Intelligent Design, Modern Science

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Intelligent Design, Modern Science Your
Grandchildrens Future

• Will the Bible be relevant in 2050?
• Will Darwinism be relevant in 2050?

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Session 4 Topics

• Introducing the TNPC ID Blog
• Comments from the video Unlocking the Mystery of
  Life
• Homework Assignment March of the Penguins
• Pro or Con ID?
• The Dover Decision
• The implications
• The Case FOR Darwinism
• The definition of science
• A critique by Phillip Johnson

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The TNPC ID Blog

• To make a comment or ask a question, send email
  to john.dishman_at_comcast.net
• To view blog comments go to www.tnpc.org/idblog
  or other URL to be announced

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Comment from last weeks class

• Wow ... being an "Information Architect" myself,
  I was completely blown away by the 2nd half of
  the "Unlocking the Mystery of Life" video. I was
  honestly speechless at the end when Doug asked
  for comments. The concept that "information"
  should be regarded as evidence on the same level
  as matter and energy is at the same time obvious
  and yet completely new. It's amazing how Crick
  and the others use an assumption that all
  evidence has to support an evolution rather than
  a design. I caught just a bit of Sproul's radio
  show last week on Romans 1 discussing the
  "psychology of atheism" that I think would be
  worth reading/listening to as well. Sorry for
  the rambling, but I just wanted to let you know
  how many synapses this content is firing in my
  designed brain! Mark Kramer

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Matter

• A cube of marble

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Energy

• A cube of marble in motion
• When it hits something damage occurs due to its
  energy of motion

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Information

• Assertion a cube of marble contains a bust of
  Beethoven
• True or False?

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Information

• True all you have to do is remove a bit of marble

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Information

• But that takes a sculptor an intelligent agent
  who chooses what marble to remove!
• The sculptor creates information

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Biological Information

• The DNA molecule in every cell is the most
  efficient information storage element known
• Think of it the complete program that took you
  from a single fertilized egg to the you, you are
  now was encoded in DNA

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Biological Information

• The fundamental challenge for a biological theory
  is to explain how this information got there
  chance, necessity, or design
• We will focus on this issue in a later class

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March of the Penguins

• Does this movie support Darwinism or Intelligent
  Design?

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March of the PenguinsDarwin Approach

• Create a just so story showing how innumerable
  small evolutionary steps led to one kind of bird
  evolving into another (the penguin) along with
  the complex process it uses in reproduction

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March of the PenguinsID Approach

• Make observations about the complexity of the
  reproductive system used by the penguins
• Males/Females march 70 miles to a special area
  (always the same)
• Male/Female pair bonds for a season
• Egg is laid by female
• Egg transferred from female to male who keeps it
  warm in dead of winter
• Female marches 70 miles back to shore feeds
  while males cluster in pack for warmth

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March of the PenguinsID Approach

• Egg hatches in custody of male
• Female returns to feed baby chick
• Female is able to pick out her husband in big
  crowd by auditory signs
• Male/baby signal each other prior to father
  leaving to feed
• Male makes 140 mile round trip
• Females leave maturing chicks alone for another
  feeding
• Males able to identify its baby by sound on their
  return

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March of the Penguins IC

• A system is IC if removing any single component
  causes the system to no longer function
• Is the reproduction system of the Emperor Penguin
  IC?

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The Dover Township, PA Decision (aka Kitzmiller
vs Dover)
Dover a small township south of Harrisburg
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The Setting

• Dover School Board (old) mandated a statement be
  read each semester to biology classes that said
  in part Intelligent Design is an explanation of
  the origin of life that differs from Darwins
  viewWith respect to any theory, students are
  encouraged to keep an open mind.

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The Case

• A group of parents (with assistance from ACLU
  others) sued to remove this statement
• Leading ID and anti-ID spokespersons testified at
  trial
• ID leadership felt that the Dover school board
  made a strategic error in forcing this issue in
  this way
• In the meantime the old school board was voted
  out of office and replaced with new members
  against the old members ID approach

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The Verdict

• Judge John Jones III found that the Dover school
  board members in their public statements clearly
  had in mind the Christian God as the Designer,
  and so their actions violated the so-called
  establishment clause of the US Constitution (no
  establishment of religion by the government)

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The Verdict Plus

• The judge could have left it there, but rather
  chose to write a 139 page opinion that was
  scathingly against ID
• In his ruling, Jones said that while ID arguments
  may be true, a proposition on which the court
  takes no position, ID is not science. Among
  other things, he said intelligent design
  violates the centuries-old ground rules of
  science by invoking and permitting supernatural
  causation it relies on flawed and illogical
  arguments and its attacks on evolution have
  been refuted by the scientific community.
  (msnbc.com)

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The Judges Points

• ID not science because it invokes permits
  supernatural causation
• The argument of irreducible complexity, central
  to ID, employs the same flawed and illogical
  contrived dualism that doomed creation science in
  the 1980's
• Its attacks on evolution have been refuted by the
  scientific community

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ID is Not Science

• Is there a logical contradiction in the judges
  point?
• ID may be TRUE
• But, ID is not SCIENCE
• Therefore,
• SCIENCE is not equal to TRUTH
• In other words, scienceby this definitioncan
  miss the truth
• This definition of science is often called
  methodological naturalism

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Irreducible Complexity Has Been Refuted

• Testimony involved two expert witnesses Michael
  Behe (inventor of the term IC) vs. Kenneth Miller
  (representing The Establishment)
• The judge bought into Millers argument that IC
  has been disproved in peer reviewed literature

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From the Opinion (p 76)
First, with regard to the bacterial flagellum,
Dr. Miller pointed to peer reviewed studies that
identified a possible precursor to the bacterial
flagellum, a subsystem that was fully functional,
namely the Type-III Secretory System.
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The Bacterial Flagellum (BF)

• Classic dispute among experts requiring
  biochemical training to fully understand/appreciat
  e
• Miller The type III secretory system could be
  precursor to the BF
• Behe Could be is not the same thing as was
• Nowhere does the scientific literature describe
  in detail how successive small steps required by
  Darwin lead to a structure such as the BF

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ID has been refuted by the scientific community

• Hinges on peer reviewed literature
• At Bell Labs, when I published a scientific
  paper, the editor first sent the draft out to
  peers who worked in the field to determine
  credibility make suggestions on improvements
• Judge Jones claimed that no ID paper had been
  published in peer reviewed journals
• He was wrong about this
• BUT when the Establishment controls the
  peer-reviewed journals, a theory proposing a
  paradigm shift will likely not be received kindly

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To preserve the separation of church and state
mandated by the Establishment Clause of the First
Amendment to the United States Constitution, and
Art. I, 3 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, we
will enter an order permanently enjoining
Defendants from maintaining the ID Policy in any
school within the Dover Area School District,
from requiring teachers to denigrate or disparage
the scientific theory of evolution, and from
requiring teachers to refer to a religious,
alternative theory known as ID.
The Parting Shot
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Reactions to the Ruling

• John West, Discovery Institute
• Jones is an activist judge
• Time and again, Judge Jones makes assertions in
  his opinion that are unambiguously factually
  wrong--even though the correct information was a
  part of the official record before him.
• Charles Colson, Breakpoint
• Bad cases make bad law
• No way judge would find other than he did

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Reactions to Ruling-2

• Adam Wolfson, Weekly Standard
• The popularizers of Darwinism are as religiously
  motivated (atheists) as ID proponents
  (Christians)
• Only Darwinist orthodoxy is allowed to be
  taught in public schools
• Leon Kass, Fmr Head, Presidents Bioethics
  Council
• ID right to raise issue of causality, a question
  that should be at the center of a true science of
  nature.
• However, unwarranted for ID to claim that the
  only possible answer is a Designer-God. Evidence
  does not warrant this assertion.

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Was this the Alamo for ID?

• How can I be an optimist, you ask, in the face
  of yesterdays decision? Because I know that if
  we equip ourselves and do our job, truth will
  out. We should not despair. Our case is
  compelling if we frame it carefully, ask the
  right questions, and expose the claims of
  Darwinists. Colson

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The Case for Darwinism

• What is it about Darwinism that makes some
  scientists so sure that it is correct?
• First, observe that even the ID community agrees
  with the fact of evolution at least as it
  occurs within a single species
• Resistance to antibiotics
• Cycling of bird beak sizes in Galapagos

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The Case for Darwinism-2

• However, ID supporters say that extrapolation
  from evolution within a species to
  macro-evolution from single celled entity to
  man, is not warranted
• Why do Darwinist feel that macro-evolution is
  true?

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Fundamental ConceptNatural Selection

• In a population of living things, there will be a
  variation of characteristics
• Some of these will improve reproductive success
• These characteristics are naturally selected,
  i.e., are favored because they enhance the
  further production of offspring
• Dog breeders use this process to produce new
  varieties of dogs in this case it is artificial
  selection

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Analysis by Phillip Johnson

• Prominent law professor at UC Berkeley
• Recognized as the leader of the ID movement
• Wrote Darwin on Trial after reading Dawkins
  Blind Watchmaker while on sabbatical

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Darwinism as a Tautology

• Tautology An empty or vacuous statement composed
  of simpler statements in a fashion that makes it
  logically true whether the simpler statements are
  factually true or false for example, the
  statement Either it will rain tomorrow or it will
  not rain tomorrow.
• Survival of the Fittest means that the
  individuals which produced the most offspring
  must have been the ones who produced the most
  offspring.
• I.e., fitness is strictly limited to success in
  reproduction

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Karl Popper, Philosopher

• Darwinism is not really a scientific theory
  because natural selection is an all purpose
  explanation that can account for anything, and
  therefore explains nothing.

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Example The Peacock

• Which better explains the existence of the
  peacock natural selection or design?

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Peacock Natural Selection

• The males plumage is favored by natural
  selection because it attracts the most favorable
  females.
• Never mind that it also makes the male more
  vulnerable to predators because of its bulkiness

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Johnsons Rejoinder

• Why would natural selection, which supposedly
  formed all birds from lowly predecessors, produce
  a species whose females lust for males with
  life-threatening decorations? The peahen should
  have developed a preference for males with sharp
  talons mighty wings.

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Evolutionist Futuyma

• Do the creation scientists really suppose their
  Creator saw fit to create a bird that couldnt
  reproduce without six feet of bulky feathers that
  make it easy prey for leopards?

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Johnsons Response

• It seems to me that a peacock a peahen are just
  the kind of creatures a whimsical creator might
  favor, but an uncaring mechanical process like
  natural selection would never permit to develop.

Remember the ostrich In Job
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Johnsons Conclusion

• With the weaknesses so noted, why do scientists
  hold on to Darwinism?
• The National Academy of Scientists told the
  Supreme Court that the most basic characteristic
  of science is a reliance upon naturalistic
  explanations, as opposed to supernatural means
  inaccessible to human understanding. In the
  latter, unacceptable category contemporary
  scientists place not only God but also any
  non-material vital force that supposedly drives
  evolution in the direction of greater complexity,
  consciousness, or whatever.

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Johnson Continued....

• If science is to have any explanation for
  biological complexity at all it has to make do
  with what is left when the unacceptable has been
  excluded. Natural selection is the best of the
  remaining alternatives, probably the only
  alternative.

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Conclusion

• Given this legal/scientific climate ID will have
  significant challenges in making headway
• ID can advance if/when it is able to make
  predictions, better explain biological systems
  than Darwinism.
• We will consider these issues in the next class