The "conversation" is available here:
http://www.tvw.org/MediaPlayer/Archived/WME.cfm?EVNum=2006040103&TYPE=V
Overall impression.
This was a clear win for Meyer. Having said that I admire Ward for having a go. He was clearly out of his depth in the philosophical background and arguments. Meyer is a formidable debater and has made this territory his home ground. A future opponent will need to be someone who has spent more time focusing on this debate than Ward appears to have done.
Meyer came across as articulate, knowledgeable and fair-minded and in terms of a rhetorical contest he scores way above Ward. Having said that Ward always appeared on the defensive. Meyer always seemed to have more to say that was relevant to the debate. If a word count was made I am sure that Meyer would have more than double the number of words used. Not that he wasted words – he was just a more enthusiastic and articulate speaker.
A few of Wards’ Points
ID cannot be falsified.
ID does not result in experimental work.
ID stifles intellectual curiosity leading to national mind decay.
ID believers must not use antibiotics.
ID will result in retardation of medical research.
ID requires a supernatural designer
Things I objected to in Ward’s arguments.
Constantly appealing to scientific colleagues with big reputations in the audience.
Constantly interjecting that ID is not a theory.
Constantly asking for experiments that show that ID is testable or falsifiable even when Meyer had given good answers to these questions.
Things I found interesting.
Ward maintained that Dawkins had done a huge disservice to the debate by suggesting that religious people are stupid.
The description of Discovery related experimental work along the lines of looking at the “fine tuning” of protein components for irreducibly complex structures along the lines of the arguments I tried to present in my golf course argument.
Which Golf Course.
Back to the Golf Course.
9 comments:
Allygally,
Scientists like Dawkins use the full weight of their considerable authority as scientists to argue for atheism and secularism. Thus prominent scientists were at this type of activity well before the Discovery institute began to fight back. I suppose I am saying... You started the fight...you can't blame us for fighting back.
Dawkins is a formidable debater too and he is paid to argue for proper public understanding of science. He should have been taking on Meyer....Where is he?
Allygally,
What about Eugenie Scott or Daniel Dennett?
Allygally,
I have not got time to watch the debate all through again but when a transcript becomes available I will look through with your points in mind.
I listened to the debate the other day and had a similar reaction as you Andrew, it was a complete blowout for the ID side.
Allygally, you said that Meyer "Talked out Ward" but I would be inclined to disagree. Meyer was making excellent points, it was Ward who was distracting Meyer and trying to dominate the debate with his frequent interruptions that were both rude and distracting I would assume.
Allygally you are pulling out all the old, tired arguments about ID being religion and creationism, if you listen to the debate a little more closely you might catch on to this, as Meyer adresses these issues quite well I think.
Pulling the "religion card" was used frequently by Ward when he was unable to answer the perfectly legitimate, testable claims that Meyer was talking about.
But yes, I would have liked to have seen a better representation of the Darwinian side in this debate.
Sorry Ward but Meyer will never join "The dark side."
There is nothing wrong with trying to dominate a debate, I believe that is kind of the goal, however it was the manner in which he attempted to do so that bothered me. Ward regularly interrupted Meyer, and at least twice he tryed to get assistance from outside the debate from people in the audience. Meyer was respectful, and allowed Ward to finish what he was saying before he made his rebuttal.
Do I think that he succeeded in dominating Meyer? No, Meyer kept the debate on track, and made an excellent case for the ID side, despite Wards rude behaviour.
Meyer covered testability and evidence for ID with regards to the bacterial flagellum mainly, and I believe he gave a few other examples, but my memory fails me as to what those were.
If you want an ID perspective on the Dover decision, read the book "Traipsing into Evolution" but dont put down Andrew for not analyzing the decision yet. An ID perspective on the trial is available, and if you really want to hear it, stop being lazy and read the book.
"Fact: ID is creationism is religion."
Would you care to elaborate on such an insightful statement.
"Better? in the sense of a better political presentation? Or better in the sense of truer?"
I think that Darwinists can do a better job of presenting their arguments than Ward was able to accomplish.
"I would have liked to have seen a more honest admission by Meyer that ID is a religious idea."
And I would like you to tell me how ID is a religious idea. If you mean that it has religious implications, then I would be inclined to agree with you. However, I could say the same thing for Darwinism, which has strong Anti-religious implications.
allygally should take a look at who moderates dembskis site for him. an AGNOSTIC who thinks revealed religion is nonsense. kind of blows your tired line that ID=creationism=religion.
that and you have to pretend that anthony flew doesnt exist as well. unless, youre willing to argue that flew is really a theist in disguise and has been for the past 60, 70+ yrs!
allygally= politician= art of deception. look, i can do it too!
"In what manner does the flagellum allow testing of ID?"
The bacterial flagellum is irreducibly complex, which means that all parts of this structure must be present for correct functionality. This bears the hallmark of intelligent design since it requires the integration of information all at once, or the foresight to pass through stages which are non-functional. One way to test this from an evolutionary perspective is to see whether this structure could have been produced in any other manner, based on current knowledge of Darwinian biology, i.e RM and NS. This has already been attempted by Kenneth Miller, who attempts to explain this using co-option. I agree that if ID is not science then it certainly cannot be tested by the scientific method, however, evolutionary cell biologists are already testing this idea, which makes it quite scientifically rigorous.
'and I believe he gave a few other examples, but my memory fails me as to what those were.'
"Not surprised."
Right, because I'm a stupid ID supporter, who can't begin to compete with the more highly evolved mind of a Darwinian.
"You mean you didn't know that the DI invented ID because the other paths to teaching creation "science" in the USA were blocked by the courts and the constitution? That seems strange to me since you seem to know rather a lot about the subject. It is wierd that you have contrived to miss the central fact of the matter."
Wow, would you care to back up such a claim.
"Note how the "designer" is explicitly the Christian god"
No you are flat out wrong there, ID makes no statement on the identity of the designer. All it shows is that these structures such as the flagellum and the information rich DNA were designed. We know that information only results intelligence, but the DNA does not have the name Yahweh, or Allah built into it.
"Less entertainingly, the ID people have produced only one textbook. It was drafted as an update to a creation "science" manual, but a court decision banned creation "science" from US schools, so they just went through the book replacing "creation" with "design" and "creator" with "designer"."
Care to prove it?
"Michael Behe said that ID is not science by the currently accepted definition of science."
I think that many ID proponents would disagree with this statement, but Behe makes an important point since methodological naturalism poses some rather large problems for biology, particularly in the area of "origin of life biology."
" the definition would have to be broadened to include religious ideas like astrology."
Tell me ally, when was the last time that a respected Biologist went on the attack, held conferences, and wrote papers arguing against astrology? It seems that this particular "religious" idea of ID is getting a rather large share of attention.
I have looked at both Panda's Thumb, and Talk origins websites. Panda's thumb seems more like a blog for a christian hate group than anything else, not to mention that I find it ironic that the title of the website "Pandas thumb" is absolutely invalid as an argument against ID. Also, I have never once found a convincing argument from Talk origins, only alot of the old rehashed arguments that I have heard before.
" If you think the facts undermine religion, that's your judgement. You cannot blame the facts."
No, you are quite right, I agree completely. We must follow the evidence (NOT FACTS) wherever it takes us, including whether it leads to the destruction of macroevolution as we know it.
"Given that the claims on testability are fragile, can you explain (or say how Meyer explained) where ID can be falsified"
Well, you can't have it both ways. Here we have you saying that ID is not falsifiable and then we have Kenneth Miller saying that he has falsified the ID claims made by biochemists such as Mike Behe. But is there not a contradiction here? How can ID be falsified if it is unfalsifiable.
One interesting prediction that ID would make has already been shown to be true. "Junk DNA" as it was called, was thought to be functionless, but using what we know about intelligent designers, one would predict that it would have a function. It was discovered later, that these stretches of "Junk DNA" have a regulatory function in protein production.
Ok, lets go through this in some degree of detail.
The bacterial flagellum IS irreducibly complex, because it must have all of its components to fulfill the function of moving the bacterium through its watery environment. Scott Minnich has worked on the flagellum perhaps longer than any other microbiologist and he would disagree with your claim that the bacterial flagellum is not IC, so you see, I am going to need you to explain to me why it is not IC.
"Seriously, this is just a restatement of the standard ID pitch."
Right, it is a pillar of the ID movement, and a knife in the side of purely undirected darwinian evolution. So you had best address it.
" Complexity is not supported by any respectable scientific publications, peer reviews, tests, re-tests, etc..."
Well it seems important enough to warrant attacks from prestigious professors in the evolutionary community, from institutions such as Brown University. And how about you stop avoiding the issue here, is the bacterial flagellum IC and is IC a clear hallmark of design. The answer to both questions is yes. IC structures require the foresight of an intelligent mind working toward an end, we see this in many human-made objects all the time. See you are trying to ignore the actual issue. IC is supported by many biologists. Respectable scientists such as Mike Behe,Scott Minnich, and many more. The rest of the community is yet to propose any argument that refutes it (although not from a lack of effort).
Have you read Darwin's Black Box yet?
"BTW Irreducible Complexity is not Intelligent Design."
BTW IC is a hallmark of Intelligent design, and like you said it is evidence for it. But lets take a closer look at IC and something that William Dembski calls specified complexity. Dembski describes specified complexity by using an example of flipping a coin, and say you get the result of HHHHHHHHHH, this sequence would exhibit specified complexity, because it has low specificational complexity (which can be thought of as the minimum description length or pattern) i.e x number of heads in a row, and it also exhibits high probabilistic complexity (Low probability of occuring). Design is present whenever Specified Complexity is present. Dembski states that both IC and SC are key markers of intelligent agency, and if it could be shown that the incredibly complex and integrated systems of nature could have arisen by way of gradual darwinian processes, then ID would be effectively refuted.
"BTW what "idea" are "evolutionary cell biologists" already testing"?"
Sorry I should have been more specific, what I meant was that they (Evolutionists such as Kenneth Miller) are attacking the argument of IC, and claim to have refuted it.
However, in Science, "Jamie Bridgham, Sean Carroll and Joe Thornton claim to have shown how an irreducibly complex system, such as that described by Discovery senior fellow Michael Behe, might have arisen as the result of gene duplication and a few point mutational changes." (Discovery.org). Although this claim fails for reasons described by Behe, it shows that IC is being seriously considered if critiques of the idea are being published in Science.
"Seriously, the Discovery Institute is a right wing religious republican think tank. Of course they want religion taught in schools (Why else exist?)."
That is a lie that has been propogated by evolutionists. Meyer has said that the goal of the discovery institute is to give criticism of Darwinism a fair chance in the classroom. Your statements about "The Wedge" are unfounded,the document actually critiquing materialism. Take a look at this article by the Discovery Institute:
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2005/10/discovery_institute_s_wedge_document_how.html
"Less entertainingly, the ID people...just went through the book replacing "creation" with "design" and "creator" with "designer"."
ID and Creationism are completely seperate, but it seems to be a point of confusion for many people, so lets go through it, Dembski style.
From Dembski's Book: "The Design Revolution"
Scientific Creationism is committed to the following propositions:
1)There was a sudden creation of the universe, energy and life from nothing.
2)Mutations and Natural Selection are insufficient to bring about the development of all living kinds from a single organism.
3)Changes of the originally created kinds of plants and animals occur only within fixed limits.
4)There is a separate ancestry for humans and apes.
5)Earth's geology can be explained via catastrophism, primarily by the occurence of a worldwide flood.
6) The earth and all living things originated 10,000 years ago.
ID propositions:
1) Specified Complexity and IC are reliable indicators of design.
2)Biological Systems exhibit SC and emply IC subsystems.
3)Naturalistic mechanisms or undirected causes do not suffice to explain the origin of SC or IC.
4)Therefore ID constitutes the best explanation for the origin of SC and IC in biological systems.
So in comparing the two lists it is obvious how different creationism and ID are. The reason that creationism was barred from public education is because it matches up with the Christian Religion's account of origins. However, as shown, ID makes no such propositions.
" "Michael Behe said that ID is not science by the currently accepted definition of science."
I think that many ID proponents would disagree with this statement,"
Name one, and where he has disagreed? And, BTW, Meyer said it at the Ward debate also."
I havent read anywhere Behe saying this, but I have heard this claim many times before so I will look into it, I assume it is another case of Behe's words being taken out of context. As for scientists disagreeing with the statement that ID isnt science, take your pick. Surely Dembski believes it is science, and Meyer also would say that ID constitutes a scientific theory. What you are referring to is the fact that science has by convention only resorted to material mechanisms to explain lifes diversity. So let me be perfectly clear, ID makes no statement on the identity of the designer, whether he/she/it be natural, supernatural, or something in between.
"but Behe makes an important point since methodological naturalism poses some rather large problems for biology,"
"Which problems does biology have with the scientific method? Intrigue me."
I am talking about Methodological Naturalism, the idea that one must only resort to material, natural explanations of the diversity of nature. The problem is that if indeed there are supernatural forces at work, then science will all together miss it. This problem becomes apparent when looking at the origin of life.
"You mean maybe godditit? You should know, of course, that the ToE has nothing to say about origins."
You should know that the Theory of Evolution does say something about origins, its called Chemical Evolution and its taught in the classroom, any student could tell you that.
"So you believe the evidence for the ToE undermines religion? Your motivation is therefore religious, not scientific. Same as all the other ID folks,,,,!"
Don't put words in my mouth. All I am saying is that evolution has clear anti-religious implications, just as ID has theistic implications. For you to make statements about my motivation is a gratuitous statement about me, and something that you cannot back up. So lets stick to what you know. OK?
This is something that Meyer addressed in his debate with Ward, he called it "Motive Mongering" and it distracts from the central issue of whether ID is or is not science. It sets up a strawman in place of ID.
"So, back to the question you avoided. Can you explain to me how ID can be falsified. Meyer didn't do it, and so far I have heard of no plausible explanation of how you can disprove the existence of supernatural prime movers."
Scientists who are both evolutionists and ID theorists have one thing in common, they believe that nature gives the appearance of design. To the hardcore materialist, this design is only apparent, while to the ID theorist the Design is real. To prove that Design has not produced the complex structures in nature, one only need to show how they could have been produced by gradual processes of darwinian evolution. IC and SC are hallmarks of intelligent design, and to show that design is not at work, one need to only show how material mechanisms could produce such structures which show these two features. ID scientists are not trying to prove the existence of "Supernatural Prime Movers", they are trying to show that the best explanations for many structures in biology are best explained by design, i.e to prove that these structures were designed, NOT that a supernatural designer exists.
As for your question about predictability, one obvious prediction that ID would make is that science should be full of Specified Complexity which is a marker of Intelligent agency and therefore points to intelligent design. But lets turn the tables here, what predictions does Darwinism make? Dembski points out the problem with evolution by saying that the predictions it makes are either extremely broad, or are extremely tiny, and in no way demonstrate the degree of change that is required for macroevolution.
"adapt or go extinct" is not a prediction of Darwin's theory and is a logical truth that is reasoned out independently of his theory
(Dembski, Design revolution).
Thanks,
Nathan
Hello everyone...I'm new to this board so greeting to everyone...
I few quick things about the debate/conversation between Ward and Meyers... I think it was clear Meyers "won" the debate regardless of what side of the issue you fall on. Ward's repeated appeals to experts in the audience was a little embarrising and was not convincing in the least bit. Also, saying to Meyer's, "trust me" in regards to a debatable point is not an argument at all, it's simply an appeal to his own authority on the subject. Being such, he should of articulated his argument instead of brushing it aside.
Meyer's clearly won in a contest of idea's and answers. Is he suppossed to be penalized because this is his "territory" and that he is polished and well spoken? Keep in mind that it was Meyer's who fielded the majority of questions from the audience (some of which were very good questions) and had a very reasoned and plausible answers for each.
Ward asked a very good hypothetical question in regards as to how Meyer's would approach falsifying ID. Although, drawn out a bit, Meyer's answer was indeed more than adequate.
You cannot penalize Meyer's for "out talking" Ward. Not to be juvenile, but if Ward had something to say then he had the oppurtunity to do such. Instead, what you find Ward doing is again appealing to experts in the audience, quibbiling over terms, sneering that ID is not a theory. Understandably, this doesn’t prove ID as legitimate. What is does say is that Ward is not capable speaker in successfully defending or promoting neo-Darwinism. Nothing more, nothing less….
I hope I'm not in the minority when I say this. I have sincere questions about ID and I want to hear good questions and answers from the oppossing side. I've heard Ward speak on the subject twice now. Unfortunately, he does not impress me at all. I would love to hear Dennett, Dawkins, or Ken Miller debate the topic with Meyers.
ON A SIDE NOTE:
Allygally, your use of Ad Hominem is not used correctly. I don't think you want to start criticizing other posters in regards to philo/logic...I read your original post in regards to the original topic and it's riddled with problems.
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