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| Hitchens on Intelligent Design | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jul 21 2008, 06:32 PM (256 Views) | |
| George K | Jul 21 2008, 06:32 PM Post #1 |
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Finally
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Losing Sight of Progress How blind salamanders make nonsense of creationists' claims. By Christopher Hitchens It is extremely seldom that one has the opportunity to think a new thought about a familiar subject, let alone an original thought on a contested subject, so when I had a moment of eureka a few nights ago, my very first instinct was to distrust my very first instinct. To phrase it briefly, I was watching the astonishing TV series Planet Earth (which, by the way, contains photography of the natural world of a sort that redefines the art) and had come to the segment that deals with life underground. The subterranean caverns and rivers of our world are one of the last unexplored frontiers, and the sheer extent of the discoveries, in Mexico and Indonesia particularly, is quite enough to stagger the mind. Various creatures were found doing their thing far away from the light, and as they were caught by the camera, I noticed—in particular of the salamanders—that they had typical faces. In other words, they had mouths and muzzles and eyes arranged in the same way as most animals. Except that the eyes were denoted only by little concavities or indentations. Even as I was grasping the implications of this, the fine voice of Sir David Attenborough was telling me how many millions of years it had taken for these denizens of the underworld to lose the eyes they had once possessed. If you follow the continuing argument between the advocates of Darwin's natural selection theory and the partisans of creationism or "intelligent design," you will instantly see what I am driving at. The creationists (to give them their proper name and to deny them their annoying annexation of the word intelligent) invariably speak of the eye in hushed tones. How, they demand to know, can such a sophisticated organ have gone through clumsy evolutionary stages in order to reach its current magnificence and versatility? The problem was best phrased by Darwin himself, in his essay "Organs of Extreme Perfection and Complication":
His defenders, such as Michael Shermer in his excellent book Why Darwin Matters, draw upon post-Darwinian scientific advances. They do not rely on what might be loosely called "blind chance":
Hold it right there, says Ann Coulter in her ridiculous book Godless: The Church of Liberalism. "The interesting question is not: How did a primitive eye become a complex eye? The interesting question is: How did the 'light-sensitive cells' come to exist in the first place?" The salamanders of Planet Earth appear to this layman to furnish a possibly devastating answer to that question. Humans are almost programmed to think in terms of progress and of gradual yet upward curves, even when confronted with evidence that the past includes as many great dyings out of species as it does examples of the burgeoning of them. Thus even Shermer subconsciously talks of a "pathway" that implicitly stretches ahead. But what of the creatures who turned around and headed back in the opposite direction, from complex to primitive in point of eyesight, and ended up losing even the eyes they did have? Whoever benefits from this inquiry, it cannot possibly be Coulter or her patrons at the creationist Discovery Institute. The most they can do is to intone that "the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away." Whereas the likelihood that the post-ocular blindness of underground salamanders is another aspect of evolution by natural selection seems, when you think about it at all, so overwhelmingly probable as to constitute a near certainty. I wrote to professor Richard Dawkins to ask if I had stumbled on the outlines of a point, and he replied as follows:
I recommend for further reading the chapter on eyes and the many different ways in which they are formed that is contained in Dawkins' Climbing Mount Improbable; also "The Blind Cave Fish's Tale" in his Chaucerian collection The Ancestor's Tale. I am not myself able to add anything about the formation of light cells, eyespots, and lenses, but I do think that there is a dialectical usefulness to considering the conventional arguments in reverse, as it were. For example, to the old theistic question, "Why is there something rather than nothing?" we can now counterpose the findings of professor Lawrence Krauss and others, about the foreseeable heat death of the universe, the Hubble "red shift" that shows the universe's rate of explosive expansion actually increasing, and the not-so-far-off collision of our own galaxy with Andromeda, already loomingly visible in the night sky. So, the question can and must be rephrased: "Why will our brief 'something' so soon be replaced with nothing?" It's only once we shake our own innate belief in linear progression and consider the many recessions we have undergone and will undergo that we can grasp the gross stupidity of those who repose their faith in divine providence and godly design. |
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A guide to GKSR: Click "Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08 Nothing is as effective as homeopathy. I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles. - Klaus, 4/29/18 | |
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| jon-nyc | Jul 22 2008, 02:36 AM Post #2 |
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Cheers
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Interesting, George, thanks for posting that. |
| In my defense, I was left unsupervised. | |
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| Orlando Gibbons | Jul 22 2008, 03:00 AM Post #3 |
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Junior Carp
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Intelligent Design is retarded. Hitchens is a douche. The way of the world. |
| http://www.threerollsandapretzel.blogspot.com | |
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| George K | Jul 22 2008, 03:20 AM Post #4 |
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Finally
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Hitchens *is* a douche. He's offensive as hell, and to the left of Karl Marx. But, he's smart, well spoken, and frequently right. |
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A guide to GKSR: Click "Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08 Nothing is as effective as homeopathy. I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles. - Klaus, 4/29/18 | |
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| Orlando Gibbons | Jul 22 2008, 03:23 AM Post #5 |
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Junior Carp
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But also bloated, near jaundiced and English. It's either/or, really. |
| http://www.threerollsandapretzel.blogspot.com | |
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| Dewey | Jul 22 2008, 03:25 AM Post #6 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Hitchens is very intelligent and worth reading for his political thoughts, despite the fact that he's very much mistaken about the non-existence of God and his almost hysterical rants against faith. Intelligent Design is nothing more than the theory that evolution has been initiated, and at times given direction, by a supreme Being of indeterminant nature - that evolution is nothing more than a vehicle, a tool used by, a Creator God. Because it posits the existence and actions of such a Creator God, it may not be considered science in the pure sense, as modern science rejects a priori any actions of such a Creator God as being non-repeatable and non-falsifiable. But science's lining out of the consideration of such actions by a supreme Being doesn't mean that science is correct, and that the explanation offered by Intelligent Design is wrong. The only thing that may be logically said is that science has deliberately limited the parameters within which it will accept study, much like a musician should never claim that his knowledge enables him to understand automobile maintenance. Apples. Oranges. Intelligent Design is not science, as we currently define it. But neither is by any stretch of the definition, retarded. In fact, I think that it is very correct in stating a truth that science, by self-definition, disqualifies itself from making. |
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"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685. "Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous "Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011 I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14 | |
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| Orlando Gibbons | Jul 22 2008, 03:33 AM Post #7 |
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Junior Carp
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Well, that's a hell of a well thought out response. So, it's not retarded-retarded - maybe 1/4 retardation? Acceptable? I read the ID literature with a feigned speech impediment in my mind's ear just to give the thing proper context. I think you're giving it too much credit. So far as I can remember there are some details that are just :doh:, that pertain to the age of the earth and other shouldn't-be-disputables. |
| http://www.threerollsandapretzel.blogspot.com | |
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| John D'Oh | Jul 22 2008, 03:47 AM Post #8 |
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MAMIL
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That most certainly doesn't make one a douche, you cheeky f*cker.
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| What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket? | |
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| John D'Oh | Jul 22 2008, 03:54 AM Post #9 |
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MAMIL
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As far as a I can tell, the major proponents use ID as an alternative to evolution by natural selection, and hence as a non-scientific rival to a scientific theory. They are in effect saying that their 'theory' is 'better' than science, and that science is wrong. As an aside, I firmly believe that evolutionary theory in no way indicates the lack of a Creative Intelligence behind the universe. In fact, I would say that the beautiful elegance of the mechanism of natural selection would be a fine achievement for a God, if He existed. I can't speak for all supporters of ID, and this is in no way directed at you, Dewey, but I have to say that the ones I see in public do seem to lack an ability for clear, logical thought. They knew the answer before they were asked the question, and seem rather incapable of showing their working. Back when I was at school we were marked down very heavily for this approach, in maths at least. |
| What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket? | |
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| Mikhailoh | Jul 22 2008, 04:11 AM Post #10 |
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If you want trouble, find yourself a redhead
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Yes indeed. I just don't see the conflict between the basics of evolution and the less dogmatic or biblically literal expressions of creationism. |
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Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball | |
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| John D'Oh | Jul 22 2008, 04:13 AM Post #11 |
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MAMIL
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See you in hell, then.
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| What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket? | |
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| Dewey | Jul 22 2008, 04:20 AM Post #12 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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What I see in a lot of ID supporters is people who don't believe in evolution, who are biblical literalist/seven-day creationists, and who mistakenly think that ID refutes evolution and supports their position. While there are some people who would try to take it to that extreme, that is not the basis of the theory itself. The fact that a person can use a hammer to kill someone takes nothing away from the fact that hammers are actually manufactured to drive nails. Intelligent Design is not, as some would think, simply another name for Creationism. They're different, even though many would want to make them so. I am not a Creationist. I believe in evolution. I believe that th earth is somewhere in the range of 4.5 billion years old. But I also believe that creation gives ample evidence of the existence of an intelligent designer/creator/guide behind it all, that even the mutations required for evolution to have accomplished what it has is the work of this Being, and that this is not at all chance. As I said it is not science, but it is not "retarded," unless you consider (apparently like Hitchens) that simply to believe in God at all qualifies a person for that term. |
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"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685. "Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous "Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011 I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14 | |
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| Klaus | Jul 22 2008, 04:23 AM Post #13 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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The problem is that the ID proponents pretend that ID is science and that it should be taught in science classes. ID is very very inherently non-scientific, not only according to some "current" definition of science. I won't mind at all if ID is taught in religion classes, but then again the idea that god has influenced evolution is not exactly new in religion classes, so it is just a new name for what religion has taught for centuries. |
| Trifonov Fleisher Klaus Sokolov Zimmerman | |
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| Daniel | Jul 22 2008, 04:32 AM Post #14 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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John nailed it. No pun intended. Intelligent design (Intelligent Design?) is meant to displace evolution. Creationism shouldn't be taught as science. |
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| John D'Oh | Jul 22 2008, 04:41 AM Post #15 |
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MAMIL
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According to Wiki, and yes I do know that Wiki is occasionally wrong, but nevertheless:
Not a very supportive paragraph. It starts off well, and then goes down-hill fast. Dewey, I think there may be a difference between 'intelligent design', which is what you describe, and the capitalised 'Intelligent Design' which is what Wiki is talking about. |
| What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket? | |
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| Frank_W | Jul 22 2008, 04:44 AM Post #16 |
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Resident Misanthrope
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No.... Pretty much any of the three is more than enough to qualify him as a douche, though.
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Anatomy Prof: "The human body has about 20 sq. meters of skin." Me: "Man, that's a lot of lampshades!" | |
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| Dewey | Jul 22 2008, 03:32 PM Post #17 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Daniel, I believe in a form of Intelligent Design. I believe that an intelligent divine Creator God is behind our origins. But I would not be considered a "Creationist" as the term is used today. Don't confuse the two very different stances. Many want the teaching of Intelligent Design in place of evolution, as if the two are mutually exclusive. They aren't, but beyond that, as several people (self included) have already pointed out, ID posits theories regarding our origins that include the existence and actions of a divine Creator of some sort - which automatically eliminates its consideration as science, which disallows any consideration of any nonrepeatable or nonfalsifiable elements, of which God certainly qualifies. The people who would argue to teach Intelligent Design in a science class are wrong. But there is another, equally wrong thing going on - teaching people that facts deduced via scientific method are the only means of finding truth, and that information gleaned via any other approach must be false or inferior. This is a terrible abuse of students' intellects, and a gross over-reaching on the part of the scientific community. I have no problem at all with students being exposed to the basic tenets of Intelligent Design in another educational venue besides a science class - in fact, I strongly recommend it. I think we do a terrible disservice to would-be learners if we brainwash them into thinking that the only source to truth is through scientific method, and that anything that cann't be shoehorned into that criterion is a priori false. |
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"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685. "Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous "Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011 I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14 | |
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