Nick Matzke has also commented on this, but the op-ed is so bad I can't resist piling on. From the very first sentence, Michael Behe's op-ed in today's NY Times is an exercise in unwarranted hubris.
In the wake of the recent lawsuits over the teaching of Darwinian evolution, there has been a rush to debate the merits of the rival theory of intelligent design.
And it's all downhill from there.
41 Comments
Katarina · 7 February 2005
Not many people can deftly explain the mechanisms that drive evolution on a molecular level for the systems that have been studied, in terms that would reach laymen. Behe's description is infinitely easier both to write and to understand.
Readers are generally not interested in science that is difficult to understand, but in scientific controversy and sensational claims. I agree that it is a sad state of affairs but it is not at all surprising.
stsmith · 7 February 2005
Keanus · 7 February 2005
FL · 7 February 2005
Great White Wonder · 7 February 2005
Floyd, there is no way in hell the New York Times will print your letter which positively reeks of crank.
Your failure to realize that fact is just another symptom of the profound delusion that afflicts so many creationism apologists.
It's going to be a troubling year for the rubes, I suspect.
Mumon · 7 February 2005
I sent my LTE to the NYT- hopefully they'll print it; I've noted my bona fides as a guy with numerous patents and expertise in detection and estimation. Incidentally, on my blog I've noted that the goodfellas in the International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design don't seem to have any association with the IEEE Information Theory socieity. (Scroll down- the questionable content bug is biting here.)
Mumon · 7 February 2005
LOL! My LTE does just that- it takes Behe's first claim, shows why it's not true (i.e., no ability to separate hypotheses) and thus, therefore, Behe's "intelligent" "design" is not science but metaphysics.
Wendy Caster · 7 February 2005
I think it would behoove scientists and those interested in science to consider using a different term to replace the scientific use of the word "theory." Too many lay people consistently think of only one definition of that word: "An assumption based on limited information or knowledge; a conjecture."
We would not expect a non-English speaker to understand something written in English. Why should we expect a non-science speaker to understand something written in science?
A lay-person-oriented vocabulary (particularly replacing the word "theory"), based on generally agreed-on meanings of well-known words, could be used when communicating with nonscientists and particularly when writing for the mainstream media.
It is imperative that people understand the importance and truth of science. Speaking to them in a language they can understand is a significant first step.
Steve Reuland · 7 February 2005
PvM · 7 February 2005
Ed Darrell · 7 February 2005
Were "intelligent design" an actual scientific discipline, Dr. Behe could show us how well it works. All he need do is take the e. coli used to manufacture Humulin (a trademarked name, if I recall correctly), and demonstrate how easy it is to tell exactly where the human editing of the beast's DNA was done.
The fact of the matter is that even for those biological entities for which it is certain that some intelligence has intervened in the design, "intelligent design" cannot distinguish where design begins and where it ends.
Potter Stewart's line about pornography -- "I know it when I see it" -- was not proposed to be science, and when someone claims it is science, I feel compelled to point out that the standard has been abandoned even in the squishier realm of the social sciences.
Intelligent design isn't even the cold fusion of biology -- there's much more experimental support for cold fusion.
Wesley R. Elsberry · 7 February 2005
FL · 7 February 2005
In other words, you cannot show that Dembski's 3-point ID hypothesis is inherently religious, but you can always dispute its claim to be scientific on other grounds.
Thus things are clear. The evolutionists' constant suggestion/insinuation that ID is religion and therefore not suitable for science classrooms on that basis, is unsupportable and directly refutable.
As for the rest of the ID-is-not-science argumentation,
well, one thing at a time, one thing at a time.
But it is enough, for now, for me to focus on Behe's particular point here.
By the way, the Kansas State Board of Education begins its Public Hearings on the Proposed Science Standards tomorrow night (Tuesday)
in Topeka.
I think I will keep Behe's quotation in mind, in case I get a chance to offer a few little minutes of testimony along with all the other folks from both sides who'll doubtless pack the place.
FL
FL · 7 February 2005
Great White Wonder · 7 February 2005
Steve Reuland · 7 February 2005
Paul King · 7 February 2005
Steve Reuland · 7 February 2005
Andrew Wyatt · 7 February 2005
In other words, you cannot show that Dembski's 3-point ID hypothesis is inherently religious, but you can always dispute its claim to be scientific on other grounds.
Thus things are clear. The evolutionists' constant suggestion/insinuation that ID is religion and therefore not suitable for science classrooms on that basis, is unsupportable and directly refutable.
It is not inconsistent to claim that an assertion is both scientifically unsound and religiously motivated. You are correct in that there's nothing in Dembski's "hypothesis" that is inherently religious. Scientists are perfrectly legitimized in systematically blasting it out of the water on purely scientific grounds.
However, the religious motivations of ID proponents are out there in the public record (e.g., the Wedge document). The fact that the entire ID movement consists of those with a religious axe to grind against evoltionary theory is highly relevant to the public policy question of whether it is constitutional to teach ID in public schools. (Sadly, there's no Constitutional obligation for the public school system to teach accurate science.) Cobb County learned the hard way that federal judges don't like it when theocrats try to sneak religiously motivated material into science classes by dressing it up in scientific language.
Religious motivations also explain why ID is still peddled despite its lack of scientific merit, and why its proponents have sidestepped, you know, research, experimentation, and peer reviewed publishing, in favor of books for the lay audience and children's textbooks. Ever wonder why some educated racists still pass around The Bell Curve like it hasn't been thoroughly discredited? Could it have something to do with the fact that the authors and themselves share a racist ideology? Do you think?
Paul King · 7 February 2005
Damn. That should be "in fact evolution SHOULD produce specified complexity in the ordinary sense of the phrase".
To avoid further confusion I suggest a more accurate phrase for Dembski's definition - "Specified High Improbability".
And if Dembski works more on his ideas then one day he might be the "Isaac Newton" of Specified High Improbability Theory.
jeff-perado · 7 February 2005
Finally, thanks Paul for the moment of levity.
I like the idea of renaming Dembeski's theory as SHIT.
But I am also reminded of the old sci fi book (Hitchiker) and their unique contribution to "science," the Infinite Improbability Drive. When you think about it, there's a significant similarity between Dembeski's formulation of ID and the IID. But rely on infinite improbabilites, and the ability to calculate them. Did Dembeski steal this idea from Hitchiker???
Mike Hopkins · 7 February 2005
Great White Wonder · 7 February 2005
Reason number 856 that creationist apologist make my head hurt:
They claim that they are being persecuted by scientists for their religious beliefs but simultaneously they claim that their religious beliefs are scientific theories.
The only difference between "ID theory" peddlers and Alien Bigfoot peddlers is that the Alien Bigfoot peddlers don't worship Alien Bigfoot.
If Alien Bigfoot peddlers worshipped Alien Bigfoot and demanded that Alien Bigfoot be discussed in biology class (Alien Bigfeet ate some of the transitional fossils that creationists are always crying for), would the "ID theory" peddlers join forces with them?
Jack Krebs · 7 February 2005
Very good, PZ. It baffles me how these guys can talk about "evidence" and then time and time again fail to actually produce any.
Larry Y · 7 February 2005
Can I ask a question here about the possibility of proving/disproving ID?
Is it possible that, within the next generation, we will be able to simulate the workings of the human genome as it creates cells and a person? If a genome becomes a program that we can model, shouldn't it be possible to model permutations between any two genomes? And wouldn't the result, then, tell us whether or not there is any chain of viable intermediary genomes by which a human could mutate to a predecessor species and from there into a cat or a salamander?
At that point, it would become a question of probablities, no? I'd be very interested in hearing what percentages the ID crowd would accept as evidence of natural rather than Divine processes at work.
Great White Wonder · 7 February 2005
Dude · 7 February 2005
Arne Langsetmo · 7 February 2005
Ed Darrell · 8 February 2005
jonas · 8 February 2005
Well, intelligent causation does not necessary mean supernatural (i.e. untestable, largely incomprehensible) agency. But the ID proponents have so far failed to say the first thing how scientists are meant to find out anything about the designer, how the design process works, when it has happened, whether there are positive signs for this process as opposed to negative claims concerning other explanations. As long as these are lacking, ID is no scientific theory, no possible alternative to any existing theory and rightly carries the mark of non-observable pseudo-science.
(To take the strange Mount Rushmore analogy, if somebody came upon a rock looking somewhat like a statue, but could not come up with a hypothesis who did make it, when and how, and even claimed that any actual traces of work where indistinguishable from natural, undirected erosion, the claim 'it has been designed' would not explain anything about the rock.)
If there are any proposals by Behe et al. to change this dismal state of ID, I have not seen them; and just claiming ID to be an alternative explanation does not impress much imho.
Paul King · 8 February 2005
I should point out that I am absolutely serious about using "Specified High Improbability". It really is a more accurate description which avoids all the confusion caused by Dembski's idiosyncratic use of complexity.
The acronym for "Specified High Improbability Theory" is just a bonus.
Bartholomew · 8 February 2005
By the way, how does one pronounce "Behe"? Is it "Beyee", "Bee-hee", "B'Hay" or what?
Katarina · 8 February 2005
It's "Bee-hee"
Keith McPartland · 8 February 2005
Here is a criticism of Behe that I have not seen prominently made.
Take the Mt. Rushmore example. Behe claims that we "recognize design" in this case. What are we really doing?
We are weighing the probability that Rushmore happened by human agency against the probability that it happened as a result of natural weathering. We have seen humans design lots of stuff, and we have some grasp of the processes by which the carving of a mountain would happen. Furthermore, we have seen weathering and we know that it is extraordinarily unlikely that weathering could cause something like Rushmore. So, we assign greater credence to the hypothesis that Rushmore was created by a process involving intellignet agency.
What is happening in the life case? Grant Behe's central thesis--that it is extraordinarily unlikely that random chance could have led to life on earth. What is the alternative? ID. But just what is ID? It would be no explanation to say that Martians created life on earth, because if Martians are remotely like complex biological systems, we just repeat the questions for the origins of Martian life. More pointedly, the designer must fail to be complex in the way that biological systems are complex (or else we get the designer startup problem again). But what are the processes by which such a designer is supposed to effect the origin of life?
Whatever the processes are, they are unlike anything that we have ever seen described by science of any kind. The processes probably involve violation of conservation laws, and I am not sure that any one has ever had direct experience of the sort of process by which Behe's designer is supposed to fuse molecules together to create life. The acceptance of such processes undermines some of the most fundamental scientific beliefs.
Once we see what the design hypothesis requires us to think, we turn again to the question of whether the extraordinarily unlikely evolution of life hypothesis or the bizarre design hypothesis should be assigned higher credence.
Notice that Behe does not want his argument to rest on any kind of special revelation or tenets of faith, but on science and common sense. Given science and common sense alone, it is hard to see that Behe has any good reason to thing that the ID-hypothesis (understood as requiring bizarre actions by non-complex entities that nonetheless have intelligence, and are capable of effecting their will by purely supraphysical processes) should be assigned higher credence than the random chance hypothesis.
At this point, ANY evidence that we have which shows that complex molecules can arise spontaneously counts as slight evidence in favor of spontaneous generation of life over the ID hypothesis.
A side note: One of Behe's major complaints against the naturalist is that the naturalist has not given a sufficiently detailed story describing how life could spontaneopusly evolve. But notice that Behe gives NO scientifically respectable story about how the designer does its work. Furthermore, given what I have said about the nature of the designer above, it seems that Behe CAN'T even in principle provide such an explanation. Goose gander? What Behe has done is provided us with a vague "Something designed it" thesis, but any attempt to make this thesis more specific seems to lead to the fantastic.
If Behe has other grounds for believing that ID is more probable than evolution [faith, mystical experience of conservation violating processes, etc.] he should make this evidence explicit.
Larry Y · 8 February 2005
FredMcX · 8 February 2005
In principle the designer start-up problem can be avoided by postulating that the intelligence involved is outside of our universe. Therefore, the rules that apply in our universe don't govern the designer and so we cannot describe them. But this really amounts to saying that God did it - after all, what is God but the creator of the universe? If ID escapes the designer start-up issue by using this argument then that shows that fundamentally it is a religious concept. If it doesn't use this argument then how does it avoid the problem? Anyone know?
Admittedly some scientists postulate that we are part of some sort of simulation but, even if we are, evolutionary science is about explaining how life evolves not what got the universe started. This is why there is no fundamental conflict between religion and evolution. The question of why we (and the universe) exist at all is not answerable. So, if people want to believe that God got it started that's fine; to argue that evolution didn't happen is not.
A few random and fairly simple further thoughts on ID.
(i) We often make the valid argument that scientific theories must be falsifiable. The snag is that this concept is hard to get across to non scientists. But associated with falsifiability is the easily understood concept of being willing to admit being wrong. That is falsifiability demands the willingness of individual scientists to admit that they might be wrong. In practice no scientist relishes the idea of his or her theory being wrong. Partly this is because they themselves have (or should have) already tested it to destruction to the extent they are able prior to publication. But, most scientists - no matter how in love with their theory they might be - are willing to admit the possibility that their theory or idea might very well be wrong. It comes with the territory of doing science. Few people are willing to entertain the notion that their faith or religion might be wrong or is capable of being proven wrong. So, are the ID people willing, in principle, to accept the possibility that they are wrong? If not, then, once again, we are forced to conclude that they are operating in a way that is more akin to religion than science. If they are willing to admit the possibility they are wrong then they are essentially stating that ID is falsifiable. If it is, then how can it be falsified in practice?
(ii) A comparison ID people (and creationists in general) often make is between essentially solid things like faces on mountains, clocks, mousetraps etc. and living things. Solid things cannot easily evolve complexity precisely because they are solid. Liquid and gas phase molecules are much more mobile and so, for them, self-organization is that much more facile. It is next door to impossible for a clock or a mousetrap to "evolve" by itself because the kinetic barriers are too large. Of course, it is also possible to demonstrate that mousetraps are not irreducibly complex - but it seems to me that Behe & Co. should realize that simple kinetic arguments render comparisons between mice and mousetraps not only unhelpful but also misleading.
(iii) Evolutionary theory has predictive power. ID does not.
Fred
Logician · 8 February 2005
I am distressed by Behe's claim that "logic" compels the conclusion that ID must be correct because his essay is chock-full of blatant fallacies. One poster has already noted the use of equivocation between the scientific meaning of "theory", as a coherent system of explanatory devices and the popular meaning of "theory" as a hypothesis or guess. Thus it is easy to call ID (a most guess) a "theory" of the same validity as scientific "theory". But wait, there's more.
The comparison to Mt. Rushmore, as another poster pointed out, is a false analogy. We know Mr. Rushmore was "designed" by Borglum. A more fitting analogy is the so-called "face on Mars" that has graced so many tabloid covers. Was this "face" desgined by aliens (the ID explantion), or is it merely the product of millenia of erosion and metor impacts (the naturalistic explanation)? Since the "face on Mars" can be readily explained by the latter, Occam's Razor demands that we not attribute its origin to aliens without more proof.
But this leads to another fallacy, which the "face on Mars" also helps expose. We only see it as a "face" because this is the projection of our perceptual Gestalt. The human mind seeks to impose patterns on the natural world consistent with our perceptual history, whether those patterns actually exist or not. Thus, we see this formation on the surface of Mars as a "face" because we project our perception onto it. "Design" is merely more of the same--what Behe sees as "design" is merely the projection of his perception onto a natural state that is really the product of randomness and chance.
Other fallacies abound in Behe's Op-Ed piece. He uses the magic names Crick and Albert in an appeal to authority, even though he cites them out of context; he takes the metaphor of "machine" literally, which is like saying that because the human brain can function like a computer, it therefore IS a computer; he argues an impermissible negative inference (we have "no good explanation for the foundation of life that doesn't involve intelligence", hence he concludes it MUST involve intelligence rather than seek a better explanation that does not involve intelligence; and, in conclusion, he simply commits the fallacy of begging the question with the argument that "If it quacks like a duck, it must be a duck." The conclusion is simply presumed by the premise; the premise that "life appears to have been designed" necessarily begs the conclusion that "life was designed." Once the premise is shown false--life "appears" designed only because this perception exists solely in the eye of the beholder--his conclusion does not follow.
Finally, Behe tops it off with an argumentum ad populum, an appeal to the masses: "Besides, whatever special restrictions scientists adopt for themselves don't bind the public, which polls show, overwhemingly, and sensibly, thinks that life was designed." The public also believes in fairies, sprites, UFOs, Bigfoot, various conspiracies and the continued existence of Elvis after death.
I won't even address his deliberate ignoring of Popper's criterion of falsifiability or the lack of any explanation for examples of UNintelligent design (nipples on men), since the form of his argument itself demonstrates his unmitigated intellectual dishonesty.
Adam · 8 February 2005
I think another problem with ID of the Behe variety is that the incredibly complicated biochemical machines are, by analogy with their previous lines of reasoning, therefore incredibly difficult to assemble and therefore there must be an Intelligent Assembler. And being so complicated their flawless operation inside cells needs an Intelligent Controller...
...you can see where I'm going - the ID argument doesn't follow its own logic. Human machines of incredible complexity are assembled, controlled, maintained etc. by intelligent agents, not just designed by them! Yet biomachines aren't! That quintessential nanomachine, the T4 bacteriophage, can self-assemble out of a solution of its components - likewise thousands upon thousands of other biomachines. Yet not a single human-design is anywhere close.
An IDer might say "That's because GOD/ET/non-specific-creator does it so much better", but surely it's a fatal flaw in the analogy that only in design and no other feature do biomachines ressemble products of intelligent agents. If the Divine Watchmaker had to retighten the spring more often surely that'd be better evidence for Her agency? Or did She want to take a break after creating all those ticking, clicking parts?
Arne Langsetmo · 9 February 2005
Keith:
It would be no explanation to say that Martians created life on earth, because if Martians are remotely like complex biological systems, we just repeat the questions for the origins of Martian life. More pointedly, the designer must fail to be complex in the way that biological systems are complex (or else we get the designer startup problem again).
Ummm, I think you're buying into (or at least implicitly accepting) variants of the "everything must have a creator" and "it's all downhill from here, rusted cars don't turn into 747s" crapola that creationists spout. No need to do that.
Cheers,
RBH · 9 February 2005
Every time I hear the "quacks like a duck" nonsense I remember sitting with my dad in a duck blind by a pond on a grey drizzly morning, a dozen decoys floating just offshore, and him quacking like a duck with his duck call to lure 'em into range of our shotguns. All that quacks is not a duck.
RBH
Stuart Weinstein · 19 February 2005
THis is an Op-Ed I wrote in response to Behe's comments. It wasn't published.
1 - 2 - 3 AAaaawwwwww.
Dr. Behe argues that because we currently lack detailed developmental models of complex cellular machinery, design by an unknown intelligence should be considered in formulating ideas on how they came to be. History shows us, however, that this is merely a counsel of despair and a waste of time. 3000 years ago, people didn't know why the Sun rose and set, why the Moon went through phases or even why it rained. People had plenty of "design theories" replete with attendant designers. Not one design hypothesis has ever yielded any useful knowledge of the natural world. Despite Behe's protestation to the contrary, this dismal record will remain safely intact.
Consider Behe's argument regarding Mt. Rushmore. Of course people would recognize Rushmore as the result of design. After all, the figures resemble people, and making figures out of rock is a known human activity. On the other hand, until its recent demise, the Old Man in The Mountain in N.H., attracted tourists from all over the US. From the road it certainly looked like a face. No one would laugh at you if you said an artist sculpted it. In a rather large leap of illogic, Behe wishes us to believe that complex molecular machines are the equivalent of Mt. Rushmore, as an indicator of design, because they are complex, all the while ignoring the possibility that molecular machines are like that Old Man in The Mountain. In other words they have the appearanve of design, but are not designed by some unknown intelligence.
Mr. Behe's view, is that complexity is a proxy for intelligent design. However, to any student of nature, complexity is what nature is about. Dr. Behe needs to get out more. If nature were not "complex" we wouldn't need scientists. Long ago, on our planet, nature made a fission reactor in Gabon. Prior to that discovery, the only activities that resulted in such a distribution of radioisotopes, as found in Gabon, were those of humans. Nature continues to make fusion machines of bewildering complexity called stars. 100 years ago, the power source of the stars was an imponderable problem. Meanwhile the only intelligent designers we know for sure to exist would be ecstatic if they could sustain break-even fusion for a few milliseconds. And this after confined fusion was first achieved in the late 50's. The ability to actually study life's molecular machines was only recently acquired. Yet, much like his forebear in the 19th century, William Paley, Behe has pronounced judgment. Molecular machines are complex, they are imponderable, lets simply chalk them up to the inscrutable will of a unknown, celestial bio-mechanic. In summation, Behe's and Paley's arguments are actually a sleight of hand to distract you from the fact they argue ignorance is actually evidence.
While current science may lack detailed developmental scenarios for molecular machines, ID hasn't offered us a scientific theory or tangible evidence at all. An idea in and of itself is not a scientific theory. Dr. Behe can't (or won't) tell us where evolution ends and where design begins. Was it simply that the first cell was designed? We aren't given a workable prescription for figuring out when and on what was the influence of design manifested. Which events during the course of evolution of humans from earlier primates require a designer? The ID proponents don't tell us. Was it the advent of bipedalism? Increased encephalization? Broca's Area? Or none of the above?
In an effort to shore up his flagging position, Behe enlists the complexity theorists as fellow co-skeptics of Darwinism. However, any cursory reading of complexity theorists like Stuart Kaufman shows Behe should consider his proposed putative co-skeptics more carefully. Kaufman (Origins of Order,1993) argues that spontaneous self-organization provides a useful extension to Darwin's ideas. This is not any different than the manner in which the early 20th century geneticists argued that genetics should extend Darwinism resulting in the neo-Darwinian synthesis. Should Darwin's idea accrue extensions in the future, we can count on the fact that such extensions will not be offered by Dr. Behe. He's already thrown in the towel and given up.
Last but not least, at the end of his editorial, Dr. Behe panders to the crowd and suggests that public opinion polls indicate the people think intelligent design is sensible. Thats nice but science doesn't often conform to our "common sense" expectations. With the discovery of the muon, physicist I.I. Rabi exclaimed, "Who ordered that?". The history of science shows common sense to be far more restrictive, than whatever imagined restrictions Behe imputes to the thought processes of modern scientists. Intelligent design offers us no answers, no theories, just intellectual sterility.