With the upcoming holidays, and a busy schedule, I'll
make this my last contribution to this discussion (at
least for the rest of the 20th century!). I'll break them
into three parts.
I wrote:
>It would seem to me that an ID proponent is constrained
>to working closely with the analogy of human design (the
>only truly known example of intelligence capable of
>sophisticated engineering). Such constraints entail
>a clear link between design and rationality, meaning
>that any attempts to attribute tricks, artistic license,
>sense of humor, etc., to the designer are out of
>bounds. ID does not reduce to an IPU as long as
>these constraints are adhered to.
Tim replies:
>An unconfirmed auxilliary hypothesis and counter to
>known human examples. There are many objects created
>by humans for which we can no longer fathom the purpose.
>Humans also have humor and employ pranks. There is
>no pre-requisite that says a designer must be understandable
>to be detected.
That this employs an "unconfirmed auxilliary hypothesis"
is not important to me. For I would consider this to be a
defining working hypothesis where the designer is analogous
not to an artist, or a comedian, but an engineer. The price
one pays is an inability to detect the artist or prankster-designer,
but one then is in a better position to detect the engineer-designer
against the backdrop of non-intelligent causes. The methodological
constraint of tying design to a *rational* engineering plan
removes the ad hoc explanations that can be used to "rescue"
a design inference and thus makes it far more rigorous.
Me:
>I should also point out that modern science is premised
>on the faith assumption that empirical reality is rational.
>This faith, in turn, was derived mainly from the Judeo-Christian
>world view (explaining why so many founders of modern
>science adopted this world view; their science being ways
>to "think God's thoughts after Him.") In my opinion,
>ID works only if it continues in these steps. After all,
>it is my impression that you are a Christian theist (correct
>me if I am wrong). If so, as Christian theists, we have
>a very rich tradition of theology that rules out the notion
>that the Creator is a trickster and deceiver. And if one
>is to equate the designer with a supernatural designer, then
>as far as IPUs are concerned, it makes no sense whatsoever
>to ignore this theology.
Tim:
>I am not Christian. I am a scientist and my working assumption
>is that empirical reality is rational.
Which is an assumption you inherited from Judeo-Christian
theology.
>However, I make no statements about the possible intentions of
>a supernatural designer and I would not claim that such an intelligence
>would have fathomable objectives or motives.
>One objection I have which I've discussed with Paul Nelson is the
>problem that many in the ID movement (certainly most of the leaders)
>are Christian and this has limited their views of ID to how their Creator may
>behave, as opposed to how *a* creator may behave. Paul has admitted
>this presupposition does limit some of their expectations.
No offense, Tim, but you seem to impose much greater restrictions
on how a creator may behave. Judging from the data you would
consider evidence of design, this creator would have to be
obsessed with being credited for his design and/or not involve
the process of evolution in any way. Your expectations appear
to be far more limited that Paul Nelson's, so I'm not sure you
are the one to give this advice. ;)
>Besides, the question is not whether a designer is a
>trickster or not, but whether a designer could be detected.
>This is a question of distinguishablity and my one
>central query for you.
Are you asking if we have a 'designer-meter', where
we could point some instrument at the world and
register the existence of a designer? To me, the central
question would be if we can detect and build on
fingerprints of design in a reality where 'designer-meters'
don't exist.
Tim:
>>I disagree; identifying corraborating evidence from completely
>>different fields of inquiry can provide *powerful* support for
>>a theory.
Me:
>Like I said, I do not think finding black obelisks constitute
>merely corroborating evidence and powerful support. That
>would be data that goes far beyond this level of knowledge
>and take us close to the realm of certainty. But I don't
>think we need to jump from "no evidence" to "certainty"
>to think about ID.
Tim:
>I have given other examples which may support ID in ancient
>history but which would be far from certain. Find other
>evidence of an ID creator in the distance past and you've
>got a lot more to go on.
Quite true. But if ID is true, is there really any reason
to think we should be able to "find other evidence of an
ID creator?" I don't see any such reason. Thus, it would
be nice if this existed, but its nonexistence means only
that one will need to come up with other ways to
detecting fingerprints of design if they exist.
>I also cited other examples which
>do not rely on direct evidence of the existence of a designer.
>Merely finding a possible agent does not mean that the agent
>did anything. But it does provide evidence of a possible
>mechanism (the agent) at the right place and time.
Yes, let's look more closely at your other examples.
You wrote:
>Let me suggest some conditions which would could trigger my
>suspicions. Correlations across groups where there are no strong
>naturalistic reasons to connect the relationships? For example,
>if groups of species could be found to fit an arrayed pattern
>much like the periodic chart of the elements, then I might say
>that there was reason to suspect ID. That's because an arrayed
>pattern would be unexpected, assuming common descent with
>modification.
There are three things worth pointing out here.
First, while I can't read your mind, I doubt very much this
would trigger design suspicions in the mind of the scientific
community. After all, we already possess two phenomena
where a pattern of similarities does not correspond to
assumptions of common descent with modification. Science
calls these 'convergent evolution' and 'horizontal transfer.'
In fact, if such a pattern was found, I would predict that
the scientific community would not only continue to
lack any suspicions of design, but would instead focus
on the way this pattern changes how we view evolution.
After all, notice that you are still at the level where a
mere suspicion *might* be triggered. You raise
the possibility where the pattern of groupings does
not reflect common descent with modification (ie, no
phylogeny), where "groups of species could be found to
fit an arrayed pattern much like the periodic chart of the
elements," and all that happens is you "might" say there is
a reason to merely suspect design.
Secondly, it is worth noting that a data pattern not
expected from common descent and modification
"might" indeed trigger a design suspicion in your mind.
What you have shown is that we really don't need evidence
of a designer himself to trigger the design inference.
Instead, difficulties in coming up with naturalistic
reasons are sufficient. Of course, one's interpretation of
the degree and meaning of difficulty is likely to vary, but
we're still talking about a design suspicion without any evidence
of a designer. This is also significant because many
critics of ID complain that ID is nothing but an anti-evolution
movement, but you seem to vaguely recognize the
utility of anti-evolution arguments (you simply don't
think they are valid).
Thirdly, we need to keep in mind that ID need not be
anti-evolution. ID could easily be followed by a long
history of evolution (a view much closer to Howard's views
than the ICRs views). That is, ID could have been used
to stack the evolutionary cards, such that a pattern of
evolution since doesn't translate as evidence of a non-ID
explanation during these initial states.
Another possible form of suspicion-generating evidence is
cited as:
>Signature sequences may also trigger suspicion --
>after all, that's how many genetically modified organisms are
>currently being identified and tracked. It would depend on how
>the sequences come out. This certainly wouldn't be proof of ID,
>but it should trigger deeper investigation. Other ID'ists have
>suggested mining the sequence database for evidence and I agree
>that it would be a reasonable place to look.
I don't know, as this sounds too close to numerology to me.
What exactly is one looking for? Without an idea of a
what the specific sequence would look like, this approach
would be similar to the "Bible Code" approach, where
we may be prone to reading signatures into the sequence.
I once read that there was an ELVIS motif in many proteins
(glu-leu-val-ile-ser) and the author playfully cited this
as evidence that Elvis Presley is the Creator.
The other problem is that such signature sequences, deposited
in ancient history, would quickly decay. The only way
to prevent this is to tie the sequence with function. But then
such signature sequences would be interpreted as evidence
of homology or acquisition through lateral transfer.
One final example:
>If we found evidence of a ancient spaceship, and the date of
>burial corresponded to a major shift or emergence in groups of
>organisms, then I would also become more thoughtful of possible
>intelligent intervention. Note that finding the spaceship
>wouldn't be proof of intelligent design, but at least finding
>a spaceship (or evidence of past landing) presents us with the
>information that an agent *capable* of intervention encountered
>the earth in the past. It greatly increases the feasibility
>of ID.
So an ID theorist is supposed to be digging for spaceships?
This sounds rather weird to me. This would make ID analogous
to the "cranks" looking to capture Big Foot or diving to find
the Lost City of Atlantis.
I suppose that the discovery of patterns not explained by evolution,
signature sequences, and buried spacecrafts might indeed cause
some to suspect design (and I suspect most would remain out
of the scientific community), but there is bigger problem with
all this, namely, none of this follows from an ID perspective.
ID does not entail no evolution, nor does it entail the discovery
of ancient signature sequences, not does it entail ancient
alien spacecrafts buried on earth.
It would seem to me if the ID people are to ever make progress
with their ideas, they would have to spend their time doing
things other than proving evolution is wrong, finding secret
messages in the DNA, and going on expeditions looking for
spaceships (in fact, one can almost understand why ID critics
would say this is what they need to do - just consider the
imagery of such people focused on these efforts as something
that defines ID). I personally think there is a much
better way ID could express itself and I'll try to show how
in my reply to the remainder of your letter.
Mike