Group
Part 2 of Dembski's 4-part post.
Steve
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3. Intelligent Design as a Positive Research Program
Criticism, however, is never enough. I'm fond of quoting the
statement by Napoleon III that one never destroys a thing until one
has replaced it. Although it is not a requirement of logic that
scientific theories can only be rejected once a better alternative
has been found, this does seem to be a fact about the sociology of
science -- to wit, scientific theories give way not to criticism but
to new, improved theories. Concerted criticism of Darwinism within
the growing community of design theorists was therefore only the
first step. To be sure, it was a necessary first step since
confidence in Darwinism and especially the power of natural selection
needed first to be undermined before people could take seriously the
need for an alternative theory (this is entirely in line with Thomas
Kuhn's stages in a scientific revolution). Once that confidence was
undermined, the next step was to develop a positive scientific
research program as an alternative to Darwinism and more generally to
naturalistic approaches to the origin and subsequent development of
life.
In broad strokes, the positive research program of the intelligent
design movement looks as follows (here I'm going to do a conceptual
rather than a historical reconstruction):
(1) Much as Darwin began with the commonsense recognition that
artificial selection in animal and plant breeding experiments is
capable of directing organismal variation (which he then bootstrapped
into a general mechanism to account for all organismal variation), so
too the intelligent design research program begins with the
commonsense recognition that humans draw design inferences routinely
in ordinary life, explaining some things in terms of purely natural
causes and other things in terms of intelligence or design (cf.
archeologists attributing rock formations in one case to erosion and
in another to design -- as with the megaliths at Stonehenge).
(2) Just as Darwin formalized and extended our commonsense
understanding of artificial selection to natural selection, the
intelligent design research program next attempts to formalize and
extend our commonsense understanding of design inferences so that
they can be rigorously applied in scientific investigation. At
present, my codification of design inferences as an extension of
Fisherian hypothesis testing has attracted the most attention. It is
now being vigorously debated whether my approach is valid and
sustainable (the only alternative on the table at this point is a
likelihood approach, which in forthcoming publications I have argued
is utterly inadequate). Interestingly, my most severe critics have
been philosophers (e.g., Elliott Sober and Robin Collins).
Mathematicians and statisticians have been far more receptive to my
codification of design inferences (cf. the positive notice of my book
_The Design Inference_ in the May 1999 issue of the _American
Mathematical Monthly_ as well as mathematician Keith Devlin's
appreciative remarks about my work in the July/August 2000 issue of
_The Scientist_: "Dembski's theory has made an important contribution
to the understanding of randomness -- if only by highlighting how
hard it can be to differentiate the fingerprints of design from the
whorls of chance"). My most obnoxious critics have been Internet
stalkers (e.g., Wesley Elsberry and Richard Wein), who seem to
monitor my every move and as a service to the Internet community make
sure that every aspect of my work receives their bad housekeeping
seal of disapproval. As a rule I don't respond to them over the
Internet since it seems to me that the Internet is an unreliable
forum for settling technical issues in statistics and the philosophy
of science. Consequently, I have now responded to critics in the
following three forums: _Philosophy of Science_ (under submission),
_Christian Scholar's Review_ (accepted for publication), and Books &
Culture (accepted for publication). I shall also be responding to
critics at length in my forthcoming book _No Free Lunch: Why
Specified Complexity Cannot Be Purchased Without Intelligence_
(Rowman & Littlefield) as well as offering there a simplification of
my concept of specification. Yet regardless how things fall out with
my codification of design inferences, the question whether design is
discernible in nature is now squarely on the table for discussion.
This itself is significant progress.
(3) At the heart of my codification of design inferences is the
notion of specified complexity, which is a statistical and
complexity-theoretic concept. Provided this concept is well-defined
and can effectively be applied in practice, the next question is
whether specified complexity is exhibited in actual physical systems
where no evolved, reified, or embodied intelligence was involved. In
other words, the next step is to apply the codification of design
inferences in (2) to natural systems and see whether it properly
leads us to infer design. The most exciting area of application is of
course biology, with Michael Behe's irreducibly complex biochemical
systems, like the bacterial flagellum, having thusfar attracted the
most attention. In my view, however, the most promising research in
this area is now being done at the level of individual proteins
(i.e., certain enzymes) to determine just how sparsely populated
island(s) of a given functional enzyme type are within the greater
sea of non-functional polypeptides. Preliminary indications are that
they are very sparsely populated indeed, making them an instance of
specified complexity. I expect this work to be published in the next
two years. I am withholding name(s) of the researcher(s) for their
own protection.
(4) Once it is settled that certain biological systems are designed,
the door is open to a new set of research problems. Here are some of
the key problems:
*****Detectability Problem -- Is an object designed? An affirmative
answer to this question is needed before we can answer the remaining
questions. The whole point of (2) and (3) was to make an affirmative
answer possible.
*****Functionality Problem -- What is the designed object's function?
This problem is separate from the detectability problem. For
instance, archeologists have discovered many tools which they
recognize as tools but don't understand what their function is.
*****Transmission Problem -- What is the causal history of a designed
object? Just as with Darwinism, intelligent design seeks historical
narratives (though not the just-so stories of Darwinists).
*****Construction Problem -- How was the designed object constructed?
Given enough information about the causal history of an object, this
question may admit an answer.
*****Reverse-Engineering Problem -- In the absence of a reasonably
detailed causal history, how could the object have come about?
*****Constraints Problem -- What are the constraints within which the
designed object functions optimally?
*****Perturbation Problem -- How has the original design been
modified and what factors have modified it? This requires an account
of both the natural and the intelligent causes that have modified the
object over its causal history.
*****Variability Problem -- What degree of perturbation allows
continued functioning? Alternatively, what is the range of
variability within which the designed object functions and outside of
which it breaks down?
*****Restoration Problem -- Once perturbed, how can the original
design be recovered? Art restorers, textual critics, and
archeologists know all about this.
*****Optimality Problem -- In what sense is the designed object optimal?
*****Separation of Causes Problem -- How does one tease apart the
effects of intelligent causes from natural causes, both of which
could have affected the object in question? For instance, a rusted
old Cadillac exhibits the effects of both design and weathering?
*****Ethical Problem -- Is the design morally right?
*****Aesthetics Problem -- Is the design beautiful?
*****Intentionality Problem -- What was the intention of the designer
in producing a given designed object?
*****Identity Problem -- Who is the designer?
To be sure, the last four questions are not questions of science, but
they arise very quickly once design is back on the table for serious
discussion. As for the other questions, they are strictly scientific
(indeed, many special sciences, like archeology or SETI, already
raise them). Now it's true that some of these questions have
analogues within a naturalistic framework (e.g., the functionality
problem). But others clearly do not. For instance, in the separation
of causes problem, teasing apart the effects of intelligent causes
from natural causes has no analogue within a naturalistic framework.
4. Nature's Formational Economy
Now from the design theorist's perspective, there is plenty here to
work on, and certainly enough to turn intelligent design into a
fruitful and exciting scientific research program. Even so, many
disagree. I want next to address some of their worries. Let me begin
with the concerns of Howard Van Till. Van Till and I have known each
other since the mid 90s, and have been corresponding about the
coherence of intelligent design as an intellectual project for about
the last three years. Van Till's unchanging refrain has been to ask
for clarification about what design theorists mean by the term
"design."
The point at issue for him is this: Design is unproblematic when it
refers to something being conceptualization by a mind to accomplish a
purpose; but when one attempts to attribute design to natural objects
that could not have been formed by an embodied intelligence, design
must imply not just conceptualization but also extra-natural
assembly. It's the possibility that intelligent design requires
extra-natural assembly that Van Till regards as especially
problematic (most recently he has even turned the tables on design
theorists, charging them with "punctuated naturalism" -- the idea
being that for the most part natural processes rule the day, but then
intermittently need to be "punctuated" by interventions from a
designing intelligence). Van Till likes to put his concern to the
intelligent design community this way: Design can have two senses, a
"mind-like" sense (referring merely to conceptualization) and a
"hand-like" sense (referring also to the mode of assembly); is
intelligent design using design strictly in the mind-like sense or
also in the hand-like sense? And if the latter, are design theorists
willing to come clean and openly admit that their position commits
them to extra-natural assembly?
Although Van Till purports to ask these questions simply as an aid to
clarity, it is important to understand how Van Till's own theological
and philosophical presuppositions condition the way he poses these
questions. Indeed, these presuppositions must themselves be
clarified. For instance, what is "extra-natural assembly" (the term
is Van Till's)? It is not what is customarily meant by miracle or
supernatural intervention. Miracles typically connote a violation or
suspension or overriding of natural laws. To attribute a miracle is
to say that a natural cause was all set to make X happen, but instead
Y happened. As I've argued throughout my work, design doesn't require
this sort of counterfactual substitution (cf. chapters 2 and 3 of my
book _Intelligent Design_). When humans, for instance, act as
intelligent agents, there is no reason to think that any natural law
is broken. Likewise, should a designer, who for both Van Till and me
is God, act to bring about a bacterial flagellum, there is no reason
prima facie to suppose that this designer did not act consistently
with natural laws. It is, for instance, a logical possibility that
the design in the bacterial flagellum was front-loaded into the
universe at the Big Bang and subsequently expressed itself in the
course of natural history as a miniature outboard motor on the back
of E. Coli. Whether this is what actually happened is another
question (more on this later), but it is certainly a live possibility
and one that gets around the usual charge of miracles.
Nonetheless, even though intelligent design requires no contradiction
of natural laws, it does impose a limitation on natural laws, namely,
it purports that they are incomplete. Think of it this way. There are
lots and lots of things that happen in the world. For many of these
things we can find causal antecedents that account for them in terms
of natural laws. Specifically, the account can be given in the form
of a set of natural laws (typically supplemented by some auxiliary
hypotheses) that relates causal antecedents to some consequent (i.e.,
the thing we're trying to explain). Now why should it be that
everything that happens in the world should submit to this sort of
causal analysis? It's certainly a logical possibility that we live in
such a world. But it's hardly self-evident that we do. For instance,
we have no evidence whatsoever that there is a set of natural laws,
auxiliary hypotheses, and antecedent conditions that account for the
writing of this essay. If we did have such an account, we would be
well on the way to reducing mind to body. But no such reduction is in
the offing, and cognitive science is to this day treading water when
it comes to the really big question of how brain enables mind.
Intelligent design regards intelligence as an irreducible feature of
reality. Consequently it regards any attempt to subsume intelligent
agency within natural causes as fundamentally misguided and regards
the natural laws that characterize natural causes as fundamentally
incomplete. This is not to deny derived intentionality, in which
artifacts, though functioning according to natural laws and operating
by natural causes, nonetheless accomplish the aims of their designers
and thus exhibit design. Yet whenever anything exhibits design in
this way, the chain of natural causes leading up to it is incomplete
and must presuppose the activity of a designing intelligence.
I'll come back to what it means for a designing intelligence to act
in the physical world, but for now I want to focus on the claim by
design theorists that natural causes and the natural laws that
characterize them are incomplete. It's precisely here that Van Till
objects most strenuously to intelligent design and that his own
theological and philosophical interests come to light. "Extra-natural
assembly" for Howard Van Till does not mean a miracle in the
customary sense, but rather that natural causes were insufficient to
account for the assembly in question. Van Till holds to what he calls
a Robust Formational Economy Principle (RFEP -- "formational economy"
refers to the capacities or causal powers in nature for bringing
about the events that occur in nature). This is a theological and
metaphysical principle. According to this principle God endowed
nature with all the (natural) causal powers it ever needs to
accomplish all the things that happen in nature. Thus in Van Till's
manner of speaking, it is within nature's formational economy for
water to freeze when its temperature is lowered sufficiently. Natural
causal powers are completely sufficient to account for liquid water
turning to ice. What makes Van Till's formational economy _robust_ is
that everything that happens in nature is like this -- even the
origin and subsequent history of life. In other words, the
formational economy is complete.
But how does Van Till know that the formational economy is complete?
Van Till was kind enough to speak at a seminar I conducted this
summer (2000) at Calvin College in which he made clear that he holds
this principle for theological reasons. According to him, for natural
causes to lack the power to effect some aspect of nature would mean
that the creator had not fully gifted the creation. Conversely, a
creator or designer who must act in addition to natural causes to
produce certain effects has denied the creation benefits it might
otherwise possess. Van Till portrays his God as supremely generous
whereas the God of the design theorists comes off looking like a
miser. Van Till even refers to intelligent design as a "celebration
of gifts withheld."
Though rhetorically shrewd, Van Till's criticism is hardly the only
way to spin intelligent design theologically. Granted, if the
universe is like a clockwork (cf. the design arguments of the British
natural theologians), then it would be inappropriate for God, who
presumably is a consummate designer, to intervene periodically to
adjust the clock. Instead of periodically giving the universe the
gift of "clock-winding and clock-setting," God should simply have
created a universe that never needed winding or setting. But what if
instead the universe is like a musical instrument (cf. the design
arguments of the Church Fathers, like Gregory of Nazianzus, who
compared the universe to a lute -- in this respect I much prefer the
design arguments of the early Church to the design arguments of the
British natural theologians)? Then it is entirely appropriate for God
to interact with the universe by introducing design (or in this
analogy, by skillfully playing a musical instrument). Change the
metaphor from a clockwork to a musical instrument, and the charge of
"withholding gifts" dissolves. So long as there are consummate
pianists and composers, player-pianos will always remain inferior to
real pianos. The incompleteness of the real piano taken by itself is
therefore irrelevant here. Musical instruments require a musician to
complete them. Thus, if the universe is more like a musical
instrument than a clock, it is appropriate for a designer to interact
with it in ways that affect its physical state.
Leaving aside which metaphor best captures our universe (a clockwork
mechanism or a musical instrument), I want next to examine Van Till's
charge that intelligent design commits one to a designer who
withholds gifts. This charge is itself highly problematic. Consider,
for instance, what it would mean for me to withhold gifts from my
baby daughter. Now it's certainly true that I withhold things from my
baby daughter, but when I do it is for her benefit because at this
stage in her life she is unable to appreciate them and might actually
come to harm if I gave them to her now. The things I am withholding
from her are not properly even called gifts at this time. They become
gifts when it is appropriate to give them. Nor is it the case that if
I am a good father, I must have all the gifts I might ever give my
daughter potentially available or in some sense in reserve now (thus
making the economy of my gift giving robust in Van Till's sense).
It's not yet clear what gifts are going to be appropriate for my
daughter -- indeed, deciding what are the appropriate gifts to give
my daughter will be situation-specific. So too, Judeo-Christian
theism has traditionally regarded many of God's actions in the world
(though certainly not all -- there's also general providence) as
carefully adapted to specific situations at particular times and
places.
Van Till's Robust Formational Economy Principle is entirely
consistent with the methodological naturalism embraced by most
scientists (the view that the natural sciences must limit themselves
to naturalistic explanations and must scrupulously avoid assigning
any scientific meaning to intelligence, teleology, or actual design).
What is unclear is whether Van Till's Robust Formational Economy
Principle is consistent with traditional Christian views of divine
providence, especially in regard to salvation history. Van Till
claims to hold to the RFEP on theological grounds, thinking it
theologically preferable for God to endow creation with natural
causal powers fully sufficient to account for every occurrence in the
natural world. Let's therefore grant that it's an open question for
generic theism whether for God to deliver gifts all at once is in
some way preferable to God delivering them over time. The question
remains whether this is an open question for specifically Christian
theism. Van Till after all is not merely a generic theist but, at
least until his recent retirement from Calvin College, was required
to belong to the Christian Reformed Church (or some other
denomination squarely in the Reformed tradition). Consequently, Van
Till was required to subscribe to confessional standards that reflect
a traditional Christian view of divine providence.
Now it's not at all clear how the RFEP can be squared with
traditional Christian theology. Please understand that I'm not saying
it can't. But it seems that Van Till needs to be more forthcoming
about how it can. In his older writings (those from the mid 80s where
he attempted to defend the integrity of science against attacks by
young earth creationists -- unfortunately, Van Till was himself
brutally attacked by creationists for his efforts), Van Till seemed
content to distinguish between natural history and salvation history.
Within salvation history God could act miraculously to procure
humanity's redemption. On the other, within natural history God acted
only through natural causes. I no longer see this distinction in Van
Till's writings and I would like to know why. Does Van Till still
subscribe to this distinction? If so, it severely undercuts his RFEP.
The RFEP casts God as the supreme gift giver who never withholds from
nature any capacity it might eventually need. According to Van Till,
nature has all the causal powers it needs to account for the events,
objects, and structures scientists confront in their investigations.
Why shouldn't God also endow nature with sufficient causal powers to
accomplish humanity's redemption? Human beings after all belong to
nature. Throughout the Scriptures we find God answering specific
prayers of individuals, performing miracles like the resurrection of
Jesus, and speaking directly to individuals about their specific
situations. These are all instances of what theologians call
_particular providence_. The problem with the RFEP from the vantage
of Christian theology is that it seems to allow no room whatsoever
for particular providence. Yes, it can account for God sending the
rain on the just and the unjust, or what is known as _general
providence_. But the RFEP carried to its logical conclusion ends in a
thorough-going Pelagianism in which redemption is built directly into
nature, in which Jesus is but an exemplar, and in which humans have a
natural capacity to procure their own salvation. I'm not saying that
Van Till has taken the RFEP to this conclusion, but if not, Van Till
needs to make clear why he stops short of assimilating the redemption
in Jesus Christ to his robust formational economy.
Van Till's Robust Formational Economy Principle provides a
theological justification for science to stay committed to
naturalism. Indeed, the RFEP encourages science to continue business
as usual by restricting itself solely to natural causes and the
natural laws that describe them. But this immediately raises the
question why we should want science to continue business as usual.
Indeed, how do we know that the formational economy of the world is
robust in Van Till's sense? How do we know that natural causes
(whether instituted by God as Van Till holds or self-subsistent as
the atheist holds) can account for everything that happens in nature?
Clearly the only way to answer this question scientifically is to go
to nature and see whether nature exhibits things that natural causes
could not have produced.
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"Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not
designed, but rather evolved." (Crick F.H.C., "What Mad Pursuit: A
Personal View of Scientific Discovery," [1988], Penguin: London, 1990,
reprint, p.138)
Stephen E. Jones | Ph. +61 8 9448 7439 | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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