Since the battle to keep evolution out of Canadian schools seems to have heated up again recently (why?) the flaws with Darwinian evolution are given very close scrutiny.
The issue, according to Behe, is not whether life evolved over billions of year - it did - but rather whether the driver was natural selection of mutations that improved fitness. The claim Behe makes is that Darwinian evolution clearly occurs and occurred but the mutation rate is too low to explain the complexity of living structures. So Darwin explains some but not all of life's structures.
Behe is pretty convincing. Indeed, having read his most recent book, The Edge of Evolution, one is left with the sense that there is something missing; Darwinian theory takes us only so far. The responsa to Behe are, to be honest, quite weak. (Perhaps that's just because the best evolutionary scientists can't be bothered to get involved in this sort of public debate?).
But rather than pointing the flaw out and stopping Behe goes further and says the "something missing" is intelligent design, or, something akin to God. And that's where Behe runs into a problem because intelligent design sees the problem with Darwinian theory and says, in effect, Darwin's wrong so God has to step in.
Now in fairness, intelligent design does not say the designer must be the God of most Canadian Sunday schools. But the implication is very much the same as the natural theology of the 1850's -- life is complex, it was not an accident, hence there is a designer, hence God is seen in his works.
Contrast intelligent design with a more sensible approach: perhaps one would say 'there's an issue with Darwinian theory, it's the best we have now, let's see if it can be tweaked to address the issue and if not let's look for something else which can explain the data". Yes, bringing God into the piece 'explains' the data but only in a trivial sense.
One can explain gravity by saying God's law says apples fall down or trees or by looking to Newtonian or relativistic theory. Clearly the latter two explanations are more productive; which is not to say God isn't behind the laws of physics.
Intelligent design is not an alternative theory of life -- it is an abdication of analysis. Darwin may well be wrong but that doesn't mean no theory other than God made it so can work.
James Morton
6 comments:
So your point is that we know Darwin's theory is wrong but we better not even consider another theory that seems to be credible? Come on, your lefty radicalism is showing. If I'd is wrong prove it otherwise let it be taught like other theories in school and the best theory will win.
Pilgrim,
That's not my point. If Darwiniam theory is wrong then replace it with some other theory that is testable and doesn't rely on a deus ex machine (literally). If we can't come up with such a theory then fine say we don't know. But don't just say we don't know so it's only explicable as being the will of God.
How did "Pilgrim" leap to that conclusion?
And what a ridiculous assertion: "If I'd [sic] is wrong prove it, otherwise..."
PROVE that Thor or magic pixies didn't invent the universe, Pilgrim. Can't, can you. Guess we'll be teaching that in school then.
Sheesh. What a maroon.
Well put Red... you lefty radical.
Mr. Morton, you are apparently one of those whom Jerry Coyne, in his review of Behe's Edge of Evolution, described as one "...lacking formal training in biochemistry and evolutionary biology [who] may be easily snowed by his [Behe's] rhetoric." The reality is that every argument Behe offers in Edge of Evolution is a repeat with different examples of his arguments in his earlier book Darwin's Black Box. His arguments and examples in that were roundly demolished by multiple critics. But Behe, true to his faith—but not science—just chose to ignore them. That's not the practice of a scientist publishing in peer reviewed literature. In fact in the Dover trial the plaintiff's attorney got Behe to agree that per Behe's definition of science, astrology qualifies. Is that someone one should believe when it comes to a debate on the validity of evolution? I don't think so.
Keanus,
You are right about my training -- my graduate work is in physics and not biology -- but I do think Behe's point about mutation rates SEEMS to be an issue and I haven't seen it refuted (at least in Scientific American type articles). But my point is rather different -- I don't say Behe is right, I am not qualified to say that, but rather that his conclusion - Darwin is wrong and so God is the only answer left - does not make sense logicially; he skips a step.
james
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