{"id":2634,"date":"2005-02-07T14:31:18","date_gmt":"2005-02-07T19:31:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kith.org\/journals\/vardibidian\/2005\/02\/07\/2634.html"},"modified":"2018-03-12T16:48:06","modified_gmt":"2018-03-12T21:48:06","slug":"authority-commonality-microbio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/2005\/02\/07\/authority-commonality-microbio\/","title":{"rendered":"Authority, commonality, microbiology"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I happened to read a very odd op-ed piece in the New York Times this morning. It’s called “Design for Living<\/a>”, and it’s by Michael J. Behe of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture<\/a>. Mr. Behe is arguing for “Intelligent Design”, as opposed to either natural selection or biblical creationism. He claims to be simply clearing up “widespread confusion about what intelligent design is and what it is not”, but of course this is a familiar rhetorical structure to gain the reader’s sympathy. The reason I’m writing about it at all is because he’s quite good at those structures.\n

Mr. Behe begins the argument by saying, “The first claim is uncontroversial: we can often recognize the effects of design in nature.” Now, Gentle Readers, you all know that when somebody is trying to persuade you of something and says in passing that a particular point is not controversial, you will end up with an ear full of cider. Particularly, of course, when the terms are loosely defined: here I have no real idea what he means by “often” “recognize” “effects” “design” and “nature”. I’m not even sure what he means by “we”; his example, that Mount Rushmore is clearly designed while the Rocky Mountains are clearly natural, applies to humans who have a reference of monumental sculpture but no inherent truth. I don’t, myself, believe that I can consistently recognize design from nature; a home-made chocolate chip cookie looks awfully natural, while a pine cone seems awfully designed. So this first uncontroversial claim is misleading.\n

By claiming the statement as written is uncontroversial, Mr. Behe also leads us to infer that a stronger version is actually true. The claim changes, in our minds, to “we can [often<\/strike> always correctly<\/I>] recognize the effects of design in nature”. And I think some people infer “I” from “we”, so that the final statement is something like “if something looks designed to you, it is designed.” That statement is certainly controversial, and both empirically and logically wrong. And he doesn’t make it, he just brings the reader to the point of inferring it, and tacitly agrees with the reader who does.\n

The second claim Mr. Behe brings is that “the physical marks of design are visible in aspects of biology. This is uncontroversial, too.” I have no idea whether this is actually uncontroversial, but am initially skeptical. I’m even more skeptical when he brings in the argument from authority: “For example, Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, once wrote that biologists must constantly remind themselves that what they see was not designed but evolved. (Imagine a scientist repeating through clenched teeth: \"It wasn't really designed. Not really.\")” Note that he first usurps Mr. Crick’s authority, actually on the side of natural selection, to his own position. Then he mocks a “scientist” for hypocrisy and dishonesty. The specific scientist, as an authority, he takes (and distorts), but the general scientist is an outsider, and not an authority at all.\n

Again, by claiming the statement is uncontroversial as written, he leads us to infer a stronger version, that is, that “the physical marks of design are [often<\/I> or always<\/I>] visible in aspects of biology”, which I don’t think most biologists would say is uncontroversial. And, by the way, the phrasing assumes physical marks exist; an alternate phrasing might be something like “there exist forms in cellular biology which more closely resemble designed objects than natural ones.” I have no idea what that would actually mean, phrased that way, since any resembling to anything I would recognize would be tenuous, anyway. In fact, it seems to be a preposterous claim on the face of it, and pretty controversial as well.\n

Mr. Behe admits that his third claim is controversial: “that we have no good explanation for the foundation of life that doesn't involve intelligence”. I have no idea what he means by this. His only example is to state “there are no research studies indicating that Darwinian processes can make molecular machines of the complexity we find in the cell.” There are some research studies that discuss the possibility of natural selection of such things, but clearly it is up to the individual to accept them or not as good explanations. Also, by the way, note that by saying that “we have no good explanation”, Mr. Behe implies that no such explanation exists; the exact meaning is overshadowed by the misleading implication. He also, by contrast, implies that there does exist a good, scientifically rigorous explanation of how intelligence could be involved in the creation of complex molecular machines; I don’t think that such has been found, even taken hypothetically. That is, even given as a hypothesis that the Creator had the idea for these things, and decided to create them, there is no model I’m aware of that goes from that hypothesis to the empirically observed phenomena that adheres better than any other model.\n

This leads to Mr. Behe’s fourth claim: “in the absence of any convincing non-design explanation, we are justified in thinking that real intelligent design was involved in life”. He is assuming that there exists a convincing design explanation, that is, claim three. He then states that “it's important to keep in mind that it is the profound appearance of design in life that everyone is laboring to explain”. Notice he is here again assuming the “appearance of design” that he claimed was uncontroversial earlier. If you reject the first claims, then naturally you are not laboring to explain the problems they bring up, you are simply trying to explain how things work, or even how they came to be what they are, and can ignore the distinction between design and nature that Mr. Behe claims is so obvious, but seems to me to be primarily rhetorical.\n

He concludes:\n

Still, some critics claim that science by definition can't accept design, while others argue that science should keep looking for another explanation in case one is out there. But we can't settle questions about reality with definitions, nor does it seem useful to search relentlessly for a non-design explanation of Mount Rushmore. Besides, whatever special restrictions scientists adopt for themselves don't bind the public, which polls show, overwhelmingly, and sensibly, thinks that life was designed. And so do many scientists who see roles for both the messiness of evolution and the elegance of design.<\/blockquote>\nLet’s see. As a flag that the remainder of the sentence is going to be misleading, “some critics claim” is right up there with “uncontroversial”. I mean, really. And the response is marvelously non sequitor<\/I>: even Prof. Straw isn’t trying to settle the “question of reality” by defining science excluding design (and I should underscore that Prof. Straw doesn’t exist); he’s narrowing his field to observable stuff in order to avoid<\/I> the question entirely. Then there’s his colleague, Dr. Haye, who evidently takes the controversial stance that when there is disagreement on a topic, more research might be advisable. The response to that is that such research is pilpul<\/I>; the question has been answered. How? By forcing you to accept the uncontroversial claims 1 and 2, and then claiming 3 and 4 follow. No more work to be done here, Dr. Haye. Move along.\n

Having used scientists both as authorities and as straw men, Mr. Behe then dismisses them entirely. Now he appeals for authority to the wisdom of the masses, who he claims support his position. They do no such thing, of course. Many believe in creationism outright; Mr. Behe’s position is that six-day creationism is bunk and inconsistent. Many others believe in natural (unguided) selection. Others don’t care. Others believe in a sort of clockwork Creator, who set up conditions for everything before the beginning, and whose interference in molecular biology is unnecessary. Others believe in a sort of Divine Interferer, who works through natural causes, but can’t violate his own rules, which leaves out designing molecular machines. Others believe in Mr. Behe’s Designer. It’s not overwhelming in Mr. Behe’s favor. And of course the whole appeal is bunk anyway; just because Mr. Behe claims such support is sensible doesn’t make it so, and I have believed in enough nonsensical things myself to understand that.\n

Then the scientists come back, or many of them, anyway, to add their authority, because of course these ones aren’t the scientists Mr. Behe was mocking earlier, but the good ones. Hm. Initially, what I found most interesting was the claim of commonality, and the ways in which he makes himself and his views seem reasonable and familiar, and other people and views unreasonable and strange. Now that I look at it closely, his shifting appeals to various kinds of authority is also interesting, and slippery as hell. These two, combined with a topic whose empirical evidence is microscopic, make for a persuasive column that is hard to refute, because it hardly ever is saying what it actually says. You can’t persuasively contradict his evidence, because I have no way of knowing if what you say is true. You can’t successfully counter his authorities with other authorities, because the shifts in authority make each individual claim seem irrelevant. And because of his identification with the reader against scientific straw men, attempts to attack Mr. Behe come off as attacks on the reader.\n

Before Your Humble Blogger finally leaves off, a footer is in order. I believe in a Divine Creator, and I find natural selection incredibly persuasive. As a religious matter, the six-day Creation story makes me happy, but I don’t particularly care if its truth is inconsistent with reproducible laws of nature. I also quite like the idea of a Creator who creates the world anew each day, who notes the fall of each sparrow, and whose ineffable spirit is in the very molecules of our nature. I don’t find at all appealing the idea of a creator who plays with molecules as Tinkertoys, who is bound by the laws of nature or by the design specs of microbiology. Within the entire controversy, I fall on both of the two sides that Mr. Behe rejects, so it perhaps isn’t altogether surprising that I am not pleased by his article.\n

Thank you,
-Vardibidian.\n<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I happened to read a very odd op-ed piece in the New York Times this morning. It\u2019s called \u201cDesign for Living\u201d, and it\u2019s by Michael J. Behe of the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture. Mr. Behe is arguing…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[203],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nytimes"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2634"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2634\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17301,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2634\/revisions\/17301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}