ROCKY MOUNTAIN SECTION OPTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA
                              &
           IEEE LASERS AND ELECTROOPTICS SOCIETY


                        Sept Meeting

Date:  Thursday, 19 Sept. 2002
Time:  7 PM refreshments, 7:30 PM talk
Place: National Center for Atmospheric Research
       Mesa Lab
       1850 Table Mesa Drive, Boulder, CO
       Damon Room


Title: Creationism, Neocreationism, and Statistics

       Matt Young
       Dept. of Physics
       Colorado School of Mines


Abstract:

William Dembski, Michael Behe, and the intelligent designauts 
are the new creationists: Behe takes the old, discredited 
"What is half an eye?" argument, ratchets it down one level, 
and asks, in  effect, "What is half a flagellum?" Dembski, in 
turn, takes the old "tornado in a junkyard"  argument, 
ratchets it up one level, and (in a miasma of complex 
terminology) turns it into a fourth  law of thermodynamics. 
Like the young-earth creationists, or yeckies, both seem 
convinced in  advance that evolution has been guided by an 
intelligence, and both seek evidence that their  proposition 
is true, rather than evidence whether it is true.

Whether there is an intelligent designer, it seems to me, is 
a legitimate question and can be  investigated by scientific 
methods; the religious motivation for asking the question is 
not relevant,  as long as we do not presume the answer. I 
will show how the intelligent designauts nevertheless skirt 
the line between science and pseudoscience. Specifically, 
they are a small minority that has  little or no support from 
mainstream scientists and do not publish in refereed 
journals. They  elevate biochemistry to a position of 
privilege among all other sciences. They give short shrift to  
self-organizing systems. Like yeckies, they draw a false 
dichotomy between the modern synthesis  and their form of 
creationism, as if there can be no other possibilities. Like 
pseudoscientists, they  subscribe to a conspiracy theory: 
scientists are so wedded to their wrong theories that they 
will  not even consider a brilliant innovation like 
intelligent design. Finally, the argument of the  intelligent 
designauts boils down not to the argument from design, but 
rather to a God-of-the-gaps  argument; such arguments show 
only failure of imagination and are often discredited by 
subsequent  scientific discoveries.

Biography:

Matt Young is Adjunct Professor of Physics at the Colorado 
School of Mines. In 1999, he retired as Physicist with the 
National Institute of Standards and Technology, where he was 
also chairman of the Editorial Review Board for over 10 
years. Dr. Young is a Fellow of the Optical Society of 
America and winner of the Department of Commerce Gold and 
Silver Medals for work in optical communications. He is the 
author of No Sense of Obligation: Science and Religion in an 
Impersonal Universe, 1stBooks Library, Bloomington, Indiana 
(2001); Optics and Lasers, Including Fibers and Optical 
Waveguides, 5th Edition, Springer, New York (2000); The 
Technical Writer's Handbook, University Science Books, Mill 
Valley, California (1989); and roughly 100 publications, 
including several in science and religion. Formerly, he was a 
faculty member at the University of Waterloo and Rensselaer 
Polytechnic Institute, a consultant to General Electric and 
elsewhere, and a Visiting Scientist at the Weizmann Institute 
of Science.