Veritas Forum - Main Talks

Dr. Behe began by outlining Darwin’s insistence that change in nature must be gradual, meaning, that any new structure that appears in an organism must occur by making a small change in an already-existing structure. He gave an example of a mousetrap (an example he uses quite often) as a structure that could arise through such a process. For example, the mousetrap wouldn’t work if any of the parts were removed. This means that a mousetrap could only arise at one time. There would be no way for the mousetrap to come into being any other way. Behe calls this "irreducible complexity (IC)". Basically, the concept says that the only way that such a structure could have been produced would be through the intervention of an intelligent designer (ID). A being of some form that produce those structures through purposeful action.

He then went on to talk about the cilia in our lungs. He showed a diagram of the cilium, and made the claim that this structure is irreducibly complex because the cilia would not work at all if any one of its parts were removed. He of course makes the assumption that just because a cilium missing one part couldn’t function in the lungs, it would also not be useful for some other purpose. It seems to me that this assumption is unwarranted based on our current evidence and understanding.

He also went on to show the structure of the bacterial flagellum, another structure he claims exhibits IC. Again, his claim is based on the assumption that a modified flagellum would have absolutely no use. Again, this assumption seems a bit premature.

While talking, Behe made one claim that I don’t see how he can make. He claimed that Dr. Lynn Marguiles is a scientist who is skeptical of Darwinism. Of course, Dr. Marguiles is an originator of the theory of endo-symbiosis. Of course, this theory was advanced to explain how some apparently IC systems could have arisen naturally, without the intervention of an intelligent designer. While this theory doesn’t depend on Darwin’s theory of natural selection for all of its steps, it definitely does not require that one be skeptical of Darwinism. To make this claim is disingenuous, and I don’t see how it could be intended to do anything except mislead members of the audience.

Behe claimed that ID is a "completely empirical idea", one that can be tested using the methodology of science. To illustrate how we can identify something that has been designed, he put up a Far Side cartoon, showing a person suspended from a rope with spikes sticking into his chest. Behe pointed out that everyone in the audience knew that the trap illustrated in the cartoon was designed. Dr. Behe seemed to be hinting that a structure could be looked at and immediately someone could tell that it was designed. I’m more than a little suspicious of any theory that says that something can be seen intuitively. Modern science has shown us just how often our intuition about the world can be wrong.

Next he said that design could be detected mathematically. He talked about William Dembski’s book The Design Inference as showing how to do this.

Behe went on to cite four reviews of his book. They all seemed to indicate that the authors of the reviews agreed that he had found problems that were insurmountable for Darwinism to explain. However, the second citation from each review showed the author saying Behe had it wrong, including one pointing out that Behe was positing ID in systems we don’t know enough about (i.e. arguing from ignorance). It seems a little odd that they could agree at first and then disagree later. The question is how could these reviews have been like that? I think that it’s likely that the reviews were cited in such a way that they seemed to be agreeing with him. Unfortunately, not being able to copy down the citations, I’m not able to check them out for myself.

To sum up, Behe asked why people didn’t want to accept ID as a valid theory. He put up a slide of the Ghostbusters symbol. He said that people didn’t want to accept design because it is a theological idea and not a scientific one. He says that a theory can be scientific even if it has theological and philosophical implications. He points out that the Big Bang does (or did) at least to some people’s mind.

Hefner:

He said there were three things the response to design theory was "about":

1. The first was that the work might get "captured by the culture wars". He didn’t want the idea to get lost in all the debating going back and forth.
2. The idea of IC and design could be taken as proof of the existence of God. He hopes that this isn’t the case. He believes that there is more depth to God than just showing that there might be some evidence of design in a flagellum. He worried that this sort of "proof" would actually de-value God by missing the depth that a deity should have. He also worried that if something that had been accepted as proof but then later shown to not possess IC would then make belief in God less likely.
3. He thinks "design" is part of an ongoing critique of Darwin’s theory. The word "design" crops up often in evolutionary theories (although, in my opinion, he seemed to be missing the fact that the word "design" can have many different meanings, not all of them requiring the action of a deity). He thinks that as we learn more about design in nature we’ll be able to discuss the moral and spiritual implications of the design present in the world. He doesn’t think you can talk about chance or randomness without design.
   

To sum up, he hoped that design theory would lead to point 3.

Collins:

He wanted to know if ID was a "dumb idea". He wanted to know why opponents of ID fear it being fit into science. I have to note that I don’t fear it being put into science, I just don’t think it belongs there. I also don’t think that flat-Earth theories belong in science, but I’m not afraid of them.

He defined ID as the imposition of structure on objects for some purpose where the purpose and structure are not inherent in the properties of the objects but do make use of them. Therefore, any such structure must have an agent behind it. We don’t have to say who/what the designer is, such a question is beyond biology. He stated that if we don’t have a good answer to a biological problem, we can say it’s designed. To find design we need to find "insoluble gaps".

He went on to discuss three different types of objections to design: theological, philosophical and scientific. Interestingly enough, for a "scientific" theory, he spent almost no time dealing with the scientific objections. I found that interesting…

Theological objections:

1. Design theory is just "creation science". His response is that it’s not young earth creationism (YEC). So what? Just because this theory isn’t YEC doesn’t mean it is good or correct.
2. It’s not YEC – Genesis doesn’t have to be taken literally. Of course, that’s his opinion, but I think many fundamentalists would disagree with that.
3. It displays the wrong view of God’s action – Much of the activity in the Bible is occurring normally, as it was designed to, but there are miraculous events that go beyond that. He gave the examples of the Exodus, prophets predicting the future, and the virgin birth. Interestingly, there is good evidence that suggests that none of those three examples occurred in any way! D’oh!
4. The idea of design is a "God of the gaps", meaning that it only posits God in areas we don’t understand, and that as our knowledge grows, God will be lessened. Collins claimed that some gaps are a result of ignorance, while others are not. He put up a picture of Stonehenge, and said we all know that this is designed, as opposed to rock formations in the Utah desert which we know are natural. He claimed that the gaps between the two types will never be crossed by any natural means, there are no properties of rocks that cause them to pile up like Stonehenge. Of course, he neglected to mention that there is a lot of independent evidence that shows that one is man-made while the other is natural. He gave no independent way of knowing beforehand that any given structure is designed, other than to use what you "know". He said it’s ok to cite God as a source when you don’t know what was the cause. He said that if you said Mt. St. Helens erupted to punish someone’s sin because you don’t know anything about geology. If you then learn about geology and learn the physical causes of the eruption, it doesn’t mean that you were wrong to say sin caused the eruption unless you’re entire belief in God was based on that idea.
   He cited G.K. Chesterton, saying that there are three things that lie across an "abyss of the unthinkable" from any natural processes: the origin of the universe, the origin of life, and the development of reason and will in humanity. Of course, this is his opinion, and that doesn’t mean it’s correct. If you hadn’t guessed, I don’t happen to agree with him…

Philosophical Objections

1. Design is an inappropriate application of theology to science – he says design can make empirically testable claims, e.g. the resurrection of Jesus. Again, this is an event with a questionable basis in fact.
2. Design theory isn’t science. The definition of science is naturalistic (citing the National Science Teachers Association). Collins says science is the study of the world around us, if we don’t know only natural causes exist, then to exclude the supernatural isn’t rational. However, there is no reason to propose supernatural forces if we don’t have evidence for them. We do have evidence for natural forces and so it does make sense to propose more of the same type of things, as opposed to coming up with forces that no one has ever witnessed. I would say that is isn’t rational to hypothesize new forces.

Scientific Objections (he was running out of time, so he only presented one of the two he had)

1. "ID stops science" – he quoted Richard Dawkins’ review of Behe’s book. Basically, Collins said that if you stop studying a particular question because someone says the structure is designed that’s fine. I don’t see how anyone could have such a ridiculous view of the world. To claim that we should stop studying anything because it’s the product of forces we can’t understand is to promote ignorance and superstition.

In conclusion, he says that eliminating ID is a bad idea. We "know" stuff is designed, so now we can try to find out what those "designed" structures are for. He ended by showing the picture of Stonehenge with a drawing of a DNA molecule superimposed on it, clearly saying that we our designed and we can start finding our purpose now that we’ve accepted our own designed nature.

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