[xzins]

Many don't see that the word "intelligence" is very broad.

An organizing principle can be an "intelligence."

In fact, many computers do complex organizing, but none of them are living.

"Natural Selection" was an organizing principle that was applied to all of life as we know it. It has failed as an explanatory organizing principle. The world around us is too complex for natural selection to adequately explain.

The "intelligent design" criticism of evolution says that another organizing principle must be found.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for your excellent post and the ping to the sidebar you are having with GSlob!

xzins: The "intelligent design" criticism of evolution says that another organizing principle must be found.

So very true, xzins - intelligent design is about organizing principles!

GSlob: And where would that "intelligent principle" [aka a deity] come from?

I would like to clear up this persistent misunderstanding about the intelligent design hypothesis: that the intelligent cause must be a deity.

The intelligent design hypothesis states that “certain features of the universe and life are best explained by intelligent cause rather than an undirected process such as natural selection”.

The “intelligent cause” is not specified as to whether it is a phenomenon or an agent – much less a specific phenomenon or agent.

There are two basic types of intelligence as a phenomenon: emergent property (such as from self organizing complexity) and fractal intelligence. And there are various candidate intelligent agents: God, collective consciousness, aliens, Gaia, etc.

The intelligent design hypothesis does not say which is the "intelligent cause" for "certain features". It could even be a mix of phenomenon and agency.

Any “intelligent cause” which is determined to be the best explanation for “certain features” will vindicate the hypothesis, for instance:

1. Phenomenon: That animals choosing their mates results in a variation which gives them a survival advantage.

2. Phenomenon: That molecular machinery chooses to cooperate to the survival of the whole organism.

3. Phenomenon: That collectives of organisms (swarms, etc.) make decisions the component organism cannot, which gives the species a survival advantage.

4. Agent or Phenomenon: That there exists a universal will to live – a life principle, fecundity principle, or evolution of one – which is the primary inception of information (successful communication) in biological systems.

5. Agent: That the complexity of “certain features” cannot be explained by natural mechanisms given the age of the universe.

6. Agent: That order cannot rise of chaos in an unguided physical (as compared to mathematical) system.

Frankly, I believe the vindication of the intelligent design hypothesis is virtually unavoidable in physics and math. After all, the only way to exclude intelligence as causation of "certain features" is to prevail in the assertion that intelligence is merely an epiphenomenon of the physical brain.

Lurkers: epiphenomenons are secondary phenomenons which can cause nothing to happen. In this case, it would mean that your physical brain caused your hand to move the mouse to read this post - willfulness had nothing to do with it. Criminals do what they must, involuntarily and so on. In this worldview, the universe is highly determined and free will does not exist.

BTW, intelligence (awareness plus decision making) observed in biological life which does not have a brain debunks the epiphenomenon hypothesis. These include decisions made in cells (Albrecht-Buehler) and amoebas. It is also seen in the McConnell experiments where the flatworm which regenerates from the half with no brain remembers what the original flatworm was taught.

The organizing principles concerning biological life to which xzins speaks are currently being investigated by mathematicians and physicists who have been invited to the table by the biologists. More specifically, the areas include information (successful communication), autonomy, semiosis, complexity and intelligence. Such subjects are of little interest to biologists (Pattee “Bridging the Epistemic Cut”) but are crucial to physicists/mathematicians (Rocha, Schneider, Adami, Kauffman, Wolfram, etc.)

It should also be noted that these mathematicians and scientists do not usually claim to be intelligent design theorists. And to me it doesn’t matter whether the answers are found because of intelligent design or despite it.