This is a continuation of my discussion of ID (see part 1). Here in part 2 I have exerpted from Behe’s book in order to summarize his argument. I am using the 2003 trade paperback edition published by Free Press, lent to me by a work colleague.
The ID argument in a nutshell:
“For discrete physical systems — if there is not a gradual route to their production — design is evident when a number of separate, interacting components are ordered in such a way as to accomplish a function beyond the individual components.
I am finally ready to write some definitive thoughts about Intelligent Design. I just finished reading Michael Behe’s book Darwin’s Black Box from 1996, and I’ve thought about it from the perspective of science, falsifiability, religion, and philosophy. I would like to be very careful about where I plan and do not plan to take issue with him, so let me start in Part 1 by delineating the argument.
First of all, the eponymous designer of ID need not be divine, says Behe, and I agree completely.
I’ve been meaning to write this down for a long time. There are two very widespread and very annoying idioms that I see a lot in amateur writing. The main example of the kind of writing I mean is product reviews on sites like Amazon, but I see it also on Macworld, CNet and other more professional sites.
The first is the word “little” as in “this little device from Apple,” or even worse, “this little gem from Apple.
I just watched Contact again for the first time in a while. A major theme of the movie is that the goals of science and religion are so hard to untangle that the two main protagonists have a very complicated adult relationship based on it.
In the current context of the debate about religion in the science classroom, I think about my own feelings about science quite a bit. Far from feeling that science and religion are incompatible, I actually feel that they are two sides of the same coin.
There is a great deal of controversy at the moment over Intelligent Design (ID) being taught in science classrooms. I have always felt very strongly about the dangers faced by science in our society, and this crisis is a perfect example of what can happen without careful vigilance on the part of science teachers and practitioners.
I will be trying to understand this issue thoroughly in the coming months, though I must admit my conclusion is rather clear in advance.
I’ve had poker on my mind since last Thanksgiving, specifically Texas Hold’em. At this point, I have special hold’em software, four poker strategy books and one nonfiction book about poker. I mostly study the books and play a bit with the software, but eventually I want to start a real-money account on one of the online poker sites. I feel that if I apply what’s in the books, then I can win money, which would be a very fun goal to shoot for.
I don’t understand daylight savings time. No one I talk to has a clear idea of when and why it was invented. What country started it? What countries adhere to it? Why is Europe still doing it a week before the US?
It seems clear to me that having extremely accurate measurements of time has become an indispensible part of our society. Computers and many other timekeeping devices are synchronized regularly with servers maintained by (or synchronized with) our standards bodies’ equipment, so that their inherent inaccuracy can be overcome.
I visited my parents for the holidays again this year, and like last year I decided to read some of their C. S. Lewis collection. I felt like progressing on with his Christian works, and so I chose Mere Christianity.
In this book, there are good, simple explanations of many points of Christian doctrine that I rarely heard explained in Catholic school. Without fully admitting it to myself, however, I was looking for something specific.
I’ve been renting Ken Burns’ Civil War shows lately, from Netflix. I thought I’d share a misconception I learned I had about the Civil War. My memory from school left me thinking that the war would involve a large set of complicated virtuosic battlefield maneuvers, and that I’d come to appreciate how all the famous generals were geniuses. In fact, I’d somehow developed the opinion that the generals during that war outshine generals in other wars, that through a coincidence of history, the best strategists somehow simultaneously appeared during that conflict.
I’ve always thought Tolkien was essentially pessimistic, despite the happy ending of The Lord of the Rings. The power of Evil he describes, and the inevibatle comparisons to the horror of World War I make this a convincing point of view. The army of Gondor is forced to risk a suicidal attack against a formidable foe to even preserve their tiny ghost of a chance of victory.
More than this, the mood of the work is very bleak.