Dennett on ID

by Will Wilkinson on August 29, 2005

Daniel Dennett’s NYT essay on intelligent design is spot on from beginning to end. If you’re confused about this issue, this is the place to go.

Dennett concludes:

Since there is no content, there is no “controversy” to teach about in biology class. But here is a good topic for a high school course on current events and politics: Is intelligent design a hoax? And if so, how was it perpetrated?

OK, that’s a good high school question. But how about a question for adults? Has the hegemony of secularism in public institutions, such as the schools, generated it’s own backlash? Is intelligent design a symptom of a much deeper problem: the failure of our public institutions to embody the ideals of liberal neutrality?

theogon

Both have equal explanatory power over origin... undocumented and undocumentable. So why shouldn't both be taught?

Evolution and ID have equal explanatory power over gravity... why shouldn't both be taught?

Insiderman

Dennett writes in NYT:
We can't yet say what all the details of this process were, but real eyes representative of all the intermediate stages can be found, dotted around the animal kingdom, and we have detailed computer models to demonstrate that the creative process works just as the theory says.

How did the creative process develop?

Evolution has no explanations for the origination of anything except the development (evolution) over time. It explains itself.

ID attributes evolution to a grand plan, which it also fails to explain except on faith.

Both have equal explanatory power over origin... undocumented and undocumentable. So why shouldn't both be taught?

David

I agree that this dispute is representative of a deeper problem. If we're going to say, as Dawkins does, that darwinian evolution flies in the face of theistic religion, then teaching it in public schools is akin to teaching against religion. I'm inclined to believe that the two position aren't mutually exclusive but I don't think it's simple. As far as I can see, ID addresses an issue out of science's scope. I've posted on this issue.

Will Wilkinson

Well Provine's argument against free will is likely a result of philosophical ineptitude. What he's arguing against is something like indeterministic individual agency. But he shouldn't confuse that for free will.

John Thacker

And here we have a Cornell professor of ecology and human evolution arguing that believing in evolution also entails rejecting the idea of free will. (He also seems to think that a society which didn't believe in free will would have a kinder justice system; I assume such a society would also lock people up who were merely likely to commit crimes in the future based on data analysis tools, since without blame or free will, there's little difference between having done something and being "going to do it.")

John Thacker

I'm not sure that the "backlash" thesis fits the facts of the particular case. I do agree that the dogmatic atheism of the some of the popularizers of evolutionary theory doesn't help a lot. When you have Richard Dawkins and others (and the history goes back a long way to Thomas "Darwin's bulldog" Huxley) insisting that one must be atheist to believe in evolution, and that evolution demonstrates the non-existence of God, well, that's going to cause problems and some backlash. It certainly doesn't describe all scientists, but it describes some of the louder ones.

Will Wilkinson

What did you read about it?

Matthew Yglesias

Agreed about liberal neutrality, but I don't think the "backlash" thesis actually fits the facts of this case very well if you read some about the Discovery Institute and the origins of the ID movement.