Reflectorites
On Wed, 20 Sep 2000 08:09:06 -0500, Chris Cogan wrote:
[...]
>>RW>That depends on the definition of ID (which we're still waiting for).
>SJ>>Well wait no longer! Here is a "definition of ID" from Dembski that is easily
>>accessible on the web.
>>
>>"ID is the scientific claim that there is evidence of intelligent
>>causation in the biological nature that is empirically detectable.
>>What is science going to look like once Intelligent Design
>>succeeds? To answer this question we need to be clear what we
>>mean by Intelligent Design. Intelligent Design is not repackaged
>>creationism, nor religion masquerading as science. Intelligent
>>Design holds that intelligent causation is an irreducible feature of
>>the bio-physical universe, and furthermore that intelligent causation
>>is empirically detectable. It is unexceptionable that intelligent causes
>>can do things which unintelligent causes cannot. Intelligent Design
>>provides a method for distinguishing between intelligent and
>>unintelligent causes, and then applies this method to the special
>>sciences." (Dembski W.A., "The Explanatory Filter: A three-part
>>filter for understanding how to separate and identify cause from
>>intelligent design," The Real Issue, 16 May 1997.
>>http://www.origins.org/real/r19602/dembski.html)
>CC>Dembski claims that ID is not creationism, but does not specify how it
>significantly *differs* from creationism. In fact, the description he gives
>looks like a description of creationism, with a few items left out, such as
>the six-day thing, etc.
Not really. Creationism, in its broadest sense, is the claim that God created
the universe and, directly or indirectly, everything in it. There are plenty
of defintions of creationism which more of less say the same thing. For
example here is a definition of "creationism" from a dictionary written by
an evolutionist which is dedicated to creation/evolution terms:
"CREATIONISM. The belief in the CREATION of the
UNIVERSE, including MAN and all other LIFE forms, by a
supernatural Creator. In the Judeo-Christian heritage this has
traditionally meant belief in creation as specifically described in the
biblical book of Genesis." (Ecker R.L., "Dictionary of Science &
Creationism," Prometheus Books: Buffalo NY, 1990, p.57)
Intelligent design, in Dembski's sense, is "the scientific claim that there is
evidence of intelligent causation in the biological nature that is empirically
detectable." There is no claim by Dembski who (or what) did the
"intelligent causation", nor that he (or it) created the universe.
Dembski (like me) is quite up-front that he personally *believes* that the
"intelligent causation" was ultimately the Judeo-Christian Creator-God, but
he frankly admits (as I do too) that there is no way that anyone could
actually *prove* that. Several centuries of Christian natural theology
has demonstrated that one cannot get from design in nature to conclusively
proving that the designer was the Christian God.
Just as finding a designed object like an archaeological artefact or a SETI
message does not tell us who the designer was (unless the designer's name
was part of the object and even then we might be little the wiser), so just
proving that (say) the bacterial flagella or the vertebrate blood-clotting was
intelligently designed would not tell us that the designer was the Christian
God, or even that it was the same designer in both cases.
As I have said before, ID is a theory about *design*, it is not a theory about
the *Designer*. It is the Intelligent *Design* movement, not the Intelligent
*Designer* movement.
CC>It *is* unexceptional (with some qualifications or exceptions! :-) )
>"that intelligent causes can do things which unintelligent causes cannot,"
>and that's actually a good way of approaching the issue.
There is no need for "qualifications or exceptions". It simply *is*
"unexceptionable that intelligent causes can do things which unintelligent
causes cannot". The sciences of archaeology and SETI, for example,
are *based* on this assumption.
Indeed, as I have pointed out in responses to Pim van Meurs (alias
FMAJ1019), much of law is based on this assumption. If someone is found
dead and natural causes are eliminated, it is then assumed that it is either a
case of murder or suicide. Insurance companies pay out large amounts of
money depending on the outcome of this ``explanatory filter' and human
beings are routinely sent to prison or executed on the strength of it.
Those who deny this need to get up from the keyboard, make a cup of tea,
sit down in a quiet place, and take a reality check! :-)
CC>The problem is
>that life as such and life in Nature exhibits nary a single *one* of those
>things "that intelligent causes can do things which unintelligent causes
>cannot."
It is not clear (to me at least) what Chris means here.
CC>Further, there is a lot that intelligent causes can do that
>unintelligent causes can *also* do, but in different ways.
I disagree about it being "a lot". The only example I can think of is
selective breeding compared with so-called natural `selection'.
And even when there are some things "that intelligent causes can do that
unintelligent causes can *also* do" (e.g. selective breeding vs natural
`selection'), the "in different ways" will IMHO be *significantly* different.
The result might superficially *look* the same but IMHO it will always be
found to be subtly but radically different. (The reason I put "IMHO" is this
is my own proposal - it is not necessarily a mainstream ID argument. I
would welcome criticism of this proposal to see if it is wrong).
Ratzsch points out that one major difference between things that intelligent
causes do which unintelligent causes do not do is what he calls
"counterflow":
"Counterflow. There is another, even more fundamental implication
Linked to the intervention just mentioned, there will now be
something about the cosmos, its history or its path that did not flow
out of its prior states. The intervention will in effect involve the
pushing of nature out of a path that nature, if left to itself,
otherwise would have taken and into one it would not have;
otherwise it would not be intervention. ... Nature moving in paths it
would not of itself have taken I shall term counterflow.
Counterflow is both defined and identified against a background of
what nature might otherwise have done in contrast to the normal
flow of nature." (Ratzsch D., "Design, Chance & Theistic
Evolution," in Dembski W.A., ed., "Mere Creation,", 1998, p.292).
Interestingly, Ratzsch (a Calvin College philosophy professor and a
member of the ID movement who argues for Theistic Evolution) in the
footnote attributes this argument as originally coming from the YEC Gary
Parker:
"Although the pebble and the arrowhead are made of the same
substance, they reflect two radically different kinds of order. The
tumbled pebble has the kind of order that results from time and
chance operating through weathering and erosion on the inherent
properties of matter. Those same factors will eventually destroy the
arrowhead, which has the kind of order clearly brought into being
by design and creation. In a way, the tumbled pebble represents the
idea of evolution. As I once believed and taught, evolutionists
believe that life itself is the result, like the tumbled pebble, of time,
chance, and the inherent properties of matter. The arrowhead
represents the creation idea, that living systems have irreducible
properties of organization that were produced, like the arrowhead,
by design and creation. In our daily experience, all of us can
distinguish two kinds of order. On the basis of logic and
observation, for example, we recognize that wind-worn rock
formations are the products of time, chance, and the inherent
properties of matter. But those same techniques (logical inference
from scientific observations) convince us that pottery fragments and
rock carvings must be the products of acts of creation giving matter
irreducible properties of organization." (Parker G.E., "Evidence of
Creation in Living Systems," in Morris H.M. & Parker G.E., "What
is Creation Science?" 1987, p.34).
CC>ID won't become
>science until it either finds at least one such fact that intelligent
>causes can do but which unintelligent causes cannot
As I have pointed out many times before, there already are entire
branches of science based on the premise that "there are fact[s] that intelligent
causes can do but which unintelligent causes cannot", namely archaeology,
forensic science and SETI.
CC>or starts specifying
>design principles that the designer is supposed to be using, such design
>principles well enough defined that they have *testable* implications.
ID has already proposed "design principles well enough defined that they
have *testable* implications", for example Dembski's explanatory filter and
Mike Behe's irreducible complexity.
Of course Chris' no amount of such "specifying" of "design principles"
would suffice for Chris, because he is an avowed philosophical materialist
and as such denies apriori that there *could* be evidence of intelligent
causation in nature that was not ultimately the result of unintelligent cause.
No matter how much "specifying" of "design principles" the ID movement
provided, like Oliver Twist, Chris would always keep asking for *more*!
He is not being insincere in this and nor is it reprehensible. It is an
inevitable consequence of Chris' basic metaphysical assumptions.
The criticisms of philosophical materialists like Chris are important in
helping ID to strengthen its case, but ID does not depend for its scientific
status on whether philosophical materialists accept it (since that will by
definition *never* happen).
All ID needs to do is persuade the majority of open-minded people and
scientists that there is empirically detectable evidence of intelligent
causation in biological nature. Most people already believe this (as well as a
large minority of scientists), despite decades of a materialistic-naturalistic
monopoly in teaching science.
This acceptance of ID is starting to happen (e.g. Hirsch) and I would
expect it to continue steadily until a point is reached where the
philosophical materialists will have to give ground, or face a *disastrous*
split in science into ID and materialist streams. (The latter is my own
personal view and not necessaily the view of the ID movement).
CC>Given the fuzz around the edge of what unintelligent causes can do
There might be some "fuzz" at the margins between "what unintelligent
causes can do" and cannot do (I would even debate that-see above), but
the existence of science like archaeology, forensic science and SETI show
that there are two large core areas of "what unintelligent causes can do"
and what *only* intelligent causes can do.
CC>and the lack of testability,
There is no "lack of testability". Behe (for example) has published his IC
hypothesis for testing and falsification. Scientists like Jerry Coyne have
tacitly accepted Behe's claims as testable because they have tried to falsify
them. Others actually claim to *have* falsified Behe's claims.
Indeed if Chris claims that ID suffers from a "lack of testability" then he
must claim that Darwinism is *unverifiable*. Because Darwinism is the
claim that there is no *real* design in nature, just *apparent* design:
"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: Why the
Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design," 1991,
p.5)
The falsification of ID is thus the verification of Darwinism. All one has to
do is prove that Darwinism is true (e.g. show a step-by-step Darwinian
pathway to build the bacterial flagella motor or the vertebrate blood-
clotting cascade) and ID would have been tested and found to be false.
CC>ID may not be technically religion, but it might as
>well be, for all the *science* it is.
This is no doubt Chris' passionately sincere *perception*. But that is
because he quite evidently has his own `religion' called philosophical
materialism, which filters all evidence for design into a mental wastebasket
labelled "religion", which to Chris is in the same category as belief in Santa
Claus and fairies (as he himself has said).
Chris' problem is the most members of the general public and a large
minority of scientists would not share his perception. And the signs are that
Chris' philosophical materialism has reached its high-water mark and is now
in an ebb tide. Or to put it another way, design had reached its low-water
mark and is now in a rising tide. All Chris can hope is that it doesn't rise
too much! Chris can IMHO no more stop the tide of ID from continuing to
rise in the 21st century than King Canute could in the 11th century!
Steve
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"Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of
having been designed for a purpose." (Dawkins R., "The Blind
Watchmaker," [1986], Penguin: London, 1991, reprint, p1)
Stephen E. Jones | Ph. +61 8 9448 7439 | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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