On Mon, 30 Sep 1996 17:12:16 GMT, David J. Tyler wrote:
[...]
DT>Although I am an advocate of ID, I am not setting out to
>"demonstrate intentional design". I am recognising that God has
>designed and created the Cosmos, and that life is a special
>feature of his creation. That is a starting principle.
>Naturalists have a different starting principle. They seem
>unconcerned to "demonstrate" their starting point, and I would
>argue that there is no necessity for ID advocates to demonstrate
>theirs. It is a matter of presupposition. On these different
>foundations, scholarly work is (or can be) undertaken. Is it
>useful? I, for one, consider that it will take us away from
>numerous impasse situations in current research, and will mean
>that we avoid numerous blind alleys which others have gone down.
>It will open up new avenues of investigation.
I have stayed out of this "demonstrate intentional design" thread
because I am so far behind! :-) But I must say I heartily agree.
Intelligent Design is an immediate corollary of belief in an
Intelligent Designer (ie. God), and belief in God is an ultimate
metaphysical *starting point*.
Intelligent Design (if it exists) is the most general principle
applicable to the Universe and therefore most difficult to reduce to
a snappy formula or a criterion of "usefulness" in science. By
analogy, think of the difficulty of reducing all of physics to one
Grand Unified Theory. As I understand it, even if the GUT is found,
it will not be very useful:
"The extraordinary metaphysical significance of a unified theory of
the four forces is illustrated by the names physicists give to it:
"the holy grail of physics," the final theory" and especially "the
theory of everything." These romantic titles are not justified by
any tangible accomplishments expected to flow directly from the
theory itself, since even a successful unified theory is not expected
to tell us anything in particular about such mysteries as how
galaxies and galactic clusters form, how life arose or why people
behave as they do." (Johnson P.E., "Reason in the Balance",
InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove Ill, 1995, p56).
Romans 1:20 tells us that all men are already aware of God "by the
things that are made", but they suppress this knowledge. That is,
the *design* of natural things as *manufactured* objects forces
itself intuitively upon all men, hence the universal experience of
belief in a supreme God among all races of men. It is probably
impossible to *prove* intelligent design to a determined non-theist,
but if Paul is right, there is no need to - the non-theist already
knows it! :-)
It is noteworthy that so strong is this impression of design that
even non-theists let it slip that they are well aware of it, even
though they must (by their non-theistic metaphysical worldview) call
it only *apparent* design. For example, arch-atheist Dawkins' says:
"Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance
of having been designed for a purpose." (Dawkins R., "The Blind
Watchmaker", Penguin: London, 1991, p1)
And non-theist physicist Paul Davies writes at the very end of his
book, the Cosmic Blueprint:
"...there is `something going on' behind it all [the universe]. The
impression of design is overwhelming." (Davies P., "The Cosmic
Blueprint", Penguin: London, 1995 reprint, p203)
Design is not easily seen in the component parts of an artefact, but
rather *as a whole*. For example, the Taj Mahal probably doesn't
exhibit too much design to an ant crawling over its surface! :-)
Design arguments therefore can be rejected by those determined to use
reductionist thinking as a tactic. All they need to do is break
every work of art down into components and if necessary into atoms
and design disappears. Therefore, if there is design, it must be
most evident in the *whole* and less evident in the parts. C.S.
Lewis was aware of this, because he has one of his characters say:
"All that is made seems planless to the darkened mind, because there
are more plans than it looked for. In these seas there are islands
where the hairs of the turf are so fine and so closely woven together
that unless a man looked long at them he would see neither hairs nor
weaving at all, but only the same and the flat. So with the Great
Dance. Set your eyes on one movement and it will lead you through
all patterns and it will seem to you the master movement. But the
seeming will be true. Let no mouth open to gainsay it. There seems
no plan because it is all plan: there seems no centre because it is all
centre. Blessed be He!" (Lewis C.S., "Perelandra", The Bodley Head:
London, 1977, p251)
God bless.
Steve
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