards that are essential to the success of a specific enterprise - and one as transparent, respected and important to life in the modern world as science, at that - constitute a conspiracy.
and rather that using natural selection as the engine of development he used quantum leaps? Could Darwin mix biology and physics and still be considered empirical? Is there an unwritten law that one should stay within the confines of one's field? What about statistical evidence that shows natural selection to be a–uh–long shot. Like winning the lottery every week of the year? It seems that if we leave religion out of the debate, there is still a debate.
Gravitation, by the way, continues to plague physicists and continues, according to the latest things I've seen and read, to create more than a few theoretical holes and anomalies. This is not to say that physicists believe the pen that just fell off of the desk will float or rise to the ceiling. But gravity to an astrophysicist and a quantum physicist has two different meanings, and they are at the moment not compatible.
There is also the matter of String Theory–which is widely accepted among physicists, not unanimously, as if any theory should be unanimously accepted–which has zero empirical evidence to substantiate it, that is, the direct observation of a superstring.
There have been quite a few critics of scientific method, such as Foucault and Feyerabend, and one could hardly call these men religionists. Then there is the matter of Einstein, who simply took the available data on ether and drew different conclusions than the majority of scientists.
The bottom line here is that free speech and genuine scientific inquiry are in fact necessary for each other's existence.
But I was just using the terminology from the movie. I in no way intended to dumb down the debate.
Although I'll assume your intention is not to add to the dumbing down of the debate, please refrain from using terms like "Darwinist". It's bad enough to hear terms like "Darwinism" in the general discourse, which implies that evolution of the species by natural selection is an ideology, or something thereabouts, that non-scientists can relate to. However, to both scientists as well as to those with a firmer intellectual grounding in science, it is at once both disparaging – (in implying that scientists adhere moreso to ideological camps than evidentiary trails), and misleading (an acceptance of evolution by natural selection is no more distinguishing in a biologist than an acceptance of gravitation is in a physicist; and hence the irrelevance of any analogous neologisms such as "gravitationist(s)" or "gravitationism").
Just because many non-scientists might operate through ideology in structuring their thought processes, that doesn't mean that scientists, or "scientismists" do. While if anything, empiricism, is the tool, science is merely the result. And if the Intelligent Designists differ on a philosophical approach, then they must concede to the epistemological distinction of being anti-empirical on the matter. Whether that difference derives from an ideological predisposition or from something else, however, is for them to define – depending on how much intellectual respect they're interested in garnering from those silly empiricists. The same ones that had to fight uphill battles with religionists to prove that the sun didn't revolve around the earth, that disease was caused by germs rather than by evil spirits released by a displeased deity, etc., etc., etc.
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