Intelligent Design The Scientific Alternative to Evolution

THE NATIONAL CATHOLIC BIOETHICS QUARTERLY ^ | AUTUMN 2003 | William S. Harris and John H. Calvert

[rob777]

Sooner or later everyone asks the question, “Where do we come from?” The answer carries profound, life-molding implications. Until this question is answered we cannot solve another fundamental question that is key to ethics, religion, and the meaning of life (if any): “Are we here for a purpose?” There are two possible answers: the universe and life and its diversity—natural phenomena—are the product of 1) a combination of only natural laws and chance (the “naturalistic hypothesis)”; or 2) a combination of law, chance, and design—the activity of a mind or some form of intelligence that has the power to manipulate matter and energy (the “design hypothesis”). The latter produces purpose, the former does not.

The naturalistic hypothesis is supported by theories of chemical evolution (with respect to the origin of the universe and of life) and by Darwinian evolution (with respect to the origin of the diversity of life). The design hypothesis is supported by the purposeful characteristics of exceedingly complex natural systems that are frequently described as “fine tuned.” Each hypothesis is densely laden with philosophical and religious baggage, and clear thinking is required in order to separate the

science from the philosophy, the evidence from the implications, and reality from imagination.

...

[trisham]

Liberals are living proof that the concept of Intelligent Design is a hoax...

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One might just as easily say that liberals are living proof that evolution is a hoax.

[js1138]

Aside from that, the example shows that it's not intrinsically impossible to recognize "design," though it may be more or less easy to do so in different disciplines.

We know it is an airplane because we know the history of airplanes.

A more interesting question would be to ask people who have never seen high technology.

The problem with the design inference is not that it's automatically and always wrong, but that it tells us nothing about the history of an object. ID advocates admit this when they say that ID says nothing about the designer.

If you hypothesize nothing about the designer -- his capabilities, methods and limitations, you say nothing about the history of the object. If you say nothing about the history of the object you cannot be wrong, but you say nothing at all.

Evolution recognizes design. It also says how the design came about. It says specific things about the history of the designed object. It makes specific claims about the genealogy of the object. It makes specific claims about how morphologies change in populations. It makes specific claims about what kinds of fossils will be found in which strata, ans what kinds of fossils cannot be found in which strata. The world is a big place, and anyone can dig. Anyone can attempt to disprove the claims of evolution.

The claim of design is empty without saying specific, testable things about how the design came about, and that is exactly what evolution provides.

ID will not be a competitive hypothesis until it proposes a testable history.

[rob777]

The very concept of Intelligent Design has, at its fundamental core, the notion of an Greater Being as the architect.

Tell me how that is not theological.





The line between Philosophy and Theology does not lie in whether a Greater Being is recognized, but on the nature of that recognition. Philosophy relies on reason to postulate of reject the notion of an Greater Being as the architect. That was the approach of Aristotle's acceptance of the "Unmoved Mover". Theology begins with a revelatory experience of that being and uses reason to understand the meaning of that experience as much as possible. That is the approach of the Judeo-Christian bible.

[edsheppa]

That has no bearing on the truth or falsity of an ID hypothesis, however.

Please. You've been on these threads long enough to know that scientific theories are never knowably true. It is a category mistake to speak of truth and scientific theories.

Or have I misunderstood you? Since you do know this and you still say "truth ... of an ID hypothesis" are you then admitting that ID is not a scientific theory? Very clever.

To the contrary, I specifically addressed the differences between science and engineering in my previous post.

Yes, I see now that you did toward the end. And yet in the beginning of your post you conflate them.

Your challenge makes no sense.

I will try to explain. A scientific theory has two parts. There is a deductive, axiomatic theory and a physical interpretation of the terms of the theory. A scientific theory explains some phenomenon if the phenomenon is the interpration of a statement which is a theorem of the theory. Such phenomena are called predictions of the theory. If they are observed they are called confirming evidence of the theory.

Now I hope that is clear. Lets see you employ ID theory to make a testable prediction.

[rob777]

Doesn't ID simply acknowledge the limits of science to date and say, look we don't really know how we got here, but given the complexity and profound probability of all these things coming together naturally to give rise to our environment, something bigger than us is at play? Isn't this really an agnostic argument - something beyond our current understanding - can't prove there is a God who brought it all about, can't prove there isn't, but something, call it God, call it the unknown, is at work?







Basically, you are right this is roughly the classical "argument from design". The current ID theory makes use of the commonly accepted principles of design dection and applies them to nature as way of examining this intuitive assumption. From the article:



Many well-accepted, uncontroversial scientific disciplines are utterly dependent
on detecting design, on inferring the past actions of an intelligent agent by
examining present evidence:
• Forensic Sciences, where a death is investigated to determine whether the
person died by accident (i.e., chance/necessity) or by intent (i.e., murder).
• Cryptanalysis, where code breakers examine patterns of characters to determine
whether they convey a message or are simply random and meaningless
noise.
• Archaeology, where artifacts are examined to determine whether they were
fashioned by man or by nature. Is the rock just a stone, or a tool?
• Arson investigation, where one attempts to discern from charred remains
whether the fire was set intentionally (by design) or resulted from a frayed
wire (chance/necessity).
• Copyright infringement and plagiarism, where scientists examine writings to
determine whether they were accidentally or intentionally similar to the work
of others.

Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI)
One of the clearest examples of design detection can be found in the SETI
program. The SETI program is systematically scanning the heavens with radio telescopes,
searching for patterns of signals that could only come from intelligent sources.
In the fictionalized version as presented in Carl Sagan’s book (and the movie) “Contact,”
the research team actually discovers a pattern of pulses (1’s) and pauses (0’s)
beating out the first twenty-five prime numbers, in order, from 2 to 101 (Figure 1).
They cry, “Eureka! We’ve made contact!” Why would they come to such a conclusion?
Is their shout of exuberance justified? If we subject this pattern to the design
detection filter, do we reach a scientifically valid inference of design?
Step 1. Does the sequence contain a message or meaning that is independent
of the significance of each of the symbols that make up the pattern? Yes. A pulse or
a pause has no independent meaning, only the pattern (the sequence of prime numbers)
has significance.
Figure 1. The pattern containing a sequence of prime
numbers as presented in the movie “Contact.”
Step 2. Is the sequence determined by known physical laws? Did it have to be
that way? No.
Step 3. What is the probability that the sequence was produced by chance? At
one level,36 this is a straightforward calculation: there are two options—a pulse or a
pause, yes or no, zero or one. There are 1,126 “events” (pulses or pauses) in the
sequence. So the probability of it occurring by chance is 1 in 21,126 or about 1 chance
in 10338. Since that number is vastly greater than 10150, we exclude chance as a
reasonable cause of the pattern. So what are we left with? There are only three
causes: design, chance, and necessity. After ruling out the latter two and finding
meaning consistent with design, we (and the SETI researchers) conclude that the
best (current) explanation for the source of the pattern was a mind. Eureka!
From SETI to DNA
If the logic illustrated in the SETI example is scientifically valid (if no reasonable
person would quibble with the conclusion), then we can apply exactly the
same approach to any object in nature. We can be confident that, if the filter leads
us to a design inference, it is the most reasonable conclusion.

[rob777]

I guess my real question is, if ID is science, why do we get accused of religion bashing when we ridicule it?

Scientist ridicule each other's ideas on a regular basis. Does religion really want to throw it's hat into a ring where ideas are subject to constant attempts at disproof?






If that ridicule sticks to the facts being discussed, you are right, there should be no discussion of religion brought into it. In this case the problem lies with those defending ID. Another problem occurs when the ridicule ignores the scientific argument and dismisses ID as a disingenuous ploy to impose religion on the public. In the latter case, it is the critics of ID who have brought the issue of religion into the debate.

ID arrives at the classical "Argument From Design" position from two basic starting points. One is that application of the commonly accepted principles of detecting design used in disciplines mentioned in the article. Those principles are applied to nature to infer the presence of design. The second approach is the use of probability analysis and modeling to postulate the extreme unlikelihood of the universe as we know it coming about by chance. This, of course, is a gross oversimplification, but it sums up the major argument. If ID's critics would stick to refuting the arguments being made without conjuring up a religious "bogeyman", then ID's proponents should also steer clear of religious arguments.

[js1138]

Design is a given. the question posed by biology is not design, but rather process and history.

Without proposing a history you cannot calculate the probability of the steps involved in the history.

It makes no sense to calculate the probability of a complex object poofing into existence in one step. Such a history is not a part of any theory.

Biologist, from Darwin on, have observed the rate of variation in populations. Darwin observed it in domesticated plants and animals. He used this observed rate to calculate how long it would take for variation to produce the current collection of creaturs, starting with a single-celled progenitor.

His estimate was several hundred million years -- well within an order of magnitude of time since the cambrian began. At the time, this seemed impossible, since physics put the upper limit on the age of the earth at about 10 million years.

[TOWER]

ID arrives at the classical "Argument From Design" position from two basic starting points. One is that application of the commonly accepted principles of detecting design used in disciplines mentioned in the article. Those principles are applied to nature to infer the presence of design. The second approach is the use of probability analysis and modeling to postulate the extreme unlikelihood of the universe as we know it coming about by chance. This, of course, is a gross oversimplification, but it sums up the major argument.

Ultimately though, ID has it backwards and paints itself into a corner. If everything is "too complex" and/or "too improbable" to have occured naturally and therefore must have been designed, then the designer itself (whatever it is) must have also been designed. Thus ID solves nothing.

[Matchett-PI]

"Intelligent design is philosophy---NOT science, despite the fact that it uses "scientific-sounding" language."

"Origion of man now proved. -- Metaphysics must flourish. - He who understands baboon would do more toward Metaphysics than Locke." --- Darwin, Notebook M, August 16, 1838

He wrote this kind of stuff in his "private" notebooks - not for public consumption at the time --- He feared "offending" his wife and his family who were professing Christians.

[rob777]

Design is a given. the question posed by biology is not design, but rather process and history.





If this were so, there would be no argument. There really is no argument over the history and only a little over the process. The central argument is whether design played a role in the process as well as chance and necessity.

The National Association of Biology Teachers in 1995 provided the following
definition of evolution:

The diversity of life on earth is the outcome of evolution: an unsupervised,
impersonal, unpredictable, and natural process of temporal descent with genetic
modification that is affected by natural selection, chance, historical contingencies,
and changing environments.

[rob777]

Ultimately though, ID has it backwards and paints itself into a corner. If everything is "too complex" and/or "too improbable" to have occured naturally and therefore must have been designed, then the designer itself (whatever it is) must have also been designed. Thus ID solves nothing.





ID does not presume to draw conclusions about the nature or origin of the designer, it merely states that the universe exhibits the presence of design. (We can logically assume that the Great Pyramids are the product of design without knowing anything about the designer) Such questions are the domain of religion and philosophy.

[js1138]

The central argument is whether design played a role in the process as well as chance and necessity.

If you are going to propose some additional process other than the twenty or so known kinds of mutation, you are going to have to demonstrate it. You are also goint to have to demonstrate the necessity of such a mechanism.

[RogueIsland]

But you miss the fact that evolution makes philosophical assumptions just the same as Intelligent Design or Creation.

I think the anti-science folks just like repeating this nonsense because it makes them feel better about the fact that their pet delusion of the moment, ID, has no scientific merit as currently formulated whatsoever.

[TOWER]

Okay, lets play pretend. What would be the material taught in science class when the topic of ID came up?

"Now class, we going to learn about Intelligent Design. We live in a complex universe... so complex that we don't fully understand it yet. Therefore it must have been created by a designer. But we don't know anything about the designer. That concludes out lesson on Intelligent Design,"

[rob777]

If you are going to propose some additional process other than the twenty or so known kinds of mutation, you are going to have to demonstrate it. You are also goint to have to demonstrate the necessity of such a mechanism.





As to the first, ID makes use of commonly accepted principles of detecting design from other disciplines and apples those principles to nature. The necessity of design is based on probability analysis of the process of evolution happening by chance.

[rob777]

Okay, lets play pretend. What would be the material taught in science class when the topic of ID came up?






It would start with teaching the principles of decting design used in other disciplines and bring up the question as to whether we can apply those principles to nature. The next logical step would be to examine the question as to whether nature exhibits those principles. A parallel approach would be to examine the probability of evolution occurring through chance. (There need not be any dispute that evolution according to the dictionary definition occurred) The identity or nature of the designer would be left to philosophy or theology classes.

[TOWER]

The problem with that is our ability to detect design is limited to man-made constructs (or things that could be man-made in the case of alien artifacts). Want you're looking for is basically a god detector, which there ain't.

[cookcounty]

"Oh, goody. Another crevo thread."

Indeed. The Scientific community has already decided we're here strictly by accident, (or at least by accidents) and that there is no "God.". It's over already!

[rob777]

The problem with that is our ability to detect design is limited to man-made constructs (or things that could be man-made in the case of alien artifacts).






There are principles of design that are currently being applied to man made objects. That they are currently so limited is conceivably the result of our inability to fathom something other than human intelligence, than it is to limits on the principles themselves. The question is whether the same principles apply to nature. This is a valid area of controversy between ID proponents and its critics. At least it gets us beyond the conjuring up of the religious "bogeyman".

[cookcounty]

"Once again: true belief in God demands faith, not proof. Anyone who demands proof should examine why they even bother professing a belief in God."

No, but you ought to be able to come up with a smidgen of evidence. Faith requires more than an intellectual vaccuum.

You cannot simultaneously believe that your existence is a meaningless accident and at the same time endorse a view that holds that your life has ultimate meaning and purpose. These are mutually exclusive concepts. "Just having faith" doesn't mean anything. Faith in what? A "God" who is hermetically sealed off from the world of experience? Why bother?