The Other Intelligent Design Theories

Intelligent Design is only one of many “alternatives” to Darwinian evolution

There is rich irony in how the present battle over Creationism v. Darwinism has taken shape, and especially the ways that this round differs from previous episodes. A clue to both the recent success — and the eventual collapse — of “Intelligent Design” can be found in its name, and in the new tactics that are being used to support its incorporation into school curricula. In what must be taken as sincere flattery, these tactics appear to acknowledge just how deeply the inner lessons of science have pervaded modern culture.

Intelligent Design (ID) pays tribute to its rival, by demanding to be recognized as a direct and “scientific” competitor with the Theory of Evolution. Unlike the Creationists of 20 years ago, proponents of ID no longer refer to biblical passages. Instead, they invoke skepticism and cite alleged faulty evidence as reasons to teach students alternatives to evolution.

True, they produce little or no evidence to support their own position. ID promoters barely try to undermine evolution as a vast and sophisticated model of the world, supported by millions of tested and interlocking facts. At the level that they are fighting, none of that matters. Their target is the millions of onlookers and voters, for whom the battle is as emotional and symbolic as it ever was.

What has changed is the armory of symbols and ideas being used. Proponents of Intelligent Design now appeal to notions that are far more a part of the lexicon of science than religion, notably openness to criticism, fair play, and respect for the contingent nature of truth.

These concepts proved successful in helping our civilization to thrive, not only in science, but markets, democracy and a myriad other modern processes. Indeed, they have been incorporated into the moral foundations held by average citizens, of all parties and creeds. Hence, the New Creationists have adapted and learned to base their arguments upon these same principles. One might paraphrase the new position, that has been expressed by President Bush and many others, as follows:

What do evolutionists have to fear? Are they so worried about competition and criticism that they must censor what bright students are allowed to hear? Let all sides present their evidence and students will decide for themselves!

One has to appreciate not only irony, but an implied tribute to the scientific enlightenment, when we realize that openness to criticism, fair play, and respect for the contingent nature of truth are now the main justifications set forward by those who still do not fully accept science. Some of those promoting a fundamentalist- religious agenda now appeal to principles they once fiercely resisted. (In fairness, some religions helped to promote these concepts.) Perhaps they find it a tactically useful maneuver.

It’s an impressive one. And it has allowed them to steal a march. While scientists and their supporters try to fight back with judicious reasoning and mountains of evidence, a certain fraction of the population perceives only smug professors, fighting to protect their turf — authority figures trying to squelch brave underdogs before they can compete. Image matters. And this self-portrayal — as champions of open debate, standing up to stodgy authorities — has worked well for the proponents of Intelligent Design (ID). For now.

Yet, I believe they have made a mistake. By basing their offensive on core notions of fair play and completeness, ID promoters have employed a clever short-term tactic, but have incurred a long-term strategic liability. Because, their grand conceptual error is in believing that their incantation of Intelligent Design is the only alternative to Darwinian evolution.

If students deserve to weigh ID against natural selection, then why not also expose them to…

This is the deist compromise most commonly held by thousands — possibly millions — of working scientists who want to reconcile science and faith. Yes, the Earth is 4.6 billion years old and our earliest ancestors emerged from a stew of amino acids that also led to crabs, monkeys and slime molds who are all distant relatives. Still, a creative force may have been behind the Big Bang, and especially the selection of some finely tuned physical constants, whose narrow balance appears to make the evolution of life possible, maybe even inevitable. Likewise, such a force may have given frequent or occasional nudges of subtle guidance to evolution, all along, as part of a Divine Plan.

There is one advantage — and drawback — to this notion (depending on your perspective): it is compatible with everything we see around us — all the evidence we’ve accumulated — and it is utterly impossible to prove or disprove. Not only does this let many scientists continue both to pray and do research, but it has allowed the Catholic Church and many other religious organizations to accept (at long last) evolution as fact, with relatively good grace.

Most Judeo-Christian sects dislike speculating about possible origins of the Creator. But not all avoid the topic. Mormons, for example, hold that the God of this universe — who created humanity (or at least guided our evolution) — was once Himself a mortal being who was created by a previous God in a prior universe or context.

One can imagine someone applying the very same logic that Intelligent Design promoters have used.

There is no way that such a fantastic entity as God could have simply erupted out of nothing. Such order and magnificence could not possibly have self-organized out of chaos. Only intelligence can truly create order, especially order of such a supreme nature.

Oh, certainly there are theological arguments that have been around since Augustine to try and quell such thoughts, arguing in favor of ex nihilio or timeless pre-existence, or threatening punishment for even asking the question. But that’s the point! Any effort to raise these rebuttals will:

1. make this a matter of theology (something the ID people have strenuously avoided). 2. smack as an attempt to quash other ideas, flying against the very same principles of fair play and completeness that ID proponents have used to prop up this whole effort.

IDOID will have to be let in, or the whole program must collapse under howling derision and accusations of hypocrisy.

Yes, you read me right. Recent advances in cosmology have led some of the world’s leading cosmologists, such as Syracuse University’s Lee Smolin, to suggest that each time a large black hole forms (and our universe contains many) it serves as an “egg” for the creation of an entirely new “baby universe” that detaches from ours completely, beginning an independent existence in some non-causally connected region of false vacuum. Out of this collapsing black hole arises a new cosmos, perhaps with its own subsequent Big Bang and expansion, including the formation of stars, planets, etc. Smolin further posits that our own universe may have come about that way, and so did its “parent” cosmos, and so on, backward through countless cycles of hyper-time.

Moreover, in a leap of highly original logic, Smolin went on to persuasively argue that each new universe might be slightly better adapted than its ancestor. Adapted for what? Why, to create more black holes — the eggs — needed for reproducing more universes.

Up to this point we have a more sophisticated and vastly larger-scale version of what Richard Dawkins called the evolution of evolvability. But Lee Smolin takes it farther still, contending that, zillions of cycles of increasingly sophisticated universes would lead to some that inherit just the right physical constants and boundary conditions.

Well, now it’s our turn to take things even farther than Smolin did. Any advocate of completeness would have to extend this evolutionary process beyond achieving mere sapience like ours, all the way to producing intelligence so potent that it can then start performing acts of creation on its own, manipulating and using black holes to fashion universes to specific design.

In other words, there might be an intelligent designer of this world … who nevertheless came into being as a result of evolution.

Sound a little newfangled and contrived? So do all new ideas! And yet, no one can deny that it covers a legitimate portion of idea space. And since “weighing the evidence” is to be left to students, well, shouldn’t they be exposed to this idea too? Again, the principles now used by proponents of ID — fair play and completeness — may turn around and bite them.

Perhaps the whole thing does not have a clear-cut beginning or end, but rolls along like a wheel? That certainly would allow enough macro-time for everything and anything to happen. Interestingly, the cyclical notion opens up infinite time for both evolution and intelligent designers … though not of any kind that will please ID promoters. Shall Hindu gurus and Mayan priest kings step up and demand equal time for their theories of creation cycles? How can you stop them, once the principle is established that every hypothesis deserves equal treatment in the schools, allowing students to hear and weigh any notion that claims to explain the world? 5. Panspermia

This one is venerable and quite old within the scientific community, which posits that life on Earth may have been seeded from elsewhere in the cosmos. Panspermia was trotted out for the “Scopes II” trial in the 1980s, when Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinge were among the few first-rank scientists to openly disbelieve the standard Origins model — the one that posits life appeared independently out of nonliving chemicals in Earth’s early oceans. Their calculations (since then refuted) suggested that it would take hundreds of oceans and many times the age of the Earth for random chemistry to achieve a workable, living cell.

Alas for the Creationists of that day, Hoyle and Wickramasinge did not turn out to be useful as friendly experts, because their alternative offered no comfort to the biblical Genesis story. They pointed out that our galaxy probably contains a whole lot more than a few hundred Earth oceans. Multiplying the age of the Milky Way times many billions of possible planets — and comets too — they readily conceded that random chance could make successful cells, eventually, on one world or another. (Or, possibly, in the liquid interiors of trillions of newborn comets.) All it would take then are asteroid impacts ejecting hardy cells into the void for life to then spread gradually throughout the cosmos. Perhaps it might even be done deliberately, once a single lucky source world achieved intelligence through … well … evolution. (Needless to say, Creationists found Hoyle & Wickramasinge a big disappointment.)

So far, we have amassed quite a list of legitimate competitors … that is, if Intelligent Design is one. Now a cautionary pause. Some alternative theories that I have left out include satirical pseudo-religions, like one recent internet fad attributing creation to something called the “Flying Spaghetti Monster.” These humorous jibes have a place, but their blows do not land on-target. They miss the twin pillars of completeness and fair play, upon which promoters of Intelligent Design have based their attack against secular-modernist science. By erasing all theological details, they hoped to eliminate any vulnerabilities arising from those details. Indeed, since the Spaghetti Monster is purported to be an Intelligent Designer, they can even chuckle and welcome it into the fold, knowing that it will win no real converts.

Not so for the items listed here. Each of these concepts — adding to idea-space completeness and deserving fair play — implies a dangerous competitor for Intelligent Design, a competitor that may seduce at least a few students into its sphere of influence. This undermines the implicit goal of ID, which is to proselytize a fundamentalist/literalist interpretation of the Christian Bible.

There are other possibilities, and I am sure readers could continue adding to the list, long after I am done, such as…

* We’re living in a simulation… * We’ve been resurrected at the Omega Point… * It’s all in your imagination … and so on.

I doubt that the promoters of Intelligent Design really want to see a day come when every biology teacher says: “Okay, you’ve heard from Darwin. Now we’ll spend a week on each of the following: intelligent design, guided evolution, intelligent design of intelligent designers, evolution of intelligent designers, the Hindu cycle of karma, the Mayan yuga cycle, panspermia, the Universe as a simulation…” and so on.

Each of these viewpoints can muster support from philosophers and even some modern physicists, and can gather as much supporting evidence as ID. In any case they are all equally defensible as concepts. And only censoring bullies would prevent students from hearing them and exercising their sovereign right to decide for themselves, right? Or, perhaps, they might even start private sessions after school, to study the science called … biology.

A day may come when the promoters of Intelligent Design wish they had left well enough alone.

Apparently science and history do not mix, because scientists seem unable to grasp any understanding of the history of civilizations and cultures.

Apparently you think that mouthing laughable assertions without a shred of support somehow makes them true, or does not damage your credibility

It must be that pesky postmodern reductionism that prevents them from seeing how mankind has slowly culturally evolved over time.

Oh look, there's another baseless assertion. You're full of them, aren't you?

For them it is all darkness before Enlightenment, and all darkness since.

Wrong again. But you must be getting used to that by now.

That is evidence that science, though good for many endevours, is worthless when trying to analyze things that cannot be broken into little pieces and still have meaning.

You're not real clear on what constitutes "evidence", I see.

[You should note that your continued repetition of this claim does not change the fact that this claim is false.]

On the contrary, you should note that your continued repetition of the claim of "false" does not change the fact that the claims of ID, insofar as they attribute the presence of organized matter that performs specific functions to intelligent design, are reasonable and within the bounds of scientific inquiry.

Changing the subject so soon? And so abruptly? That wasn't the assertion he was declaring false. Why don't you try actually dealing with what he actually wrote, instead of running off in another direction?

And I note that you haven't bothered to even attempt to substantiate your claim that "the claims of ID, insofar as they attribute the presence of organized matter that performs specific functions to intelligent design, are reasonable and within the bounds of scientific inquiry", much less your assertion that this is not just a point which can be substantiated, but is actually "a fact". Go for it.

BINGO!

Singing a child's song about a dog now?

[Acceptance of evolution is not "blind faith". I have even given you a relatively small list of reasons for evolution's acceptance amongst the scientific community.]

Sure, but no facts.

Are you really this completely clueless?

Dazzle the masses with huge amounts of info and that makes evolution bona fide.

Yes, in fact it does, because those "huge amounts of info" are overwhelming evidence for the validity of evolution. Sort of "forgot" about that part, didn't you?

Give me the facts and only the facts,

We have, many times over the past few years, for example here. You have shown yourself incapable of recognizing facts when they are shown to you, and also that you are capable of denying anything, no matter how well documented, which you are afraid might induce you to reconsider your position. You have a classic case of Morton's Demon.

otherwise your opinion is no better than anyone else's including the "scientific community".

I regret to inform you that our informed opinions, and those of the scientific community, remain valid no matter how desperately you attempt to convince yourself that they're "no better than anyone else's" unsubstantiated (and in many cases, demonstrably invalid) beliefs.

But cling to that rationalization if it makes you feel better, as clearly it does.

[Seals and other aquatic life cannot be accurately carbon dated for known reasons. Researchers are aware of this limitation and thus carbon dating is not used for such specimens.]

You mean, it's not used because it can't support evolutionary theory.

Congratulations, you're a moron -- at least on this topic.

His statement is correct, and yours is idiotic, based on an obvious gross ignorance of the issue under discussion.

When he says that they can't be accurately dated "for known reasons", he's entirely correct, and those "known reasons" are so simple and straightforward that even a child can understand them and see how it validates the statement he made. So... what's your excuse?

Oh, right -- you're an anti-evolutionist, so you see no need whatsoever to *LEARN* what those reasons are before you just post outright lies and slanders, even though it would have been as easy as clicking on the links he provided to substantiate his statement. Typical -- and typically inexcusable. Your dishonesty and intellectual laziness disgust me.

Unlike the Creationists of 20 years ago, proponents of ID no longer refer to biblical passages. Instead, they invoke skepticism and cite alleged faulty evidence as reasons to teach students alternatives to evolution. True, they produce little or no evidence to support their own position... Their target is the millions of onlookers and voters, for whom the battle is as emotional and symbolic as it ever was.

This is so true of the Id'ers... and I have told a number of ID'ers on FR that pushing ID is going to open a Pandora's box to "other theories" being pushed (well funded cults like Scientology). They don't care nor do they think it is a real issue.

To say that pushing ID is going to lead to other theories being pushed as well isn't much more than an unsupported slippery slope argument. The author admits that guided evolution is an old alternative and Lee Smolin's ideas about evolving universes has also been talked about for years, as has the idea that the universe is cyclical and I fail to see the harm in that, just as I fail to see the problem in his atheism inspiring Stephen Hawking to solve the problem of apparent fine-tuning with top-down approach to cosmology... nor have I heard of any ID proponent complain about any of these ideas being discussed as live options.

Changing the subject so soon? And so abruptly?

I was not the one who raised claims of falsehood, and that is precisely the subject I was addressing. Be that as it may, natural selection is not a scientifically accessible set of terms, but an arbitrary, post hoc attribution. If one wishes to call it a "driving force" behind evolution I might not question his faith, but I am not inclined to call it science.

And I note that you haven't bothered to even attempt to substantiate your claim . . .

My claim is substantiated by that part of Western science which has understood the universe to be a product of intelligent design.

[new wood cut from growing trees after few days was dated at 10,000 years]

I am unable to find any references for this claim. That is, I cannot find a documented example where this has occured, thus I cannot evaluate the accuracy or honesty of the claim.

I've seen it before -- it's a typical creationist distortion, so it's no surprise that "taxesareforever" is fond of using it.

Here's what I wrote to the last grossly dishonest creationist who tried to pull that one:

Wood freshly cut out of living trees has been carbon dated at 10,000 years,
BECAUSE, Race, that tree grew in a busy airport, and got a significant amount of its CO2 from the nearly constant exhaust of jets which were burning ANCIENT hydrocarbons.
Now, please explain how many actual paleontological specimens grew near a constant source of burning fossil fuels all their lives?
Your source sort of "forgot" to mention this so that it could try to cast doubt on ALL radiocarbon dating, didn't it? Lying by omission in order to leave a misleading impression is still lying.

The source of this grossly misleading claim is "Time Upside Down," in Creation Research Society Quarterly (a creationist "journal"), June 1974, p. 18.

Note the difference in methdologies between scientists and the creationists. Scientists note the fact that plants which are in a place where they will "breathe" substantial amounts of exhaust from fossil fuels will produce incorrect results from C-14 dating, for VERY OBVIOUS AND WELL UNDERSTOOD REASONS, and thus scientists don't use C-14 dating for plants in such situations (they'll use other methods) because scientists are interested in getting *accurate* dates when they date something.

Creationists, on the other hand, SEEK OUT cases where it's OBVIOUS that C-14 dating will be invalid, run the dates anyway, then use the fact that they got INVALID results from their PURPOSELY INVALID usage of the method as a cheap and dishonest excuse to try to imply that C-14 dating is unreliable when applied to samples from VALID sources. It's like purposely using a mercury thermometer to "measure" a sample at a known temperature of -120 degrees, then using the fact that the thermometer indicates a temperature of -38 to "prove" that measuring any temperature under any conditions with a thermometer is bogus and unreliable, WITHOUT informing the reader that mercury freezes at -38 degrees and only a moron (or a dishonest creationist) would be reckless enough to use a frozen thermometer to measure anything in the first place. An invalid application of a process or measuring tool will of course produce invalid results, WHICH IS WHY HONEST PEOPLE DON'T USE THEM IN THOSE SITUATIONS. This says nothing, however, about the accuracy of such methods when used in *appropriate* situations, although the lying creationists would like you to believe that it does. Instead, the only thing it actually demonstrates is the gross dishonesty of creationists.

Let's have a show of hands: Is anyone willing to try to defend the grossly dishonest tactics of the creationists in cases like this? That question includes you, "taxesareforever" -- are you going to attempt to defend your sleazy use of this kind of gross dishonesty?

[Changing the subject so soon? And so abruptly?]

I was not the one who raised claims of falsehood,

No, but you *were* the one who changed the subject when the issue of your false claims was raised.

and that is precisely the subject I was addressing.

...by transparently swapping targets instead of substantiating or retracting your false claim.

Be that as it may, natural selection is not a scientifically accessible set of terms, but an arbitrary, post hoc attribution.

"Be that as it may", you're wrong, but thanks for playing. Natural selection is scientifically detectable through DNA analysis, field studies, and direct observation.

If one wishes to call it a "driving force" behind evolution I might not question his faith, but I am not inclined to call it science.

That's because, frankly, you don't know what in the hell you're talking about, but you keep talking about it anyway.

[And I note that you haven't bothered to even attempt to substantiate your claim . . .]

My claim is substantiated by that part of Western science which has understood the universe to be a product of intelligent design.

And what "part" would that be? Hint: The fact that some scientists state their personal feelings about the matter doesn't make it "part of Western science". If you actually have some *science* which supports your claim, feel free to present it now. We'll wait. Hint #2: Alleged evidence *against* evolution is not evidence *for* intelligent design -- epistemology doesn't work that way.

Wait, help me out here. Intelligent Design "collapsed" because one man in a black robe in PA -- of unknown personal biases -- rejected it as an endorsement of religion?

That's not what the article said. You might want to work on your reading comprehension and try again.

I wonder if you'd be so quick to declare that evolution had "collapsed" if the same judge had ruled the other way.

No, nor have we done so in this case. Again, you might want to work on your reading comprehension.

Even in today's news -- backwards evolution (Darwin's finch). In reality, nothing evolved at all. The finches with longer beaks predominated, then fell into the minority, then resumed predominance.

Congratulations, that's evolution. So on what do you base your bizarre claim that "nothing evolved at all"?

The genes were there in the population mix all along.

Yeah, so? Are you sure you understand what evolution actually is?

They didn't mutate or evolve in any evolutionary sense.

They didn't mutate *recently*, no, but those alleles did arise via mutations in the more distant past, as DNA analysis clearly shows.

Also, there's no such thing as "backwards evolution". Are you in the habit of making up nonsensical terms to use in your posts?

Furthermore, even just a change in frequency of existing alleles is still "evolving in any evolutionary sense", so you might want to go bone up on elementary biology as long as you're out brushing up on your reading comprehension.

Thanks for sharing your misconceptions with us, though, it's always entertaining.

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