This is a too-brief exposition of material from a larger essay that I have
not yet typed from my notebook. It is not about ID as such, nor even merely
supernaturalistic ID as such, but it deals with and is relevant to both.
Problems with Supernaturalism
I think it would be good to eliminate a lot of the confusion and silliness
from the debate over ID. To promote this goal, I propose that we eliminate
references to supernatural designers and methodologically assume that
*only* naturalistic designers (i.e., aliens, etc.) be considered as
possible intelligent designers. That is, ID proponents should propose
naturalistic designers with sufficient definition to be meaningfully
identified if we happen to run into them, and that ID proponents *drop* the
Rationalistic attempt to define design without respect to the nature of the
designer, in the lame *hope* that somehow, if design is ever discovered, it
can be attributed to a supernatural being.
Evasion is not sufficient. It is *necessary* to specify the global
characteristics of the alleged designers or, effectively, *nothing* has
been proposed as a designer, and we are truly left with "design" that is
not designed. Mike Gene proposes a "Paleyian" designer (although his
version of the Paleyian designer is not Paley's). This is a step in the
right direction, but it is not sufficient. If the designer is not defined
adequately, it becomes too vague for testing. Mike claims to have tests,
though they don't seem like much to me. However, it has one other major
problem for theistic ID supporters: There is no basis for believing Mike's
designer to be theistic, even if we accept Mike's concept of the designer's
proclivities.
To further the cause of clarity and actual science (as distinguished from
and opposed to mere theism posing as empirical science), I will show below,
in outline form, the main flaws in supernaturalism of all (I think) types.
I think these flaws are irremediable without eliminating supernaturalism
altogether, but I'd be interested in contrary attempts to define the
supernatural in such a way that it both circumvents these flaws and is
still cognitively meaningful.
The problems are:
1. The great unlifted burden of proof. Supernaturalism, like the claim that
God shot the man found lying dead on the streets with a bullet-hole through
his head (rather than that a human shot him), requires special proof. It
makes special claims and therefore requires special evidence to support
those particular claims. It makes claims radically above and beyond those
of naturalism and thus takes on the special burden of proving those claims.
This applies to supernaturalism as a (supposedly) *scientific* explanation
as well as to general philosophical supernaturalism.
2. It is not possible to validate supernaturalism empirically, because
supernaturalism has no special empirical traits that would enable us to
distinguish it from naturalistic alternatives. Is it yellow? Well, so are
many naturalistic things. Does it cause weird mystical/religious
experiences? Well, so do disease, drugs, mental illness, fatigue,
starvation, and suggestibility. Do people feel that they are in direct
contact with it? Well, "feelings" can and often *do* misrepresent reality.
Etc., etc.
3. It is not possible to validate supernaturalism philosophically because
any attribute that it might be posited to have that is supposedly necessary
to account for some naturalistic fact is either attributable to the natural
world itself or it is not necessary. Any questions supposedly answered by
positing a supernaturalistic realm are merely pushed back to the status of
questions about the supernaturalistic realm itself. If, for example, it is
alleged that there must be a supernatural creator of the natural world to
account for the "design" of the natural world, then there must also be a
SUPER-supernatural creator to create the creator of our world, to account
for the "design" of the supernatural creator. And so on. In other cases, it
is simply false or undemonstrated that the required trait does not apply to
the natural world itself (or whatever it's made of). In *no* case is any
real question *actually* answered this way. Real questions are those that
are logically coherent, that have some basis for being asked, and that are
at least in principle answerable.
Thus, supernaturalism fails on all counts. It has an unlifted burden of
proof. It cannot serve as a valid *scientific* explanation because the
burden of proof remains and because there is no way to establish that a
supernatural explanation would imply any empirical facts that would
distinguish it from purely naturalistic explanations. It also fails
philosophically because it attempts to leap out of the natural world
without logical basis or need for doing so.
And, claims of the supernatural are simply arbitrary, like the claim that
invisible beings spend their days keeping the planets in their orbits.
Finally, I doubt that it is logically possible to define the supernatural
in such a way that it is both logically coherent *and* distinguishable from
the natural world. That is, reducing it to the level of logical coherence
would also, I strongly suspect, *also* reduce it to the level of the
naturalistic. Seeing where this idea leads will be one of my next steps
with regard to this issue, though it is really not necessary, because the
so-far *perfect* lack of even *possible* cognitive justification for any
supernatural claim is really logically sufficient. That is, regardless of
what people continue to *believe* (whether it be that the Earth does not
move, or that God created the Universe, or that there is a supernatural
designer for living things), the argument *outlined* above nullifies it
completely at the start.
The only option left is to try to show that there is some flaw in the
claims made above. For example, someone might try to show that the
supernatural realm has empirical consequences that could not arise, even in
principle, from naturalistic causes. Or, someone might try to show that
there is some fact about the natural world that *does* in fact require a
*super*natural creator (not merely a naturalistic creator in a naturalistic
"meta-verse" or some such).
Of course, someone will first have to devise a concept of the supernatural
that is logically coherent. It is not logically inconsistent to hypothesize
that there is something outside of our Universe. But, I doubt that it's
possible to define something that is metaphysically transcendent, logically
coherent, causally efficacious (able to leap over tall buildings and build
universes), and yet somehow not naturalistic in fundamental respects.
I don't believe any of this is possible. I think it's time we eliminated
supernaturalism entirely. We won't, of course, because most people don't
know how to satisfy the psychological drives that make them want to believe
in the supernatural in naturalistic ways. The drug will continue to be
taken, despite the universal harmful consequences of such psychological
addictions. But, as a purely cognitive issue, those who *are* ready to move
on to a more enlightened view of reality should do so whole-heartedly and
completely. They should quit "cold turkey," and get on with the process
building up a set of rational beliefs (and non-beliefs where suitable
evidence and argument is not available).
Some Unitarian Universalists suggest that we should be more comfortable
with the questions and the seeking of answers than in actually having
answers. Taken *literally*, this is nonsense, because there's no point in
questions and seeking answers if we are to denigrate actually *having*
answers, and Unitarian Universalists could often make careers out of being
intellectually vague and unclear, as if they did not really care actually
to *discover* anything but merely wanted to live lives of comfy and
fuzzy-minded intellectual dilettantism. But, there *is* a good point here:
Do not be too hasty to accept and hold "answers" that may well turn out not
to be answers at all. By far the more common propensity is for people to
adopt "answers" without barely a moment's thought, and rarely if ever to
question them in any really significant or fundamental way.
Fortunately, the presumption of naturalism is minimalist. It leaves *open*
the absolute maximum of questions that the evidence does not provide
justification for answering in particular ways. Naturalistic evolutionary
theory is minimalist; it is the *least* theory that *can* work, given
present evidence. Naturalistic ID theory might be next up, if the evidence
ever *does* support ID of some sort. *Super*naturalistic theories will be
excluded forever because of their *fundamental* disconnection from
empirical reality and their fundamental lack of justification for going
beyond naturalistic theories. Thus, the worst we naturalists will ever have
to admit is that there is or has been some kind of naturalistic design at
work in life on Earth. The supernatural, even if it could exist, would be
*inherently* beyond human cognitive resources because of the inability to
assign any empirically distinguishing characteristics to the supernatural,
and because of the inability to find any viable philosophical question for
which it is needed as the answer.
Setting aside all the nonsense associated with supernaturalistic ID will
make room for further progress in *real* ID, if any is possible on the
basis of the evidence. At the very least, we can start defining prospective
designers in an empirically meaningful way, and checking to see if there's
any empirical facts that correspond to such definitions in an evidential
way. Supernaturalism, as it always has in the past, *hinders* science, just
as it does in the case of Mike Gene's work. Supernaturalism is, at very
best, a useless *encumbrance* for otherwise good science. At worst, it
prevents rational science altogether. And that is why we must simply
eliminate it from scientific discourse; it has done far more than enough
damage already.
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