ADVERTISEMENTS

Once again, the Undiscovery Institute is trumpeting Thomas Nagel's irresponsible recommendation of Stephen Meyer's same-ol', same ol' book, Signature in the Cell, in the popular press, which guarantees the opposite of considered academic discussion of Nagel's objections to reductionism. This time, Robert Crowther is pointing to an article at Lew Rockwell's libertarian site by David Gordon, who has a PhD in intellectual history.

Amusingly, Crowther introduces the article with this:

... implicitly admitting that Meyer's book is, charitably, philosophy (less charitably, theology) rather than science. Of course, this is nothing more than an appeal to inappropriate authority, since, as Gordon notes, Nagel doesn't claim knowledge of biology, much less theories of prebiotic chemical evolution. That simply raises the question why Nagel felt competent to pronounce Meyer's book to be a "detailed account of the problem of how life came into existence from lifeless matter ? something that had to happen before the process of biological evolution could begin." Gordon's response that "Both Leiter and the chemist [Stephen Fletcher, Department of Chemistry, Loughborough University, who wrote a Letter to the Editor of the TLS] ignored the fact, much emphasized by Meyer, that such resorts to natural selection are controversial."

But it is Gordon who misses the point. As Nagel was competent enough to recognize, Meyer's "argument" is a conceptual one, that "argues that the available evidence offers no prospect of a credible naturalistic alternative to the hypothesis of an intentional cause." In short, Meyer is making a "just not so" argument, much like Behe's "irreducible complexity." Behe and Meyer are both claiming that, because they (supposedly) can't think of any way for some organ or structure to arise naturally, we should stop looking. A fully adequate response is "we can think of a way." And it doesn't matter if Meyer thinks prebiotic chemical evolution is "controversial." Neither Nagel nor, as far as I can tell, Gordon have the expertise to tell how accurate or honest Meyer's account is ... something of great importance, given the DI's penchant for quote mining and other dishonesty.

Nor is there any scientific reason to assume we won't find some other, presently unknown, route to the origin of DNA. Meyer is pushing an argument from ignorance that pales in comparison to the spectacular success science has racked up with the assumption -- methodological naturalism -- that natural phenomena, such as the chemistry of DNA, have natural explanations.

Which brings us to what Gordon calls "the attempt by Leiter and others to block inquiry that challenges naturalism." Really? Criticism is an attempt to block inquiry? That's a strange position for a libertarian to take. Not to mention that, since Gordon is criticizing Leiter and others who defend the scientific process, he must be attempting to block scientific inquiry.

Nagel has made himself a poster child for ID. You have to wonder if that was what he intended.
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