Intelligent Design For the New Year
by MikeGeneWhile Judge Jones' Dover ruling about Intelligent Design may have significantly changed the socio-political landscape, the concept of Intelligent Design remains untouched. For example, if we begin with the basics of Intelligent Design, ID101, does the ruling damage the arguments in any way? No. Has the ruling established that ID is Creationism? No, ID102 still stands (also, consider this analysis ). Has the ruling established that the identity of the Designer must be stated and it must be God? No, the logic remains.
In fact, let me repost something I blogged about this summer "“
QUESTION: How do you define science? Is intelligent design science?
Christopher Wills, a professor of biology from UCSD answers:
Advocates of intelligent design have observed the world, and have proposed the hypothesis that some vast intelligence must have created it because the world (or at least some portion of it) is too complicated to have arisen through natural processes.
I'm not sure where advocates of ID argue that the world is too complicated to have arisen through natural processes, but I can say this line of reasoning is not the basis for any design inference I would make.
Wills continues:
This is their hypothesis, and it is in principle testable.
This is a significant assertion, given that many critics of ID argue the opposite, claiming that ID is inherently untestable.
Wills offers some examples of ways to test ID:
For example, one could look for messages or other evidence for the existence of a vast intelligence (see Carl Sagan's novel "Contact" for a fictional example).
But this is the very approach that is advocated by Bill Dembski. He considers something like a "message," asking what is it about the message that signals its origin from mind and then proposes such a signal (complex specified information).
Wills also adds:
Or, in the case of evolution, one could search for sudden discontinuities in the history of life, in which a new structure or function has arisen without any previous history and no relationship to structures or functions in other related organisms. (Such new structures have not yet been found, by the way.)
Well, this is the approach advocated by Mike Behe, where Behe identifies irreducible complexity as such a "sudden discontinuity."
Now, while the critics are not convinced by Dembski and Behe's attempt to detect design, doesn't it look like Wills is effectively endorsing the basic approach of these ID theorists? That is, he seems to be saying that if ID advocates want ID to be science, they should be looking in the places where Dembski and Behe are looking. This is a significant point given that many critics of ID argue that Dembski and Behe are entirely misguided and are simply trying to rationalize their religious beliefs. Wills helps us to see that if a critic were to stumble upon something that raises a serious suspicion of ID, that critic would likely begin to think along the lines of Dembski and Behe.
So like I said, the most significant changes are in the socio-political arena. My argument about the The Undetectable Threat has been significantly strengthened . Since I can now point out that a Judge has ruled it unconstitutional to teach ID in the schools, I will have less patience with kooky conspiracy theories and irrational obsessions about motivations. Also, my arguments about the sociology of science have been strengthened.
Looking forward to the New Year!
December 23rd, 2005 at 3:40 pm
Who is this guy? Is he really coming forward and supporting ID.
Comment by Benjii — December 23, 2005 @ 3:40 pm
December 23rd, 2005 at 4:04 pm
Hi there,
I am new to this blog and I think it is the best ID blog I have found. I really liked the ID101 article. However, I am very confused right now about the definition of ID.
According to of Pandas and People:
Intelligent design means that various life forms began abruptly, through an intelligent agency, with their distinctive features already intact - fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks and wings etc.
And in ID101, ID seems to be defined as:
Is it possible to detect design (in anything), even if there is no data speaking to the designer itself ?
Finally, in discussion here earlier, some have argued that the designer can be of completely natural cause, and in principle, detectable. Then, on Dembski's blog, I have seen people argue:
"I think that ID is a first step in exposing the fallacies in materialism".
I am very confused, but I must say, if ID101 is "The True Definition" then I find it reasonable. However, I see no way ID101 allows for the Big Tent approach that Dembski and Behe have argued (allowing YECers in).
Cheers.
Comment by blockheadster — December 23, 2005 @ 4:04 pm
December 23rd, 2005 at 7:08 pm
Blockheadster:
They made that up. That is creationism, of the 6-day sort.
I think it might have been me who said the designer might be detectable. What I meant was that I cannot rule out, in principle (which is what you said) that the designer can be detected. But as it stands now, if the designer is God, then that God is detectible subjectively only but cannot be proved to another. I do not necessarily think that will always be so. At any rate, science may prove something like God if only through indirect means, that is, clues. We detect gravity, for instance, by clues and consistencies in the behavior of objects, but we do not 'see' or quite know what gravity is.
My personal leaning as far as the method of design is that it was done naturally, gradually, and that the intelligence works from within. But that's me.
There remains only the question as to whether the designer itself is 'natural.' I suppose it to be supernatural in that it would be the cause of nature. But I also do not conceive of nature being separate from it, and operated by it like a marionette. Rather, I see nature as the continual manifestation of the inner divine. I don't think the designer goes against the laws of nature, nor is that possible, nor is it needed. No, not even for a miracle.
Comment by onething — December 23, 2005 @ 7:08 pm
December 23rd, 2005 at 11:22 pm
Where did this guy say this?
Comment by Benjii — December 23, 2005 @ 11:22 pm
December 24th, 2005 at 12:26 am
Benji,
What guy are you talking about?
Comment by MikeGene — December 24, 2005 @ 12:26 am
December 24th, 2005 at 9:19 am
What guy are you talking about?
Christopher Wills, a professor of biology from UCSD
Comment by Joe G — December 24, 2005 @ 9:19 am
December 26th, 2005 at 7:47 am
The University of California system: always a hot-bed of Creationist fanatics.
Comment by Douglas — December 26, 2005 @ 7:47 am