Here is a paper I found on the 'net which sets out clearly
a `taxonomy' of various anti-design and design positions.
The author, Prof. J. Budziszewski, of the Departments of
Government and Philosophy, The University of Texas at Austin,
Texas, is a member of the ID movement.
He has kindly given me permission to repost his paper
to the Calvin Reflector, with his name and university
address attrubuted, but with his email address not included.
Steve
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A LADDER OF POSITIONS CONCERNING INTELLIGENT DESIGN
I. SOME COMMON ANTI-DESIGN POSITIONS
(the names for these positions vary among different writers)
The contemporary anti-design movement reflects not a single naturalistic
philosophy but a coalition among people with various naturalistic philo-
sophies.
RUNG 1: ATHEIST NATURALISM. There is no God.
There is no design. Nature is all there is.
RUNG 2: AGNOSTIC NATURALISM. There may be a God,
but He doesn't do anything. There is no design,
and though Nature is not all there is, Nature is
certainly all that matters.
RUNG 3: THEISTIC NATURALISM. God fashioned the
natural laws, but without any particular outcome
in mind. There is still no design in the strict sense,
and although *in principle* Nature is not all that
matters, *in effect* it is.
RUNG 4: METHODOLOGICAL NATURALISM. God may have acted
as a designer, but in the study of Nature, we must act
as though he couldn't have. In particular, we must deny
that Nature could contain *evidence* for design, and refuse,
when asked, to look for any.
II. SOME COMMON DESIGN POSITIONS
(again, the names for the positions vary)
Like the contemporary anti-design movement, the contemporary design
movement reflects not a single philosophy but a coalition -- in this
case, a coalition among people with various design philosophies.
Design thinkers are united in accepting the Design Inference, by
which we recognize that design has taken place. In other words, they
agree not only that there has been design, but that its effects are
empirically detectable. They amicably disagree over how it was done.
Whether any *further* empirical evidence might help to resolve that
question is not yet known; that would be the *next* Design Inference.
First things first.
RUNG 5: NOMOLOGICAL DESIGN. A Designer designed the
natural laws so that their ordinary operation would result
in the intended outcome.
RUNG 6: INITIALIST DESIGN. To ensure the intended
outcome, the Designer not only designed the natural laws,
but also determined their initial conditions.
RUNG 7: INTERVENTIONIST DESIGN. To ensure the intended
outcome, the Designer not only designed the natural laws and
determined their initial conditions, but also *intervened*
in at least some of the subsequent conditions.
RUNG 8: INSERTIONIST DESIGN ("SPECIAL" CREATION). Still for
the same reason, the Designer not only designed the natural
laws, determined their initial conditions, and intervened in
subsequent conditions, but directly inserted at least some
information into the genetic code.
OTHER RUNGS. It is logically possible to make the Design
Inference without adopting any of the positions listed above.
In particular, one might suggest that the Designer acted in
the later stages of the process but not the earlier ones --
an option which attracts atheists who cannot resist the Design
Inference but refuse to identify the Designer with God. Fred
Hoyle, for example, speculated that extraterrestrial races
might have long ago seeded our planet with germs of life which
would not have arisen spontaneously.
A CRUCIAL CLARIFICATION
It is crucial to understand that although most Intelligent Design
thinkers believe that the Designer is God, all of them make a strict
distinction between the Design Inference, and the Theistic Inference
-- the inference by which we recognize that design has taken place,
and the inference by which we identify the Designer with God.
The theological import of the Design Inference is not that it coincides
with the Theistic Inference, but that it eliminates a common *objection*
to the Theistic Inference (that we don't need to assume God because we
can explain everything just fine without Him). Richard Dawkins credits
Darwin with making it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.
If the Design Inference is valid, then it is still possible to be an
atheist -- but not so easy for an atheist to be intellectually fulfilled.
One disadvantage of any Intelligent Design theory which *refused* to
identify the Designer with God would be that in this case the Designer is
not a necessary being, but a contingent being or beings. But if we have
reason to believe that we could not have come to be without the designing
actions of these contingent beings, of design, then we must ask how they
could have come to be without still earlier acts of design -- and so on,
producing an infinite regress.
J. Budziszewski
Departments of Government and Philosophy
The University of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas
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Stephen E. (Steve) Jones ,--_|\ Email: sejones@iinet.net.au
3 Hawker Avenue / Oz \ Web: http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
Warwick 6024 -> *_,--\_/ Phone: +61 8 9448 7439
Perth, Western Australia v "Test everything." (1 Thess. 5:21)
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