Wednesday, September 07, 2005

The Icons of Evolution

Going to the arn.org page to find out what they said about the teaching of evolution in schools, I find that some of the complaints have to do with the fact that the textbooks teach myths of "icons" of evolution which have been provide incorrect. Are the claims made about these icons by arn.org incorrect?

3 comments:

Victor Reppert said...

I'm not familiar with all aspects of the ID controversy, but I am just trying to apply my skills in analyzing arguments to see what the strong and weak points in the controversy are. II should point out, though, that it doesn't follow from the fact that a rebuttal has been written to this that or the other defense of an ID claim, that the defenders of ID are stunned into silence. Here is a rebuttal to Tamzek's critique of Wells:

http://www.arn.org/docs/wells/cl_iconsstillstanding.htm

Victor Reppert said...

The problem here is that you believe in an easy-to-draw line between science and philosophy. In a way I wish there were one, but there isn't. If you really think that science can escape fundamental questions of philosophy then I think you have to be on drugs of some kind.

Same with the neuroscience and the philosophy of mind. You have the empirical discoveries, and then you have what is being done with them, which is invariably highly philosophical.

Jason Pratt said...

???

Surely you didn't mean that Victor's real problem is that he's trying to apply his skills in analyzing arguments to see what the strong and weak points in the controversy are?

Before you get too annoyed about his "being on drugs" retort, consider that _that_ is what you looked like you were saying to him:

a.) treating a problem philosophically == analyzing arguments to see what strong and weak points are in a controversy;

b.) the "real problem" is that Victor is treating the problem philosophically;

c.) therefore, Victor's real problem is that he's trying to analyze arguments to find the strong and weak points in a controversy. (i.e. Victor's real problem is that he's trying to do what _any_ responsible thinker, including you yourself and everyone in the debating links posted at talk origins, are and were trying to do.)


Anyway, since Victor provided the link to Luskin's rebuttal; here's a link I found to the counter-rebuttal collated by Nic Tamzek.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/wells/luskin.html


By and large, I think Wells looks well-hammered (though various sources quoted against him don't always come off altogether clean themselves {wry g}. It shouldn't be necessary to misrepresent all theistic opponents to NDT as young-earth Noah's flood creationists, for instance.)