My two main thrusts are bounded by "***".
> >I would agree (depending on what degree of unorthodoxy one allows with
one
> >still being Christian), using the terms in their ordinary, broad meaning.
> >But certainly not in any of many narrower senses of the terms.
> >I mean, on a broad meaning of the terms, Howard and every other EC/TE I
know
> >of believes in intelligent design.
>
> One would never realise it, from their writings. Indeed, since they attack
> thise who espouse Intelligent Design, a reasonable assumption
> would be that
> EC/TEs really don't believe in Intelligent Design.
I don't mean this in a hostile way, but I think you tend inadvertently to
equivocate a bit, this being an instance. EC/TE's being very receptive to
intelligent design in the broad sense of the term has little to do with
their being receptive to Intelligent Design in the narrower sense of the
term (involving Johnson's view of science, Behe's view of IC, etc.).
> >>JR>Given that ID isn't meant to include everything from
> >>>evolutionary creationism/theistic evolution on the one hand to
> YEC on the
> >>>other, the definition must be narrowed to capture what is
> proposed by ID
> >>>theorists.
>
> >SJ>I disagree. ID does not exclude EC/TEs or YECs. The other
> list I am on
> >>has IDers who range from TEs to YEcs and everything in between.
> >>Indeed, it even includes people who are not even theists. The
> only thing
> >>that ID would exclude are people who are hostile to the
> advancement of ID.
> >>....
>
> JR>I guess I don't know what ID means anymore then. All the
> pro-ID stuff that
> >I am familiar with is explicitly at odds with EC/TE, usually
> relying on the
> >standard (and I think usually overstated) criticisms of
> evolutionary theory
> >(fossil gaps, assumes atheism, no mechanism for macroevolution,
> etc.), more
> >recently relying on Behe's thesis that irreducible complexity
> necessitates
> >un-evolvability (a thesis that seems to me mistaken).
>
> The problem is mainly on the EC/TEs side. They want to dogmatically rule
> out any intervention by God and have Him solely working through natural
> processes. The ID side agrees that God works through natural processes
> but refuses to rule out that God could also have worked interventionally.
I don't think this is true of most EC/TEs, at least not most of the
theologically conservative ones.
Remember: PROVISIONALLY ruling something of SCIENCE, until such time as
there is strong evidence for it, is -very- different from either (1)
ABSOLUTELY ruling something out of SCIENCE, or (2) ruling something out of
REALITY or REASON. Once again, it's easy accidentally to equivocate here,
conflating science with reason, or science with truth/reality. (There's
much more to be said here that I won't say, simply to save space.)
To be more explicit: nearly all EC/TEs are very hesitant to permit "episodic
creation" into -science- (since then science and theology would be
conflated). Some are hesitant to see it as part of reason, others even as
any part of reality (God worked entirely through natural means not just so
far as science can deal with it, but -period-.).
> Indeed, Behe is a case in point. He accepts the evidence for common
> descent (as I do) but does not see that as ruling out God working
> supernaturally through natural processes.
Depending utterly on just what one means through "working supernaturally
through natural processes", I think most EC/TEs would agree. But that's a
tricky phrase. (Not meaningless, just tricky.)
> JR>Now, if I understand you, you're saying that ID is compatible
> with basically
> >any Christian theory of creation -- every one I listed, anyway.
>
> Yes. That should be obvious if TE/ECs paid attention to what Johnson and
> other ID leaders said, for example:
>
> "I believe that a God exists who could create out of nothing if He wanted
> to do so, but who might have chosen to work through a natural
> evolutionary process instead. I am not a defender of creation-science..."
> (Johnson P.E., "Darwin on Trial," 1993, p14)
But doesn't Johnson go on to say that all the evidence points -instead- to
ID? That is, while Christianity is compatible with EC/ET, ID is not?
> instead of viewing them through "Inherit the Wind" filters as
> crypto-YECs,
> as Howard did when he launched his attack on Phil by implying that Phil
> was, the same as a fundamentalist scientific creationist:
>
> "Although the rhetoric Phillip E. Johnson employs in his article
> "Creator or
> Blind Watchmaker?" (FT, January 1993) differs in some details from that
> of the "scientific creationists" of North American Christian
> fundamentalism,
> the effect of his pronouncements is the same." (Van Till H.J., "God and
> Evolution: An Exchange: Howard J. Van Till - Phillip E. Johnson", First
> Things, June 1993.
> http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9306/johnson.html)
I don't have time to re-read that right now, but I'll let Howard speak for
Howard, should he wish to. (He's better at it than I. :^> )
> JR>I have no problem with this, but then I don't know what all the fuss is
> >about.
>
> The "fuss" is mostly on the TE/EC side. It is the *TE/ECs* who first
> attacked Phil Johnson when he appeared on the scene. The first edition of
> Darwin on Trial had almost nothing about TEs in it. It was only after
> attacks by all the TE leaders that Johnson knew that there was something
> deeper behind TE, namely Theistic Naturalism, and he was forced to
> defend himself.
I think Johnson, being extremely smart but neither a scientist nor a
philosopher, has missed it here, or perhaps more precisely, erroneously
overstated his case. (As an aside: I know, he's a master logician, etc. --
but actually, American lawyers are trained to -win arguments- [and law
professors train other soon-to-be-lawyers to do so], not to get to the truth
whatever it may be. -Truth- is the job of the legal system; -winning- is
the job of the lawyer. Ask an American lawyer.) Certainly, I don't know of
any TE/ECs (scientists or philosophers) who think of their view as "Theistic
Naturalism", given that the phrase is self-contradictory (on the
philosophical defns of the terms, anyway). (I know this is Johnson's
perhaps hyperbolic point -- that EC/TEs contradict themselves -- but
obviously, those who accept EC/ET, or even see it as a live option, disagree
with him.)
> JR>I -suspect- you're taking ID in too broad a sense, though, given the
> >other stuff I've read earlier.
>
> I am *living proof* that what I say is correct.
:^>
> I am a member of the ID
> movement in good standing (even with YECs), even though I quite openly
> accept common descent. So is Mike Behe for that matter.
Common descent is necessary but not sufficient for EC/TE, no?
> JR>My own suspicion is that something like what
> >Howard says is right: "ID" as it's usually used (by Christians anyway)
> >implies (and, as you've pointed out, is strongly motivated by) "episodic
> >creationism."
>
> Of *course* ID has a strong component of what Howard pejoratively calls
> "episodic creationism." Apart from it being what Genesis 1 depicts
> (whether one interprets it literally or symbolically), the
> hostility of TE/ECs
> to IDers and therefore the lack of participation by TE/ECs in the ID
> movement, automatically means that that would be the case.
So in your view, episodic creationism is not an essential part of ID?
> The challenge is for leaders of the TE/EC movement to drop their
> hostility
> to IDers and accept that what Howard calls "episodic creationism" is a
> *legitimate* part of an ID research program.
***
I think this is the big issue about ID, not so much whether or not this
could be a part of reality (most, but I guess not all, Christians agree that
it could in principle, anyway), but whether it's properly part of science.
Most Christian scientists, and -nearly all- non-Christian scientists, would
disagree.
BUT: IFF ID theorists can start unambiguously generating and confirming
clear theoretical predictions that impress not only themselves (that's easy
for the proponents of ANY new theory) or laymen (ditto) but other
scientists, I can -easily imagine- the commitment to methodological
naturalism being relaxed.
Right now, -this is still imagination only-. Regardless of the passion of
the argument, the scientific world (as opposed to the philosophical world,
or the theological world) generally -won't even begin- to take ID theory
seriously until they come up with some -objectively-
(or -intersubjectively-) impressive results.
ID theorists believe they are taking steps in that direction, and I'd be
thrilled if they're right, but there's nothing compelling (to me, or to
outsiders) just yet. And that Behe's thesis is a key part of it scares me a
lot -- a pretty weak foundation, if I understand his thesis.
***
> JR>(I'm not referring to his comments about an artisan metaphor,
> >the concept having outlived its usefulness, etc. -- those are
> not in my mind
> >connoted, let alone denoted, by "episodic creationism.")
>
> Good. We may be making *some* progress!
>
> JR>This would explain
> >why published IDers consider it very important to reject methodological
> >naturalism
>
***
> IDers "reject methodological naturalism" as begging the whole question,
> especially in the area of *origins*. Why should it be assumed by ID that
> there is no God (or at least that He hasn't intervened supernaturally)?
> This would only make sense if ID knew in advance that there is no God
> or that he hasn't intervened supernaturally!
As we discussed a year or two ago in painful depth with no resolution :^I,
most scientists (as opposed to PJ) would see your comments as a bit of a
caricature, I think.
Remember: methodological naturalism is a limitation on science, not on
reality generally.
The mainarguments for it are not at all necessarily atheological in nature,
as you may know. Obviously, atheists see methodological naturalism as a
natural implication of metaphysical naturalism, but B's implying A by no
means suggests that A implies B.
As a quickie overview for others (you're familiar with this, Steve, though
it doesn't make sense to you, I take it), the reasons Christian and other
scientists almost always support methodological naturalism are basically
these:
Reasons for methodological naturalism (i.e., roughly, the belief that
science should limit itself to explanations in terms of natural, not
supernatural, forces, objects, and events.)
(1) Natural science is by definition the study of natural, not the
supernatural, world. (Versus theology, or metaphysics, e.g.)
(2) We cannot mathematically model God, which would be necessary to
incorporate Him into scientific theories (at least if they're to have
rigor).
(3) The track record of scientific theories that have violated
methodological naturalism is very poor.
NB that none of these even remotely imply metaphysical naturalism, nor do
they imply that strong belief in God is irrational, unrealistic, naive, or
other criticisms commonly associated with atheology. These express
limitations on science, not limitations on reason, faith, or reality.
(As I recall, the arguments above rolled off you like water off a duck last
time I presented them, and I was not able to get a clear understanding as to
why. I think they just seemed pretty absurd to you. I remember that it
seemed to me that you accepted something like a Christianized version of
scientism, the view that if something is real or true or rational, it must
be captured by science.)
***
> JR>focus on irreducible complexity as an objection to evolutionary
> >theory, etc.
>
> Well, since Darwinism claims to have killed off ID:
>
> "Paley drives his point home with beautiful and reverent
> descriptions of the
> dissected machinery of life, beginning with the human eye, a favourite
> example which Darwin was later to use and which will reappear throughout
> this book. Paley compares the eye with a designed instrument such as a
> telescope, and concludes that 'there is precisely the same proof
> that the eye
> was made for vision, as there is that the telescope was made for
> assisting
> it'. The eye must have had a designer, just as the telescope had. Paley's
> argument is made with passionate sincerity and is informed by the best
> biological scholarship of his day, but it is wrong, gloriously
> and utterly
> wrong. The analogy between telescope and eye, between watch and living
> organism, is false. All appearances to the contrary, the only
> watchmaker in
> nature is the blind forces of physics, albeit deployed in a very
> special way.
> A true watchmaker has foresight: he designs his cogs and springs, and
> plans their interconnections, with a future purpose in his mind's eye.
> Natural selection, the blind, unconscious, automatic process which Darwin
> discovered, and which we now know is the explanation for the existence
> and apparently purposeful form of all life, has no purpose in
> mind. It has no
> mind and no mind's eye. It does not plan for the future. It has
> no vision, no
> foresight, no sight at all. If it can be said to play the role of
> watchmaker in
> nature, it is the blind watchmaker." (Dawkins R., "The Blind Watchmaker,"
> 1991, p5);
And of course, -assuming- atheism, or looking at things merely from the
limited point of view of scientism (versus philosophy/theology, i.e., versus
reason more broadly construed), Dawkins is right. NOT assuming atheism, or
going beyond science to reason and faith more broadly construed, his
assertions are tendentious to say the least.
> and Darwinism has claimed that it would be falsified if it could be shown
> that a complex organ had arisen not by a gradual, stepwise process:
>
> "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could
> not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight
> modifications, my theory would absolutely break down." (Darwin C., "The
> Origin of Species," 6th Edition, 1928, reprint, p170)
>
> then it makes sense for ID to try to falsify Darwinism in this way:
But it's important to realize that Behe's principle, at least when stated
the way I've often seen it (that irreducible complexity necessitates
unevolvability) is -false-, fairly plainly fallacious. IC may imply -more
circuitous- evolution, but hardly unevolvability; not -in principle-,
anyway.
> "Darwin knew that his theory of gradual evolution by natural selection
> carried a heavy burden: ... [same Darwin quote as above] ... It
> is safe to say
> that most of the scientific skepticism about Darwinism in the
> past century
> has centered on this requirement. From Mivart's concern over the
> incipient
> stages of new structures to Margulis's dismissal of gradual
> evolution, critics
> of Darwin have suspected that his criterion of failure had been met. But
> how can we be confident? What type of biological system could not be
> formed by "numerous, successive, slight modifications"? Well, for
> starters,
> a system that is irreducibly complex. By irreducible complexity I mean a
> single system composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that
> contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the
> parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning." (Behe M.J.,
> "Darwin's Black Box," 1996, p38)
>
> Only if Darwinists want their theory to be beyond scientific
> testing, should
> this be resisted by Darwinists (including the theistic variety).
>
> JR>(Given that you're more up on this than I, let me ask you: are
> there any
> >thought leaders in the ID community who explicitly reject Behe's thesis
> >which is [if I understand it] that irreducible complexity necessitates
> >unevolvability? I'm curious; I hope the answer is yes.)
>
> Why should they?
Because it's false, at least as I understand it (IC -> unevolvability). See
above.
> This is *precisely* the test of Darwinism
> that Darwin himself proposed (and his latter day disciple Dawkins)
> has reaffirmed:
>
> "Darwin wrote (in The Origin of Species): ... [same Darwin quote as
> above] ... One hundred and twenty five years on, we know a lot more
> about animals and plants than Darwin did, and still not a single case is
> known to me of a complex organ that could not have been formed by
> numerous successive slight modifications. I do not believe that
> such a case
> will ever be found. If it is - it'll have to be a really complex
> organ, and, as
> we'll see in later chapters, you have to be sophisticated about what you
> mean by 'slight' - I shall cease to believe in Darwinism."
> (Dawkins R., "The
> Blind Watchmaker," 1991, p91)
>
> To want to preserve something called "evolvability" that is immune from
> scientific testing, is pseudoscience.
My point is not at all that evolvability should be immune from science. My
point is just that Behe's thesis, which is (again, if I understand it) that
IC necessitates unevolvability, is false.
To criticize a particular disproof of evolution is not to criticize the
concept of disproving evolution, which is what you're talking about here.
> JR>P. S. Thanks for listing Hodge's defn.
>
> John deleted Hodge's definition,
Actually, no I didn't. You didn't include it in this message. You are
rather reflexively polemical, Steve, which gives you a lot of energy and
persistence, but sometimes muddies your presentation considerably.
> so I am replacing it so we can
> see what he
> is talking about:
>
> "By design is intended,-(1.) The selection of an end to be
> attained. (2.) The
> choice of suitable means for its attainment. (3.) The actual
> application of
> those means for the accomplishment of the proposed end." (Hodge C.,
> "Systematic Theology," [1892], James Clark & Co: London UK, 1960,
> Vol. I, reprint, p216)
>
> JR>But doesn't his notion include in
> >part 3 what would ordinarily be meant by fabrication or manufacturing?
>
> This is too specific, and if I accepted John's "fabrication or
> manufacturing"
> sub-definition, I would no doubt have Howard accuse me of adopting the
> "artisan metaphor"!
>
> A better term for this final stage of design is to call it the
> *realisation*
> stage.
That's fine with me.
> JR>That
> >is, wouldn't accomplishment of either the 1st, or 1st and 2d, or
> even (more
> >strangely) the 2d alone, -without- the 3d part would constitute
> intelligent
> >design in the ordinary sense of the term?
>
> ID might agree that the primary meaning of design would be
> conceptualisation. But it would see no reason to restrict design
> to only the
> first one or two stages and leave out the *realisation* of design stage,
> especially since that is the only way we mere mortals are ever
> going to see
> design?
That's fine, an important subject; I just don't think the
realization/manufacturing/fabrication is what most people think of as
"design."
> JR>Why not use a dictionary defn:
> >Design: "Make or work out a plan for; devise;";"Conceive or
> fashion in the
> >mind; invent"; "Intend or have as a purpose". (These are from my online
> >dictionary. None of the verb defns included the concept of manufacturing
> >the designed object.)
>
> I don't know about Johns's "online dictionary", but the Webster on-line
> dictionary at: http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary), includes in the
> definition of "design" [as a noun] "to create, FASHION, EXECUTE, or
> CONSTRUCT according to plan" (my emphasis):
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Main Entry: 1design
> Pronunciation: di-'zIn
> Function: verb
> Etymology: Middle English, to outline, indicate, mean, from
> Middle French & Medieval Latin; Middle French
> designer to designate, from Medieval Latin designare, from Latin,
> to mark out, from de- + signare to mark --
> more at SIGN
> Date: 14th century
> transitive senses
> 1 : to create, fashion, execute, or construct according to plan :
> DEVISE, CONTRIVE
> 2 a : to conceive and plan out in the mind <he designed the
> perfect crime> b : to have as a purpose :
> INTEND <she designed to excel in her studies> c : to devise for a
> specific function or end <a book
> designed primarily as a college textbook>
> 3 archaic : to indicate with a distinctive mark, sign, or name
> 4 a : to make a drawing, pattern, or sketch of b : to draw the plans for
> intransitive senses
> 1 : to conceive or execute a plan
> 2 : to draw, lay out, or prepare a design
> - de£sign£ed£ly /-'zI-n&d-lE/ adverb
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Note here that the realisation of design is given as the
> *primary* meaning
> of "design". In fact, when the verb option is selected, it gives
> exactly the
> same definitions as the verb.
>
> Steve
Interesting. My MW offline dictionary (i.e., a book) has (2) as the primary
meaning. (And I'll presume the stuff about nouns and verbs was a series of
typos, or am I missing something?) I know I'm a fairly sophisticated
English speaker, and I've never heard "design" to be used to refer to
fabrication or manufacturing or the broader "realization", but it's a free
world -- maybe there are folks who do. And certainly designers are -linked
to- and have a -causal connection with- manufacturing. But design is not
the sane as realization; unless, I suppose, one is manufacturing a design.
The point is just to be clear about the meaning of words. This doesn't
affect the substance of the discussion at all.
John