Here is a post from another list I am on where I posted the same message,
with the above title, that I posted here. As can be seen, the author (whose
name I have deleted) lists some 14 questions that "Design as a Research
Program" can address, the first 12 prior to investigating who the Designer
is or why He did it.
Maybe this will help those who want a simple definition or quick test of
design, to realise that it is really a very complex problem, which might
take the best part of the 21st Century to unpack.
Ironically, the wheel has turned full-circle since Darwin's day. It is now
the designists who are the radicals embarking on the pursuit of an exciting
new research program, and the anti-designists who are the reactionaries,
trying to stop the investigation of design because they think they already
know the answers!
Steve
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I think Waddington is just plain wrong, or, at the very least, obsolete.
Bill Dembski has listed a number of fruitful questions that can be asked
*prior to* any discussion about the intentions and identity of the
hypothetical designer. His book., The Design Inference, is devoted
almost exclusively to question 1.
I sent these on May 18, but I'll list them again. Steve, feel to post
them on the Calvin reflector (I'm sure Bill won't mind).
[...]
Design as a Research Program
+14 Questions to Ask About Design+
1. Detectability Problem --- How is design detected?
2. Functionality Problem --- What is a designed object's function?
3. Transmission Problem --- How does an object's design trace back
historically? (search for narrative)
4. Construction Problem --- How was a designed object constructed?
5. Reverse-Engineering Problem --- How could a designed object have
been constructed?
6. Perturbation Problem --- How has the original design been modified
and what factors have been modified?
7. Variability Problem --- What degree of perturbation allows continued
functioning?
8. Restoration Problem --- Once perturbed, how can original design be
recovered?
9. Constraints Problem --- What are the constraints within which a
designed object functions well and outside of which it breaks?
10. Optimality Problem --- In what way is the design optimal?
11. Ethical Problem --- Is the design morally right?
12. Aesthetic Problem --- Is the design beautiful?
13. Intentionality Problem --- What was the intention of the designer?
14. Identity Problem --- Who is the designer?
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[...]
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"When we consider a human work, we believe we know where the
`intelligence' which fashioned it comes from; but when a living being is
concerned, no one knows or ever knew, neither Darwin nor Epicurus,
neither Leibniz nor Aristotle, neither Einstein nor Parmenides. An act of
faith is necessary to make us adopt one hypothesis rather than another.
Science, which does not accept any credo, or in any case should not,
acknowledges its ignorance, its inability to solve this problem which, we
are certain, exists and has reality. If to determine the origin of information
in a computer is not a false problem, why should the search for the
information contained in cellular nuclei be one?" (Grasse P.-P., "Evolution
of Living Organisms: Evidence for a New Theory of Transformation,"
Academic Press: New York NY, 1977, p2)
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