Imagine for a moment that someone claims to you that the Origin of Life was an incredibly unlikely event. So unlikely, in fact, that the fact that it happened even once in the entire universe is itself quite a feat. What position would you expect that person to be taking?
Sounds like Intelligent Design proponent talk, doesn’t it? So let’s take a look at the brief thoughts by and statement of Jacques Monod…
Pasted here with minimal comment (for now) is Eugenie Scott’s reply to an open letter written regarding a years-ago controversy involving the concept of evolution as proposed by the National Association of Biology Teachers. I’ll have more to say about this later, but I make this post because (other than the site I link from) this letter seems to have next to no internet presence – I’d hate for it to be lost.
The letter follows below.
Those of you who’ve followed my posts and comments will have picked up that my view of Intelligent Design is pretty complicated. On the one hand, I defend design inferences, even strong design inferences. I’m entirely comfortable with questioning Darwinism (if that view still has enough content to identify it as a clear position, anyway), and have a downright dismissive view of both naturalism (if that view… etc) and atheism. I regularly see the ID position butchered, mangled and misrepresented by its detractors, most of whom should and probably do know better.
On the flipside, I don’t think ID (or for that matter, no-ID) is science, even if I reason that if no-ID is science then so is ID. My personal leaning has always been towards theistic evolution, and I see evolution as yet another instance of design rather than something which runs in opposition to it – a view which I know some ID proponents share, but certainly not all. I think non-scientific arguments for and inferences to design have considerable power, and see little reason to elevate particular arguments simply because some insist they’re “scientific”.
Here’s another part of that flipside, and the subject of today’s post. One of the more prominent ID arguments hinges on the trichotomy of Chance, Necessity, and Design. The problem for me is that I question the very existence of Chance, and I see Necessity as subsumable under Design.
I don’t have much of a lead-in for this post, so I’ll get right to the point: I think it’s important to draw a distinction between two concepts when it comes to ID. Namely, the distinction between the Design Question, and Intelligent Design itself.
When I say ‘the Design Question’, I mean more or less this: The question of whether X is designed, where X is some particular artifact, some particular part of nature, or nature as a whole.
And by Intelligent Design, I think a good, concise view was given here by Jonathan Wells: Intelligent design maintains that it is possible to infer from empirical evidence that some features of the natural world are best explained by an intelligent cause rather than unguided natural processes.
The purpose of this post is to point out that while ID and the Design Question are related (not to mention very important) they are nevertheless distinct: It’s possible to answer “yes” to the Design Question, and still reject ID as stated. Likewise, it’s possible to affirm an ID inference in many cases, yet still answer in the negative on the Design Question (say, affirming that organism X was designed, while still believing that nature as a whole was not designed.)
More below.
One of the major difficulties I have as someone with one foot planted in the theistic evolution camp is discussing the general concept of evolution or Darwinism.
A large part of the problem is with the simple definition of the words – where one person takes Darwinism to mean “a process totally unguided and unforeseen by God in anyway”, another means “a process of variation and selection, where both variation and selected may be or (with some TEs) in fact were ultimately or proximately guided and foreseen by God”, still another means “a process of variation and selection, where the ultimate causes of variation and selection are not considered because that’s outside of science” to otherwise, etc. Navigating this is a headache, and one that constantly reappears.
But another conceptual problem is this: The claim that atheism and evolution are utterly intertwined. Now, this comes in a few forms. Sometimes the claim is that if evolution is true – let’s say, if it’s true that the first man had biological precursors – then theism must be false. More popular is the claim that theism and evolution can both be true, but theism can also withstand the falsity of evolution. Atheism, on the other hand, has a dire link to evolution: If atheism is true, then evolution must be true.
This latter view seems popular, both in and out of the ID tent. And it’s a view I deeply disagree with. My reasons follow below the cut.
Recently, I made a post regarding what I thought was an encouraging moment at Biologos, where a guest writer frankly speculated about how God could work through evolution. In the comments section, some discussion was had about just how rare or common such views are among TEs. Since I’ve already made the call for non-theists and agnostics who are ID sympathetic to speak up on here (and was very happy to see the resident ID proponents respond positively to that), I’d like to introduce a similar opportunity. I’d like any theistic evolutionists who are reading this to speak up and share their views. In particular, I’m interested in… * How you think design is reflected in the natural world, in Read More ›
I offer up this great 2007 op-ed by Paul Davies, in part because it remains very relevant and likely will remain so for a very long time. Submitted with minimal comment for now, though here is an excerpt: When I was a student, the laws of physics were regarded as completely off limits. The job of the scientist, we were told, is to discover the laws and apply them, not inquire into their provenance. The laws were treated as “given” — imprinted on the universe like a maker’s mark at the moment of cosmic birth — and fixed forevermore. Therefore, to be a scientist, you had to have faith that the universe is governed by dependable, immutable, absolute, universal, mathematical Read More ›
Intelligent Design is often accused of being entirely driven by religious motivations. I don’t think there’s anything about ID itself that warrants this conclusion, but I do think it’s obvious that ID’s supporters by and large tend to be religious. Even I’m a religious theist (Catholic, though a poor one by most standards), and some, though not all, of my ID interest is spurred by metaphysical considerations. At the same time, I see nothing in ID that mandates a person being religious, even theistic in the common sense of the term.
Which brings me to this thread. I’d like to invite an agnostics or non-theists who are either ID proponents, or are ID sympathetic, to speak up here. In fact, I’m going to lay out a few ground rules that I hope all will follow, in the hopes of keeping this thread particularly on-target.
Submitted without further comment, for now, is this quote from Part 2 of a review of Jerry Coyne’s “Why Evolution Is True”. With emphasis added: Later, he claims “Darwinism tells us that, like all species, human beings arose from the working of blind, purposeless forces over eons of time” (p. 224). There are at least two problems with this line of argument. First, given what Coyne said earlier about evolution’s agnosticism regarding sources of variations in organisms (see Part 1), it’s rather striking that he so clearly rules God out as a possible source. What biologists mean by random variations is that the underlying causes are left open by the theory because mechanisms like natural selection can work with any Read More ›
I now and then see it claimed that, among its various contributions, one key benefit of Intelligent Design is that it poses a direct challenge to naturalism, or materialism. The problem I have with this sort of talk is that one of the key planks of ID is a kind of metaphysical neutrality – the recognition that any designer or designers responsible for this or that particular design in the natural world can, at least in principle, be (for lack of a better-word) “non-supernatural”.
This is claimed often enough by Dembski, Behe and company, but my favorite quote on this front comes from a post right on this site: ID’s metaphysical openness about the nature of nature entails a parallel openness about the nature of the designer. Is the designer an intelligent alien, a computional simulator (a la THE MATRIX), a Platonic demiurge, a Stoic seminal reason, an impersonal telic process, …, or the infinite personal transcendent creator God of Christianity? The empirical data of nature simply can’t decide.
The problem is that if this is accurate – and frequent, consistent attestation by a number of prominent ID proponents seems to indicate as much – then it seems to me false to think of ID in and of itself as representing a challenge to either naturalism or materialism. Indeed, ID – even if ID inferences are not only strong, but ultimately true – seems entirely compatible with both positions, at least in principle. But I think it’s possible to recognize that, while at the same time explaining how ID can nevertheless represent a challenge to these positions, at least in a qualified manner.
So, let’s get right on that. The explanation I have in mind is simple, but important.
Here’s a question about ID I’ve had for a long time, and I hope some ID proponents are able to help me sort it out. I’ll get right to the point before starting in with the commentary.
When an intelligent agent demonstrates the ability to directly and purposefully modify the genes of a given creature, is that evidence for intelligent design?
When intelligent agents use selection and variation to produce particular desired results, is that evidence for intelligent design?
When intelligent agents use selection and variation to produce a ‘better’ antenna is that evidence for intelligent design?
More on this and some commentary below.
The Map of Life is a new website, funded in part by the Templeton Organization, devoted to highlighting and discussing the role of convergence in evolution. Simon Conway Morris, whose thoughts on evolution I’m actually very interested in, has a role in the site – and it promises to be a place of interest for those people (ID proponents and TEs both) who see convergence as evidence that evolution may not be as “blind” as many people typically assume.
But I’m actually not interested in the the convergence question at the moment. Instead I’m interested in the site’s stated “aims”. The second aim is to promote discussion about convergence in evolution, and whether or not evolution may be more predictable than previously thought. The first aim is to A) promote the truth of evolution, and B) criticize ID in one of the most mangled, confused ways I’ve seen recently.
More on that below.
In part 1 of this series, I laid out what I see as some key differences between Thomism and ID. In this post I want to focus on why Thomists should nevertheless support ID – even while granting some or all of the most common criticisms Thomists have of ID.
In order to do that, though, I’m going to have to be a little hair-splitting – particularly, I want to explain just what I mean by “support ID”. I think there’s a few ways this “support” can manifest – some easier to achieve than others, and some harder.