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Edited quotes from the Press against Intelligent Design 2005
A curious young mind and the Nobel prize By Jo Chandler The Age August 27, 2005
Prof Peter Doherty "You cannot tell science teachers to teach ID — that would be obscene"
"If
you look at any genetic system, any system at all, it doesn't look
designed. It's more like a street person who picks up various molecular
mechanisms from around the place and carries them around in shopping
bags rather than an Armani or Versace model."
"If
someone wants to believe intelligent design as part of their religion,
I have no quarrel with it. My quarrel is with people who want to teach
it in science classes."
Professor
Doherty is also worried about Catholic church hierarchy "making some
noises about embracing ID as science — if they do that, they could be
making as big a mistake as when they condemned Galileo …"
Regard the past, arrogant youth By
Mike Carlton
The
Age August 27, 2005
Lately
Brendon Nelson has floated the notion that "intelligent design" could
be taught in biology classes alongside the Darwin theory of evolution.
Intelligent design, for those not in the know, is the latest fad of the
American religious right. It is creationism warmed over, Adam and Eve
and the apple and the serpent dressed up with a smattering of
pseudo-science.
Empty lesson in flawed thinking By Michael Duffy SMH September 3, 2005
Brendan
Nelson has called for the concept of intelligent design (also known as
"creationism lite") to be taught in schools, which would bring the
education system into disrepute.
On
August 10, Nelson told the National Press Club in Canberra: "I have
actually met the proponents of intelligent design and I've also seen
the DVD. Do I think it should be a replacement for teaching the origins
of mankind in a scientific sense? I most certainly don't think it
should be at all. In fact, I would be quite concerned if it were to
replace it. Do I think that parents and schools should have the
opportunity, if they wish to, for students also to be exposed to this
and to be taught about it? Yes, I think that's fine."
If
you were to ask a group of experts to draw up a list of "what we are
fighting for" in the war against terrorism, the theory of evolution
would be near the top.
Intelligent
design is a conspiracy by some fundamental Christians to undermine the
theory of evolution. They believe that theory must be wrong because it
contradicts the Bible's view of creation. So Darwin must be
discredited. But pure creationism, after more than a century of trying,
has failed to do this. Therefore, intelligent design was invented in
the late 1980s to infiltrate schools. Its proponents argue that because
life is complex and we can't explain everything about how it came
about, it must have had a designer. The proponents do not say who that
designer might be, claiming that intelligent design is not religious
but scientific. As a scientific theory, they argue, it deserves to be
taught alongside natural selection.
In
supporting the teaching of intelligent design in schools, Nelson is
following the example of George Bush, who said last month: "I think
that part of education is to expose people to different schools of
thought." The question, though, is why these men are dignifying the
theory by treating it as a school of thought, let alone one that should
be taught in schools.
Daniel
Dennett the director of the Centre for Cognitive Studies at Tufts
University in the US says the eye contains a big flaw: the retina is
inside out. "No intelligent designer," Dennett points out, "would put
such a clumsy arrangement in a camcorder, and this is just one of the
hundreds of accidents frozen in evolutionary history that confirm the
mindlessness of the historical process."
Nelson
has said intelligent design should be available in schools because
"it's about choice". That is postmodern rubbish. Schools are not about
choice, they're about discrimination, about using limited time and
resources to teach children what our society regards as most important. Intelligent design not science:
experts By Deborah Smith
Science
Editor
October 21, 2005
Intelligent
design is as unscientific as the flat Earth theory and should not be
taught in school science classes, a coalition representing 70,000
scientists and science teachers has warned.
Yesterday
they expressed "grave concern" that the subject was being presented in
some Australian schools as a valid alternative to evolution. Proponents
of intelligent design claim that some living structures are so complex
they are explicable only by the action of an unspecified "intelligent
designer".
But
the scientists and teachers say this notion of "supernatural
intervention" is a belief and not a scientific theory, because it makes
no predictions and cannot be tested.
"We
therefore urge all Australian governments and educators not to permit
the teaching or promulgation of intelligent design as science." "To
teach ID would make a mockery of Australian science teaching and throw
open the door of science classes to similarly unscientific world views
- be they astrology, spoon bending, flat Earth cosmology or alien
abductions."
The
signatories to the letter include the Australian Academy of Science,
the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies and
the Australian Science Teachers Association.
Light at the end of the tunnel SMH Editorial October 22, 2005
A matter of faith
The intervention of some
70,000 Australian scientists and science teachers in the controversy
over "intelligent design" is welcome.
Intelligent
design is far from a persuasive theory. Its proponents argue that the
universe is so complex it could not have come about by chance and,
therefore, must have been designed by an intelligent being. Evolution
does not hold that the universe was shaped by mere chance, but by trial
and error over billions of years. And even if one accepted that the
wonder of nature somehow required intelligent design, there might be
not one designer but many. However, the greatest difficulty is that if
the complexity of nature demands a designer, the same applies to the
designer itself, which must be at least as complex as the universe it
created. The
Australian scientists point out that whatever intelligent design may
be, it is plainly not science. It fails the basic requirement
applicable to any statement which claims to be scientific: it must be
testable against observation. Evolution is supported by fact;
intelligent design is not.
Intelligent design may have a place in religion classes, but for it to be taught as science would be tantamount to fraud.
Of God and science The Age Editorial October 23, 2005 Intelligent
design argues that it is impossible for complex life forms to have come
about purely through random mutation and natural selection. The giant
leap it then takes is that a higher intelligence must have been
responsible. Scientists argue that intelligent design theory, unlike
evolution, does not qualify as science.
The
scientists say intelligent design fails the test of science because it
is not testable by experiment or observation. As such it falls more in
the realm of "theological or philosophical notion".
The great designer mythology The Age October 17, 2005 The pop theory of "intelligent design" is unscientific and has no place in our schools, writes Derek Denton.
Professor
Graeme Clark is highly respected for his development of the bionic ear.
However, evolutionary biology involves different issues. The proposal
that there is intelligent design as distinct from, or as well as, the
process of evolution has been espoused by Clark.
There is obvious evidence against it.
The
gut is supported by being enclosed in a big membrane called the
peritoneum. The peritoneum is attached to the backbone. This is fine
for a four-footed animal. However, given an animal with an upright
posture (e.g. us) the gut falls to the bottom of the abdominal cavity.
The common outcome may be various types of hernia, prolapse of the
uterus and vaginal walls. The big maxillary sinuses or cavities are
behind the cheeks on either side of the face. They have the drainage
hole in their top, which is not much of an idea in terms of using
gravity to assist drainage of fluid.
'The
proposed intelligent designer was in some exercises hardly an honours
student - indeed, hardly a pass student.' Knowledge of gravity has not
been a strong point in the repertoire of the intelligent designer.
One of the marvels of backboned animals is the eye.
In
our eye and that of all other vertebrates, the optic nerve carries more
than a million fibres, which is part of the system receiving data from
about 125 million photo cells. Pointing the cells towards the source of
light with the wires leading back to the brain would be good design,
whereas to have the photo cells pointing away from the light with their
nerve processes departing on the side nearest the light would be poor
design. But this is what happens in all vertebrate eyes. The nerve
processes have to travel over the surface of the retina to a place
called the "blind spot" to form the optic nerve. Thus, the light has to
go through a mesh of fibres instead of having an unimpeded passage to
the light-sensitive element (the photoreceptors). There is some
attenuation and distortion. In the octopus the wires from the photo
cells don't point to the light but do go backwards. The octopus eye in
this respect is a better design than our eye.
The idea of taking the cast of mind of our educational system back towards the Middle Ages is a bit disturbing.
Science friction: God's defenders target 3000
schools By Linda Doherty and Deborah Smith November 14, 2005 Up
to 3000 schools have been targeted in a DVD blitz aimed at challenging
Charles Darwin's theory of evolution in favour of an "intelligent
designer".
A
fiery debate has erupted in Australia that has pitted scientists
against advocates for the "alternative theory" to evolution -
Intelligent Design.
Proponents
of intelligent design say some forms of life are so complex they can be
explained only by the action of an unspecified "intelligent designer",
who some say is God.
A
commonly cited example of this complex life is the flagellum, a natural
"outboard motor" that propels a bacterium along. The argument is that
it could not have been produced by the incremental steps of evolution,
because it would not function if it was missing any of its parts.
The
Minister for Education, Carmel Tebbutt, said intelligent design "can't
be taught as part of the NSW school science curriculum" because it was
not scientific or based on evidence.
The
president of the NSW Teachers Federation, Maree O'Halloran, said the
unsolicited DVD was a religious marketing exercise and "should be
rejected" by schools.
Sue
Serjeantson, the executive secretary of the Australian Academy of
Science, said the teaching of intelligent design in science classes was
of grave concern. "It's creationism by another name."
One side can be wrong The Guardian Weekly Thursday September 1, 2005 Professor Richard Dawkins Accepting 'intelligent design' in science classrooms would have disastrous consequences, warned Richard Dawkins There is nothing new about ID. It is simply creationism camouflaged with a new name. Intelligent design is not a scientific argument at all, but a religious one. It no more belongs in a biology class than alchemy belongs in a chemistry class, phlogiston in a physics class or the stork theory in a sex education class. Similarly, in a class on 20th-century European history, who would demand equal time for the theory that the Holocaust never happened? Our opinion is shared by the vast majority of professional biologists, but of course science does not proceed by majority vote among scientists. If
ID really were a scientific theory, positive evidence for it, gathered
through research, would fill peer-reviewed scientific journals. There
simply isn't any ID research to publish. Its advocates bypass normal
scientific due process by appealing directly to the non-scientific
public.
Never do they offer positive evidence in favour of intelligent design. All we ever get is a list of alleged deficiencies in evolution. Organs are stated without supporting evidence, to be "irreducibly complex": too complex to have evolved by natural selection. The claim that something - say the bacterial flagellum - is too complex to have evolved by natural selection is alleged, by a lamentably common but false syllogism, to support the "rival" intelligent design theory by default. This kind of default reasoning leaves completely open the possibility that, if the bacterial flagellum is too complex to have evolved, it might also be too complex to have been created. A
moment's thought shows that any God capable of creating a bacterial
flagellum (to say nothing of a universe) would have to be a far more
complex, and therefore statistically improbable, entity than the
bacterial flagellum (or universe) itself - even more in need of an
explanation than the object he is alleged to have created.
If complex organisms demand an explanation, so does a complex designer. Get ID out of the science classroom and send it back into the church, where it belongs. In fact, the bacterial flagellum is certainly not too complex to have evolved, nor is any other living structure that has ever been carefully studied. Biologists have located plausible series of intermediates, using ingredients to be found elsewhere in living systems. Even
if some particular case were found for which biologists could offer no
ready explanation, the important point is that the "default" logic of
the creationists remains thoroughly rotten. There is no evidence in
favour of intelligent design: only alleged gaps in the completeness of
the evolutionary account. The positive evidence for the fact of
evolution is truly massive, made up of hundreds of thousands of
mutually corroborating observations. Opposition to the fact of
evolution is laughable to all who are acquainted with even a fraction
of the published data. Evolution is a fact: as much a fact as plate
tectonics or the heliocentric solar system.
It would take only about 10 minutes to exhaust the case for ID. |