Challenged by Creationists, Museums Answer Back

ITHACA, N.Y. - Lenore Durkee, a retired biology professor, was volunteering as a docent at the Museum of the Earth here when she was confronted by a group of seven or eight people, creationists eager to challenge the museum exhibitions on evolution.

They peppered Dr. Durkee with questions about everything from techniques for dating fossils to the second law of thermodynamics, their queries coming so thick and fast that she found it hard to reply.

After about 45 minutes, "I told them I needed to take a break," she recalled. "My mouth was dry."

That encounter and others like it provided the impetus for a training session here in August. Dr. Durkee and scores of other volunteers and staff members from the museum and elsewhere crowded into a meeting room to hear advice from the museum director, Warren D. Allmon, on ways to deal with visitors who reject settled precepts of science on religious grounds.

Considering that we just had a discussion in which you denied that ID is primarily about the supernatural version of ID

I never even accepted your premise that there's any kind of meaningful distinction between artificial and "supernatural". You're the one who brought it up, not I. It's up to you to explain what you're talking about.

I have no problem understanding what ID is. It's the view that some sort of deliberate, intelligent tinkering was necessary in order to account for the various features of life, that they could not have come about through naturalistic processes. You can disagree with it all you want, but you seem unable to argue against it without either misrepresenting it, or word-gaming it to death.

Right, there's design, and then there's implementation. Two separate things.

OK, fine, I will accept that terminology. But now let's ask the non-terminological question, here is a thing X, is it designed?

Let's take your dog scenario first. You've recently bought a dog. You say "lie down" and the dog lies down. Is that outcome designed? In particular, on what basis should *I* say that it is designed. Clearly, because of the way you have defined design, you agree I must believe that you intended that the dog lie down. For example I might be convinced instead that you were just joking around and didn't expect the dog to lie down at all. In that case I should not believe the dog's lying down to be by your design.

But I don't think it's enough to simply have the intent. There must also be some causal connection between the design (your definition) and the result. If the dog were deaf and lay down simply because it was tired, I think you should agree that the result was not your design. This is part two of my design detection procedure.

Whatever part is designed is designed.

OK, I see we are in agreement. Getting back to your original claim that

"Letting them evolve" is the antithesis of designing them.

you would agree that "letting them evolve" can be design. Specifically, the outcome is designed to the extent that it was originally specified.

Or perhaps it would be better to say that it is designed if it is implied by the specification. Well, that might be going too far but it is an interesting approach.

This also raises yet another point. I think I am missing a step in my design detector. Probably there must be an actual prior specification in addition to intent. IOW there must both a specification and a will toward implementing that specification. Do you agree?

that they could not have come about through naturalistic processes

Pardon my butting in (and I'm not trying to change subject we've been discussing on the side - I'm still interested in your thoughts on that), but perhaps you can tell me what reasoning is sufficient to conclude that some phenomenon X could not have come about through naturalistic processes.

By "come about through naturalistic processes" I assume you mean "cannot be explain by a theory of natural science." Is that what you mean?

To be clear, as I read it, you're not saying "no *current* theory of natural science can explain it" but rather that "no theory of natural science *will ever* explain it." So I am wondering how you will account for every scientific theory present and future and deduce that none will ever explain X?

This is from just previous on this thread:

aphid evolution is natural, but dog evolution is not?

Same way that an anthill is natural, but the Pentagon is not.

So...apparently, since, as you say, you don't accept the premise that "there is any meaningful distinction between artificial and supernatural" you think the pentagon and dogs came about from supernatural design.

Is there some form of design that is neither natural nor supernatural?

Or is it simply that you're enjoying leading the dopey evolutionists who gullibly continue to take you at face value for a ride?

that they could not have come about through naturalistic processes. You can disagree with it all you want, but you seem unable to argue against it without either misrepresenting it, or word-gaming it to death.

If you are talking about the epistimology of science, the opposite of naturalistic is supernatural. And it hasn't been that long ago that you were explaining that ID is not hypothesizing supernatural design. It is not I that has introduced a murky, personalized, and rather shifty definition of what "natural" means. The orginal question here was, "why won't Darwinian evolution likely be demolished by the discovery that ID holds water?" And the answer is still, just as it was when we started this discussion, that if a natural explanation exists, intelligent or not, being natural, (as opposed to supernatural) it is going to be subject to scientific investigation, and chances are, everything we've currently noticed about micro-biology and old bones that needs explaining won't magically go away at the same time.

I aver that I answered this question some time ago, and you are the one trying to drown out the conversation with irrelevant bickering over either definitional nothings, or the absurd claim that the darwinian argument clings desperately to life over questions like whether dog-breeding is intelligent-vs-natural evolution. Which, of course, it does not.

I answered your question, you basically peed on the conversation. Get over yourself, and leave me alone.

Getting back to your original claim that "Letting them evolve" is the antithesis of designing them. you would agree that "letting them evolve" can be design.

The only thing that's "designed" is the bare fact that evolution is taking place. The actual evolutionary pathways themselves are not being designed. Again, I think most people can tell the difference between a process that involves design and one that doesn't. Letting something happen on its own does not.

Probably there must be an actual prior specification in addition to intent. IOW there must both a specification and a will toward implementing that specification. Do you agree?

Assuming I understand you correctly, I don't agree. I can design an object without having any intention of actually creating it, and it's still my design.

To be clear, as I read it, you're not saying "no *current* theory of natural science can explain it" but rather that "no theory of natural science *will ever* explain it."

Scientific theories generally don't deal in absolutes like that. In fact, I'm skeptical of the generally accepted theoretical claim that we'll never be able to exceed the speed of light. But that doesn't make it any less of a valid scientific theory.

What's necessary for ID to be viable at all is for there to be living forms and features that are inexplicable by any current naturalistic theory. The longer that state of affairs continues, despite genuine attempts to come up with such theoretical models, the more likely that the ID theory would be correct.

I'm saying that it doesn't matter whether or not they did, from a scientific perspective, because "supernatural" is a scientifically meaningless term. It's just a strawman you use to argue against ID, as a substitute for a real argument.

I'll take this as in indication that you don't read what I write with your brights on. I have merely pointed out, accurately, that this wouldn't be a particularly active debate were it not for the proponents of supernatural ID. No part of the argument I made to answer the question "Why won't Evolutionary theory die, if ID holds water?" depends in any manner on a resort to supernatural ID.

Not to mention the spontaneous, unplanned time travel theory and the focused thetan energy theory. After a thousand years, they all become virtually certain, I guess.

Non-supernatural explanations, regardless of the intelligence of the actor being explained, are potentially the job of science. Supernatural explanations are not.

Since you've failed to provide a workable definition of "supernatural" other than, outside the realm of science, you're merely making a circular argument.

The fact is, anything that exists, in reality, and has an observable effect on the real world, can properly be the subject of a scientific theoretical model. Whatever label you put on it doesn't change that fact.

Letting something happen on its own does not {constitute design].

What does it mean to "let something happen on its own?" Let's get specific. In genetic programming, sample populations of randomly generated algorithms are randomly cross bred and selected for fitness. The selection function is something like "better/worse at balancing a pencil on its point." After numerous generations you end up with a program that is an unreadable mess but which is very good at balancing a pencil. Similar techniques have been used to create electronic circuits. Again you get a circuit that's "unreadable" but does the selected function very nicely. Are these algorithms and circuits designed? Were they "let happen on their own?"

I can design an object without having any intention of actually creating it, and it's still my design.

I don't think that's a direct answer to my question you excepted which is, in addition to the intention to create that object is it also necessary to exhibit a specification to convince me that it is designed?

The point you may have been addressing is a prior one in my post, namely suppose there is intent and specification. To say that some observed phenomenon is the result of that design (see, I'm accepting your terminology), doesn't there have to be causal connection from the design to the object? IOW if the object is created independently of the design, then it was not a result of that design.

What's necessary for ID to be viable at all is for there to be living forms and features that are inexplicable by any current naturalistic theory.

I see, you're making the even weaker claim that ID says that some phenomena are *as yet* unexplained by current theories. This is a god-of-the-gaps argument and not very compelling.

Scientific theories generally don't deal in absolutes like that.

They often do. Energy is conserved by every physical process. Entropy of an isolated system never decreases.

But that's beside the point. ID isn't a scientific theory so it's free to make whatever kinds of claims its wants.

When you make a scientific hypothesis about something that exists, be it a unicorn, a quark or a designer, you are assigning properties to it, properties that can be tested. A thing that can do anything or everything cannot be the object of scientific investigation. If it has no limits then you can't propose a situation where its actions can be distinguished.

Since you've failed to provide a workable definition of "supernatural" other than, outside the realm of science, you're merely making a circular argument.

You're like the energizer bunny of obtuse irrelevance. If you don't know what ordinary 6th grade spelling test words mean, I'd strongly recommend you try looking them up.

...which means, mr. attentive, that if ID proves to be the case, there's no reason to think it will likely deepsix evolutionary biology, since what we already know and puzzle about from fossils and microbiology isn't going away. As I might possibly have mentioned already, but who the heck has the attention span to wade through your definition-circus to remember what the fuss was about in the first place?

The fact is, anything that exists, in reality, and has an observable effect on the real world, can properly be the subject of a scientific theoretical model.

Oh, and by the way, this is an incredible overreach, which defies common sense, formal math, quantum physics, and which finite beings could never possibly demonstrate. You likely will never develop formal foundations for all the true theories of any godelian system; you likely will never know exactly when or where quantum effects will move electrical effects through a transistor barrier; you will likely never have any idea what goes on below the Heisenburg limit in an atomic exchange. There are only a very limited number of things in the "real world" that show, in fact, any significant signs of being completely knowable: formal mathematical systems that are linear, continuous, and abstract, in fact, is the only thing I can think of. Outside of that, the inherent problems of discontinuity, and NP complexity probably makes the majority of the universe unanalyzable for all time.

A common gross way to make this argument, is that if you try to analyze any system that is combinatorially complex, such as, for example, trying to calculate the celestial mechanical future of all the particles in the universe, you eventually run into the point where you run out of particles in the universe to dedicate to the calculation. Complexity problems of a similar nature kill your chances of understanding even fairly simple things way less challenging than this extreme example.

First of all, in your examples the selection criteria were designed. In the natural world, the selection criteria are as "designed" as the natural world itself - that is to say, it's part of the background in which animate and inanimate, biotic and abiotic matter all exist. So above and beyond the design of those initial criteria, those circuits and programs are not designed unless there's further intervention by the designer in their development.

To say that some observed phenomenon is the result of that design (see, I'm accepting your terminology), doesn't there have to be causal connection from the design to the object? IOW if the object is created independently of the design, then it was not a result of that design.

Yes, that's all true. But don't fall into the "if p then q = if q then p" snare. The fact that there is a causal connection does not mean that the final product was, in every detail, designed by whoever came up with the initial outline.

I see, you're making the even weaker claim that ID says that some phenomena are *as yet* unexplained by current theories. This is a god-of-the-gaps argument and not very compelling.

It's essentially no different from the SETI example that was being presented earlier. If we get a signal that appears to be of intelligent origin, the first thing we'd need to do is rule out all natural explanations for it, to every extent possible. Many investigators have said in advance that one tell-tale sign of intelligent origin is if the signal consists entirely of prime numbers, because there's "no known" natural phenomenon that would produce prime numbers exclusively. But all that's liable to the same objection you're raising against ID theory: How can they know that no one will ever come up with a viable theory that could account for a naturallly occurring signal consisting only of prime numbers? The answer is, they don't. It's just a question of probabilities, as is the case in most areas of scientific investigations.

[Scientific theories generally don't deal in absolutes like that.]

They often do. Energy is conserved by every physical process. Entropy of an isolated system never decreases.

Those aren't theories you're quoting.

But that's beside the point. ID isn't a scientific theory so it's free to make whatever kinds of claims its wants.

Circular reasoning.

A thing that can do anything or everything cannot be the object of scientific investigation. If it has no limits then you can't propose a situation where its actions can be distinguished.

Sure you can. If you can rule out all causes for a phenomenon that aren't of an omnipotent nature, then you're left with one choice.

That's of course even assuming that ID theory posits an omnipotent designer, which it doesn't. It only posits an intelligent designer - one that can act with foresight.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.