Order, Design, Whatever
I heard a classic example of the journalistic habit of translation that I have pointed out a few times in the past, earlier today on the BBC World Service. It was a discussion of creationism and the pressure to get it taught in US schools, between Peter Atkins and creationist Donald DeYoung. At one point DeYoung (or else the journalist) mentioned ‘design’ and Atkins said ‘There is no design in nature.’ DeYoung didn’t hear, and Atkins repeated with great distinctness and emphasis, ‘There. is. no. design. in. nature.’ DeYoung, a physicist, disagreed and talked about the weight of the proton: if it had been just a tiny amount heavier, etc (the anthropic principle, in short). The journalist cut that off, as being too far afield, and said ‘You [meaning Atkins] say there is no order in nature – ‘ ‘That’s not what he said,’ I shouted at the radio. ‘That’s not what I said,’ Atkins said without shouting (well he was nearby). ‘I said there is no design in nature.’ ‘Same thing,’ said the journalist. ‘It’s not the same thing!!’ I shouted even louder. ‘It’s not the same thing,’ said Atkins.
I mean. Come on. The guy thinks order and design are the same thing?! And all [I mean many – not all – I haven’t checked them all, have I!] journalists, apparently, think ‘no evidence that’ is the same thing as ‘proof that not,’ and so they use the two interchangeably with gay abandon. It’s an outrage.
Really. Journalists ought to be licensed, or something. And they ought to learn some basic vocabulary and concepts before they get that license. I mean that literally – well except of course that if they did, Julian would run out of Bad Moves. As it is the supply seems to be infinite.
“And all journalists, apparently, think ‘no evidence that’ is the same thing as ‘proof that not,'”
Isn’t that a hasty generalization? A tad unfair to those journalists who listen carefully, understand logic, and attempt to get their stories correct?
:)
Err – yes! My mouth ran away with me. Thanks for keeping me honest.
Reminds me of one of my favorite quotes:
“… is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, “This is an interesting world I find myself in – an interesting hole I find myself in – fits me rather neatly, doesn’t it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!”” – Douglas N. Adams
I doff my cap to the wonder of DNA
Please, please please can someone explain where the ‘order’ came from without resort to sophistry
“Please, please please can someone explain where the ‘order’ came from without resort to sophistry”
John, the apparent order in nature arises from well-documented and, mostly, well-understood natural processes. Why would one have to resort to sophistry to explain that?
John.
A glass of water is highly disordered. Take it below 0 degrees (or -32 in America), and it becomes solid. The molecules arrange themselves in a regular lattice structure. Much the same goes for any phase transition. Surely there is no design in that; it is a consequence of thermodynamics. Many religious folks have a lot of trouble understanding anything to do with thermodynamics, most especially the second law. This they trot out in their full misunderstanding quite regularly. They mistakenly think that everything always tends to disorder. (The fact that it would be impossible to ever heat anything up if this were so seems to not occur to them). In fact only the TOTAL AMOUNT of disorder in the universe always goes up. Locally increases in order happen all the time with a corresponding (and indeed always at least slightly greater) increase elsewhere.
Indeed going back to our water to ice, not only is there spontaneous order, but a statistical gurantee that no too crystals will ever be the same. All this happens without an ounce of design. Not too sophist for you I hope ;-).
Or to put it another way…
John, no, in a sense no one can really explain where the order came from. But the ‘intelligent design’ answer doesn’t answer the question any better. The next step back is always there no matter what answer one gives. Either ‘yes but where did the natural processes come from?’ or ‘yes but where did the designer come from?’
“But the ‘intelligent design’ answer doesn’t answer the question any better.”
In fact it not only doesn’t answer it any better it is somewhat worse. The scientific explantion explains complex things in terms of less complex things. Intelligent Design does exactly the opposite so inherently will always produce more questions than it “answers”.