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Orson Scott Card on Intelligent Design
Jan. 21st, 2006 06:05 pm...found via ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bardiphouka, here...
Responding to Orson Scott Card's column on Intelligent Design:
OSC misses a few key points in his argument, methinks.
Taking in turn, with his numbering scheme:
In summary, ID is still Creationism, and new ideas are welcome as long as they can be repeated in experiments.
EDIT: Care ofyendi, a link to another response to OSC's ID article
bardiphouka, here...Responding to Orson Scott Card's column on Intelligent Design:
OSC misses a few key points in his argument, methinks.
Taking in turn, with his numbering scheme:
- Name calling? Quoth OSC: "They're apparently counting on most people to not care enough to discover the difference." Although not name calling itself, that certainly implies the same thing. It's a judgment that is not based on facts.
The outcome of the recent Dover school board case determined that, legally, ID is Creationism. OSC argues in this first item that ID shouldn't be considered Creationism because the proponents of ID are using scientific methods to handle the "inadequate" bits of Darwinian evolution.
Unfortunately, the final step in ID involves faith - it is not something that can be scientifically proven, so therefore, it is not science. If it can be proven and observed, than it is no longer a matter of faith.
True, saying it is "Creationism" is name-calling, in that you're applying a name to it, but as long as ID boils down to a matter of faith, it certainly does not earn the name "Science." - Real science - and I've seen this often in the somewhat related realm of archaeology - often seems to resort to credentialism. If something can be proven repeatedly, independently, however, it will get past the knee-jerk defense mechanism. Scientists will look at what non-scientists claim, but when they don't see proof, they look away quickly. Check out my tag Springmatics for a recent bout I had with some pseudo-science that is unrelated to any of the religious issues with ID.
- I'd really like to see the source information - when OSC phrases the short answers and their longer explanations, he's really boiling them down and slanting them to his opinion. Certainly, the phrase he mentions is not conducive to a good scientific debate, and the same really goes for #2 and this entire list, as well. However, he's wrong when he states that the Darwinists don't take the time to write out replies: without even looking that far or that deeply, I was able to find an essay that assembles a number of quotes from a number of different scientists, explaining things quite clearly.
- Sniping? Like making a list of skewed comments and undocumented quotes, and painting all evolutionary scientists with that brush? Oh, wait, that would be more like an air strike... =)
As for me, in my admittedly quick research for this reply, and in all my previous reading, I can not recall ever seeing a point-by-point takedown of ID where it purports to replace evolution. I've seen plenty where evolution is documented as fact, scientifically, and appropriately. - This one goes back to the issue in #1: ID is faith-based - even if that faith is not specified - thus it is the realm of religion, and should be separate from the realm of state. Because it also speaks of a "Creator" (which has a kind of similar root to the word "Creationism", yes, no?) it is slanting a bias towards monotheistic religions just ever so slightly.
- As in the sniping bit, this statement is a bit skewed. Again, from my sources (a Google on "evolutionary theory", and only a handful of the top links examined), every single bit I've looked at stressed the need to explore further, experiment further, and prove things that haven't been proven as fact yet. A bit of the opposite of what OSC is stating - I see no grounds for his comment whatsoever. Quoth OSC in regards to Darwinists, although I use it in regards to OSC hisself: "Unfortunately, it was also illogical, personal, and unscientific."
As for the anti-Darwin as opposed to anti-evolution, that seems a bit silly. Darwin's big theory was that "groups" of organisms, (which we now call populations) rather than individual organisms, gradually evolve through the process of natural selection. OSC might be getting confused with the theory of universal common descent, which was not exclusively Darwinian. Evolution includes Darwinian natural selection, along with several other theories, and common descent is one aspect of it. - Again with the slanting. His summary statement: Evolution happens and obviously happened in the natural world, and natural selection plays a role in it. But we do not have adequate theories yet to explain completely how evolution works and worked at the biochemical level. is labeled as true, but he fails on the second half. While the theories in place may be supplemented or replaced in future years - as with the Newton/Einstein example - they are not repealed, and are not, as he states, inadequate. That he should make such a statement implies that OSC either fails to understand scientific thought and methods or he is deliberately creating the impression that he is applying them while doing nothing of the sort.
In summary, ID is still Creationism, and new ideas are welcome as long as they can be repeated in experiments.
EDIT: Care of
yendi, a link to another response to OSC's ID article
