In blogging and discussing intelligent design for some time now it has become clear to me that, at least in the blogosphere, the theological issues and implications surrounding ID have not been covered in very much depth. Accordingly, I have created a new blog to do just that. ID critics are not just to be found outside the religious traditions. More and more mainline groups are taking positions on ID and attempting to defend those positions theologically. What are those theological defenses, do they represent good systematic theology, and do they really fit within a tradition? Those are some of the questions that will be explored. While the theology of ID will be covered extensively, this blog will have a broader scope. The intent will be to cover many issues facing theology in this new millennium. The past few decades in particular have presented significant challenges for theistic religion. There are many changes occuring within the traditions as well as new theological approaches emerging. The scope of issues for theism in this millennium is obviously vast. I have some ideas of my own on how to address them, but I also look forward to learning from participants. One difference, perhaps, of this theology blog is that it does not align itself with any particular religious tradition. That, I think, can engender a creative climate of dialog among those aligned with a particular tradition and those who are not. I hope some of you will participate and look forward to exploring together.

Check it out.

(Note: This is a personal blog and although I am one of the hosts here at Telic Thoughts this new blog is not something "endorsed" by TT.)

Intelligent design proponents claim that intelligence can be detected in things like the fine tuning of the cosmos and biotic reality. Most ID critics resoundly reject both that an intelligent cause is the best explanation for the emergence of the cosmos and biotic reality and also that it can be empirically detected. Dembski's explanatory filter has met with continual rejection as also his informational approach to detecting ID. If critics are so adamant in rejecting ID attempts at detection, one would think then that these same critics would refrain from making detection statements themselves. Ironically they don't.

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Throughout history religious adherents have attempted to defend their positions against other systems and critics. This effort is often called apologetics. Now apologetics can come in many forms depending on the epistemic resources chosen. For example, within a given religious tradition the scope of an apologetic may be restricted to how scripture is interpreted. One finds this in the apologies presented by various "denominations" within a particular religious tradition. Or apologetics may branch out beyond a particular tradition to defend itself against other religious systems, i.e. Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Atheist, etc. When apologetics branches out from its provincial borders, as it has often had to, in order to be successful it must find some common epistemic ground upon which to argue. Otherwise it runs the risk of being defeated due to circular arguments.

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From the dictionary:

naturalism
n 1: the doctrine that the world can be understood in scientific terms without recourse to spiritual or supernatural explanations.

But when that is converted into the method of science (methodological naturalism) it turns into: Science must not invoke spiritual or supernatural explanations.

Does it strike anyone else as strange that science is being religiously defined?

In response to g arago's comment here at Telic Thoughts, Allen MacNeill blogs on The Resurrection of Formal and Final Causes. He also talks about this here where he presents (and agrees with) Ernst Mayr's arguments for the legitimacy of teleological language in biology. Of course I would also argue that telic language in biology is legitimate but for different reasons. Let's take a look at the arguments and perhaps a strange implication will come to light.

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At one point in the Town Hall Center for Civic Life debate between Stephen Meyer and Peter Ward, Dr. Ward asked the audience if anyone had changed their mind. The audience appeared to be silent. Now one shouldn't make to much of the silence but judging from the pronounced applause in response to certain arguments there were "choirs" from both sides present. However, the silence does raise an interesting question regarding the demographics and rhetorical aspects of the ID/Darwinism debate. Clearly there are enthusiastic choirs out there on both sides of the issue. Now it is unlikely that many people will switch choirs in response to the debate, but that still leaves an awful lot of people out there who are following what's going but haven't yet joined a choir. Two questions then arise. Are the choirs on both sides enough to resolve the cultural issues involved in the debate? Judging from the efforts on both sides to recruit outsiders into their camp, the answer is no. The other question is who are these groups outside the choir and how can they be persuaded?

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Google has an interesting system now that shows trends of searches for key words. Check this one out. Looks like interest in Darwinism has stayed pretty steady but ID had a big jump around the Dover trial. Also since then it doesn't appear that ID has dropped back to its earlier levels. And under regions just look at the disparity in some of the European countries.

How can one evaluate the claims of intelligent design? Of course, one way is through some sort of method for acquiring and interpreting empirical observations. However, there is another method that for many people is a reasonable approach and often compelling as long as the empirical approach does not dispell it. That is by analogy.

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Over at Science & Theology News, Matt Donnelly says

There is a sense within the science-and-religion community that the debate over intelligent design has run out of gas. This isn't necessarily because of a lack of interesting topics that could be discussed, but because the usual suspects on all sides of the debate have begun to get noticeably repetitive.

For anyone who has hung around the ID/Darwinism debate for very long it certainly should be apparent that there is a lot of repetition in arguments. Since this type of repetition has been going on for years, I'm not sure it would be a fair inference that the debate is running out of steam. However, I do think that all this rehashing of ideas and arguments presents a rather unique phenomenon in culture. It would be hard to find a contentious concept or issue in scientific exploration that has had such broad exposure. Normally scientific controversies rattle around in academia and the scientific community without much notice by the wider populace. Perhaps this is for good reason because critical struggles over paradigms usually manifest themselves in a dialog among specialists. This is, however, not true for the intelligent design debate. For instance, if one monitors news items covering intelligent design in the media via a Google news search rarely does a day go by without some news media outlet offering a story or commentary on the debate. Whether it is the trial in Dover, a course offering at a university, essays on web sites, or interviews and debates on television there is a steady throng of exposure to the propositions/arguments/evidence etc. concerning ID and Darwinism. Then there are the discussion boards and blogs where both the old guard and a constant stream of new debaters do battle over the issues.

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I'm sure it is a very complicated process that determines how scientists know when to quit a particular theory. Theories don't die easily because scientists often have a lot invested in them. As Quine-Duhem showed (a fun example) it's not a simple matter to falsify a theory. As they suggest, it's easy to contrive adjuncts to the existing theory to prolong its life. However, at some point the contrivances become so mountainous that something happens. Scientists become disenchanted with it. One has to wonder if this is beginning to happening with the Darwinian theory of evolution.

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