Richard Sternberg and Michael Behe debated in Kraków, Poland, not too long ago on the query, “Clever Design in Nature: Phantasm or Actuality?” You possibly can look ahead to your self. It was a refreshingly civil and even pleasant dialog with thinker of science Michael Ruse, a longtime ID critic, and Malgorzata Moczydlowska-Vidal, a Polish-born professor of micropaleontology at Uppsala College in Sweden. Sternberg and Behe have been glorious and there was some drama — exchanges about “nonsense” versus “pseudoscience.”
However truthfully, on the science, I can’t say that their opponents actually engaged Dr. Sternberg and Dr. Behe all that a lot. Dr. Ruse introduced ahead Vladimir Putin and the Holocaust as options in his arguments. I can’t recall the small print of how these have been presupposed to be related in a dialogue about whether or not nature bears scientific proof of goal and design.
From Dragon to Dinosaur
Dr. Moczydlowska-Vidal, who did her finest with English, gave the impression to be saying in her opening presentation that evolution is true as a result of evolution is true and there’s no proof for clever design as a result of there isn’t a proof for clever design. My favourite second was an cute parable she informed about how ID is sort of a “legend” that might be cleared up by additional scientific investigation. She associated how in historic instances, individuals in Silesia, a part of fashionable Poland, discovered dinosaur bones. After they tried to think about the creature to whom the bones belonged, they figured that the monster should be a dragon. Storytelling additional elaborated that the dragon lived in a cave underneath Wawel Citadel in Kraków and snatched up and ate virgins.
Far more not too long ago, alongside got here scientists who clarified that the bones have been no dragon however a dinosaur, designated as Smok wawelski, the Wawel Dragon. (Pictured above.) Smok means dragon in Polish. The purpose seems to be that in good time, science will reply all of the enigmas in biology, just like the bacterial flagellum, that appear to defy any evolutionary clarification that leaves out clever design. Or one thing like that. Subsequently, concludes Dr. Moczydlowska-Vidal, “Lengthy stay Smok wawelski!”
It’s, as Professor Behe acknowledges, a captivating story, however not very related so far as the small print of the scientific debate go. Because of the great Fundacja En Arche for sponsoring this attention-grabbing and entertaining occasion. Sooner or later, I wish to see scientists or philosophers actually go after the meat of what ID proponents say. It occurs on occasion, nevertheless it’s a uncommon factor, and it’s important to marvel why that’s.
