Fact mentioned by Michael Behe in a debate with Stephen Barr: that some biology textbooks say that the process of evolution is "undirected" (it's worth noting that Eugenia Scott, head of the National Center for Science Education, said that this adjective should be deleted from science textbooks, and that she justified this by saying that it's already implicit in the term "random")
My thought about that is that natural science is not competent to use the words "directed" or "undirected." That is, natural science doesn't have the word "directed" as part of its vocabulary. Intelligent design, if it's a science at all, is a social science, not a natural science.
This is most obviously true in the case of physics. Consider how physics is not competent to describe, index or demonstrate the existence of "direction" or "indirection" in the case of human agency: what sort of physics experiment--using the toolbox available to physics alone--can detect whether a physical process has been directed by a human being? None. If you think otherwise, then try describing "directed" in terms of force: can't do it.
If physics is incompetent to do so, then is biology? What branch of biology is responsible for detecting and or describing human agency? Psychiatry? It can involve interpretation of some sort. At this point in my thought about the matter, however, it does not seem that psychiatrist is particularly competent to talk about directed vs. undirected in a manner that would be helpful to the case of evolution.
A biologist who doesn't follow this restriction and ventures an opinion about whether evolution is directed or undirected should be told to mind his own business, or to admit that she is doing something other than biology when speaking about this.
My thought about that is that natural science is not competent to use the words "directed" or "undirected." That is, natural science doesn't have the word "directed" as part of its vocabulary. Intelligent design, if it's a science at all, is a social science, not a natural science.
This is most obviously true in the case of physics. Consider how physics is not competent to describe, index or demonstrate the existence of "direction" or "indirection" in the case of human agency: what sort of physics experiment--using the toolbox available to physics alone--can detect whether a physical process has been directed by a human being? None. If you think otherwise, then try describing "directed" in terms of force: can't do it.
If physics is incompetent to do so, then is biology? What branch of biology is responsible for detecting and or describing human agency? Psychiatry? It can involve interpretation of some sort. At this point in my thought about the matter, however, it does not seem that psychiatrist is particularly competent to talk about directed vs. undirected in a manner that would be helpful to the case of evolution.
A biologist who doesn't follow this restriction and ventures an opinion about whether evolution is directed or undirected should be told to mind his own business, or to admit that she is doing something other than biology when speaking about this.
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