How could earwax provide a response to arguments against design? Well I’ll tell you…
Looking through the contents of Nature Genetics the other week I had a good laugh at the title, “A SNP in the ABCC11 gene is the determinant of human earwax type.” I wondered what in the world a paper about dry versus wet earwax was doing in the most prestigious journal of genetics. It soon became evident when I realized that the paper showed that there was only one nucleotide difference between the two phenotypes. That is a very big deal indeed!
When I showed the paper to a colleague he had the same reaction. Eventually impressed he said, “Well, I guess we can close the book on earwax!” How true. Not that I suppose many are trying, but no one is ever again going to have any hope of getting a grant funded so that they can study the genetic basis of dry earwax. Please note this: Science has been stopped!!!
For those of you just tuning in, one of the most common arguments leveled against intelligent design is that it is a science stopper. That is, once design has been invoked there is no more science to do. Amazingly, I have heard no outcry from these same people when it comes to earwax. Why?
There are two reasons that we are all okay with the above earwax research. The first is that we know that other science continues to go on, even if we have stopped seeking the genetic basis for dry earwax. Not only does science in general go on but (if anyone is interested) research about earwax goes on. Someone may very well be out there right now developing a genetic treatment for dry earwax (only I hope that he is not using my tax dollars). Likewise design detection does not stop scientific research; it redirects that research.
The second reason no one is crying foul is that it is easy to see that science is stopped because we have gained knowledge. Knowledge is the end goal of research, once it is gained we have reached the end and there is no reason to pursue the same line of enquiry further. Again, this applies to intelligent design. Discovering that a structure was designed no more stops science than discovering that it has a particular evolutionary history.
The real reason that those who argue against design are upset is that they think that design theorists will simply invoke design where they are ignorant instead of where they have gained knowledge. The real problem then is not science stopping, but whether or not intelligent design is an argument from ignorance. I briefly commented on this argument in my first post here, and the IDEA Center has a short and long response here. Of course, the label “science stopper” has a great impact value, so I doubt it will go out of style anytime soon. But from now on I’ll at least have a chuckle about earwax when I hear it.
