Someone recently asked me for comments on Behe's proposition regarding
"design" in _Darwin's Black Box_ Given the current discussion regarding ID,
the following might be relevant:
1. Preliminary question: what does it mean to be "designed":
In contemporary usage, the term "designed" most commonly draws our attention
to the idea of _thoughtful intention_, or planning for the purpose of
accomplishing something intended. "Design" in this sense is the intentional
and purposeful action of a mind.
As I see it, however, the _effecting_ of a design, or the actualization of
what was planned, constitutes a distinctly different sort of action. In a
modern manufacturing system, for instance, there is one team of persons in
charge of design (planning), and another team of persons in charge of
fabricating (actualizing) what has been designed.
An earlier and more inclusive usage of the term "designed" (as employed in
the 18th century by William Paley, for instance) was based on the artisan
metaphor. One person, the artisan, did BOTH the planning AND the fabrication
of what was planned. Paley's watchmaker did both the planning and the
construction of the watch. Paley's Watchmaker (the prototype for his
Designer) had both a mind (to plan, or intend) and "hands" (the means to
fabricate, or actualize).
2. Comments on Behe's use of the term "designed:"
As I see it, Behe (like "ID theorists" in general) fails to distinguish the
action of actualization from the action of planning. According to Behe, for a
life form to be "designed" means BOTH (1) to be the outcome of thoughtful
intention or purposeful planning, AND (2) to have been actualized by means
that transcend the capacities of any "creature" (atom, molecule, cell, etc.)
to accomplish. The Paleyan artisan metaphor prevails in Behe's concept of
"design."
With Behe, I believe that the universe is permeated with evidence for its
being the outcome of thoughtful and purposeful intention. With Behe, I
believe that the universe is a Creation that has been given being by a
mindful Creator. As a Creation, each of its capacities for the actualization
of form (the realization of a created potentiality) is to be seen as a
God-given gift.
Are there gaps in the fabric of Creation's developmental capabilities? Did
God withhold a few selected form-actualizing gifts from his Creation, and is
the science of biochemistry now on the verge of detecting those missing
gifts? Did God have to forcibly assemble some of the creatures that he had
earlier planned? I think not. Given the increasing rate at which we are
becoming more aware of the remarkable robustness of the Creation's gifts for
actualizing potential forms and structures, I see no reason whatsoever to
expect that the Creator chose at the beginning to withhold a few specific
gifts so that a succession of extraordinary acts of form-fabrication would
then, in the course of time, be required to bridge those developmental gaps.
As a Christian trained in science, then, I choose not to search for gifts
withheld from the Creation, but to recognize the Creator's generosity in each
creaturely gift that the sciences are privileged to discover. I wish to have
no part in Behe's search for gaps in the developmental economy of the
Creation.
[For a more complete development of this point of view, see my essay, "Basil,
Augustine, and the Doctrine of Creation's Functional Integrity," Science and
Christian Belief, Vol. 8 (1), April 1996, pp. 21-38.]
3. Comments on Behe's rhetoric:
Behe treats the conceptual vocabulary of biochemistry as the fundamental and
comprehensive language of explanation for anything related to the function or
development of life forms. Furthermore, contemporary scientific descriptions
of evolutionary development are restricted by Behe to a strict Darwinian,
gene-centered gradualism; recent work by people like Brian Goodwin (with his
emphasis on the developmental role of whole-system structures) or Stuart
Kauffman (with his emphasis on the self-organizational capacities of complex
interactive systems) is rather quickly dismissed. Given those restrictive
choices, Behe's reasoning proceeds as follows:
(1) If the first actualization of some particular life form cannot now be
fully described within the limited conceptual vocabularies of biochemistry
and Darwinian gradualism, then that life form must have been "designed" in
the Paleyan sense of having been assembled by means of coercive action by
some other agent.
(2) In the examples cited by Behe, no biochemist has yet been able to provide
such a full biochemical explanation/description of the first actualization of
that life form.
(3) Therefore, these examples provide proof of at least some life forms
having been "designed," that is, assembled/actualized by means other than the
dynamic, self-organizational capacities of systems of atoms, molecules and
cells. Their structures could not, according to Behe, have been accomplished
by the exercise of their God-given self-organizational or transformational
capacities, but must have been imposed on them from the outside.
The fallacy is self-evident: if one places unachievable or unrealistic
demands on all explanations other than "design" (imposed structure), then all
explanations other than "design" will surely fail. Behe (like ID theorists
generally) has demonstrated nothing more than the limits of our current
understanding.