"A self-styled form of Darwinian fundamentalism has risen to some prominence in a variety of fields, from the English biological heartland of John Maynard Smith to the uncompromising ideology (albeit in graceful prose) of his compatriot Richard Dawkins, to the equally narrow and more ponderous writing of the American philosopher Daniel Dennett . . . . - Stephen Jay Gould, "Darwinian Fundamentalism," The New York Review of Books.
Hat tip to Salvador Cordova for this link to college and university classes dealing with intelligent design, Darwinian skepticism or the current debates on the science and/or public policy involved. These issues are not going away any time soon.
posted by Lawrence Selden @ 1:39 PM
2 comments
I am a macroevolution agnostic. I used to accept evolutionary theory. Then I looked at the evidence. It became clear to me that macroevolutionary theory is built more on a priori philosophical assumptions than on evidence. Microevolution, on the other hand, is supported by the evidence. The distinction between the two is critical and is largely ignored, or not understood, by the mainstream media and general public.
2 Comments:
I find it interesting that in that entire list, populated mostly by philosophy courses, there is not a single biology course dedicated to detailing how intelligent design is thought to work. You'd think that a biology theory would have at least a graduate level seminar in how it works -- all other theories in biology do.
Could this be because of the paucity of ID research?
Ed, ID is about the science of design detection. Explaining how the design was accomplished is a separate question. Your point highlights the fact that mainstream science gives us about the same amount of plausible explanation (none) concerning the Cambrian Explosion and the evolutionary steps of complex biological systems. That is why I am a skeptic.
The focus in philosophy courses is perhaps because scientists fail to address the philosophy of science. Evolutionary theory depends in large part on an a priori philosophical materialism, and many scientists do not want to examine that. I wonder if they even know how to examine that.
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