Part 2, Royal Holloway College debate
Steve Fuller: Yeah OK. I mean I think that's a good, a different way to help you sleep well at night, but I'm not particularly convinced that by that. In this respect I think there is a sense in which you know people like Dawkins and I guess Wolpert, atheists and kinda wanna say, look if there are knowledge claims here being made by religion where do they (cash? catch?) up. I think that's a fair thing to ask for, OK and actually think that Intelligent Design does have something to offer along those lines.
So that's what makes it interesting for me. I'm not looking for a kind of negotiated settlement between the two sides, OK. So that's one reason why I'm happy to support Intelligent Design because I think there is an issue here about the way in which one regards the nature of life, from a cognitative standpoint that I think people like Stephen Jay Gould and others don't want to really kind of come to terms with.
Now with regard to Jack's point about the design, it's true, OK, there are all sorts of fallacies involved about the form follows function thing, but these aren't fallacies, that are just as it were specific only to Intelligent Design people. First of all, not all Intelligent Design has to do with Paley. Paley's is one version of it.
OK, but evolutionists have also fallen into the same trap, especially the radical adaptationists in the past. In the sense of which this is the criticism is quite just, but it cuts against both sides. OK, that's the, OK.
Now in terms of the business of what is a theory, the gentleman here, once I got the drift of your question I'm actually sympathetic with what you were saying, about that we shouldn't be talking about belief, we should be talking in terms of acceptance. I think that's very correct. I think though this does raise an interesting question about the way that we survey scientific opinion, on these matters, that these kind of subtleties aren't often brought out and where people do feel they have to somehow as required fly one flag or another where you see and I think that ends up just polarising the debate more than it needs to be in a misleading kind of way. So I agree with you there.
Let me see if there was anything else. Maybe I should just leave it at that.
Johannes Zanker: .. Because we have a lot to go on (not clear)... you first... (not clear) can I remind you to be really, really short.
(not clear.)
Questioner: I studied (?) in my 3rd year, and I'm also a recent convert to Islam in the last 2 years. I used to be a very staunch atheist (??) Richard Dawkins... this is something to my view in relation to this (inaudible) I don't feel...
OK, in the (inaudible) view of science, (inaudible...)
One side just accepts it exists and the other says that it doesn't. But the actual model itself doesn't provide proof (inaudible) both ways, OK, therefore there can't be shred of evidence within those points of evidence to say whether or not there is a design or not. They cannot be. It's not within that thing, OK.
We have to look for a wider thing, maybe a more fundamental science like physics, OK, so, (inaudible) if that can be done, OK and then to say, well OK, ... very strong evidence if we find evidence ok which would be how do you explain the creation of the universe, OK, given that energy cannot be created or destroyed which is a fundamentally observed thing we've observed since the 17th century. How was the universe created, and that would distinguish between the two different theories... there is not a shred of possible evidence from within biological sciences to distinguish between whether or not (a science?) was causing mutations or it was just..happen.
How (inaudible).
Johannes Zanker: Ok thank you very much, Up there, here..
Questioner: (not clear), pyschology department. Professor Fuller's position seems to be that defending the proposition that Intelligent Design has the same scientific status as evolution, on the basis of the observation that many scientists have trouble with the English language, that they inappropriately use words like 'design'.
Johannes Zanker?: They innappropriate use terms like like design.
Questioner: He sort of ... going to criticise the use of language (inaudible). I don't see in what way this fits into the proposition that Intelligent Design share the same scientific status - ita has an entirely different axiomatic base.
Steve Fuller: But I can't see in what way this .. axiomatic
Questioner: Its theory of reality is entirely (??) from the theory of evolution as is the theory of what knowledge is and what constitutes knowledge and you've not spoken at any time during this debate as to why Intelligent Design should share the same scientific status as evolution; at no point have you suggested that Intelligent Design make predictions, that evolution makes regularly. At no point have you suggested that it shares the same propositions about how the world is. What you've done in fact is to simply derogate the use of the English language by many inside the community.
[applause]
Johannes Zanker: Back to the core issues... I think we need two more, what about the gentleman with the blue tie up there...
Questioner: I'm going to ask how can evolution be explained in fact of life's meaning. Let me explain what I mean. Suppose a criminal comes to this room and stabs both speakers to death. Now in a, in a creationist viewpoint that matters, it matters morally because the creationists will say both people were created in the image of God and its a terrible thing when someone is murdered, but evolution is entirely amoral. Its just another re-arrangement of atoms, another re-arrangement of cells, another change in the gene-pool, and in the evolutionists viewpoint, I don't see that you can say that both speakers being stabbed to death mattered at all, it would just be another re-arrangement of atoms. Who cares. How can evolution explain that life has meaning.
Johannes Zanker: OK. Can you pass the microphone over there in the same row to this gentleman. He's been trying a long time.
Questioner: (inaudible) it cannot be brought to the same level as evolution... ...
(inaudible section here, about 20 seconds)
Johannes Zanker: One over there and one over there... Can you try without the microphone...(not clear)
Questioner: My name's Mark. From the geology and geography department. (not clear)
Going back the earlier question. ... I'd like to quote. Evidence of absence isn't necessarily absence, if that makes sense. The second point going on from the question up there, do you have any more arguments for Intelligent Design apart from perhaps a sort of lazy use of English? Is that your main argument? Is that the take-home point, or not? and that's it basically.
Jonannes Zanker: One more, there.
Question from the floor: My name is (inaudible) Davis from the psychology department. My question is really to Professor Fuller. You argue that Intelligent Design and evolution have the same status and essentially the same minuses, one of which is that they are both unfalsifiable. Now Professor Wolpert has given some examples of evidence that would falsify evolution. What would falsify ...
Steve Fuller (interrupting): I'm not sure it would falsify evolution actually. I think that you can have a clever evolutionist come back, I mean, so I'm not sure I can accept the example given here.
Johannes Zanker: Professor Wolpert - would you like to come back here?
Lewis Wolpert: No, he doesn't understand evolution.
(laughter)
Johannes Zanker: We're back to our speakers now.
Steve Fuller: I mean this relates then to the points that were made by a couple of the other people here. Evolution and Intelligent Design are really pitching the concepts at a higher order level so all of these predictions that evolution supposedly made are really being made by constitutuent sciences of biology, so there are predictions within genetics, there are predictions within molecular biology and so forth. And one can make those predictions without holding evolutionary assumptions, or Intelligent Design assumptions.
OK, so it seems to me that what we're doing talking about here is something that is happening at a higher conceptual level so that just like some, one kind of evolutionist might say yes this shows that this didn't occur by evolution, there wil be another one who will say, no actually there is an evolutionary explanation. It's not an adaptation, it's an exaptation. I mean there are all kinds of ways within the paradigm where you can explain things both ways. OK.
OK. So in a sense what these two theories are doing, they're not really theories in the kind of ordinary sense that a theory can be just directly tested by the evidence. No, they're really 2nd order level. They organise research. They say what are meaningful things to look at. How you organise the relationship between various disciplines and what are they about and that's why I'm sorry you people just focus on the language and you think it's trivial.
First of all theories are conducted in languages and design is a very rich language for talking about stuff in, in biological life and, and Intelligent Design is a natural home for that language, not an illusion. And it is a residue of the fact that the whole biological sciences began on the design side OK.
And the language is still there. And the challenge for evolutionists is to wean themselves away from that language and its not a trivial assignment OK but it hasn't been done OK, and from that standpoint and that is where one of the strengths of Intelligent Design is that it's in that language that evolutionists use. OK. That's part of it.
But then the other issue about what the positive difference is, is what is important to study the nature of life. And this is why I brought up the example of Andrew Macintosh's research in biominetics where this whole business of trying to look at life forms as prototypes and models for technology, right, presupposes a certain kind of conception of how we as human beings relate to nature, namely nature is out there for our disposal to be, to improve our mission, to enable us to exercise dominion over the earth. It's not necessarily the most ecologically friendly view of the world I have to admit it, and you know it's not surprising that a lot of adherents to Intelligent Design are engineers, are, you know, and are people who are quite happy to transform the physical environment in a way that evolutions just wouldn't do. OK let me, there are different world views are involved between the two theories.
It's not just merely a verbal difference in that sense. But its happening at a much higher level than, than something you can just directly test in terms of an experiment.
Louis Constandinos: That's just not true. Sorry but that's absolutely not true. The entire 1920s and 30s in evolutionary biology for God's sake. Mathematical predictions from people like Haldane and people like Fisher, for God's sake, these, these.
(not clear)
Steve Fuller: Those are models...what prediction...
Louis Constandinos: These have been borne out by experiments at a very (not clear).
Steve Fuller: Yes, but look Haldane was a Christian, God almighty. Haldane was a Christian. What are you talking about?
Louis Constandinos: So?
Steve Fuller: Fisher was a Christian. These are people who were Christians...These people who were Christians who believe is that evolution is part of Intelligent Design.
Louis Constandinos: (inaudible)
Steve Fuller: Yes they did
Louis Constandinos: I've spoken to you about this before, Steve. This is part of a sociological theory of epistemology (not clear).
Steve Fuller: The point is these two views are barely distinguished.
Louis Constandinos: The fact that they were Christian is irrelevant to their science.
Steve Fuller: That's not true, that the conception of evolution....
Louis Constandinos: The fact that they had (not clear) experiments (not clear). The fact that they were Christians that they made useful predictions based on ....
Steve Fuller: I'm sorry, it's not that straight forward, it's not that straight foreward. Where do you draw the line?
Johannes Zanker: Lewis will now respond to the last round, there.
Lewis Wolpert: This is my final comment. You see, what is strange about this discussion is that it's not clear whether you understand anything about evolution at all. for example do you think, you know, there are so, I dunno thousands of different species of beetle, did the designer make each one of them, or did they evolve, and when you speak about evolution, I just wonder what exactly did you have in mind. Do you think there are ancestors, the children, the offsprings change with time... You see you haven't given one single example of where you think Intelligent Design is better, apart from (chuckle) the Krebs Cycle, is a better explanation than, than our standard models.
And it adds nothing, it's nothing to do with science. It’s just, it's so weird, that you could actually think it is something to do with science it's bizarre beyond words. And so what you really have to think about is to ask yourself, is to take specific examples and try and understand something about the nature of evolution. For example the evolution of the hand, or the evolution of the eye, or ... and try and see if you can try and understand these in terms of genes changing things. And I really think that Intelligent Design contributes absolutely nothing to this and the idea that you would teach this in school... what would you actually teach? There is nothing to say.
Johannes Zanker: 3 minutes left. Perhaps time for 1 or 2 questions. You've been trying for a long time.
Richard Buggs (Truth in Science): My name is Richard Buggs and my training is in evolutionary biology and with all respect I would say that from what I've heard today I'm not clear if Professor Wolpert actually understands much about Intelligent Design because one of my frustrations is that whenever I hear or read an eminent biologist attempting to refute Intelligent Design, there's a failure to engage with specific examples of people like Michael Behe are putting forward. The example of the arch is not one of Michael Behe's examples, but every arch that I've seen with more than 3 components has been intelligently designed. The Krebs Cycle is an example of...
Interjection: What? What?
Richard Buggs: I'd like to ask Prof Wolpert if he can explain to us in a way with due respect to us, with respect to James Williams, isn't a guess, how the Krebs Cycle evolved. Do you have an explanation for that that isn't a guess?
Lewis Wolpert: I'm afraid it’s not my subject, I don't know. But there are many of these things. There's no problem about adding things on and you now, finding how things work.
Prof Jack Cohen: I have the detailed one for the bacterial flagellum for you or the blood clot which is the classic....
Richard Buggs: The one for the flagellum will have one intermediate out of the necessary 30 or 40..
Jack Cohen: No, no. I've got 21 intermediates.
Richard Buggs: I'd love to see it.
James Williams: In that case can you explain why the retina is backwards in human beings, why the retina is backwards in human beings and the light has to pass through nerves and blood vessels and 8 other layers before it gets to the actual light receptor layer, but in squid it actually is the other way around.
They're not irreducibly complex. You don't design an eye to be backwards and you have to filter out all of that interference before you actually get to the layer that transmits the information to the brain which is where we see. And then you don't design it the right way round in a squid and have it backwards in a fish that live in the same environment. They are not irreducibly complex things. The eye, I'm sorry, is refuted. You can't, you can't use that as an example of Intelligent Design.
Louis Constandinos: Can I just say that absence of an answer, or ignorance if you like, is not a piece of positive evidence for the opposite conclusion or any conclusion. So the fact that maybe Professor Wolpert doesn't have on his fingertips an explanation of the Krebs Cycle, is not, is not a piece of evidence to say the Krebs Cycle didn't evolve.
Johannes Zanker: I hate to do this. I'm afraid our time is up. I would love to ask both our speakers to have one single final select sentence. I hope we are not thrown out or (not clear). So one sentence, please.
Lewis Wolpert: I've got one. There's zero evidence for God or Intelligent Design.
(applause)
Steve Fuller: This issue is not going to go away, so I suggest, one thing I would suggest, is homework for people here, yes it's always good to know what evolution is and all the rest, but learn some history of science, and learn some philosophy of science.
(applause)
Johannes Zanker: Thank you very much, very last sentence, here (final thanks to the speakers and the audience, largely inaudible.) I'm afraid we haven't solved the problem and if it doesn't go away...
(End of debate.)
