Scientific Evidence Points To A Designer?

We have had these types of anthropic universe arguments before, and I don't see this being settled anytime soon, unless we encounter an alien life form or something that dramatic.

Apparently, this physicists have been making the rounds giving talks on scientific evidence that points to a designer. Unfortunately, this claim is highly misleading. There are several issues that need to be clarified here:

1. These so-called evidence have many varying interpretations. In the hands of Stephen Hawking, he sees this as evidence that we do NOT need a designer for the universe to exist. So to claim it that they point to a designer is highly misleading, because obviously there are very smart people out there who think of the opposite.

2. Scientific evidence have varying degree of certainty. The evidence that Niobium undergoes a superconducting transition at 9.3 K is a lot more certain than many of the astrophysical parameters that we have gathered so far. It is just the nature of the study and the field.

3. It is also interesting to note that even if the claim is true, it has a significant conflict with many of the orthodox religious view of the origin of the universe, including the fact that it allows for significant time for speciation and evolution.

4. The argument that the universe has been fine-tuned for us to live in is very weak in my book. Who is there to say that if any of these parameters is different that a different type of universe couldn't appear and that different type of life forms would dominate? We are still at an infant knowledge as far as how different types of universes could form, which is one of the argument that Hawking used when he invoked the multiverse scenario. So unless that there is a convincing argument that our universe is the one and only universe that can exist, and nothing else can, then this argument falls very flat.

I find that this type of seminar can't be very productive unless there is a panel discussion presenting both sides. People who listened to this may not be aware of the holes in such arguments, and I would point out also to the any talk by those on the opposite side as well. It would have been better if they invited two scientists with opposing view, and they can show to the public how the same set of evidence leads to different conclusions. This is what happens when the full set of evidence to paint a clear picture isn't available.

Zz.

When Belief Trumps Scholarship

The most significant argument against Creationism/Intelligent Design is that the proponents of these beliefs tends to try to find faults in existing concept of evolution, but without providing evidence of their own in support of their beliefs. The most often line of attack by these people is what we often normally refer to using the concept of "god of the gaps", where one tries to find some evidence or observations that defies current scientific explanation.

The problem with this, of course, is that these "gaps" often continue to shrink over time, and as our understanding of the world around us expand and improve. The ancient civilization used to think that the moving clouds, the eclipses, the ebb and flow of ocean tides, etc., were all due to some act of gods, because they didn't have any knowledge of what caused them. Now, we know better and these events are no longer mysterious or mystical.

And that's where we come back to the ID crowd. More often than not, they lack the necessary scientific evidence to strengthen their arguments. And when they try, the only people they could convince are people who really are not well-equipped to actually decipher the science. This appears to be the case of the latest book titled "Darwin's Doubt" written by Stephen Meyer, who runs the Discovery Institute. He's a non-biologist, who is trying to argue that the rapid explosion of animal phylia in the Cambrian period cannot be explained via the slow and tedious process of evolution, and thus, via invoking the god-of-the-gaps, points to evidence of an intelligent designer.

Whenever someone brings up a scientific point, it must be countered with equivalent scientific point. And this is exactly what has been done in this case. A review of this book written by UC Berkeley's Charles Marshall in this week's issue of Science (Science, v.341, p.1344 (2013)) did just that. In this review, Marshall pointed out several flaws in the biological/scientific points presented in Meyer's book.

However, my hope soon dissipated into disappointment. His case against current scientific explanations of the relatively rapid appearance of the animal phyla rests on the claim that the origin of new animal body plans requires vast amounts of novel genetic information coupled with the unsubstantiated assertion that this new genetic information must include many new protein folds. In fact, our present understanding of morphogenesis indicates that new phyla were not made by new genes but largely emerged through the rewiring of the gene regulatory networks (GRNs) of already existing genes (1). Now Meyer does touch on this: He notes that manipulation of such networks is typically lethal, thus dismissing their role in explaining the Cambrian explosion. But today's GRNs have been overlain with half a billion years of evolutionary innovation (which accounts for their resistance to modification), whereas GRNs at the time of the emergence of the phyla were not so encumbered. The reason for Meyer's idiosyncratic fixation with new protein folds is that one of his Discovery Institute colleagues has claimed that those are mathematically impossibly hard to evolve on the timescale of the Cambrian explosion.

In other words, this scientific argument doesn't hold water.

Unfortunately, and I can see this happening often, the counter argument to this book will not reach those who should be aware of it. The same with the perpetual argument that evolution violates the 2nd law of Thermodynamics, those who belief in ID will use this as the scientific argument against the evolution of life on Earth, without being aware of the holes in Meyer's book.

But at least now, you know that there is a scientific counter argument to what Meyer has brought up, and you can point to this Science review article.

Zz.

Creationists Clutching At Quotation Straws

Holy Creation! Can creationists be THIS desperate?

Creationists saw Hawking's comments as an admission that God was needed to create the universe. And they were particularly gleeful about a subsequent story in New Scientist Magazine, headlined "Why Scientists Can't Avoid a Creation Event." That piece called the substance of the conference "the worst presents ever," referring to the failure of several theories attempting to explain the origin of the cosmos.

The story set off a round of virtual chest-thumping. One writer said it raised the "thorny question of how to kick-start the cosmos without the hand of a supernatural creator."

Supposedly, this is what Hawking uttered:

A point of creation would be a place where science broke down. One would have to appeal to religion and the hand of God.

Really? Just that?

I'll leave it up to you to read the rest of the article, especially the response by Alan Guth. But what I want to address here is this:

1. Do creationists that are so happy with such a statement completely neglected all of Hawking's history and written pieces on his opinion of God, that one single quote somehow negates ALL of that? It is not even physics!

2. If you hang on so closely to his words (as if they are Divine gospel) and somehow believe him this time, how come you dismissed all of his earlier comments on the same topic before this? How are you able to pick and choose which ones to accept and which ones to reject?

This is unbelievably hilarious. Rather than strengthen the case for creationism, it has reduced such idea to a pathetic desperation for any kind of justification and validation.

Zz.

Physics And Creationism

When I read the title of the article "What Physics Teaches Us About Creationism", I will freely admit that I was all set to dislike it based on what I thought it was going to lead to, which is a justification of creationism based on the bastardization of physics. Instead, what I read was an opinion that mirrors what I had already written.

This writer made several pointed argument against creationism, and supporters of creationism, who want to teach it as an "alternative" to evolution. In this case, he was using the example of the OPERA result to falsify this often-made claim against science.

Creationists regularly assert that science is a closed operation, that those offering opinions differing from the norm cannot get a fair hearing within the scientific community. They argue that it is impossible to publish papers in the technical literature that call the dominant paradigm into question. It is this narrow-mindedness, they continue, that keeps their "important" ideas from being shared broadly. I can't begin to count the number of notes I've received from creationists who rail against the biologists who refuse to consider what they have to say. The charge is always the same: scientists are biased and unwilling to consider any ideas that contradict their opinions.

The work arising from CERN demonstrates just how absurd this argument is. The scientists responsible for the work calling special relativity into question had absolutely no trouble getting their results in front of their peers. No one closed ranks and black-listed those who challenged the prevailing paradigm. Quite the opposite occurred. The physics community is abuzz with the results, and healthy discussion, meaningful skepticism, and plans for replication abound.

I had made practically the same argument before, especially in addressing what many crackpots have always made when their "theory" got debunked.  There have been many instances in physics where the strongly-held ideas at that time had to be revamped to make way for new and better/more accurate description of our world. So people who continue to make such arguments are utterly ignorant, and hope that those who hear their arguments are also utterly ignorant of such facts.

The other argument made is the fact that creationism/intelligent design offers zero experimental data and physical evidence in its support.

Creationists, on the other hand, simply make assertions. They offer no data and perform no experiments. As was pointed out by creationists themselves under oath in the Dover, PA intelligent design trial in 2005, no one is performing any scientific investigations of intelligent design. No one is publishing any empirical data on the subject. No one is doing anything at all other than saying, "wow, it seems really unlikely and counter-intuitive for evolution to work." What the creationists want is for an alternative theory of evolution to be accepted - and taught to our children - simply because they don't like the one that currently is supported by the data and by virtually every scientist in the field.

I think this is very important, and it also separates science from many other subjects, especially the standard, typically political banter where data seldom get cited, but personal preferences are used as valid justification for something. Don't believe me? Pay close and critical attention to any political speeches and debates. See how many times the superficial claims and assertions are given the support of actual data.

There's a lot to be learn from science, not the least of which is the methodology on how we arrive at a conclusion or knowledge. I can only wish other areas and most people make the same critical evaluation of what they accept as being valid.

Zz.

Unintelligent Design

I wrote a while back of a letter I read in Science about a different line of attack against the so-called intelligent design idea. It is to exposed the fact that if the human body was indeed the product of an intelligent design, the design itself isn't very intelligent. Based on simply, basic problem of the human anatomy, one could term ID as Incompetent Design, which makes any deity that is responsible for such a design to be highly dumb.

Well now, Art Hobson has also published something similar. In this case, he calls it Unintelligent Design. Here, he looks at one very common argument that ID proponents often use, the eye. Their typical argument is that the eye is way too complex for it to come out of evolution and random formation. Art Hobson used the same type of argument that I mentioned earlier to point the flaw in the human eye.

But the eye betrays its evolutionary origin with a tell-tale flaw: The retina is inside out. The nerve fibers that carry signals from the retina’s light-sensing cells lie on top of those cells and have to plunge through a large hole in the retina to get to the brain, creating the eye’s blind spot. Any intelligent designer would be offended by such a clumsy arrangement. The human eye was not designed; it was inherited as the result of long-term evolutionary development. The eyes of all vertebrate animals are linked with our invertebrate relatives that have only simple eyes that detect light but can’t form an image. In fact, molecular studies have recently found a direct link between the genetic structures that control primitive invertebrate light sensors and those that control sophisticated mammalian lens structures.

As with the tired argument about Thermo's second law and evolution, I'm guessing that this argument would not reach to those who should be educated. Not that they would care, or that this would change their minds anyway.

Zz.

Methodist Advocates Evolution

Holy Cow! Some time, the timing of these things are uncanny.

I had just finished writing (or maybe it is more accurately described as "ranting") against a newspaper article that argued that more pastors and ministers should be teaching "science" as part of religious studies. Then along comes this news article of someone within the United Methodist Church to explicitly accept evolution and to declare that it isn't in conflict the the church's teachings.

One of Kuelling’s proposals amends the Science and Technology section of the church’s Book of Discipline. It was approved by 80 percent of voting delegates.

It now states, in part: “We find that science’s descriptions of cosmological, geological and biological evolution are not in conflict with theology.”

The second proposal, which passed with 96 percent of the vote, was added to the church’s Book of Resolutions. It endorses The Clergy Letter Project led by David Zimmerman, an ecologist and dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Butler University in Indianapolis.

The proposal encourages Methodist pastors to sign an open letter on evolution that affirms that “the timeless truths of the Bible and the discoveries of modern science may comfortably coexist” and supports the teaching of evolution alone in schools instead of as “one theory among others.”

A third evolution resolution, advanced by a church regional body in Kansas, puts the church on record as opposing the teaching of “faith-based theories such as Creationism and Intelligent Design” in public-school science classes.

There ya go!

This implies one very important conclusion: that the view of life and the universe within the christian church does not have one single, unique interpretation! This is a FACT. Even within those who accept the literal interpretation of creationism, there is still conflicts between "Old Earth" versus "Young Earth" creationism. So when you have such varying view even among religious scholars and experts, how can someone holds such a definitive stand in accepting creationism based simply on religious grounds?

But the kicker of that article, which the writer in the previous article that I ranted about should read, is this passage:

If the church doesn’t acknowledge the legitimacy of evolution in science, religion comes off as “out of touch with reality” and loses credibility when it makes moral statements on areas involving science and technology,” he says.

“What we’re saying is the Bible … tells us who created the world and what we should do to care for it,” he says. “Genesis teaches about relationships and responsibility. But it does not teach science.”

BINGO! Who's going to tell that other guy that he shouldn't be teaching science? :)

Zz.

Science Was Once Part of Religious Study - Big Deal!

This writer seems to want to argue that the religious point of view of science is perfectly valid simply because "science" was once taught as part of religious studies. So he is saying that since B was once a part of A, then whatever A says about B must be valid. What kind of pretzel logic is this?

He seems to have completely ignored one little incident way back when... Galileo. What happened when the church's doctrine contradicts the findings of science? One simply can't ignore such a thing because it HAS happened, and will continue to occur.

But the worse is yet to come.

This other book is important because the dominant reason, even today, why people hold to theism is the argument best articulated by William Paley in his 1802 book appropriately titled “Natural Theology.” Paley argued that if one came across a watch lying on the road, he would conclude that the watch had an intelligent designer. Likewise, one who studies science is led to ask the same question: Who is the intelligent designer of the universe and the life in it? Paley’s book of science argued in over 400 pages that, after studying the wonders of creation, one could only conclude that, like the watch, it must have had an intelligent watchmaker to explain its origin.

Likewise, the living creation must also have a creator behind it. Thomas Aquinas, often regarded as the greatest Christian philosopher who ever lived, eloquently argued that wherever complex design exists there must have been an intelligent designer. Life, the most specified complex machine in the universe, likewise must have had an intelligent designer. The key is not complexity, but specified complexity. A junkyard is complex, as is a modern jet airplane, but only the airplane is complexity specified for a purpose, to rapidly carry passengers in the air from one point to another.

You'll notice that NONE of these arguments are actually based on science, but rather, guess work and personal tastes. Let's tackle the first one, shall we?

"Life must have an intelligent "watchmaker"".

This one is embarrassing to this "intelligent watchmaker". Read my entry on The Best Attack Against Intelligent Design. I will requote that hysterical passage that I cited:

You have a philosophic choice between evolution or belief in ID, so called intelligent design. But even a first-year engineering student would be embarrassed to have designed your lower back with the extreme bend that allows you to stand erect even though your pelvis slants forward for knuckle-dragging like all our near relatives. You probably have had braces or wisdom teeth extracted because there are too many teeth for the size of your mouth. Then there are your sinuses, with a flawed drainage system that would provoke laughter from a plumber. Yet evolution provides a ready and rational explanation for all these design failures: by progressive changes into an erect posture, by shortening of a mammalian muzzle into a face, and by expansion of our large brains to crowd the facial bones. So take your choice: Do you prefer evolution or an ID whose letters may as well stand for Incompetent Design?

If this is the "Intelligent Designer" that is responsible for such blunders that even human beings can design better, then what does it say about the deity that one is worshipping? No. Just because something has appeared today has no indication that it was out of design. There's no scientific evidence to point to such a thing. The argument made in that paragraph isn't scientific, but rather simply based on a matter of tastes.

The second point on the "complexity specified for a purpose", for some odd reason, seems to be argued as if it favors an intelligent designer. It is odd because "complexity specified for a purpose" is the driving mechanism that clearly explains evolution, that nature will select only what it needs.

Still, the "complexity" issue has been used many time by ID proponents without convincing anyone, especially those in the sciences. This is because this can be illustrate simply:

Let's say you have 10 coins in a row. Now, say that "human being" as we know it now corresponds to a specific arrangement of 5 heads, 3 tail, and 2 heads, all in sequence (i.e. a particular, specified complexity as demanded). Now, before you randomly throw those coins, what are the odds of getting exactly that sequence? It is pretty low, isn't it? In fact, it is not very likely that one would get that particular arrangement. It may take a million tries or more to even come close. So this is the argument that many have used to indicate that life is just way too complex with such utter low probability that it isn't possible that we rose out of nothing more than random mutations.

Ah, but this is where they got it wrong, because they forgot one important point. Life as we know it now simply didn't appear out of nowhere spontaneously. In other words, it didn't require someone to flip all those coins all at once. We know that life evolve gradually, from the simplest organism into more complex ones, as the environment and climate change. The formation of single-celled animals are not utterly complex as to make it highly unlikely. So one can imagine that in the beginning, one only had to toss one coin, and with a 50% chance of getting "head", it is quite likely to occur. As more and more complex beings are formed, more and more of those coins are tossed. If you have many, many sets of such coins in series, it is inevitable that you'll still get the "right" sequence that might lead to us human beings. In other words, if you already have 5 heads, 3 tails, and 1 head, what's the likelihood that you'll get 5 heads, 3 tails, and 2 heads, which is the sequence for human being? A considerable chance of 50%! So there is indeed a considerable difference in outlook if one start with trying to get ALL the sequence right out of a random selection in one shot, versus getting the right sequence gradually as it gets more and more likely.

Besides, what is there to argue that 5 heads, 3 tails, and 2 heads is the only sequence acceptable? Maybe if the world had evolved differently, 2 heads, 6 tails, and 2 heads might lead to a different form of beings that could have equally survived. Those beings than may think that they are special and that such intelligent life can only be formed using those coin sequence. There is nothing to indicate that the "complexity" that produced us is the only unique, conscious creature that can be created. So getting 5 heads, 3 tails, and 2 heads is nothing special at all and therefor, has no significant reason why that is where nature was heading towards from the very beginning.

Religion and "religious people" often embarrass themselves when they try to "intellectualize" what they believe in by invoking logic and science, especially when they understand very little science. This is just another one out of the many examples we have already seen.

Zz.

Theistic Evolution - The New Theology?

This is a rather fascinating article from, of all places, the Chicago Tribune. It detailed the "inquisition" being faced by a physicist at Calvin College in Michigan for a book that was published years ago. In it, Howard Van Till dares to propose that his religious belief can be reconciled with the evolution.

Van Till roused a small but fervent pack of enemies at the conservative college with his book, "The Fourth Day," in which he argued that the stories of the Bible and science's account of evolution could both be true. His critics on the school's board of trustees had no interest in reconciling the religious account of creation with a naturalist explanation of how life and the universe have evolved over the ages. For years after the book's release in 1986, Van Till reported to a monthly interrogation where he struggled to reassure college officials that his scientific teachings fit within their creed.

Now that's an interesting tactic.

I suppose that many people do accept both, and I suspect that there are a lot more of them than those who are reverently anti-evolution or anti-religion. This is because many people of faith accepts that what they believe in is simply a matter of faith - devoid of physical and empirical evidence, and they're willing to accept that. They still continue to accept science as the workings of the world that they live in. I don't see anything wrong with that kind of a "compromise".

But this attempt at reconciling religion (or in this case, Christianity) with evolution is certainly interesting. It does mean that many who accept both don't have to feel any discomfort for an apparent contradiction.

A good article!

Zz.

Where Science, Religion Meet?

This news article reports on a noble effort of trying to present the middle ground between science and religion as part of what they call the Evolution weekend. I'm sure they had good intentions here in doing this, and certainly, having such dialog could possibly help. However, and maybe this is simply the skeptic in me talking, I think they're missing a lot of important aspect here, which is understandable if they only think of "religion" as being "christianity".

For example:

"Neither science nor faith can fully prove how the world came to be, so they are complimentary to each other," said Bennet Brabson, a professor of physics at Indiana University in Bloomington.

"(Religion and science) have a shared inquiry, not necessarily a shared certitude," said Mark Engle, a retired rector from a Marquette church. "The journey of truth in scriptures is never done without science."

Whenever someone says something like this, he/she is forgetting one important thing. In science, when something is accepted to be valid, there is usually ONE set of formulation or description that we all agreed on. It doesn't matter if you are an American, a European, a Russian, a Chinese, a christian, a buddhist, a muslim, an athiest, etc... It is the SAME scientific theory and description. The theory of conventional superconductivity, for example, isn't different for a Canadian than it is for a Japanese, no matter what their social and cultural differences are. Even something that is still being highly studied, such as the Big Bang Theory, has a rather large and uniform consensus, even though there are small groups of cosmologist that may disagree with it. What may differ, for instance, among those who do accept the Big Bang, is the details. They may disagree on the "exact" age of the universe, let's say, but it's a matter of it being 4 billion, 6, billion, of 12 billion years old. The difference certainly not between 10 billion and 10,000 years old. If better evidence come along, accepted science evolves to match the evidence.

The same can't be said about religion and its view of the universe. The Judeo-Christian-Islam view of the universe varies WIDELY from the Hindu/Buddhist/Taoist/etc. view of the universe. One can also say that even within the Judeo-Christian-Islam religion, there are also significant differences in the description of the universe. Don't believe me? Read Maurice Bucaille's "The Bible, The Quran, and Science". They do not agree on the fundamental formation of the universe and its age. Even among the Christians themselves, you get one that accepts the age of the universe from Cosmology as being in the billions of years, while there are these "Young Earth" followers who still think the earth is only of the order of 10,000 years old! That's a major, major discrepancy in my book.

So I find it strange that whenever people say that both science and religion can meet, and that one compliments the other in our understanding of the universe, this major disagreement between various religious views are never mentioned, as if "religion" is only one version of Christianity, and as if "religion" means "Christianity" only. There is NO ONE ACCEPTED VERSION of the universe in religion. That's a fallacy.

Not only that, the other reason why I think events like this may not be that effective is because you get someone like this who can't see the fault in what they believe in:

Fred Betz, 63, of Galesburg told the panelists he took the words of the Bible at face value, and his understanding of scripture disproved evolution.

"What's wrong with my simplistic view of reading the Bible?" Betz asked.

Panelists said nothing was wrong and pointed to the central themes of Evolution Weekend: open-mindedness and discussion.

"The way we deal with each other is more important than any of our individual theories," Brabson answered.

Betz wasn't convinced.

"It's sad we're having (this discussion) in a church," he said after the event. "The Bible is the inherent word of God. It's sad I had to explain the same things to them I had to explain to my atheist friend."

How come no one points out that what this guy accepts "at face value" is nothing more than a product of SEVERAL TRANSLATIONS of human memorization over hundreds of years? Did he think that the bible was written in English outright? How secure are you at accepting "at face value" something that had been translated from several ancient languages across several different cultures? How many languages does this guy know? Has he ever done any kind of translation and see how a lot of meanings get lost when one does that? I mean, c'mon! Why are we missing something this obvious here?

When all the religions of the world get their act together and come up with a coherent picture, when maybe this "science meet religion" affair might produce something worthwhile. Till then, all this is doing is trying to merge science with something that is ill-defined. I see this as a futile effort.

Zz.

Science, Evolution, and Creationism

If you haven't found this and downloaded it yet, you might find it useful. This is the document produced by the US National Academy of Sciences addressing the Evolution vs. Creationism in terms of science. It addresses things in a straight-forward manner, and produces not only rebuttals against several popular points brought up by creationists, but also points to several strong evidence in support of evolution that many people may not realize.

Most of the documents and reports can be obtained for free.

Zz.

The Adventures of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

Sometime, I'm thoroughly amazed (not to mention, highly amused) at the things that a physics student can get into. I will admit that I wasn't aware of the existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster till I read this news report. However, it appears that the creation of one physics student at the Oregon State University by the name of Bobby Henderson will now be the subject of a discussion at the upcoming American Academy of Religion annual meeting.

You have got to read the news article to get up to speed here. It's too hilarious and, I would say, an effective means to illustrate the absurdity of forcing Intelligent Design into a science class.

So, whether you intentionally planned this or not, well done Bobby!

Zz.

An In-Class Discussion Activity on the Nature of Science and Intelligent Design

This is a fascinating report. Brian Thomas from the Dept. of Physics of Washburn University describes a class for elementary education majors dealing with the issue on whether Intelligent Design should be considered as a science and should be taught in science classes.

The nature and process of science is a foundational topic in a course entitled “Physical Science for Elementary Educators” which I team-teach with a colleague in chemistry at Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas. I have developed and used in class a guided discussion activity intended to help the students think about the issues surrounding the status of ID as science and whether it should be included in state public school science standards.

Something like this is highly appropriate, especially in a state where he is in (Kansas) that had been the battleground for the ID proponents. It is imperative that if these students are to go into the classrooms as teachers, that they themselves are clear on how things are defined, regardless of on which side of the issue they are on.

However, and this again connects back to my skepticism of how the general public make their decisions, it is disheartening to read the result of this exercise at the end, even when there is a unanimous consensus that ID isn't science.

Most students recognized that ID is not properly defined as science and should not be taught in science classrooms. However, there was a definite portion of the class (about 25%) that would certainly support such inclusion. Interestingly, this group seemed to see no contradiction between stating that ID is not science, but at the same time stating that it should be taught in science classrooms. This is a discouraging finding, since it indicates that arguments against ID being science, even if successful, may not effectively counteract all pressure to nevertheless include ID in science classrooms. Perhaps a more stark confrontation with such inconsistency would force a change in viewpoint, but this was not the point of the exercise, and may not be successful in any case, given the deep-seated nature of convictions that likely underlie such statements.

That's discouraging, and implies that for many people, it is acceptable to make that kind of irrational or inconsistent decisions.

My pessimism continues....

Zz.

The Best Attack Against Intelligent Design that I've Ever Read!

This is from the July 22 2005 issue of Science, and after reading it, I simply HAD to report it and record it here. And not to mention, I FULLY agree with the whole idea on how to confront this issue. This is consistent with my earlier entry on here about the fact that you have to be superficial, glib, and perky when talking about science to politicians and the general public. It's the ONLY way to make them pay attention and to sway them. Facts and figures do NOTHING! It's all in the style!

Anyway, in this issue of Science, Donald Wise from Department of Geosciences of University of Massachusetts addressed the issue related to Donald Kennedy's article on Evolution vs. Intelligent Design. He pointed out how ineffective the scientific community has been in persuading the public of why evolution is science, while ID is not. The flaw comes in because the scientists were arguing details of scientific facts before an audience who have no way to comprehend such facts. What he proposed is that the scientists should "....attack a weakness of the opposition and repeat (again and again), with a modicum of humor...." He then explicitly proposed a paragraph that he said has worked before:

"You have a philosophic choice between evolution or belief in ID, so called intelligent design. But even a first-year engineering student would be embarrassed to have designed your lower back with the extreme bend that allows you to stand erect even though your pelvis slants forward for knuckle-dragging like all our near relatives. You probably have had braces or wisdom teeth extracted because there are too many teeth for the size of your mouth. Then there are your sinuses, with a flawed drainage system that would provoke laughter from a plumber. Yet evolution provides a ready and rational explanation for all these design failures: by progressive changes into an erect posture, by shortening of a mammalian muzzle into a face, and by expansion of our large brains to crowd the facial bones. So take your choice: Do you prefer evolution or an ID whose letters may as well stand for Incompetent Design?"

When I read it, I was howling with laughter. It's funny, but it's DEAD ON! After this was said, Wise then reported,

"After a bit of flustering, the ID adherent usually mumbles something about our inability to know the mind of God. The reply: "Indeed, ID is not science but religion and should be taught as such.""

This is such a classic!

In trying to impress upon the public of science, do not rely on facts and numbers. We have already seen many instances where this strategy did not work (see Brookhaven Lab). Style trumps over substance more often than not. This is how most people, sadly, make up their minds.

Zz.

Imagination Without Knowledge Is Ignorance Waiting to Happen - Part 2

In this part, it is certainly ignorance gone wild.

One of my pet peeve is people who barely know enough physics, but then do not feel the slightest bit of hesitation in using it for their own agenda. They see no problem at all in extending their ignorance into other areas without realizing the hysterical and illogical consequences. Of course, some people give them credit for having a wonderful imagination and cite that often-bastardized Einstein's quote.

One such example is the ongoing assault on The Theory of Evolution. Now keep in mind that this is NOT an essay on the validity of either the Theory of Evolution or Creationism/Intelligent Design (ID) (that would require a completely separate diatribe on my part). What I will do is look at two particular arguments that have often been used against Evolution by advocates of ID. These two arguments have a direct connection to physics. This is clearly a strong reason why the Evolution versus ID affects all of science and not just biological sciences.

1. Evolution is only a THEORY.

This stems from the pedestrian usage of the word "theory", meaning to nothing more than an educated guess, if that. It implies that a scientific "theory" is nothing better, not verified, or still not accepted. Again, nothing more than an educated guess.

This argument reveals the ignorance of how the word "theory" is used in science, and especially in physics. There are two broad dichotomy of the nature of scientific studies - experimental and theoretical. Experimental involves experiment! This includes data collection, analysis, phenomenological models, etc. Theoretical, on the other hand, involves either phenomenalogical models of experiments (same as experimental), or theoretical extension of preexisting ideas via ab initio derivation. So a theory is a mathematical/logical description of an idea.

Furthermore, saying something is just a theory somehow implies that a theory can "graduate" into a law or a principle. This of course is absurd. Laws, theories, principles, etc., are all the same. Each may have varying degree of certainty or varification, but it doesn't mean one is better than the other, or that they evolve into one another.

To attack Evolution by saying it is "just a theory" is also an attack on BCS Theory of Superconductivity, Quantum Field Theory, Band Theory of Solids, etc, etc. If one is aware of how successful those physics theories are, one would never make such an idiotic argument. So this is an example of an argument made based on ignorance.

2. Evolution violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics

Already, this is something that affects physicists, because inadvertently, our area is being dragged directly into this battle.

The argument comes from the apparent "understanding" of two things: (i) life beings are "ordered" structure and (ii) 2nd Law of Thermodynamics reflects an increase in entropy or, to put it crudely, disorder.

Now, I will not go into detail on why to equate entropy with disorder is inaccurate (that will be saved for another time). So let's assume that both (i) and (ii) are correct. ID advocates point to the fact that if Evolution did happen, it implies a trend towards order of our Earth system. Random distribution of atoms and molecules in primovial Earth somehow form ordered and more sophisticated conglomeration that eventually form life forms. Thus, the earth went from disorder to order. This clearly violates the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics and thus, is not very likely. So evolution cannot be the explanation for life.

Again, such an argument is being made without an understanding of the 2nd Law, or even basic thermodynamics in the first place. The 2nd Law clearly states that in an ISOLATED SYSTEM (no energy or any kind going in and out), entropy cannot decrease. The earth is certainly NOT an isolated system. In fact, the earth DEPENDS predominantely on one source of external energy - the sun! So even if we consider the most simplified system, we have to consider the sun and the earth as the complete isolated system, not just the earth alone. Within this system, there is nothing to prevent one part of the system to have a lower entropy with time (example: carnot cycle). Thus, even if the earth does really have a lowering of entropy, this certainly does not violate Thermodynamics' 2nd Law.

One would be surprised that, even when this is already explained in several articles and books, that there are still numerous websites supporting creationism/ID that still carry this argument (do a google search if you don't believe me). Either the authors are not aware of how ridiculous such an argument is, or they are hoping that the readers are not aware of it, or not good in simple thermodynamics. This isn't a stretch of imagination because the general public do not have any significant understanding of basic thermodynamics principles and thus, can easily be fooled into thinking that physics has made evolution impossible! It costs nothing to perpetuate the lie.


These two examples, unfortunately, are just the few that illustrates how ignorance can lead to often serious consequences, either socially, politically, or otherwise. If one is going to use something as the foundation for an argument or an idea, it is illogical and irrational to not properly determine that one has something beyond just a superficial idea of it.

Zz.