Posted by Josh Rosenau on September 16, 2006 I think Gil means something different, but this pretty much explains why IDC doesn’t make any sense:
A microbe did not mysteriously mutate into Mozart and his music, and most people, thankfully, are smart enough to figure out that this is a silly idea.
This is essentially what ID argues. With a few magical tweaks here and there, the IDol just *poof* created whatever. No process, just “mysteriously mutate” something into something else.
Science doesn’t operate by invoking mystery. ID does.
IDiaF is also confused; ID proposes miracles, evolution does not.
It seems neither Gil nor his punch-card-programming commentators have ever programed even a single layer neural network. It’s amazing what self organization can do, even in a computer program. It’s especially amazing how very simple interacting neural networks can spontaeously produce truly “irreducible” behaviours, like walking. It doesn’t require “an unimaginably complex, sophisticated, fault-tolerant, self-repairing, self-replicating computer program.” And (as just one example) with no “poof” involved.
But then, I suspose they would claim that the walking behaviour is “front loaded”.
Joshua Rosenau spends his days defending the teaching of evolution at the National Center for Science Education. He is formerly a doctoral candidate at the University of Kansas, in the department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. When not battling creationists or modeling species ranges, he writes about developments in progressive politics and the sciences.
The opinions expressed here are his own, do not reflect the official position of NCSE. Indeed, older posts may no longer reflect his own official position.
September 16, 2006
September 17, 2006