Disguising stupidity as intelligence

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/28/opinion/28dennett.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5070&en=ca813178d8751776&ex=1125979200&emc=eta1

A recent debate arose when a prominent evolutionist said something positive about so-called "Intelligent Design". Naturally, he was immediately and savagely and very, very publicly attacked. After all, the idea that there is "Intelligent Design" demands a Designer. That calls into existence some sort of deity...which, of course, is something few evolutionists can stomach the thought of. So instead they shift the debate.
I find it interesting that the referenced article manages to simultaneously make virtually every critical thinking mistake known to man while also doing the same things it accuses fans of Intelligent Design of doing.

He does get right the fundamental debate; evolution and Creation are mutually exclusive. People who argue for Creation by Evolution are blind to truth. They try to mesh two mutually incompatible ideas because they believe the oft-cited ideas that the Bible is not meant to be taken literally and so forth.
No, either everything is a "happy accident" or it is specifically designed in a very, very short period of time. No co-operative combination is available.
One of his first aggregious errors is appeal to authority...that is a false claim. The second law of thermodynamics states "It is impossible to obtain a process that, operating in cycle, produces no other effect than the subtraction of a positive amount of heat from a reservoir and the production of an equal amount of work." In other words, things are running down.
Yet Dennett would have you believe that "until you look at what contemporary biology has demonstrated beyond all reasonable doubt: that natural selection - the process in which reproducing entities must compete for finite resources and thereby engage in a tournament of blind trial and error from which improvements automatically emerge -"
Okay, so we can ignore science when it contradicts what we are trying to say...that is the gist of his argument. Things naturally get BETTER. As opposed to thermodynamics, which claims things are getting worse. Furthermore, according to much of the upper echelon of prominent scientists, men such as Hawking, Valentine Erwin, J. Sepkoski, Chien, Sagan, Maher, Stevenson, and numerous others, biology has not proven any of this...although they are certain they will. Somehow, complete lack of progress does not change the truth they will arrive at.
This, of course, is seriously flawed science. When the results and facts don't fit the theory, you change the theory, not the facts. But that is a rant for another time.
Dennett goes on to take the well-known challenge of the eye. Here he commits not one but two errors of reason. First, he sets up a straw man. Second, HE NEVER ADDRESSES THE ARGUMENT! Actually, he made three...he used specious evidence to support an innaccurately presented claim.
The straw man is so obvious I hesitate to mention it. He compares the construction of a videocamera to the make-up of the eye. He blithely argues no Intelligent Designer would work inside out. After all, camera makers don't. Uhm...okay. I know I would like to have the delicate portions of my eye exposed to the elements. I still remember getting cracked in the eye with a softball bat when we were playing in the front yard. Nice design, genius. Comparing a mechanical, replaceable, frequently breaking object such as a camera with an object that you get one chance with, that must interact with internal processes, receptors, nerves, etc...that is a straw man like nobodies business. It simply is not an apt comparison.
Second, he points out that a piece here, a piece there, a piece somewhere else show some process that, by his own admission, WE DON'T KNOW WHAT WAS, somehow might, with the right combination of lucky, positive mutations have created an eye. Of course, by that logic we had the Mona Lisa in cave man days. After all, all the shapes were represented on various walls. Oh, they don't fit together and were not designed to work together, but they are there. (For those not familiar with my work, I use a LOT of sarcasm. Presenting my own straw man is meant to be vaguely funny but bitingly accurate).
He then uses a highly honed, unreproduced (to this point in history), fully developed eye to say that if one thing does not work, none of it does, then uses that to memorialize how evolution works fantastically well. Huh? Incompetence, by his argument, is perfection? Of course, if I had the room I would discuss the sheer odds against a positive mutation A) occurring, B) being replicated, C) surviving, and D) not being overwhelmed by the sheer number of negative mutations that would have to be overcome just to reach this point.
This next line I could not read with a straight face. This is the ultimate in anthropologicalism: "The designs found in nature are nothing short of brilliant, but the process of design that generates them is utterly lacking in intelligence of its own." A brilliance without intelligence...the end result is its own intelligence. I had a witty reamrk about Dennett here, but I removed it because I do not wish to sink to his level. He spends a lot of time talking about the people instead of the arguement, and I wish to avoid that.
He then goes on to say eyes are for seeing...but that isn't why they were formed. In other words..."What you believe is false. I have no alternative, but I said so, it is true. Moving on, now."
If you bring forth an argument, you need to support it. Particularly when arguing that the use of an item is not its actual use...but not presenting an alternative.
Dennett then undermines any credibility he might have had left. In my case that was well past none, but here goes;
Dennett: "No experiments with results that challenge any mainstream biological understanding. No observations from the fossil record or genomics or biogeography or comparative anatomy that undermine standard evolutionary thinking. "
Hmm. What would, say...Stephen J. Gould think of this assertion?
""Geologists have discovered many unaltered Precambrian sediments,— and they contain no fossils of complex organisms." —*Salvador E Luria, *Stephen Jay Gould, and *Sam Singer, A View of Life (1981), p. 651. (http://evolution-facts.org/Appendix/a17b.htm)
then again, who has heard of Gould? He can be no more than a top 10 authority on evolution, so he doesn't count...but I hope you get the point. The fossil record has nothing to say on evolution...there is no "missing link", there is a missing ROAD. There are no links at all, so how can one be missing? There is no fossil record whatsoever to support macroevolution.
Genomics? You mean...all life had one source? That proves that either one single celled organism or Adam started it all. Okay.
And I am not afraid to admit I am not sure what he is referencing in those other fields. Where I know what I am talking about, I do. Where I am ignorant, unlike Dennett...I keep quiet.
I find it extremely interesting that his description of how Intelligent Design proponents get their arguments tabled sounds so similar to how evolution came to the forefront. By the way...who won the Scopes trial in court? We all know who won the P.R. battle, but P.R. is not truth.
He demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of the Intelligent Design argument when he says it has not tried to explain everything. This is among his weakest points. There is no need to demonstrate everything. Let me explain.
The very top in the field of evolutionary science has admitted they take it on faith, that there is no proof as yet for their position. And to be honest...that is not in the least unreasonable. We are dealing with events that cannot be observed and thus, by the laws of science, cannot be proven but must be taken, at least on some level, on faith.
Yet they then turn and say the isiotic Intelligent Design advocates have nothing but faith. This, of course, ignores the abundant evidence of a carefully constructed, inter-related world that is all around us...but because Intelligent Design believers have the courage and integrity to admit they have faith, their argument becomes irrelevant. This intellectual dishonesty does nothing to advance the cause of truth regardless of who is correct.
I think his closing argument is hilarious. Defending the "theory" that has brought us Piltdown Man, Recapitulation, Nebraska Man, Java Man, Archaeopteryx, Positive mutation, (all publicly acknowledged hoaxes...including Piltdown Man, exposed no later than 1953, but taught in the NEW science books we received in 7th grade in St. Helens) and not one iota of proof, he suggests Intelligent Design be taught as a hoax.
There is one primary hoax in this article. That hoax is that someone like Dennett has anything of value to contribute to society.