Inviting a Fisking : Dispatches from the Culture Wars

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Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of Michigan Citizens for Science and co-founder of The Panda's Thumb. He has written for such publications as The Bard, Skeptic and Reports of the National Center for Science Education, spoken in front of many organizations and conferences, and appeared on nationally syndicated radio shows and on C-SPAN. Ed is also a Fellow with the Center for Independent Media and the host of Declaring Independence, a one hour weekly political talk show on WPRR in Grand Rapids, Michigan.(static)

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Inviting a Fisking

Category: Intelligent Design
Posted on: March 27, 2006 9:48 AM, by Ed Brayton

The Worldnutdaily has yet another badly reasoned defense of ID, this one by a homeschooling mother who appears to be equally ignorant of both science and the rules of logic. But rather than spending the time to fisk this one myself, I thought I'd invite my readers to do it. Pick out your favorite passages, quote them, and post a response to them. The article can be found here.

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Despite its pretensions to objectivity, science has always been political. That's why scientific revolutions have often met initially with resistance and ridicule, because the old order stands to lose if the new becomes accepted. But the great thing about science is that eventually the weight of evidence breaks through. Think Galileo (opposed not only by the church but by fellow academics), or Lister (ridiculed for disinfecting surgical rooms to prevent infection), or the Wright Brothers (man will never fly). So all this hand wringing about intelligent design is a good sign that the revolution is under way. The old order is being challenged, and they are freaking out

Sagan fisked this a long time ago. And am I the only one struck by the resemblance between "So all this hand wringing about intelligent design is a good sign that the revolution is under way" and Dick Cheney's argument that the ferocity of the insurgency in Iraq was a sign that it was in its last throes?

Posted by: Ginger Yellow | March 27, 2006 10:38 AM

And straight after that, a fantastic non-sequitur, in the "Why won't somebody take a stand for Jesus?" tradition:

First, what I.D. theory is not: It is not creationism. Full disclosure here: I am a creationist. As a Christian, I believe God is the author of life. But I.D. theory is a science-driven enterprise. It is not a deduction from Scripture but an inference from observation. It says that the intricate design found in living things and in the universe itself is best explained by an intelligent cause. Darwinism, on the other hand, says that undirected natural processes led life to arise spontaneously; then evolution by natural selection (survival of the fittest) resulted in living things that appear to be designed, but really aren't. The question boils down to this: When considered objectively, where does the evidence actually lead?

Drawing heavily on Nancy Pearcey's great apologetic book "Total Truth," I'm going to focus on two of the most powerful arguments for intelligent design. Her book contains many more. I wish every Christian (and every thinking person) would read her masterful defense of Christianity as total truth about all of reality. But just reading this column will make you far more knowledgeable about I.D. than nearly all of its opponents.

So let me get this straight. ID is absolutely not creationism, and you're going to prove by drawing extensively on a book of apologetics.

Posted by: Ginger Yellow | March 27, 2006 10:42 AM

I screwed up the blockquote there, sorry.

Anyway, onwards and upwards:

Microbiologist Michael Behe has coined the term "irreducible complexity" to describe this. That is, the cell consists of coordinated, interlocking parts that must all be in place simultaneously, or it won't function at all. You can't improve the cell through one random mutation at a time because if you change any one aspect, the whole thing will crash. For evolutionary change to occur, every single piece of its Rube Goldberg-like factory would have to mutate at exactly the same time, and each single mutation would have to be beneficial, or the cell would just die.

So now she's denying that non-catastrophic mutation happens at all, which flies in the face of, well, all the evidence ever gathered by evolutionary biologists. Does she deny that bacteria evolve resistance to antibiotics? That people with non-fatal conditions caused by genetic mutation exist? I also like the way she calls cells "Rube Goldberg-like" - that's not very flattering for the Designer, is it?

Posted by: Ginger Yellow | March 27, 2006 10:49 AM

Darwinists cannot explain irreducible complexity. They keep saying that it poses no problem for evolution, as if repetition would make it so. They insist that just because we don't yet understand how evolution can work in light of this doesn't mean that we won't figure it out eventually. But they will never figure it out, because irreducible complexity makes evolutionary change at the cellular level logically impossible.
(Note: Natural selection clearly occurs within species as an adaptive mechanism. I.D. theory does not deny or even address this, nor does it address the question of whether natural selection could lead to the development of entirely new species. I.D. theory is concerned with the origin of life only.)

Hang on a second, Lynn. Irreducible complexity means evolutionary change at the cellular level is impossible, but natural selection clearly occurs within species as an adaptive mechanism. How on earth do you reconcile those two statements? How do species adapt if not through change at the cellular level? And if ID doesn't address the question of whether natural selection could lead to the development of entirely new species, how can it have any meaning? New species have to get their irreducibly complex systems somehow, and ID says it's not evolution.

Posted by: Ginger Yellow | March 27, 2006 10:55 AM

"I.D. theory is concerned with the origin of life only."

Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.....

*snort*

Sorry.

Carry on, Ginger. But don't pull a muscle.

Posted by: Jim Anderson | March 27, 2006 11:15 AM

Despite its pretensions to objectivity, science has always been political....
By speaking the universally accepted language of science (to the postmodern mind the only repository of what truth there is in the world) I.D. theory will become a powerful tool in the effort to rescue all of culture from its destructive spiral.

Adopting a postmodern stance to critique the purported postmodern mindset? My irony meter is spiking out of control.

Posted by: Jim Anderson | March 27, 2006 11:22 AM

I just get started, and Ginger Yellow is already hogging all the good stuff. ;^)

Currently, only a minority of scientists holds to intelligent design theory, but the number is growing. To date, over 400 scientists have signed a document entitled "Scientific Dissent from Darwinism." Many of these scientists are not Christian, and some are outright hostile to it, which is further evidence that I.D. is not religion. A scientific revolution is just beginning, but almost nobody recognizes it, least of all its opponents.

As has already been pointed out, the dissent statement is so broad that an evolutionist could sign it by focusing on factors other than mutation and natural selection. By the same token, disproving evolution does not mean that Intelligent Design is correct. ID still has not developed a worthwhile theory that has stood up to scrutiny. The last line is just a variant of "you'll see soon enough!"

And not a moment too soon, since evolutionary theory did not stay in the scientific realm but oozed into all the sciences, the liberal arts and out into culture, with horribly destructive results. The biblical view of man as a spiritual being created in God's image has been replaced by the view that man is nothing more than a highly evolved animal struggling to survive in a meaningless universe. Scratch any social ill and you will find Darwinism underneath.

The author is complaining that evoltuion is leaking into other realms, so her solution is to ensure that ID also leaks. Then she oddly conflates evolution with anti-God and amoral behavior. Apparently the pope, United Methodists, and various other religious groups have yet to receive the memo. The "social ill" line is equally bad. Theft, rape, and murder existed well before Darwin, and I have yet to see evidence that belief in evolution makes people violent and immoral.

For example, conservatives and Christians are having a difficult time making the case against homosexual marriage.

ID is a science that cannot tell us about religion or the designer (or is it Designer?), but if ID is correct then we know that marriage is between one man and one woman, PERIOD. Allah, Brahma, and the God of unitarians, deists, and those liberal apostate Christians need not apply. I truly wonder why they bother with the science line in the opening if they are just going to end with a long rant on apologetics and social decay.

Posted by: Irrational Entity | March 27, 2006 11:24 AM

Jim Anderson wrote:

Adopting a postmodern stance to critique the purported postmodern mindset? My irony meter is spiking out of control.

Bingo, you win the prize. I was hoping someone would catch that, it was the thing that just screamed out at me about the article. She's simultaneously adopting postmodernist rhetoric and arguing against postmodernism at the same time. Of course, postmodernism does not believe that science is the only repository of truth in the world. In fact, postmodernism argues that science is politically motivated and so has no valid truth claim to make at all other than to serve the interests of the rich and powerful. Monumental silliness.

Posted by: Ed Brayton | March 27, 2006 11:37 AM

Well she's in illustrious company on that front. Steve Fuller managed to use an astoundingly postmodern argument in defence of ID, all the while claiming to be ardently anti-postmodernism.

Posted by: Ginger Yellow | March 27, 2006 11:46 AM

But I.D. theory is a science-driven enterprise. It is not a deduction from Scripture but an inference from observation. (Emphasis added)

Wait for it . . .

The truth is that homosexual marriage is wrong because it violates God's design and purpose for us, with inevitably negative consequences. (Emphasis added)

Damn! Her science is too tight!!

PS. And those negative consequences are . . .? (I guess that must be in part 2.)

Posted by: The Schwa | March 27, 2006 11:49 AM

So ID is not religion. Fine then but it was pretty clearly shown in Dover v Kitzmuller that ID is not science. Since it is neither of the two things that it's proponents claim it to be why waste any time fisking this incoherent babbling. The writer is clearly an anti-humanist and incapable of rationale discourse.

Posted by: CanuckRob | March 27, 2006 12:17 PM

And those negative consequences are . . .?

A major reduction in vaginal intercourse? I shudder to imagine it!

Posted by: pough | March 27, 2006 12:21 PM

And those negative consequences are . . .?

That's the part that always gets me. Whenever they go into details, they usually just wave their arms and talk about social decay. But what social decay? Well, homosexuality of course! When they try to go beyond that, they get really strange, often going on at length about bestiality (a la "man-on-dog" Santorum).

Posted by: shargash | March 27, 2006 12:25 PM

Gads, where do I start?!

{Throwing a dart and seeing what pops up}

"The biblical view of man as a spiritual being created in God's image has been replaced by the view that man is nothing more than a highly evolved animal struggling to survive in a meaningless universe."

Right. Got it. ID has nothing to do with religion.

{Next}

"Natural selection clearly occurs within species as an adaptive mechanism. I.D. theory does not deny or even address this, nor does it address the question of whether natural selection could lead to the development of entirely new species."

Uh, then what was all that mumbo about irreducible complexity? If I.D. doesn't address adaptation, nor whether natural selection could lead to speciation, thennnnnn, what does it address?

{oh, here it is}

"I.D. theory is concerned with the origin of life only."

Perfect! Evolution is only concerned with everything AFTER the origin of life!

This couldn't have worked out any better than if a supernatural being had willed it so.

Carry on. I can't go on with this any more.

Posted by: blogista | March 27, 2006 12:52 PM

One of the worst consequences has been the devaluation of human life. It is no exaggeration to say that Darwinism has led to the killing of untold millions of human beings. To highlight just a few examples: eugenics (philosophical Darwinism) inspired Margaret Sanger to found Planned Parenthood and the pro-abortion movement. Eugenics helped Hitler convince an entire country to follow him in his attempt to wipe out the "inferior" Jews, not to mention the toll in blood it took to stop him. These days Peter Singer, a Princeton professor of bioethics, advocates that parents be allowed to dispatch their imperfect infants up to 30 days after birth. The misguided "right to die" movement is rapidly becoming the "right to kill" movement, as last year we watched severely disabled (but not dying) Terri Schiavo starve to death by court order, while a large portion of the country approved of it. Meanwhile, more than a million babies continue to be aborted every year. None of these horrors could have occurred in a culture that understood each human life to be a unique creation of God, stamped with his image.

What's so hilarious about this is that all of these things have occured precisely in cultures where the vast majority of citizens believe that "each human life to be a unique creation of God, stamped with his image".

Now back to Iraq war, where each human life is precious except when it happens to be lost as collateral damage and/ or is of Iraqi origin. Then it's just an unfortunate act of God that the poor bastards were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or, more cynically, that as long as the loss of life is a means to an end...

Posted by: Leni | March 27, 2006 1:42 PM

Now granted, I'm just a lowly chemist, but isn't the following a contradiction:

"But they [evolutionary biologists] will never figure it out, because irreducible complexity makes evolutionary change at the cellular level logically impossible.

(Note: Natural selection clearly occurs within species as an adaptive mechanism."

Soooo mmmmuuuucchh bull*#@! cccaaannnt ppprrocceess it aalll....

Posted by: ChemJerk | March 27, 2006 2:35 PM

Looks like she went to the creationist buffet of crappy arguments and loaded her plate right to the brim. Fisking this stuff would be like fishing in an aquarium with a hand-grenade. I would note that even the peanut gallery over at Uncommon Descent finds it not totally convincing. THAT'S how bad it is.

Posted by: Dave S. | March 27, 2006 2:41 PM

Oh boy, this place looks like fun. I'll start with an easy one...

It is no exaggeration to say that Darwinism has led to the killing of untold millions of human beings.

how many millions of human beings have been killed in the name of God? Sorry, I forgot, ID isn't about God. let me rephrase..how many millions of human beings have been killed in the name of Todd (you know, the designer)?

Posted by: theodosius_35:125-129 | March 27, 2006 7:14 PM

here's another one...

The truth is that homosexual marriage is wrong because it violates God's design and purpose for us...

I assume God's design and purpose is for us to have kids? What about those who can't get pregnant, are they in violation of God's design and purpose? This reminds me of that couple in Iowa years back who couldn't have kids so they took fertility drugs and ended up having septuplets. Asked why they didn't selectively abort some of the fetuses they replied that they wanted to "put it in God's hands." Go God!

Posted by: theodosius_35:125-129 | March 27, 2006 7:28 PM

dobzhansky wrote:

how many millions of human beings have been killed in the name of Todd (you know, the designer)?

LOL.

No, no. I'm fairly certain his name is Rod.

Posted by: Leni | March 27, 2006 9:54 PM

But just reading this column will make you far more knowledgeable about I.D. than nearly all of its opponents.

Hahahahahahahhaahahaha!!!!

See, you're all taking this article too seriously.

It was obviously meant as comedy.

Do you see why intelligent design is so important? In a world gone increasingly mad, it will provide an intellectual foundation for drawing people back to reality.

Hahaha... see what I mean? ;)

Posted by: WJD | March 27, 2006 9:59 PM

Ed, I thoroughly fisked that article yesterday evening.

http://www.ocellated.com/2006/03/26/the-worldnutdaily-and-intelligent-design/

It was something else.

Posted by: Ocellated | March 27, 2006 11:36 PM

Is this Lynn Barton related to the David Barton who fabricates quotes to make Founding Fathers sound like fundie nuts?

Posted by: dkew | March 28, 2006 9:56 AM

"Recent advances in microbiology have demonstrated that the cell is literally a miniature factory town"

Either she is ignorant of any actual microbiology or she misapplies the word "literally", or both.

The whole article is littered with such misunderstood or misapplied words and phrases. One that never fails to annoy me is "blueprint" as a description of the genome.
The incorrect use of the word "random" to describe mutation/selection processes is another.
Really, where does one start correcting this jumble of misconceptions and outright factual errors?

Amazingly, Lynn Barton seems to think that practicing scientists, working for years in their respective fields have either never encountered such criticisms or are so brainwashed (despite their diverse cultural and religious backgrounds) they refuse to consider it.
Well no, Mrs. Barton. Scientists accept evolution because of the gigantic body of evidence supporting it.

I sincerly hope she homeschools her children more competently on other fields then on this one.

Ed, where do you find these things?

Posted by: Plyss | March 28, 2006 10:27 AM

Lynn (Don't Quit Your Day Job ... Ooops, too Late) Barton writes:

"Recent advances in microbiology have demonstrated that the cell is literally a miniature factory town"

Yes, literally a town. We can see the little smokestacks and the men wearing hardhats and walking out of the factories and mines to have a beer after work, carrying their miniature lunch-boxes.

You know what's weird? In those lunch boxes you will find plant material like lettuce, made up of more cells - which are themselves literally miniature factory towns! I just blew my mind.

Posted by: Dave S. | March 28, 2006 10:41 AM

There really should be a dedicated word for the phenomenon whereby nine times out of ten people use "literally" to mean precisely the opposite.

Posted by: Ginger Yellow | March 28, 2006 11:21 AM

Why a factory *town*? Is there a little store which sell things for outrageous prices so the molecules can "owe their soul to the company store?"

Is a factory town more impressive than a factory?

Posted by: KeithB | March 28, 2006 12:17 PM

I'm not likely to take as objective any article that refers to people who hold an opposing view as "cultural elites" or "intelligentsia"...

But, the bottom line is this - I feel that people who believe in Intelligent Design do so for the following absurd logic:

I don't understand how "Xyz" could have happened through evolution. (for example, evolution of the eye)

Therefore, it DIDN'T happen through evolution.

Thus, it happened via the actions of an Intelligent Designer.

That makes as much sense as "I don't understand why 'pi' is irrational, therefore it is NOT irrational, therefore I legislate it's value to be 3"

Posted by: n5yat | March 28, 2006 3:09 PM

It is not that they "don't understand why pi is irrational," they don't understand what irrational *means* and feel that they can make it mean whatever they want.

Posted by: KeithB | March 28, 2006 6:48 PM