For some time now I have thought that the debate surrounding ID had grown stale. It seems that the ideas and arguments concerning intelligent design were just being recycled over and over again. That has changed. I just finished reading Mike Gene's new book The Design Matrix and it is chock-full of interesting information, ideas, and approaches to the design question. I know a lot of you will be receiving the book soon so I won't spoil your fun of discovery, but I think you'll find Mike's approach to the design issue very refreshing. You won't find any ideologically driven claims or conclusions. Instead Mike approaches the question of design as an investigation, looking for clues and developing ways to evaluate those clues in a reasonable and thought provoking manner. His Explanatory Continuum offers a fresh and, in my view, very realistic way of interpreting biological data. Then, while acknowledging the subjectivity of the Continuum, Mike provides a way to quantify and systematically assess those judgements. His exposition of new information on the structure of genetic code really caught my eye. And of course, Mike offers lots of intriguing ideas on frontloading. For the biologically astute there is plenty of detail that will be of interest, but even for a non-biologist like me it was easy to read and follow. Then there's much more. Each chapter provides lots of information and ideas to think about. But like I said, I don't want to spoil your fun so these are just some hints at what you'll find. The Rabbit beckons.

Several years back I thought that the Darwinian theory was probably the best explanation for the emergence of biotic structures. That was before the stunning details of molecular machines were discovered. As the details of these remarkable machines rolled in, I became more and more skeptical that the random step-by-step process of mutations propounded by Darwinian theory could, in fact, account for what we see. It wasn't common descent (which I accept) or the increase of complexity over time that bothered me. It was the idea that the complex machines we see could come about with no planning or some sort of cognitive factor. Having been a machine designer for many years and designed many complex machines and systems, the probability that such remarkable machines could come about unplanned just seemed beyond rationality.

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Stereotyping has been a persistent issue in the ID debate. Prominent critics almost invariably try to link ID and its proponents to certain stereotypes: creationism, religious fundamentalism, theocracy, religion, anti-science, irrationalism, etc. But the "problem" of stereotyping has not only been addressed just by ID proponents. Sam Harris seeks to dispel stereotypes of atheists in 10 myths"”and 10 Truths"”About Atheism.

The other day I ran across an interesting excerpt from Stereotypes as Explanations.

Now commonly, stereotypes are thought to be bad. These social psychologists, however, claim this is not necessarily so. Stereotyping can do some necessary work for making sense of the world and ordering society. They use an example of a police officer directing traffic. Since the officer is part of a well known group there is also a stereotype associated with it. The common stereotype includes the idea of authority, law enforcement, protection, helpfulness, etc. This stereotype is important for directing traffic because it provides for an instant response in appropriate ways from individuals and groups.

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Lately there has been a rash of anti-religion books by the likes of Dawkins, Harris, Dennett, and Stenger. The one thing that the New Atheists just don't seem to get is that most people on the planet have a compelling sensibility that there is an underlying ultimate purpose to the cosmos. This sensibility may not be "scientific" as traditionally defined but it is still extremely compelling. What is this sensibility? It can come in infinite varieties. The anecdotes abound. Many find it in their experience of nature. Or in the beauty of love, art, mathematics, music, reason, scientific discovery, etc. And even the horrors of life. When it comes, it comes with power. A power that is not easily dissuaded. Now the materialists will claim that this sensibility is just an adaptive feature or a coincidental byproduct of evolution, but for those who have it that doesn't convince.

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Every chance Dawkins and Harris get, they try to promote the idea that religion and especially personalistic theism are irrational. This is one of their key arguments for the New Atheism. Although the arguments on both sides of the isle should be taken at face value, often it is helpful to look to prominent thinkers for their opinion. Kurt Gödel is considered by many as one of the great logicians of all time. His incompleteness theorems shook the mathematic and scientific world because they claimed that any mathematical approach based on arithmetic to understanding the cosmos would always be incomplete. It even eventually convinced famous physicist Stephen Hawking that a theory of everything could never be found. So if Gödel is such a great logician and supremely committed to rationality, how is it that such a rational mind could, in fact, believe in a personalistic God and even the afterlife? This according to a very interesting article by Héctor Rosario.

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Recently there has been a rash of anti-religion books. One would think from all the rhetoric and broad public exposure of the likes of Dawkins, Harris, Dennett and other critics of religion that they are in the vanguard of those criticizing elements of irrationality and ill conceived dogma in religion. That could not be farther from the truth. These atheistic critics seem completely unaware of those within religion over many decades who have lodged many of the same criticisms they offer. Neither do they seem to know that many prominent thinkers in religion are just as serious about dispelling the superstitious and destructive elements in religion. The fact is that some of the best minds in religious thought have worked indefatigably to place religious thinking on a sounder footing within a modern world. These efforts have been an ongoing pursue of those who have been categorized as part of liberal theology.

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As many of you may know, Mike Gene has been exploring the idea of front-loading in biology for a number of years. Apparently word has gotten out about his work beyond the regulars on ID related blogs and discussions. Mike gets mentioned by the host in a couple of internet radio interviews of Salvador Cordova and Michael Shermer on The Sci Phi Show Outcast. The mention is a little over half way through the Salvador interview and just before half way on the Shermer interview. Congrats Mike!

Check them out here and here

[HT Salvador on the programs]

I don't think there is any question that many ID claims rely heavily on arguments from analogy. Since the analogies drawn by ID proponents do have prima facie power (even Dawkins admits this: "Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose."), the question that remains is how much force this type of scientific reasoning carries. Typically ID critics attempt to play down the power of analogical arguments. Now clearly, use of analogy in a superficial way (if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's a duck) carries little force and can lead to false conclusions. To determine if it's really a duck a more in-depth probing should be required. Perhaps it's really a machine designed to simulate a duck but underneath the feathers it has a metallic frame, motors, gears, and levers. So what form of exploration and reasoning is required to validate the conclusion? Is there really something more than the utilization of analogy that can be employed to overcome the weakness of a prima facie claim? Or is analogy really the foundational engine driving reason and scientific validation? In other words, is it analogy "all the way down" If so then the question is not whether arguments from analogy are valid and powerful, but what analogical arguments are being made and how compelling are they?

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I think it's an interesting (and tough) task to come up with a short list of the books or papers that have been most important to you. I'm always interested in what people are reading and think is important. In order to keep this list around a dozen what helped me was to look for books in my bookshelves that never seem to end up in the overflow stacks. The following are some books that have been important to me:

• Systematic Theology, Vol. 1, Paul Tillich
• Stages of Thought, Michael Horace Barnes
• The Courage to Be, Paul Tillich
• A Different Universe, Robert Laughlin
• The Writings of William James, William James, John J. McDermott
• The Shape of Ancient Thought, Thomas McEvilley
• In the Presence of Mystery, Michael Horace Barnes
• Darwin's Black Box, Michael Behe
• Descartes' Error, Antonio Damasio
• In Whom We Live and Move and Have our Being, Philip Clayton
• The Tacit Mode, Michael Polanyi's Postmodern Philosophy, Jerry Gill
• The History of Religious Ideas, Mircea Eliade
• Philosophers speak of God, Charles Hartshorne, William Reese

Anyone else care to share their list?

P.S. I could have also included various religious scriptures but decided to focus on non-scriptural works.

Mike has offered some interesting posts (here and here) on confirmational and disconfirmational bias. I thought I'd draw into the discussion the work of neuroscientist Antonio Damasio in his book Descartes' Error. Neuroscientist Joseph Ledoux offers similar research in his The Emotional Brain and in another very interesting book by Stanley Greenspan, M.D., shows that children brought up in an emotionally diverse environment develop higher intelligence. The conclusions of these and other researchers are that emotions are not only active in decision making but essential. For skeptics like Shermer these findings may be disconcerting because I suspect that he and other skeptics would reject the idea that their skeptical decisions flow from their emotional biases. The research suggests that they do and even a Darwinist should recognize how compelling it is.

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