Intelligent Design theory

[undyingking]

I've been musing about this interesting 'theory' just lately. Essentially it claims that there are some things about life (in the biological sense) that are just too complicated to have evolved by natural selection, and so instead they must have been designed by some more powerful agent.

It's been claimed that this is just creationism in pseudo-respectable guise, and certainly it's seems to have been treated that way in the Kansas State Board of Education. But I guess we can do the proponents the politeness of taking at face value their claim that the Christian God is not a necessary component.

My interest is in the actual structure of the argument. It's actually very old (Thomas Aquinas I believe put it forward) and so presumably has a lasting appeal, but it seems to me to be impossibly weak. The weakness is that it seems to take the arguer's own paowers of imagination / reasoning as axiomatic of the system. It's saying "I can't imagine how this could have arisen by non-designed means, therefore it can't have." You would think it could automatically be refuted by someone else saying "Well, I can quite easily imagine it, so boo sucks to you." Although a philosopher would probably put that more elegantly.

In the 19th century opponents of Darwinism cited the eye as an example -- saying that part of an eye provided no benefit, therefore natural selection could not have evolved it gradually towards its current form as Darwinists suggested. This was quite easily shot down by showing that just by looking around the animal kingdom of today we can identify a whole spectrum of optical structures which are less complex than our own eyes but which provide benefit to their users.

Today's intelligent design advocates use things like the bombardier beetle, the blood clotting sequence, and the bacterial flagellum as examples of things which only work at all when fully realized. I don't know enough biology to be able to counter these examples, but presumably it can be done?

The more practical question though is about whether ID should be taught in schools. Richard Dawkins has said that this would be equivalent to teaching flat earth theory, and of course Flying Spaghetti Monsterism also has its advocates. However it seems to me that it would be useful if schools gave a bit of perspective on how science arose and the intellectual battles it had to fight, rather than just handing it down on stone tablets. The Victorians were presented with Darwinism as an alternative to the prevailing creationist theory, and they were intelligent enough to (mostly) see that Darwinism was more likely to be right. Won't our children understand natural selection better if they work out for themselves why it's superior to what came before, rather than just being told that it's right because the syllabus says so?

Comments

[waistcoatmark.livejournal.com]

Children already get taught about the scientific method and development of scientific theory with wave/particle duality of light. People thinking it was particles, Newton proving it was waves, Einstein proving it was both etc. I vaguely remember something about phlogiston in chemistry as well. If you're going to show progress, do it with something less contentious that isn't going to confuse children and/or encourage idiotic ideas.

To take your line of argument to a slightly further degree: why not teach holocaust denial as an alternative theory in history?

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I think Holocaust denial absolutely should be discussed in schools. Otherwise you get the situation where they find out about it as adults and are (in some sad cases) more likely then to believe it, as "there's a big conspiracy to hush it up".

[cardinalsin.livejournal.com]

Without wishing to bang on about it, I can't get my head around this view. We have photographs, physical evidence, witness accounts, and so on, of the holocaust. A historian should certainly learn that these things are the tools of a proper historian. When they learn about a historical event they should learn about the evidence that it happened. But having shown a student all these pieces of evidence that unerringly indicate that the holocaust did happen - only to say "but some people think it didn't" - surely that undermines the sceptical, scientific mindset that you want to encourage?

The fact is that you can't teach every crackpot theory there is. So there will always be ideas that people only encounter when they reach adulthood, and if they are sufficiently gullible, they will swallow whole, and spout such phrases as "there's a big conspiracy to hush it up". The only way to protect against this is to teach scepticism and scientific method - not to teach theories that are in fact discredited by these very methods.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I'm no expert on Holocause denial, but I know its proponents cite 'evidence' of their own, and have arguments to rebut the conventional viewpoint. Presumably their eivdence and arguments can easily be dismissed, but I'd rather the child see that for themselves, rather than just being told that it's the case.

Although you can't cover every crackpot theory there is, I think Holocaust denial is one of the more important ones to talk about, from the point of view of its impact on quite large sectors of society.

(Also, note I'm not saying that we should "teach theories that are in fact discredited", but that we should "teach about theories that are in fact discredited".)

[secondhand-rick.livejournal.com]

you can't teach every crackpot theory there is

Don't you oppress me!

[dr-bob.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't have thought the blood clotting sequence is hard to imagine evolving. Start with a protein that forms clots under specific condiditions (eg exposure to air/seawater). then gradually extra proteins evolve that prevent it clotting at the wrong times, to make it a more precisely controlled system. Really no leaps of the imagination there.

And while it is probably is reasonable to give time to ID, it should probably be proportionate to the evidence for it, rather than equal to the time given to ID as to evolution.

The lesson goes - here; read the start of Genesis. Now, about fossils, dinosaurs, speckled moths, cro-magnon etc. But that kind of approach does not pacify the christian right wing school boards of the Deep (dark) South.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Michael Behe's defence against critics of his blood clotting example can be found from p7 of this pdf, although I couldn't immediately find an online version of his original development of the argument.

(He says of course that fossils, dinosaurs etc are evidence not of natural selection, but just of evolution, which is OK with his ID theory: he posits that the designer set things up to evolve as they have.)

[bibliogirl.livejournal.com]

While I would like to see more history of science taught in schools, there is probably some benefit to be gained from the "handed down on stone tablets" school of teaching it simply as a counter to "well, MY mummy and daddy say that the stork brought me and God created us all, and they're ALWAYS right". It's not a whole lot different from the way that various topics are taught differently in junior school, at GCSE, at A-level, on degree courses, etc.

I'm just trying to remember if/when I was taught about flat earth theory. Might've been history, might've been physics, entirely plausible it was both.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I guess GCSE is my key level, because that's the last point at which a significant number of kids are actually studying science at all. I used to get very annoyed at my own experience of hearing later on "actually, that stuff you learnt at O-level was grotesquely over-simplified".

Although I can see your practical point of teaching as an alternative (and hopefully correct) source of received wisdom, I still feel it would be better to train children not to unquestioningly trust received wisdom from whatever source.

[cardinalsin.livejournal.com]

The best way to do this would be to forget about specific theories and whether they are right or not, and just have some classes on logic, philosophy and scientific method as part of the core syllabus. The question of how we know stuff is true, and the history of things we thought were true not turning out to be true after all - these should be treated as a separate subject to the current theories themselves.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Child: "Teacher said you should help me with my Epistemology homework."
Parent: "You don't expect me to believe that, do you?"

It would be good, but I can't see it catching on somehow. Which is a pity -- I accumulated a huge amount of information at school, but it wasn't until much later that I really got a handle on how to actually understand and use it.

[bibliogirl.livejournal.com]

Although I can see your practical point of teaching as an alternative (and hopefully correct) source of received wisdom, I still feel it would be better to train children not to unquestioningly trust received wisdom from whatever source.

I'm with you all the way, though that it seems to me that many parents would much rather that their children _did_ unquestioningly trust received wisdom from certain sources.

[wimble.livejournal.com]

Parent: I've just received this email from Bill Gates?
Child: Well, you don't want to unquestioningly trust everthing you read on the net...

[metame.livejournal.com]

"However it seems to me that it would be useful if schools gave a bit of perspective on how science arose and the intellectual battles it had to fight"

agreed, but IMHO would be better to teach very generally (or about something we no longer really debate (such as flat earth)) rather than *just* when we look at evolution. The problem being that it makes people think that evolution is a special case, one where science 'may have got it wrong'. Which loses the fact that science always 'may have got it wrong' and explicitly welcomes falsifiability.

As for 'how weird would something have to be to not be possible (or reasonable) to have evolved' - I'm similarly a bit stumped as to how you might ever draw a line.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

would be better to teach very generally (or about something we no longer really debate (such as flat earth)) rather than *just* when we look at evolution

Absolutely: I think it should be present in all areas of science teaching. And history / sociology / economics / etc teaching too, come to that -- anywhere where the history of thought in the subject has been one of rival theories battling it out for acceptance.

[secondhand-rick.livejournal.com]

how weird would something have to be to not be possible (or reasonable) to have evolved

Well, there's you.

I'm in a facetious mood today for a change. Can you tell?

[metame.livejournal.com]

Well at least we're sure of your derivation - Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!

<weird>Hmm - can't really put my back into the insult - you used the word facetious which always makes me happy. Each vowel once! In order! If you'd said 'facetiously' I probably wouldn't have been able to insult you at all.</weird>
I am so easily pleased...
<weirder>I got a Scrabble starting hand of XSSTIEE last week and decided it was self describing</weirder>

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

SEXSITE?

[metame.livejournal.com]

nope, and not valid according to http://www.collins.co.uk/wordexchange/ (scrabble checker annoyingly buried at the bottom of page).

Or were you just trying to up your search page ranking?

[cardinalsin.livejournal.com]

Old theories such as phlogiston are now believed by nobody, and so can be comfortably taught, not as an alternative theory, but as a predecessor of modern theory.

Intelligent Design doesn't really fit this bill.

For a start, it isn't really a predecessor of evolutionary theory except in the loosest possible sense. The real predecessor is creationism, which was dogmatic, and not necessarily accompanied by any argument whatsoever. Some philosophers (e.g. Aquinas) did attempt it, but not just by argument from design; they also attempted the ontological argument and other such mumbo-jumbo. So we can't really legitimately teach Intelligent Design per se as history.

Secondly, some people still believe it. This might be seen as a good reason to teach it as current theory, except that AFAIK it is an unbelievably small minority of professional biologists who believe it, plus an unknown number of non-scientists. So teaching it would be rather like teaching the theory that life came from Mars - some people do believe it, but it isn't really a credible or interesting theory, and certainly isn't central to the corpus of modern biology.

Thirdly, it is a theory that cannot be disproved. Think about it; what evidence could possibly convince us that Intelligent Design was untrue? Even if evolutionary theory were to be categorically proven (not possible), the very fact of evolution could be a testament to the Designer's ingenuity. So it isn't really scientific at all, unlike phlogiston (and flat earth theory for that matter) which at least can succumb to evidence.

So I don't really see the rationale for teaching ID in science classes - perhaps it could be argued as a component of philosophy or religious studies classes (to go alongside Aquinas' arguments).

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Although it's not strictly a predecessor theory, it was formulated pretty rapidly in response to the emergence of Darwinism, and battled with it for hearts and minds for some time -- that's the sort of context I would teach it (with an addendum at the end along the lines of "some folk still believe this sort of thing").

You're right that it's not possible to disprove (unless you count the reduction ad absurdum), but that of itself makes it interesting I think. To set it aside, students will have to learn a new thought weapon -- Occam's Razor.

[cardinalsin.livejournal.com]

I suppose I can see the merit in what you're proposing, but wouldn't go with it because there are certainly plenty of other things that should come first. Possibly a brief mention during a discussion of scientific method/historical method/etc., but no more.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

I think a good way to think about what's going on here is to look at Wikipedia with its "Neutral Point Of View" (NPOV) policy.

What one sees is that the policy simply shifts debate from the issues themselves and onto whether the points of view presented are indeed neutral. This frequently ends with a little red icon at the top of the article signifying disputed NPOV.

In schools, those little red icons are exactly what kids don't need. They confuse the concept of presenting a logical argument with the concept of holding an opinion. Example:

Bob: 1 + 1 = 2
Jack: 1 + 1 = 3

Which of these is right ? I prefer Bob's version, but I can only prove Jack wrong if he accepts my mechanisms of proof (which is unlikely given that he doesn't even accept 1 + 1 = 2).

Ultimately, a school's job is made much easier if they can present one complete system of thought before embarking on others. Most kids won't be ready for ideas like "competing philosophies" until well into their teens anyway. As such, the question of what is taught cannot - in my view - be resolved by talk of "scientific method" and suchlike.

It could be argued that parents with certain beliefs and lifestyles disadvantage their kids by passing them on. If true, this provides the basis for a very messy conflict between the parents' wish to bring up their kids as they choose and the wish of society to adopt preventative measures against problems which ultimately result in disadvantaged citizens (who may then require subsidy).

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Ultimately, a school's job is made much easier if they can present one complete system of thought before embarking on others.

That is true, although I guess it slightly opens up the larger question of what schools are really supposed to be doing anyway -- just teaching 'stuff', or also training thought? Maybe if we think training thought is useful, then it would be worth investing time and effort into doing so properly before starting on the stuff-cramming.

It could be argued that parents with certain beliefs and lifestyles disadvantage their kids by passing them on. If true, this provides the basis for a very messy conflict between the parents' wish to bring up their kids as they choose and the wish of society to adopt preventative measures against problems which ultimately result in disadvantaged citizens (who may then require subsidy).

I am ruthlessly authoritarian about this (as many things) -- I think society has the duty to ride roughshod over parents' wishes and beliefs if such would disadvantage the child or the society it is to join. (Of course, deciding whether something really is disadvantageous or just unfashionable / prejudiced-against is hard.)

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Maybe if we think training thought is useful

The trouble is that it's only useful for the top N% of students (where N probably isn't all that big).

Then again, I have objections to the widespread use of the word "useful" in such contexts - I'd like to see it done for other reasons.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

The trouble is that it's only useful for the top N% of students (where N probably isn't all that big).

That seems a natural assumption, but I wonder if it's really true?

I have objections to the widespread use of the word "useful" in such contexts

I guess the meaning has been debased -- I probably should have said something like 'valuable' really, ie. I meant to imply broader criteria (personal fulfilment, socio-cultural enrichment, etc) rather than just narrow utilitarian socio-economic benefit. Although you may object to that just as much... What would your reasons be?

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

That's exactly what I was getting at.

For me, the fact that it's interesting and mentally stimulating is reason enough to teach it.

Taken to extremes then one wouldn't want an education completely devoid of practical work-related skills, but there's no danger of that any time soon.

[fractalgeek.livejournal.com]

There was a very fine New scientist all about ID recently....

1) US poll - if I can remember the figures right
55% Americans believe God intervened in their evolution
30% believed humans were created directly
15% believed Man evolved without intervention(whether a creator started the world/universe or not).

I find these figures scary.

2) ID proponents use the term "theory" in its layman sense to give equal weight to the scientifically-termed theory of evolution - as in a testable, evidence based system of reasoning to explain how things are.

3) ID proponents are willing to concede evolution on the small short-term scale (eg drug resistance, colour of moths,...) but the big scale which isn't observable is somehow intrinsically different.... and fossils conveniently don't show enough detail to prove every single point of change

4) ID requires a director, who, when they let their guard down is invariably the Christian God.


I am a confirmed agnostic. Should it ever be proved to me that there is a creator, I will be much more impressed by one that just set the universe going, and we emerged from it, than either total determinism or "god the meddler".....

If ID is to be taught, it should be taught only as part of religious education as a belief framework. Pretending it has equal weight to science and logic damages education.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

If ID is to be taught, it should be taught only as part of religious education as a belief framework

I'm not suggesting that it should be taught, but that it should be taught about -- and I think (in the absence of epistemology lessons...) science lessons are the appropriate context for that, because as those statistics show, ID is an increasingly important part of the socio-cultural background in which science is practised.

[fractalgeek.livejournal.com]

The biggest problem with ID is that it IS taught, as a statement of fact, and taught to have as much validity as evolution. Provided your belief system doesn't mean you stone schoolchildren, confine people in concentration camps, summarily torture and execute them or blow us up, then your belief should be pretty much up to you. If held honestly, I may even respect you for it, despite my disagreeement (and a slight feeling that you may be self-deluded).

School is different. People should be taught to think (contrary to much religion), to question, and not to trust or follow charletans, bigots and liars. ID says "for the big questions, take it on faith, and my say-so. It's too difficult to think of something different". No.