prohibit any teacher in a public school system of this state from helping students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories covered in the course being taught.

As I understand it, this would allow any teacher at any time to argue against any scientific theory that they don’t agree with.  Anything will go as long as they don’t explicitly say that their motivation is based on a “religious or non-religious doctrine.”  Flat-earthers, HIV-deniers, and intelligent design proponents will be fair game in Tennessee schools.

The bill is simply ridiculous in its motives.  One would presume that the bill’s sponsor believes that he is furthering  the true ideas a and wants of scientists.  Well not exactly:

"Evolution may not be controversial in the scientific community, but may be in our greater community," bill sponsor Sen. Bo Watson, R-Hixson, said.

Here is where the problem lies.  The fundamentals of history should be decided by historians, math decided by mathematicians, and science by scientists.  As long as the information is accurate,  it should be taught truthfully.  As Richard Feynman said: “Reality must take precedence over public relations.”  This bill is a step backwards in the progress of humanity. 

Its hard to believe that it has only been 5 years since the details and motives of the Intelligent Design (ID) movement were brought out to the public in a public trial.  We learned from staunch ID supporter Michael Behe that there are no peer reviewed published articles supporting ID.  We learned how the Discovery Institute’s”wedge document” essentially points to the idea that ID was brought up as a way to replace the scientific method with “a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions”  We also saw how the book in question, Of Pandas and People,  had earlier versions where they simply replaced the word “creation” with “intelligent design.”  Of course there was more damming evidence against the ID proponents in the trial, but these three facts alone provide sufficient evidence that intelligent design is not science and should never be taught in the classroom.

Recently, Casey Luskin wrote a post discussing how ID proponents test their theory in real world situations.  Luskin provides a short list of four items (is that the most he could come up with?) that are supposed predictions of ID.  Lets take them one at a time:

(1) Natural structures will be found that contain many parts arranged in intricate patterns that perform a specific function (e.g. complex and specified information).

This is not a prediction. Life has already been seen to have “intricate patterns that perform specific functions.”  In fact, isn’t the complexity of life what made people believe ID in the first place?

(2) Forms containing large amounts of novel information will appear in the fossil record suddenly and without similar precursors.

It is rare to find any facet of an organism that doesn’t already have a precursor, let alone “large amounts of novel information.”  The prediction of ID should state that there will only be the instant appearance of new structures. Any evidence for a slow, gradual development of a structure would refute ID and prove evolution.  For example, you might see a fully formed tetrapod without any precursors if ID was true.  However, we see in the fossil record myriad examples of transitional forms from fish to tetrapod (Tiktaalik, Panderichthys, etc.).

(3) Convergence will occur routinely. That is, genes and other functional parts will be re-used in different and unrelated organisms.

This prediction seems odd to me. Convergence is a prediction of evolution. Take for example the convergence of the ability to fly. Evolution would predict that different organisms would gain the ability to fly, but they would achieve this ability by slightly different methods.  Luskin is predicting that structures would be re-used by different organisms.  Why do all wings look so different? Does a fly’s wing resemble a bird’s or a bat’s? Not at all.

(4) Much so-called “junk DNA” will turn out to perform valuable functions.

4) “Much?” Luskin should have said “all.” if we are to believe in intelligent design.  Why waste even a single nucleotide if you were to design an organism’s DNA? This sort of ambiguity is what makes these predictions worthless.

I think it is clear to see that the predictions put forth by Luskin are basically worthless for providing support that ID is real science.  What do you expect when you can give the “designer” any attribute, power, or foresight that you desire?

The focus of the center is on evolution in action, an area of evolutionary biology that has not really been addressed in any large scale effort. Many of the missing details in evolution will be answered at this center. Having answers to these questions will both further our understanding of life and how it changes over time, but it will also address criticisms brought by people who doubt the theory. Objections by evolution deniers have been falling one by one, and this will hopefully continue that trend.

The center will perform experiments on both live organisms and virtual organisms. This approach has several benefits and has been used in other areas of biology, especially neuroscience. Experiments performed by virtual organisms (simulations) can then be tested on live organisms to confirm their predictive strength. Likewise, experiments can be performed on live organisms and then be tested against virtual organisms.

All and all, I think spending the money on this subject is valid. Many of the ideas learned from these experiments will have dual or multiuse applications. Not only will we learn about biology, but also about evolutionary actions of diseases, engineered projects, geologic phenomenon, etc.

Luskin writes:

Of course anyone with a cursory knowledge of ID would be aware that ID fully allows for the action of natural processes, and design is only invoked when we find tell-tale signs of intelligent action, such as high levels of complex and specified information.

At the surface, this seems like a perfectly reasonable statement that makes ID sound as though it is a well-defined theory.  However, this view of intelligent design leaves a lot of leeway.  How complex and specified does it really have to be to be considered ‘designed’?  Since these are arbitrary values, one could never really separate two objects or organisms and say one is designed and one isn’t.  This sort non-measurable attributes makes ID not science.  However, it does give an ID proponent a way out when something is demonstrably nature driven.   All they have to say is that the designer didn’t design that, but now look over here…

ENVs post topics from 12/9/2009

The chart is very telling on the state of affairs of the Intelligent Design (ID) movement.   First, there is not one single post showing any evidence for ID.  This shouldn’t come as a surprise, but it is always nice to point out.  Second, most of the posts were focused on something that is not even related to evolution or ID: global warming.  Together with the prevalence of the immorality of believing in evolution, I think it is clear that the ID movement is more political / philosophical than it is focused on science and the determination of reality.  Just another reason why the whole idea is pseudoscience.

Vote here.

In a recently published paper in Nature, Lenski takes the above experiment and analyzes the frequency of mutation throughout these populations.  The goal of this paper was not to show which specific mutations led to the ability of the bacteria to use the new nutrient source.  The goal was to look at the level of overall mutation rate during the experiment.  In the authors own words:

The relationship between rates of genomic evolution and organismal adaptation remains uncertain, despite considerable interest.

…

Thus, the coupling between genomic and adaptive evolution is complex and can be counterintuitive even in a constant environment. In particular, beneficial substitutions were surprisingly uniform over time, whereas neutral substitutions were highly variable.

Of course the Discovery Institute and ID proponents are not going to keep quiet about any work coming from Lenski’s lab as their work provided such an important part of the evolutionary puzzle.  Michael Behe took up the challenge this time and wrote an entry at Evolution News and Views.  Lets address some of Behe’s points.

Behe’s first compliant is that

[Lenski’s group] identified a couple score of mutations which they say are likely beneficial ones. That is almost certainly true, but what they don’t emphasize is that many of the beneficial mutations are degradative — that is, they eliminate a gene or its protein’s function.

First, Behe is attacking the paper for something that is really irrelevant to the point of the paper.  It also doesn’t disprove the original result of that spontaneous mutations that led to a novel attribute.  It is a red herring designed to poke holes in Lenski’s work instead of directly arguing against it.  So why all the degradative mutations?  Well, these experiments were done in a lab under strict conditions (single temperature, no other organisms, defined nutrients) to eliminate other variables. Without these other stimuli, is it any wonder that most changes are degradative?

Behe also criticizes the rise in what is called a mutator line in these experiments.  A mutator strain is one in which mutations arise more frequently than in a normal strain.  Again this doesn’t really address the ideas of the new paper or in the proof-of-concept of Lenski’s original data.

Anyway, who cares that these strains became mutator strains. A mutator just increases the frequency by which mutations arise. Maybe it would have taken 3 times as long for the beneficial mutation to arise if the mutator strain hadn’t evolved. It doesn’t change the fact that the cells evolved into a state where they could use a nutrient that they couldn’t before.   Besides, it is a moot point as one of the original mutation had arose before the 20,000 generation, a time before the mutation that led to mutator strain had occurred.

Finally, Behe closes with the expected tactics that we have grown to love from ID proponents.  The first tactic as illustrated above is to wrongfully criticize valid experiments in favor of evolution.  The second tactic is then to say how this data really proves intelligent design:

Lenski’s decades-long work lines up wonderfully with what an ID person would expect — in a huge number of tries, one sees minor changes, mostly degradative, and no new complex systems. So much for the power of random mutation and natural selection.

First, an ID proponent would not expect the E. coli to ever use the new nutrient.  The “power of random mutation and natural selection” led the bacteria to a whole new attribute.  Don’t forget, this experiment lasted only decades, or 1/100,000,000 the time bacteria are believed to inhabit the earth.  Finally, like I stated above, these were very unnatural conditions that would never be experienced during normal life on earth.

The general consensus seems to be that ID proponents are just not very smart.  Although I do think this is true for some “IDers,” it is not a prerequisite for belief in the pseudoscience.  Just look at the Discovery Institute.  Many of the “fellows” there have PhDs or have achieved other higher levels of education.  Perhaps the most telling is how cogent their arguments appear to be.  I honestly think it takes some kind of weird intelligence to be able to defend a evidence-less theory against the onslaught  of ever increasing evidence for evolution.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying ID proponents are geniuses.  I am just saying stupidity is not the source of their belief in ID.  So, what are the sources?  Well, Christian fundamentalism is an obvious one.  These people are going to twist the world around them to their preconceived notion of the universe no matter what evidence is available.

Another source could be a strong reliance on the logical fallacy of personal incongruity (personal disbelief).  This logical fallacy basically says that just because someone has a hard time believing something does not mean it is not true.  People can not accept that we are evolutionarily related to monkeys.  Some people can’t believe that the diversity of life happened on its own.  They say “look how complicated life is. It had to be designed.” The feeling is so strong that they abandon reason and acceptable evidence for pseudoscience.

Willful ignorance is undoubtedly another reason that otherwise intelligent people believe in intelligent design.  Some people just don’t really care about the subject, so they will just go along with what there preacher or friend believes.  Other people are not willing to find out the truth for the fear that it will shatter their world view.

Whatever the reason, simply insulting their intelligence is not going to be an effective way to convince them of reality.  I didn’t write this post to defend ID proponents, I am just hoping that understanding where they are coming from will help during debates.

To sum up the argument of the book, at least in this excerpt, it is an argument from personal disbelief.  He looks at organisms and thinks “there is no way this happened on its own.  There must have been a designer!”  Meyer will surely make the same tired and evidence-less arguments of ID proponents:  Look how perfectly put together the cell is.  Evil Darwinists have been wrong before!

The title, Signature in the Cell, says a lot more than Meyer wants.  He uses the word “signature”  Doesn’t signature imply that there is some unmistakable sign we can observe?  However, none has been found yet.  Maybe this could lead to an ID hypothesis:

The designer would have left an unmistakable mark in cells that has no other function than to provide information about the designer

If such a hypothesis gets evidence to support it, then I think you have a lot of evolutionists onboard.  I will patiently await this evidence.  Currently unexplained phenomena are not evidence.

In the excerpt of the book, I take issue with some of the ideas that Meyer is conveying, but he does get one thing right:

the appearance of design in living things has been understood by most biologists to be an illusion—a powerfully suggestive illusion, but an illusion nonetheless. As Crick himself put it thirty-five years after he and Watson discerned the structure of DNA, biologists must “constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved.”

This sort of putting biases and preconceptions aside is part of biology and all of science.  One typical example is the personification (anthropomorphizing) of microbes or even chemical reactions.  Or what about relativity or even quantum mechanics?  Scientists have to constantly guard against human biases and heuristics in order to find out what is really going on .

This is exactly why science depends on testable hypotheses.  This is why experiments have to be reproduced.  This is exactly why there are statistics.  This is why scientists carry out “blind” experiments whenever possible.  When these things are ignored, science turns into pseudoscience.  Meyer using this weakness of human thinking as an argument for intelligent design is ridiculous.

Perhaps I will read the book and offer a real review in the future, but don’t hold your breath.   Until real evidence appears in high caliber peer-reviewed journals, ID should be thought of and treated like pseudoscience.