>It takes a great deal of evidence to demonstrate intentional design.
Agreed. It takes a great deal of evidence to demonstrate ANYTHING
of genuine moment in science.
>Then it takes a great deal of evidence to demonstrate the particular
>designer.
Agreed. But how serious a problem is this, really?
"...the whole of natural theology, as some people seem to maintain,
resolves itself into one simple, thought somewhat ambiguous, at least
undefined, proposition, *That the cause or causes of order in the
universe probably bear some remote analogy to human intelligence*..."
(David Hume, _Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion_, pt XII).
At the end of the _Dialogues_, Hume consents to this attentuated
statement of design, but says it "affords no inference that affects
human life." In other words, design may be true, but it is empirically empty.
Seen from an ID perspective, however, a bare generic intelligence
may afford one a great deal indeed, scientifically speaking. Everything turns
on how the ID theory cashes out that intelligence in relation to the phenomena
to be explained. And that "cashing-out" cannot be pre-judged. One has
to look at the ID theory in some detail, in particular, in relation to its
competitors.
Tom concludes:
>So, the question I asked, is it useful? If, and only if, there is any
>chance of determining if it is design and who designed it in an objective
>fashion. The alien hypothesis, at least, has the potential to meet these
>criteria. ID, in the supernatural sense, does not.
If ID "in the supernatural sense" is, in principle, empirically empty, then
what was Darwin doing in the _Origin of Species_?
"He who believes that each being has been created as we now see it,
must occasionally have felt surprise when he has met with an animal
having habits and structure not at all in agreement. What can be plainer
than that the webbed feet of ducks and geese are formed for swimming?
yet there are upland geese with webbed feet which rarely or never go
near the water..." (_Origin of Species_ [1859, 185])
Ernst Mayr, in his introduction to the 1964 facsimile reprint of the _Origin_,
writes of this and many other sections in Darwin's "one long argument,"
that Darwin
was converted to his new ideas only after he had made
numerous observations that were to him quite incompatible
with creation. He felt strongly that he must establish this
point decisively before his readers would be willing to listen
to the evolutionary interpretation. Again and again, he
describes phenomena that do not fit the creation theory.
Darwin, to his everlasting credit, took the "ID theory" of his time seriously,
and tested it. The theory came up short, but it *did* come up short. It was
testable, and Darwin tested it. This simply cannot be done from a
philosophical armchair, however.
Many current skeptics of ID want to shut down the theory before testing
even commences. They'd like a philosophical shortcut to dumping ID.
It can't be tested *in principle*, thus the argument runs, so don't even try.
That's too easy (actually, too lazy). As Del points out in his book,
there just aren't good philosophical shortcuts in science. You've
got to get down and dirty with the theory at hand and the data, and,
for that task, in-principle arguments about the "supernatural" and the
putative limits of science won't do.
As with other ID skeptics on this list, Tom is 100 percent right to want more
details. But he shouldn't in the same breath declare the theory inherently
untestable.
Paul Nelson