Prof. Ryan asks: "But wouldn't you say a theory's fruitful usefulness is precisely a mark of its truth? I mean, as a scientist you're seeking truths, right? In fact usefulness here just is productivity of truths, right?" I tend toward the idea that human knowledge is not completely extensive; scientific results are approximations and models. As an example, Mandelbrot's question "How long is the coastline of Britain?" has only one answer: "It depends on the size of your ruler." So we have a very hard time making final determinations of truth. This is simultaneously the great strength of science and a source of polemic weakness. We can never claim to have the Final Word, which means that the ID "theorists" and other types (UFO-ers, crystal gazers, astrologists, etc.) can always claim to have found something that professional science has overlooked.

Prof. Moody holds out hope that ID is useful: "My point is that ID has the same kind of utility that neodarwinism has; the difference lies in how that utility is accounted for. But that does not make one approach useful and the other useless. I submit that in terms of utility the two approaches are equal, since they both tell us to look for design. But they cannot both be true. Therefore, the determination of which one is true cannot be based on utility." Would that it were so. As people have pointed out at length, the ID types have offered nothing to science except a fungible definition. Every time someone points out that the combination of an evolutionary selection rule plus variation leads to a situation that fulfills the criteria stated for IC, Behe, Dembski et al. reply with "That's not what I really meant." For example, T. D. Schneider, "Evolution of Biological Information," Nucleic Acids Research, 28(14): 2794-2799, 2000, showed that a simple selection rule when combined with mutation and replication can generate an interacting system - IC by the criterion used up until that point. Dembski stated that this was not IC and apparently devotes a fair amount of No Free Lunch to the subject. Links to Dembski's points and Schneider's replies/rebuttals are at http://www.lecb.ncifcrf.gov/~toms/paper/ev/dembski/rebuttal.html#No.Free.Lunch.

I don't think that our current understanding of evolution is at all a "truth" in any kind of final sense - if it were, there would be no need to do science. Rather, it is a model that leads to predictions that have been observed (one aspect of utility), accounts for experimental observations (another aspect), is mathematically consistent (another) and suggests experiments (a fourth). It does so in a way that is better than that of competing theories, including "materialistic" ones, all of which rely on instruction to achieve complexity. ID fails these tests, as the biologists on this forum largely agree.

It's time for ID'ers to put up or shut up. Play by the rules: Do some work, point out the ways in which instructional theories of any kind are involved in contemporary Biology, etc. Until then, it is necessary to quote Hubert Humphrey: "The right to be heard does not imply the right to be taken seriously." Certainly not in a science classroom.

Does that mean that Science is totally self-referential? No. For example, we (rightly) abhor the Nazi "medical" experiments, and Ethics is an important component of current Science Education. Similarly, the deeper questions of "Where do selection rules come from?," Wigner's "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics" or even Hans Kung's "Why is there something rather than nothing?" would be well worth discussing in this and other forums. Philosophers and theologians need to contribute to the discussion, as they do to Scientific Ethics. Prof. Moody, I think you'd find that your useful contributions would be welcomed. Don't waste your time sowing salt with the ID debate.

-- Frank Schmidt, Prof of Biochemistry, University of Missouri-Columbia (posted 2/12, 3:10 p.m., U.S. Eastern time)

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