Letter to the Editor

[Simplicius]

I'm writing a letter in response to one printed in the Sunday Telegram concerning intelligent design and creationism, and thought I would post a draft here in case there are blatant errors which want correcting.

For the record, here is what I am responding to:

[snip state politics]

But there is a wider issue here. ID is not creationism. It is not a religious movement but a scientific one, led by eminent scientists. The find evidence for design not in Genesis but in the observed phenomena of microbiology.

Yet, time and time again, these two very different disciplines are confused in the media, whether on purpose or through ignorance, I do not profess to know.

[signed]
Falmouth

Here is what I intend to write, keeping in mind a limit of 250 words (met so far):

In reference to the letter of 13 August, the media is right to conflate creationism and intelligent design. ID is not science, nor does it deserve to be called such.

The validity of a scientific theory rests on the validity of the predictions it makes. If its predictions are repeatedly confirmed by observed, empirical evidence, the theory is valid. If its predictions are contradicted by the evidence, or the theory makes no predictions which can be tested, the theory is invalid and useless.

Intelligent design rests on the existence of an unknown, inscrutable designer for which no evidence can be found. Since the main prediction of ID - that this designer exists - cannot be tested due to this lack of evidence, ID exists not as science, subject to the scientific method, but as mere supposition. When asked, "From whence did life come?" ID offers no answer, but a question mark: "Here is my guess, but you'll have to take my word for it." That is not science.

So, as new fossils are discovered which reveal the process by which one species evolved into another over the eons, as organic molecules are discovered in outer space which hint at the origin of life on Earth, proponents of intelligent design remain blind to the evidence of their eyes, and intelligent design remains creationism in disguise, deserving no place in a science classroom.

[signed]
St. George

Comments and criticism are welcome.

[Chris OFarrell]

I'm almost tempted to say you should change : "and intelligent design remains creationism in disguise, deserving no place in a science classroom"-

to-

"and intelligent design remains creationism in a clown suit, deserving no place in a science classroom".

But that wouldn't really help the tone of the letter.
Looks good to me.

[Rye]

"Intelligent design rests on the existence of an unknown, inscrutable designer for which no evidence can be found. Since the main prediction of ID - that this designer exists - cannot be tested due to this lack of evidence, ID exists not as science, subject to the scientific method, but as mere supposition. When asked, "From whence did life come?" ID offers no answer, but a question mark: "Here is my guess, but you'll have to take my word for it." That is not science. "

I would change to:

"Intelligent design rests on the existence of an unknown, inscrutable designer for which no evidence can be found. Since the main prediction of ID - that this designer exists - cannot be tested due to this lack of evidence, ID exists not as science, subject to the scientific method, but as mere supposition. When asked, "From whence did life come?" ID offers no answer, but a question mark: "An unknown process perpetuated by an unknown entity, and I know this because life is really complicated," you know it's not scientific. ID assumes the existence of the very entity it's trying to prove exists, and goes about attempting to find any evidence (most of which is simple incredulity) in order to prove it. That's just backwards, that's pseudoscientific, and it would be harmful to teach our children such methods in science lessons."

[drachefly]

I would cut the second paragraph.

As for the third, I'd not focus on the Designer part of ID, but on the 'no answer' part of ID. That is, something along the lines of this...

Intelligent Design relies on the assertion that there is no way for evolution to bring about certain structures. However, they ignore a wide array of tools that evolution has at its disposal in doing so. It is like those who argue that UFO's were necessary to build the pyramids, ignoring the many advanced construction tools the ancient Egyptians had available.

[Simplicius]

I would cut the second paragraph.

I think the second paragraph is necessary. It is a counter to the writer's claim that ID is "not a religious movement but a scientific one," and shows that ID is not just inaccurate, but utterly unscientific as well.

[Darth Wong]

You should mention that the scientists promoting "intelligent design" all just HAPPEN to be deeply religious, and that their fraud was revealed on public record in the Dover PA court case. It was made very clear, as a matter of public record, that ID was motivated by religious rather than scientific interests, and that any scientists co-opted into the movement joined it for religious rather than scientific reasons. Even Michael Behe, the scientific "leading light" of the ID movement, admitted under oath that in order to classify ID as a science, he had to broaden the definition of "science" so much that it would now include astrology and tarot card reading.

[Simplicius]

Here is a revision which attempts to incorporate your best points, but which is unfortunately ~25 words over the limit.

In reference to the letter of 13 August, the media is right to conflate creationism and intelligent design. ID is not science, nor does it deserve to be called such.

The validity of a scientific theory rests on the validity of the predictions it makes. If its predictions are repeatedly confirmed by observed, empirical evidence, the theory is valid. If its predictions are contradicted by the evidence, or the theory makes no predictions which can be tested, the theory is invalid and useless.

Intelligent design rests on the existence of an unknown, inscrutable designer for which no evidence can be found. Since the main prediction of ID - that this designer exists - cannot be tested due to this lack of evidence, ID exists not as science, but as mere supposition. When asked, "From whence did life come?" ID offers nothing but a question mark: "An unknown entity, operating by unknown means, and my only evidence for this is my word." That is no answer, and that is not science.

Scientists who support ID have admitted under oath that it is motivated by religion rather than scientific discovery. A federal court rightfully barred the teaching of ID in Pennsylvania's public schools as violating the separation of church and state.

The overwhelming evidence for the genuine scientific theories of evolution and abiogenesis only grows with the discovery of new fossils and of organic molecules in deep space. Intelligent design lacks evidence and is a blatant attempt to slip religious doctrine past parents, educators, and Constitutional guarantees. Intelligent design remains creationism in disguise, deserving no place in a science classroom.

[signed]
St. George

[Darth Wong]

Here's a suggestion:

In reference to the letter of 13 August, the media is right to conflate creationism and intelligent design. Michael Behe himself, the leading light of the ID movement, admitted under oath (in the case of Kitzmiller vs Dover Area School District) that in order to classify ID as a science, he had to broaden the definition of "science" so far that it includes astrology and tarot card reading.

A scientific theory must employ measurable data and a comprehensible mechanism in order to produce precise, testable predictions. ID meets none of these requirements; it replaces a comprehensible mechanism with an inscrutable "Designer" (obviously a code-word for "God"), so it is incapable of producing any testable predictions at all, never mind precise ones.

At the end of the day, you can boil down the entire long-winded ID argument to the statement that life is too complex for us to figure out, so it must have been God. In short, ID basically says "It's too complicated, so we give up trying to understand this thing". Does that really sound like science to you?

If religious people dislike the scientific method, that is their right. Let them teach their children to distrust science at home and in Sunday School. But ID is not a science, and it would be outright fraud to teach it as if it was.

It's tricky keeping things to a low word-count, and let's face it: you can't educate the public about how science works in a Letter to the Editor. But I bolded the key paragraph; I think this is the most compact way to summarize the ID position.

[Simplicius]

The paper just called to tell me that not only will they publish the letter, but they will accept the revision I am offering in place of my hasty submission last night.

Here is what I gave them:

In reference to the letter of 13 August ("Blaine House race generates debate"), the media is right to conflate creationism and intelligent design. ID is not science - a fact conceded under oath by Michael Behe, leader of the movement - nor does it deserve to be called such.

The validity of a scientific theory rests on the validity of the predictions it makes. If its predictions are repeatedly confirmed by observed, empirical evidence, the theory is valid. If its predictions are contradicted by the evidence, or the theory makes no predictions which can be tested, the theory is invalid and useless.

Intelligent design rests on the existence of an unknown, inscrutable designer for which no evidence can be found. Since the main prediction of ID - that this designer exists - cannot be tested due to this lack of evidence, ID exists as mere supposition. When asked, "From whence did life come?" ID offers nothing but a question mark: "An unknown entity, operating via an unknown mechanism, and my only evidence for this is my word." That is not an answer, and that is not science.

So, as new fossils are discovered which reveal the process by which one species evolved into another, as organic molecules are discovered in deep space which hint at the origin of life on Earth, proponents of intelligent design insist that life is too complicated to understand or explain, and intelligent design remains creationism in disguise, deserving no place in a science classroom.

[signed]
St. George

It squeaks by two words shy of the limit.

[DPDarkPrimus]

You got a phone call from the paper? Nice!

[petesampras]

The paper just called to tell me that not only will they publish the letter, but they will accept the revision I am offering in place of my hasty submission last night.

Here is what I gave them:

In reference to the letter of 13 August ("Blaine House race generates debate"), the media is right to conflate creationism and intelligent design. ID is not science - a fact conceded under oath by Michael Behe, leader of the movement - nor does it deserve to be called such.

The validity of a scientific theory rests on the validity of the predictions it makes. If its predictions are repeatedly confirmed by observed, empirical evidence, the theory is valid. If its predictions are contradicted by the evidence, or the theory makes no predictions which can be tested, the theory is invalid and useless.

Intelligent design rests on the existence of an unknown, inscrutable designer for which no evidence can be found. Since the main prediction of ID - that this designer exists - cannot be tested due to this lack of evidence, ID exists as mere supposition. When asked, "From whence did life come?" ID offers nothing but a question mark: "An unknown entity, operating via an unknown mechanism, and my only evidence for this is my word." That is not an answer, and that is not science.

So, as new fossils are discovered which reveal the process by which one species evolved into another, as organic molecules are discovered in deep space which hint at the origin of life on Earth, proponents of intelligent design insist that life is too complicated to understand or explain, and intelligent design remains creationism in disguise, deserving no place in a science classroom.

[signed]
St. George

It squeaks by two words shy of the limit.

Hmm. Think you should have gone with Darth Wongs suggested letter. The key failing of ID as a scientific theory is that it lacks a clearly defined mechanism to generate its predictions.

ID fans will claim that ID does make predictions, it predicts that living organisms will appear to be made by an intelligent designer. The weakness is the lack of any kind of clearly defined mechanisms to generate predictions. That's what you needed to attack, in my opinion.

[drachefly]

I don't know... ID really shouldn't have to provide a mechanism.

Let's go off into hypothetical territory.

In the real world, we have a rich fossil record; genes are highly similar between wildly different species; and the same organ is implemented in very different ways, some of which are strictly better than the others; and there are lots of cases of mediocre or idiotic 'design'.

Now, suppose that all of these factors were false. Suppose it really looked like improvements had been carried across to wildly different species, there was not so much homology, and there wasn't much evidence of continuous change in the past.

Would ID be unscientific in this case? I suppose one could work with ramping down the probability of fossils surviving for long, and having lots and lots of viral transmission of genes across species, while having multiple developments of prokaryotes into eukaryotes... but that's a much messier theory than evolution actually is.

Now, let's try again, even more slanted. Throw in tons of systems where we look at them for decades and can't figure out how they could have evolved, but have clear utilitarian purpose to someone else. Like, creatures which extrude highly purified rare metals in strips, with perforation every 1.37 meters. Others could isolate noble gases, manufacture microchips but not use them.. whatever, I think you get the idea.

In that case, would ID still be unscientific? I'd suggest that it would not be. But even in that case there would be no known mechanism. Speculation, sure; but it is not necessary to the idea.


ID has critical flaws, but its failure to provide a mechanism is not one of them.

[Lord Zentei]

In that case, would ID still be unscientific? I'd suggest that it would not be. But even in that case there would be no known mechanism. Speculation, sure; but it is not necessary to the idea.


ID has critical flaws, but its failure to provide a mechanism is not one of them.

It certainly would be flawed as a theory: unparsimonious and unfalsifiable speculation made where no mechanism is known does not make a science: particularly one that cannot produce a testable mechanism. You might as well throw in the towel and say, "well, we don't know any mechanism, and by our speculation such a one cannot exist anyway, so why bother trying".

[drachefly]

I don't see how my last (highly counterfactual) example would fail to be explained by the existence of a designer. It's just that we don't know the designer's methods. Breeding? Gene splicing from existing creatures? Wholesale original gene authorship?

Suppose you add in the detail that every creature with oddly otherwise-inexplicable features has the same bar-code and signature in some strange script, written on its forehead in concentrations of Iodine, which is preserved even as other markings change due to adaptive pressures.

Still unscientific to suppose there was a designer?

[Darth Wong]

I don't see how my last (highly counterfactual) example would fail to be explained by the existence of a designer. It's just that we don't know the designer's methods. Breeding? Gene splicing from existing creatures? Wholesale original gene authorship?

Suppose you add in the detail that every creature with oddly otherwise-inexplicable features has the same bar-code and signature in some strange script, written on its forehead in concentrations of Iodine, which is preserved even as other markings change due to adaptive pressures.

Still unscientific to suppose there was a designer?

In that case, your designer is not inscrutable. He's acting like a human, hence you have a comprehensible mechanism. I think the point completely sailed over your head here.

You see, the problem with ID is that the designer doesn't act like a human designer, and when you point that out to the IDers they just say that he's God and you can't understand his motives. That is not what would be happening in this case, where it actually looks like you can assign rational motives to his decisions.

[Lord Zentei]

I don't see how my last (highly counterfactual) example would fail to be explained by the existence of a designer. It's just that we don't know the designer's methods. Breeding? Gene splicing from existing creatures? Wholesale original gene authorship?

Suppose you add in the detail that every creature with oddly otherwise-inexplicable features has the same bar-code and signature in some strange script, written on its forehead in concentrations of Iodine, which is preserved even as other markings change due to adaptive pressures.

Still unscientific to suppose there was a designer?

You can strive to hypothesize and scrutinize possible mechanisms by which such a designer as you describe may have done his work: this is what archaeologists do, after all.

However, the very point of ID, by contrast is that you cannot do so for nature: hence the phrase "irriducible complexity". They don't just speculate a designer but a designer that uses intrinsically incomprehensible methods.

[drachefly]

That isn't what irreducible complexity means. Maybe you should try reading their arguments, as hideously awful as they are, before making your rebuttal.

[Darth Wong]

That isn't what irreducible complexity means. Maybe you should try reading their arguments, as hideously awful as they are, before making your rebuttal.

Irreducible complexity is a Failure of Imagination fallacy.

[Lord Zentei]

That isn't what irreducible complexity means. Maybe you should try reading their arguments, as hideously awful as they are, before making your rebuttal.

I realize in retrospect I misapplied the definition of irreducible complexity, and yes, I have in fact read their arguments and definitions. Though even without that gaffe my argument still stands - it was a condiment to the main point not a requirement for it. Darth Wong and I are essentially saying the same thing here: did you not see that?

[drachefly]

(I didn't notice this one at first)

In that case, your designer is not inscrutable. He's acting like a human, hence you have a comprehensible mechanism. I think the point completely sailed over your head here.

My point seems to have sailed clear over yours.
ID criticized Evolution for not providing every detail. It has plenty of serious problems on which it should be criticized, before we get down to the level of levelling the same argument against it, which is fairly school-yard-y.
Anyway, inscrutability is not an essential or even useful ingredient of ID. Inscrutability is one of those things they admit they have a problem with, though they think it's a minor problem.

You see, the problem with ID is that the designer doesn't act like a human designer, and when you point that out to the IDers they just say that he's God and you can't understand his motives. That is not what would be happening in this case, where it actually looks like you can assign rational motives to his decisions.

There are plenty of ID-ers who won't go to God (and many more who merely won't admit they will). Aliens who were just screwing around for the heck of it is a popular one.

ID can certainly say that we have no leads on the motive of the creator, but such leads are not necessary. How about we back up to my middle case, where there is no clear reason or purpose, but still it doesn't look vaguely like a product of evolution.

[drachefly]

That isn't what irreducible complexity means. Maybe you should try reading their arguments, as hideously awful as they are, before making your rebuttal.

Irreducible complexity is a Failure of Imagination fallacy.

Exactly my point. Attack it at that point, not the rather odd point that ID requires inscrutability on the part of the designer, which it doesn't (though since our actual data support no purpose, we are left with no clear hypotheses as to purpose).

[Darth Wong]

That isn't what irreducible complexity means. Maybe you should try reading their arguments, as hideously awful as they are, before making your rebuttal.

Irreducible complexity is a Failure of Imagination fallacy.

Exactly my point. Attack it at that point, not the rather odd point that ID requires inscrutability on the part of the designer, which it doesn't (though since our actual data support no purpose, we are left with no clear hypotheses as to purpose).

Did you completely ignore my fucking previous post, retard? In your example, the designer is NOT inscrutable; you know he's a designer because he is behaving logically. But in ID, the designer is totally inscrutable; you can't use any action or inaction on his part to prove or disprove the theory because his motives are supposed to be beyond human comprehension.

EVERY scientific theory must be capable of generating predictions. A theory reliant on an inscrutable term cannot do so.

[Lord Zentei]

My point seems to have sailed clear over yours.
ID criticized Evolution for not providing every detail. It has plenty of serious problems on which it should be criticized, before we get down to the level of levelling the same argument against it, which is fairly school-yard-y.
Anyway, inscrutability is not an essential or even useful ingredient of ID. Inscrutability is one of those things they admit they have a problem with, though they think it's a minor problem.

Only it is NOT a minor problem. The whole point of science is to make things scrutable. And it IS essential. Otherwise they have nothing.

There are plenty of ID-ers who won't go to God (and many more who merely won't admit they will). Aliens who were just screwing around for the heck of it is a popular one.

And where did the aliens come from? Hello, parsimony.

See, they are lacking a crucial ingredient for their theory becoming acceptable. Well, they are lacking several, but amongst them is a POINT.

[Lord Zentei]

Ghetto: and by a "point" I mean "what is the point in accepting this bullshit".

[drachefly]

Did you completely ignore my fucking previous post, retard?

No, I wrote a whole post answering the argument in that post. You have not responded to this post (It was one of my double posts because we were discussing too quickly for me to catch everything in time, this is probably why you missed it).

In your example, the designer is NOT inscrutable; you know he's a designer because he is behaving logically. But in ID, the designer is totally inscrutable; you can't use any action or inaction on his part to prove or disprove the theory because his motives are supposed to be beyond human comprehension.

Fine. Here's a third example. Take the second example I made (the one with the factory animals), and let it evolve for a few million years. The specific factory traits have been evolved away. Now it looks basically like the first example I made. We can no longer discern the creator's purpose, yet there was a perfectly reasonable purpose. It is, for all purposes, now inscrutable.

You aren't going to be able to tell what the designer was up to; but just like in my first example, it is implausible that evolution could produce it. And what does that leave? Being made. If you can only guess at the reasons for being made, well, that's the lumps.

EVERY scientific theory must be capable of generating predictions. A theory reliant on an inscrutable term cannot do so.

and similarly

Only it is NOT a minor problem. The whole point of science is to make things scrutable. And it IS essential. Otherwise they have nothing.

So, was astronomy not science before we had explained nuclear fusion, because we had this totally inscrutable mechanism for the stars to burn? Eventually, it was worked out; but for a really long time we weren't even close.
The ID analogue would be trying to figure out what the designer was up to. In my third example, they could search for archaeological evidence of the microchips or metal sheets, they could look through gene drift to reconstruct the original non-broken versions of the various factory animals, reconstruct them, etc. In the first example, or in real life, they could look for such things, and not find them. All that would prove is that they left a long enough time ago not to make their purpose clear.

They'd still have enough evidence to throw out evolution, and what would be left but design?

NOTE: remember, I am not saying ID is not totall bullshit - it is. I am merely maintaining that this particular reason is not WHY it is bullshit.

And where did the aliens come from? Hello, parsimony.

Presumably, they evolved. Note that ID does not need to say that evolution cannot produce intelligent life (and the more careful proponents maintain this); all it needs to say is that evolution could not produce some organism or other which actually exists.
So, the aliens who did the constructing in my counterfactual examples would have all the precise features in their home biosphere that would indicate that they evolved, because they did. Like we do. ;) But not like the creatures in my counterfactual examples.