Somebody's got some 'splanin' to do…
by bipodThis Opus cartoon does a brilliant job at making an obvious point. The fact that "somebody's got some splanin to do" doesn't nullify the design inference - it qualifies it. The bad design argument is pointing to *just that* -> bad design. Design that is bad is still design.
The bad design argument lacks force *unless* it introduces (slips in) some very specific expectations about the designer. An intelligent design theorist can reject these specific expectations, and thereby make the bad design argument impotent.
July 6th, 2005 at 9:47 pm
Or just call it PD, Poor Design, or UD, unitelligent design and my personal favorite DoCD or Designer on Crack Design.
If you're going to be an ID propagandist, you have to take the good design along with the bad design.
Comment by Doug McGee — July 6, 2005 @ 9:47 pm
July 7th, 2005 at 7:28 am
LOL! Well there's some value-laden terminology. But seriously, bipod is on a valid point here. As a matter of scientific inquiry, it would seem entirely superfluous to suggest evidence of design can be in any way construed as "good" or "bad" unless one smuggles into one's argument some hidden telic standard or "goal" that design in this universe ought to meet.
But this is more an attack on classical Teleological Arguments for God's existence than an attack on Design Inferences themselves. I'd say this then becomes a rather awkward betrayal of one's anti-theistic bent when this confusion is made. But if philosophy of religion is allegedly supposed to be entirely quarantined from the rest of scientific inquiry, what is one to make of this?
Comment by Daniel_SirVera — July 7, 2005 @ 7:28 am
July 7th, 2005 at 7:55 am
There are at least three senses in which design can be evaluated. First, it can be evaluated according to functional success. Does the thing do what it should do. Second, it can be evaluated according to aesthetic concerns: was the design elegant or sloppy (note that the thing can be functionally good but aesthetically bad). Third, a thing can be both functionally and aesthetically good, but morally bad (say, a nuke falling on your neighborhood).
Each of these evaluations takes some form of normative judgement. I don't think that these considerations are totally irrelevant to a design inference, but I do think that they are secondary issues that can serve to weaken or strengthen such an inference (especially aesthetic and functional norms - moral norms don't really affect the design inference…they affect one's attitude towards the designer). Still, a thing can be obviously designed, but sloppily. A thing can be obviously designed but barely serve its function (many of the things I buy at Walmart fall into this category). A tihng can be obviously designed and have a bad moral use.
Functional norms are the most attached to a design inference and also the least prone to the bad design arguments which normally make reference to aesthetic or moral apprehension.
Comment by bipod — July 7, 2005 @ 7:55 am
July 7th, 2005 at 8:42 am
Duly noted; I would agree that questions of design's quality may indeed be asked, but as you've pointed out, are quite distinct to the more basic question of whether there is genuine design to be detected in the first place.
If correct, however, I think something else might be drawn from this method of reasoning as employed by our animated friend above. I mean, supposing this were intended to be a serious argument against Intelligent Design. Further consider the only other real competitor to a telic universe that I'm aware of is some form of Naturalism — a reality where notions of purpose and ultimate causes become utterly meaningless.
In such a case, it's not quite clear to me how one goes about assessing whether a thing is behaving as it ought to in a universe that is decidedly hostile to any notion of "oughtness" except that which we impute to a thing. For example, supposing one were to mount another similar argument from the perceived imperfections of the eye. The eye is then said to have some form of inferiority or inefficiency when juxtaposed with they eye of some other animal. This, then is intended to somehow dress down Intelligent Design proper.
But in fact, I.D. has never made any argument that our organs ought to operate any differently than we already observe them to. Our imaginary critic would be the only one who thinks they should, but in the absence of any alternative indicator of how things ought to be than they already are, I don't know how he could establish such lines of reasoning against a "stupid," "evil," or even "sloppy" designer.
Thus, if correct, I think what I'm really proposing here that the argument is not only misguided, but circular.
doesn't this still presuppose an ultimate cause? Ultimate causes seem t
It therefore seems to me that the naturalist must be willing to presuppose that which she's trying to refute before her argument can begin to make sense.
Comment by Daniel_SirVera — July 7, 2005 @ 8:42 am
July 7th, 2005 at 8:44 am
And you can ignore the "toilet paper" of extra text hanging at the end of my entry there.
Comment by Daniel_SirVera — July 7, 2005 @ 8:44 am
July 7th, 2005 at 10:26 am
ID really doesn't seem to make any arguments from where I'm standing. Bad design, no design, some design heck it's all irrelevant anyway because it's not as if you've actually been proposing anything to begin with. At least with "God" as the designer we have something we can now look at and 'bad design' is a valid question being applied to that particular 'idea' of a designer. It's not relevant if we're going to talk about space aliens though, but then again, ID proponents don't seem to regard actually having a 'designer' as important anyway: it's turtles all the way down no matter where you look. Anyway,
Well this depends on if you're actually going to propose a designer or start sneezing madly (you lot are rather allergic when asked about defining this 'designer' of yours) and making excuses for it. You want to tell me that 'bad design' isn't evidence of an incompetent designer that's fine to me if you can tell me why that is the case.
Oh wait I forgot, there was a solution!
From the original post we see:
So in other words by remaining utterly confused as to what the designer is and then claiming the argument is rendered impotent it's suddenly all fixed. Hurrah for us! We just demonstrated that ID fails in every way to explain anything while simultaneously explaining everything. WHAT?! Without having to define who this wonderous designer is that created all life, you avoid having to answer anything about it or chuck people out from your big tent. For example, I would consider (from an ID point of view) that incompetent design would be marvellous evidence against a supernatural designer such as God. Surely God wouldn't make such incompetent and basic errors in engineering of animals on earth.
I would go, AHA! That gives solid evidence that maybe, like us, our designers are natural and perhaps these problems are problems that natural designers (including us!) end up with. We do indeed serve our natural purpose and these structures are perfectly good for what they do, no need to be perfect if it works as Daniel noted above. Plasmid expression systems have antibiotic markers on them, which are important in the initial selection processes for designing transgenic plants but a useless vestige for it after the event. We designed said plants, we can see how our methods led to the leaving of stuff that once had a purpose during the design process but doesn't now, maybe our designers do the same thing.
I'd immediately be thinking of the ramifications on ID as a whole, because that gives solid evidence our designer isn't a perfect all designing God. What a bold hypothesis to put forward, that bad design is evidence of a designer who is like us and is both fallible and natural. Perhaps some of that Junk DNA is the antibiotic resistance markers used to make us? Perhaps we could go digging in the genomes of ourselves for ancient signals of an alien designers 'selection' criteria. By looking for the methods that a designer used to make us, we inherently make the concept of being designed stronger rather than making baseless untestable assertions or claiming 'everything and nothing' is evidence.
Inevitably, if you want to be taken clearly and serious as science you must inherently start saying something about the nature of your designer. With a supernatural designer everything is evidence (well, unless we take the Christian God, which as bipod notes has problems with 'bad design', good idea for an ID basis for rejecting it don't you think!), with a natural designer or a limited supernatural designer that needs some 'natural' mechanism perhaps we can see a little more.
Now anyway, how do those who posit supernatural designers explain these bad designs anyway? You never covered that, you dismissed the argument brilliantly I will add, with that masterful obsfuscation of what 'designer' we're talking about. Those of us stuck with God as our designer, what do we do about it? How do we, using the concept of ID explain why a perfect supernatural designer would have such obvious lack of forethought, especially when he was so considerate he made the earth in the perfect position for astronomy but didn't bother giving me a back that wasn't prone to aches. Priorities, priorities, priorites…
What about those who think our designers are aliens? Where did they come from, if we use our methods over them that we're using to 'theoretically' detect design will they test as natural or will they ping as being designed? Who designed them? Will they fail, or is it pass by chance? Anyway, will they be detected as designed? Then will the next alien race that made them? Will we get a recurring list of failures (passes?) on the fact each one in turn requires its own designer. Soon, it's getting to the point of those turtles heading all the way down again and eventually, we'll just get rid of the problem by positing a supernatural designer who needs no designer. Triumphantly, the dilemma is solved and we can all go home I guess. None the less, we have a good explanation for poor design, because you can't assume aliens as all powerful all knowing 'designers' and we've solved the problem legitimately anyway.
Silly atheists anyway, ID isn't religious to begin with, despite what most of its advocates say to one group of people. Then again, maybe ID is atheistic, because they are awfully quick to point out God doesn't need to have anything to do with it. On the other hand, in some contexts there no designer at all such as here. So, we can't have aliens, we can't have God and we can't have neither being an option.
So for all this, reading nearly every post on ID and evolution on this blog I've come to this conclusion: ID is horribly confused. You will never have anything meaningful from a scientific perspective until you eventually fess up and give a name to a designer. Until then, nothing can falsify your 'ID' with no designer meaning no testable designer methods, no knowledge of the designers purpose and no reason to explain phenomena in a testable method such as 'poor design' you can shift goalposts as bipod did above no matter where you wanted. Without a designer you have a theory that can account for everything and explain nothing.
Comment by Aegeri — July 7, 2005 @ 10:26 am
July 7th, 2005 at 10:39 am
Aegeri,
Sloppy design can implicate the designer as incompetent. I grant that, but isn't that obvious? When I engineered (slapped together) robot systems in university, they ended up working but they were damn sloppy. Sloppy design does not eliminate the design inference, however.
Comment by bipod — July 7, 2005 @ 10:39 am
July 7th, 2005 at 10:49 am
I never said it couldn't dear me! Those poor space aliens never could get anything right. I obviously think designers are incompetent because I have the best model I could ever have: Humans.
But it seems you have missed the point, because I asked you to infer a designer based on that sloppiness. I've proposed an hypothesis about your designer, that he could very well be a natural and particularly incompetent one just like we are. Perhaps we're what Behe suggests, a primordial cell with IC systems in place that was an accidental left over from being dumped on this planet by an alien designer that got bored and moved on (for example).
But of course-
WHOOPS! HAH! I caught that sneeze of yours, I forgot you lot nearly have an anaphylactic shock when a defined designer is mentioned, anyway.
-I don't really see arguments for a definite designer taken at all seriously by anyone in the ID movement. As I said and the point you've evidently missed (probably sneezing too much).
Why is God an acceptable designer in one case, some unnamed natural alien in another and suddenly when it suits you its time to dip into the theoretical cookie jar and posit neither. Seems highly confused, especially when none of them are trying to posit testable predictions to establish any of these designers is more likely (why?). As I said, sloppy designers would be something I could posit would be human like and if we're designed, would it not be possible aliens left evidence of their methodology in our genomes?
Comment by Aegeri — July 7, 2005 @ 10:49 am
July 8th, 2005 at 10:10 am
But it stills seems as if YOU, as an IDist can, to quote you "(slips in) some very specific expectations about the designer," in that it is called "Intelligent" design, now isn't it?
So I don't understand your objection when it's pointed out some "design" is lees than "intelligent."
For your position to be supported, one would have to simply call it "Design."
Comment by Doug McGee — July 8, 2005 @ 10:10 am
July 8th, 2005 at 10:46 am
I hate to defend ID, but intelligent can be indicated that the entity doing the designing is 'intelligent' but not exactly omnipotent. I would say that humans are 'intelligent' when we make a new plasmid or transgenic plant, but it doesn't mean we have to be good at it.
The real problem of course is that it refutes the idea of a 'Christian' designer that is perfect and wouldn't make such blatant idiotic design mistakes. The very fact ID remains silent on the actual designer proves its vapidity as a scientific theory. Until you have a designer, there isn't any meaningful way to actually go looking for what it designed because there is no way to determine what methods it may have used.
Comment by Aegeri — July 8, 2005 @ 10:46 am
July 8th, 2005 at 11:50 am
Aegeri :
A designer, by definition, is one who designs. How does one identify the designer without identifying the design? Are you looking for some type of testimonial evidence? Do you have any suggestions how I might identify a designer?
Comment by MikeGene — July 8, 2005 @ 11:50 am
July 8th, 2005 at 11:55 am
How does one infer design without knowledge of how the design was actually performed? I can infer design of a biological agent, by immediately noticing human molecular biological techniques (genes stiched together by restriction enzyme sites, unusual DNA composition from multiple kinds of virus from vastly different habitats etc).
Shouldn't that be the entire point of ID theory?
Comment by Aegeri — July 8, 2005 @ 11:55 am
July 8th, 2005 at 12:00 pm
I should put it more like this:
Shouldn't the entire point of ID theory be to identify said designer by first determining some form of 'methodology' or 'mechanism' that was used to create the 'designed' organisms to begin with. Without a mechanism ID is dead in the water, but the problem with that mechanism is that it definitively says something about the designer.
I would have thought that you'd have an observation (IC for example) and then you'd test a mechanism that produced that IC structure. The mechanism would hence tell you about the designer, exactly how we can determine human design in genetically engineered organisms: we know the mechanisms the designed [us] use.
Comment by Aegeri — July 8, 2005 @ 12:00 pm
July 9th, 2005 at 12:17 am
Aegeri:
Exactly "“ that's ID101. This, IMO, is the focal point of ID. We all begin from the same place "“ if life was in fact designed, we don't have knowledge of how it was performed. From here, we part company. You seem to think that until we come up with such information, any attempt to infer design must fail and would thus be a waste of time. I acknowledge that having such information would make a design inference much easier, but ponder other ways of making the inference without the luxury of having such knowledge.
Is it safe to assume the techniques used by humans in the year 2005 so closely matched the techniques used by life's designers? Even if so, why think we would have a residue of such a technique if all we are talking about is the design of the first cells (over 3 billion years ago)?
Yes, that would be nice. But I'm still left wondering how you detect this designer without detecting the design? It's as if you need to see a designer to see design.
I have no experience with supernatural designers. If you have such experience, how do their designs differ from those of natural designers?
Design at the hands of an intelligent agent is not a regularity of nature. In such cases, the "˜methodology' or "˜mechanism' is called a protocol, blueprint, recipe, etc. Are you saying you need to see the lab notes?
The jury is out on this one.
I realize there is a wedge-centric mentality that thinks people refuse to say something about the designer because of political concerns. Yet I am opposed to the Wedge, I am not part of any organization, and I grant that ID is not science. My refusal to say something about the designer is a function simply not knowing what to say or where to look. I asked you, a scientist, for suggestions about identifying the designer and you had none.
Comment by MikeGene — July 9, 2005 @ 12:17 am
July 9th, 2005 at 9:07 am
That was pretty much close to my point. "Intelligent" is undefined, so when IDists tag design w/intelligence they have exactly the same problem bipod objects to in his blog.
To replace "bad design" with "intelligence:"
Comment by Doug McGee — July 9, 2005 @ 9:07 am
July 9th, 2005 at 10:05 am
Which is a fair comment indeed! I don't have any designer because quite frankly, there isn't any evidence of said designer for precisely every reason you have noted above. There is no mechanism of design, there is no testable way of figuring out what the original designers purpose or methodology was. Without these there is no 'design inference' because a designer becomes indistinguisable from natural processes.
However, I'd like to point this out:
Supernatural designers solve the dilemma of the 'turtles' syndrome. For example, if we have a natural designer (Aliens) and presumably we attempt to detect design in it we'd find it too was designed. Maybe that alien was designed by another alien and so on we go: Turtles all the way down. In a discussion about this problem, the solution is to correctly infer somewhere along the lines a supernatural designer that doesn't itself need to be designed (IE God, or Zeus or whatever). This eliminates the turtles all the way down succinctly.
The problem with this is that supernatural designers are inherently different from natural ones in one critical aspect. A supernatural designer, by default of its lack of design must be able to bend natural laws of physics, biology and chemistry if ID as a theory holds true. This means essentially that it can do whatever it wants to the natural laws of the universe. Natural designers like aliens are bound by the laws of biology, chemistry and physics so have limits on what they do. This is why ID is so good at rejecting God in human design, because occams razor (if ID is true) would put that aliens are much better designers to explain life on earth than a supernatural deity.
The logic for this is surprisingly straight forward. We have numerous poor design decisions (as bipod noted) and life itself isn't wonderfully constructed and serves purposes that are good enough but not 100% efficient (An ATPase only converts roughly 66% of total maximum energy into ATP, highly inefficient!). The only designer we know of that makes living organisms is similarly inefficient and that is us. We leave bits left over, we have things that once held a function but no longer do so and are ultimately good at creating things that do their job well enough (transgenic animals) to very good in some cases (engineered bacteria).
With the model we have and the evidence we have from life around us, if ID is true life on earth was clearly designed by a natural alien lifeform. Supernatural designers simply wouldn't need to be anywhere near as inefficient as living organisms show it was.
Comment by Aegeri — July 9, 2005 @ 10:05 am
July 10th, 2005 at 9:10 am
Aegeri:
I see. So if this wanted design "mechanism" employed and exploited natural processes, it would be indistinguishable thus we would have to use the razor to reject it. What you need is a video tape that catches the designer in the act of designing, lab notes, or some happening that violates the laws of nature. That is what you mean by "mechanism."
As for supernatural designers, you seem to be saying their designs would either be Perfect or violate the laws of nature.
In your mind, the design inference means this: we need to a) see the designer in action or b) find something that violates the laws of Nature.
Comment by MikeGene — July 10, 2005 @ 9:10 am