One of the reasons for the fundamental failure of ID theory is
that it has no solid and non_arbitrary concept of design.
Ordinarily, we develop the concept of design from human
action and how it is *distinguished* from the things we find
in Nature which either have no designers or that have some
that are not yet observed, especially in the act of designing or
implementing their designs. We observe a starfish on the
beach and, because we know it is not the sort of thing that is
normally made by humans, and because we see no signs of
its being made, "put together" from a collection of separate
parts (as a watch is, for example), we conclude that it is not
designed (at least by humans). If we find a watch on the
beach, we conclude from the fact that it *is* the sort of
things known to be designed, and from signs of manufacture,
and from the fact that the parts are *put* together rather than
*grown* together, that it *is* designed.
But ID theory rests on a different approach to design. In this
approach, a concept of design is defined in an essentially
*arbitrary* way, apart from, or without essential use of, the
*known* facts of designed and undesigned things. In this
view, some concept of design is simply defined into
existence, and then it is used to determine whether things are
designed (with little regard for whether there is anything
empirical about them that would, *aside* from this arbitrary
view of design, lead us to think that they are designed).
Thus, the mere presence of order in the world is enough to
lead some to argue that there must be a super_designer (i.e.,
God). Why? Because the world fits their concept of design,
even though we have *never* seen this alleged God doing
any design, and even though it is not like something *we*
would design, and even though they cannot coherently
describe a universe that did not have order arising from
causality and the nature of such a universe's components.
Biological ID theorists do essentially the same thing. They've
never actually observed their designer, they've never actually
seen anything being built by this designer, and none of the
things that they are so intent upon attributing design to show
any of the special characteristics that *human* designed
things do. Their concept of design is, in fact, a floating
abstraction, a Platonic "Form" that they have, essentially,
simply *made up* in order to serve their special purposes (or
at least *adopted* for those special purposes).
In other words, ID theory does things *backwards*. Instead
of starting with observable facts and using them to determine
meaningful ideas about design, they start with an arbitrary
idea of design and use *that* to determine whether things are
designed.
The entire enterprise of ID theory depends on this
fundamental error. And, until some means is found to correct
it, it will have little or nothing to offer of any substance at all
(or if it does, it will be, ironically, *accidental*, rather than
by design).
Note that we need not claim that their *arguments* from
empirical facts of biology to design are unsound. All we need
to do is point out that their concept of design itself is
unsound and not properly founded, *regardless* of how it is
applied.
By *their* method, we could in fact just as well claim that
nothing that *humans* do is designed, simply by arbitrarily
*defining* design in such a way that it does not apply to any
human actions. In fact, by their method, we could define
design in such a way that Nature would be regarded as
designed and all human actions would be regarded as
accidental and design_free.
Why not? After all, once we take the Platonic/Rationalistic,
divorced_from_reality approach to defining design, we can
pretty much make it be whatever we want.
And that is why it is invalid. It has essentially no objective,
factual basis. ID simply *makes up* a concept (or, more
accurately, a *pseudo_concept* of design) and then
reinterprets the world by it.
So, my challenge to ID theorists is to come up with a concept
of design which is objectively founded on observable facts
and that does not, in effect, *assume* that life or Nature is
designed. Obviously, a concept of design *based* on the
assumption that life is designed is of no value, because it
begs the question. Good luck to all who make the attempt.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Sep 02 2000 - 02:15:42 EDT