14 July 2007

Behe demolished


Michael Behe is that creationist biochemist who made bold claims with his two books on 'intelligent design'. In a fascinating article titled 'Inferior Design' in the New York Times, Richard Dawkins demolished Behe's arguments. In this article, it is noted that one of the means which these creationists have used in their arguments is the following:

"This style of argument remains as unconvincing as when Darwin himself anticipated it. It commits the logical error of arguing by default. Two rival theories, A and B, are set up. Theory A explains loads of facts and is supported by mountains of evidence. Theory B has no supporting evidence, nor is any attempt made to find any. Now a single little fact is discovered, which A allegedly can’t explain. Without even asking whether B can explain it, the default conclusion is fallaciously drawn: B must be correct. Incidentally, further research usually reveals that A can explain the phenomenon after all..."


2 comments:

Todd the Toad said...

Exactly. The only problem is that "they" will never give up.

Chuang Shyue Chou said...

Yes, you are precisely right. I don't think fundamentalists of any stripe, be it Christian or Muslim, will be convinced.

Dawkin or Harris' books will not convince any of them.

I assume that you are familiar with evolutionary psychology, do you think a god module or belief module exists in our mind?