Professor of geology: Cars disprove intelligent design
by KrauzeOne of the reasons I don't take grandiose statements about how "many scientists reject intelligent design" seriously is because the average scientist has no clue as to what intelligent design is about, having only read some anti-ID editorials in the journals they subscribe to. A perfect example is provided by James L. Powell, professor of geology and the former director and president of the L.A. County Museum of Natural History. In a video urging scientists to tell the public what's what regarding intelligent design, he makes this… ahem, incisive argument against intelligent design (HT: Paul Nelson):
We have to say that if creationism is right and if there is an intelligent designer, then almost everything else we know about science is wrong. Then your flu vaccine wouldn't work, your car wouldn't start, there was no Hiroshima, and on and on and on.
Apparently saying this to the public is enough - you don't have to actually provide any evidence for it.
The video, which I've put below the fold, also contains a clip with David Deamer, recipient of NASA "Origin of Life" grant, complaining that politicians have ignored petitions signed by "large numbers of Nobel Laureates". He might be thinking of this petition, the pretentiousness of which was only surpassed by its cluelessness regarding evolution and intelligent design. By all means, let's get more scientists to speak out like this. That'll improve the image of science for sure!
February 19th, 2007 at 12:43 pm |
If by creationism he means YEC (lately a hot topic around here) then I more or less agree with him. I might word it a bit differently: if all the forms of dating at our disposal are all wrong (not to mention conspiring to give the same wrong answer), then we have no reason to expect that any of our science, at least that which is ultimately based on quantum mechanics, is correct. By extension, we should not expect that any technology derived from science would ever actually work. If YEC science is correct, I certainly would not have expected the atom bomb to work nor would I expect that my car, with all its solid state components, would actually start. If YEC science is correct, then we don’t really know how any of that stuff actually works. The best we can assume is that QM works in all instances except for the various methods of dating.
Comment by David Heddle — February 19, 2007 @ 12:43 pm
February 19th, 2007 at 12:54 pm |
Hi David. I suspect the author of the comment meant more than just YEC and the "if there is an intelligent designer" is the tipoff. There is an attempt to link a designer to lack of order and unpredictability- like effects coming from the hands of impetuous Greek gods. ID can provoke normally level headed people to indulge in silly, irrational behavoir.
Comment by Bradford — February 19, 2007 @ 12:54 pm
February 19th, 2007 at 1:01 pm |
Bradford,
I'm not so sure–a generic intelligent designer is, for all intents and purposes, god. Now you'd have to be an idiot to argue, in effect, that "if god exists at all, regardless of his attributes, then cars wouldn't start." It is not likely that this man is a complete idiot. I don't think he is arguing: "the fact that cars start prove there is no god." No, I'm convinced he meant YEC, and was just sloppy with his wording. But maybe I'm wrong.
Comment by David Heddle — February 19, 2007 @ 1:01 pm
February 19th, 2007 at 1:09 pm |
Really? I think he meant what he said,
Comment by Jehu — February 19, 2007 @ 1:09 pm
February 19th, 2007 at 1:11 pm |
If scientists are wrong about evolution then they must be wrong about everything else?
What about other scientific insights that have been proven incorrect? Geocentricism, phlogiston theory, the inapplicability of Newtonian physics to various phenomena. Scientific endeavor didn't collapse completely when once assumed insights were shown to be incorrect.
I could just be misunderstanding his point. But it sounds like he said (paraphrased) "if scientists are wrong about this, then they must be wrong about everything else".
Comment by Doug — February 19, 2007 @ 1:11 pm
February 19th, 2007 at 1:46 pm |
Powell's fear of an intelligent designer is philosophically naive. Does he mean to say that if there's an intelligent design, there's no regularity in nature? He says you can't have it both ways–but if (as everyone in ID believes) intelligent nudging is quite the exception in natural processes and not the rule–then you actually can have it both ways. And many people (Stark, Jaki, Whitehead…) have argued that science is strongly supported by confidence in an intelligent, rational, creative background behind nature.
On a different tack: I don't like to disagree with my friend David Heddle, and I don't buy into YEC–but it seems that even if Powell was just talking about YEC, he's still gone way too far. Yes, there are inconsistencies in YEC as science; but that doesn't mean they negate all science. For the most part they have no quibble with any science as it's related to current (as opposed to historical) phenomena.
Their beliefs, inconsistent though they may be in my view or David's, are still their beliefs; it will do no good to tell them what they really believe.
So it's a potshot one way or the other.
Comment by TomG — February 19, 2007 @ 1:46 pm
February 19th, 2007 at 2:08 pm |
I don't think so. The Setterfield cosmology relies heavily on Quantum Electrodynamic notions.
Things like Lorentz invariance would actually be an approximate invariance over short periods of time.
We have the analogous situation with the history Newtonian mechanics and Relativity, with Newtonina mechanis being a speciall case under low speeds within an Einsteinian framework. The overhaul by a YEC cosmology would preserve existing science as an approximation or special case of a more encompassing set of laws.
It would not surprise me if the overhaul will solve a lot of cosmological puzzles. The cosmological puzzles have been forcing secular scientists to explore overturning sacred theories.
There will be more discussion of this in time at www.YoungCosmos.com
YEC cosmology, geology, and biology, might actually provide a means to greater commercial and technological development if indeed it is a better theoretical description of the physical, geological, and biological universe. We will see.
Sal
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — February 19, 2007 @ 2:08 pm
February 19th, 2007 at 7:01 pm |
Can you feel the threatiness ?
Comment by thesciphishow — February 19, 2007 @ 7:01 pm
February 19th, 2007 at 8:37 pm |
David,
Even if YEC is an unsubstantiated view from the perspective of science (I think it is, but that's beside the point.), how does it follow that the universe being thousands, rather than billions, of years old is false? Why is it not possible that the universe is thousands of years old but gives the appearance of being billions of years old? This may not be the most parsimonious explanation, but it is not logically incoherent as far as I can see. It seems to me that you conflate our empirical knowledge being wrong (i.e. not being the best that scientific empiricism has to offer) with it being conducive to beliefs which are false. These are not the same thing.
Comment by Crandaddy — February 19, 2007 @ 8:37 pm
February 19th, 2007 at 9:16 pm |
Crandaddy asks:
It is possible, just as it's possible that the Moon is really a half-mile away from Earth, but appears to be a quarter of a million miles away. It's also possible that Britney Spears is the Supreme Leader of the US, and that a conspiracy of salamanders is making us think that Bush is our democratically elected President.
We reject these hypotheses not because they are impossible, but because they fit so poorly with the evidence. It's the same with YEC.
Even more importantly to most YECers, if the universe is young, but appears old in every respect, then the Creator is trying to deceive us or test our faith (I actually used to believe this when I was a young literalist Christian, learning about science — it was a way to hang onto my beliefs without turning my back on modernity). A Creator who tempts us into unbelief doesn't square very well with the vision most Christians have of a good and merciful God.
Comment by keiths — February 19, 2007 @ 9:16 pm
February 19th, 2007 at 9:56 pm |
David,
I looked at your first comment more closely, and I seem to have overlooked your specific mention of "YEC science". It appears this would render my previous comment irrelevant. My bad.
Keith,
It's been a while, man. How've you been?
I agree with you until you get to this point:
It certainly appears that this is the case, but it is not necessarily the case. Granted, I can't really think of any other reason than deception or a test of faith for why a god or some other creator would make a universe that appears old but is not. Nevertheless, from a deceiving appearance, it does not follow that the creator has lied or that deception is the only possible explanation. There might be some other reason.
Comment by Crandaddy — February 19, 2007 @ 9:56 pm
February 19th, 2007 at 10:52 pm |
Crandaddy wrote:
Good! How about you? How are things on the Global Warming Blog (aka Uncommon Descent)?
True, but I would make the same argument as before. As humans, we can never be absolutely certain about this or many other issues. The best we can do, as mere humans, is to pick the hypothesis which best fits the data, and to keep our eyes open for new data, new hypotheses and new criticisms from our fellow humans. We have to remain willing to abandon a hypothesis if a better one shows up. (In the case of YEC versus modern science, I'd say the choice is pretty clear).
My beef with many religious believers is that they have picked a hypothesis, but instead of asking whether their hypothesis continues to be the best hypothesis, they simply ask whether their hypothesis can be reconciled with the new data as it comes in. The answer is almost always yes, as the "deceiver God" example illustrates. But the fact that a hypothesis can be reconciled with new data does not mean that it continues to be the best hypothesis. They end up hanging onto an inferior hypothesis when better ones are available.
Some believers might be tempted to argue that this might be true of scientific hypotheses based on scientific data, but not of religious hypotheses which are based on Revealed Truth. However, this doesn't really evade the problem, because we are still fallible human beings, and our decision that some book, or some vision, or some religious experience is Revealed Truth is potentially just as fallible as any scientific hypothesis.
Certainty, at least of empirical truths, is not our lot as human beings.
Comment by keiths — February 19, 2007 @ 10:52 pm
February 20th, 2007 at 9:59 am |
I think the universe looks old to a certain extent, but it doesn't necessarily have to be billions of years old. I think there's a certain threshold whereby you can't tell how old it really is. The universe is not like a person. You can tell how old a person is because you know how long they live, and the respective signs of their age. However we don't know how the universe was formed, we have never observed how it formed or how it's going to end, or how it even began.
One example are spiral galaxies. Why are they still spiral? Shouldn't the inside arms rotate faster than the outside arms resulting in a huge blob of stars if they were very, very, old? Well of course maybe it takes too long for that to happen, so 13 billions years isn't enough. Moroever we don't even know when spiral galaxies started.
Another example is the earth. Why hasn't all the land eroded into the oceans yet? Shouldn't erosion by the sea and rain cause all land masses to erode to the bottom of the sea given a billion years? Why are the seas and the land masses so different in elevation? Afterall a billion years sounds like enough time to flatten all continents to a few volcanic islands like Japan. Granted, I don't know how tall the continents were in the past, nor do I know if a billion years is enough to do just that. Even worse perhaps there's a continent forming mechanism (like meteor impacts) or something that could form large continents.
My point is, you can reasonably say that you think that the universe is only 10 million years old. Or 10 thousand. Or 10 billion. Or perhaps it's always existed! Heck, I can't tell just by looking at it. How do you tell the age of such things apart from that they were there some time before you were born?
Comment by WinglesS — February 20, 2007 @ 9:59 am
February 20th, 2007 at 7:19 pm |
First off, a car has nothing whatsoever to do with ID. ID postulates a moving cause (i.e. intelligence), which is distinct and apart from matter, that is responsible for the change and motion that matter undergoes.
If a car is brought into the debate at all, it should be to promote evolution (in a vary narrow sense…behavioral adaption). If living animals adapt to their environment in such a way that benefits them, as every evolutionary psychologist would have us believe, then shouldn't humankind benefit itself by shaping matter into a vehicle that affords them great mobility?
What does a car have to do with ID? Nothing.
Comment by AnaxagorasRules — February 20, 2007 @ 7:19 pm
February 21st, 2007 at 10:52 am |
1600 years ago St. Augustine said something that is very relevant to the present discussion:
"Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he hold to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion. [1 Timothy 1.7] "
I think that those who try to keep a YEC interpretation of natural history afloat, using all kinds of crazy arguments that arbitrarily mix bad science with bad theology, need to consider whether they are doing more damage than good.
Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — February 21, 2007 @ 10:52 am
February 21st, 2007 at 11:42 am |
Hi Keiths,
Do you only have this problem with religious believers?
You could take out "religious believers" and place almost anything in there and it could hold under some level of scrutiny.
Comment by Doug — February 21, 2007 @ 11:42 am
February 21st, 2007 at 4:01 pm |
Hi Doug,
No, the problem shows up with other people, too. But I mentioned religious believers because we're talking about young-earth creationism in this thread, and YECers are known for hanging onto their beliefs in the teeth of contrary evidence.
Imagine if everything about our world was the same except that the Bible, when read literally, said that the universe was two million years old instead of less than 10,000 years old. I can guarantee that we'd still have YECers, but they'd all believe that the earth was two million years old, and they'd heap scorn on anyone who thought it was only 10,000 years old.
Such is the desire to affirm the correctness of one's holy book.
Comment by keiths — February 21, 2007 @ 4:01 pm
February 21st, 2007 at 4:38 pm |
I'm sure the original argument only involved Fords.
Comment by Douglas — February 21, 2007 @ 4:38 pm
February 22nd, 2007 at 4:56 pm |
It is difficult to know where to begin here.
First of all, when she talks about "cars not starting," it seems that she forgets that car engines are an engineering effort, and therefore she has the Salem Hypothesis to contend with (the second wording, specifically).
In addition, it is interesting that there are several basic technologies and research programs that are founded by or pioneered by Creationists. Genetics, for starters. Anyone who doubts this should read the last few paragraphs of Mendel's "Experiments in Plant Hybridization". Most of the pioneering work in the MRI was done by a YEC, Dr. Damadian (I forget his first name). Finally, one of the key players in transgenic crops is a YEC, though he was not a YEC when most of his work was done — Dr. John Sanford. This is always an amusing tidbit when evolutionists state that knowledge about how transgenic crops work would be irreconcilable with Creationism.
YEC is definitely a minority viewpoint, and all of OEC, YEC, and ID are minority viewpoints in scientific circles, but that doesn't mean that Creationism and Creationists not made significant contributions to science in general and biology in particular.
Comment by johnnyb — February 22, 2007 @ 4:56 pm
February 24th, 2007 at 4:36 pm |
David Heddle was right to be incredulous. He's smarter than you, or maybe he's not as desperate to believe that the earth is a few thousand years old.
When you listen to the entire program, the comment about Hiroshima and our cars and etc., all make perfect sense. The words ripped out of context make no sense. It's typical creationist quote mining. Something they're very practiced at. (Paul Nelson is a YEC)
Notice that no link was provided to the original source? Well I went digging, and I found this, which is Powell's long explanation of radioactive decay, and how it relates to Hiroshima, and how it relates to atoms, lights and uniformity in general. (See 1:13:00-1:14:00) The summary video at the end of the series has him repeating what he had earlier said, although much less articulately and (honestly) stretching it a little for the sake of hyperbole. The quote Paul provided to Krauze is from this video, (1:35:00). It makes little sense if you don't listen to his earlier explanation of how physics ties together radioactive decay to atomic behavior to lights (and thus electricity) –> cars.
It doesn't surprise me in the slightest that this turns out to be a purposeful relief of context, wherein he explains what he means by the Hiroshima reference and uniformity (more accurately, he should've said, 'you can't expect your car to work'). Paul Nelson provided this quote to Krauzeand didn't bother to tell us where to find it. I'm not surprised, because the man's overarching point (See 1:13:00-1:14:00) is a solid one, and this one quote is Powell's rather exasperated attempt to "talk back" at creationists on their level of rhetoric.
Come on, guys, I think we all knew the man isn't as stupid as this one naked quote (unclothed in context) makes you want him to be.
Comment by tomfool — February 24, 2007 @ 4:36 pm