Intelligent Design

Over on the website of Centre for Intelligent Design (C4ID) UK, director Alastair Noble has posted some remarks concerning the Edinburgh Science Festival held this week just ending. An associated evening event, organised by the Humanist Society of Scotland, addressed “The Threat of Creeping Creationism In Schools In Scotland”. Alastair Noble responds, I recently attended an evening event (21 April 2011) at the prestigious Edinburgh Science Festival.  Organised by the Humanist Society of Scotland, it addressed “The Threat of Creeping Creationism in Scottish Schools”.  As a proponent of the debate around Intelligent Design (ID), I thought our Centre might feature.  I wasn’t wrong. It wasn’t the creeping creationism that worried me.  In fact one of the speakers from Aberdeen University Read More ›

O’Leary: Okay, you wrote a book, Saving Leonardo, about that Renaissance arts/engineering/Mona Lisa dude. Why? Isn’t it too late for books?

Look at this: “Neuroscience mugs abstract art”:  Squawking gull chicks “explain” art, according to some:

“We are going to go forward into the unknown in the quest to make art fully knowable and we’ll deal with the consequences when we’ve arrived, joyful in our accomplishments and sad, too, at the inevitable loss of all that has been left behind.

Left behind? I suppose he means Leonardo, not the pop novel apocalypse.

Surely, the irreversible loss has already occurred. By the time one finds the “gull chick” story above terribly informative about the complex experience of art, one has already dipped below the horizon of understanding art. One is then in the position of a person armed with tools from the BestDeal – who can take a computer apart, but could never design or build one.

Comment?

Pearcey: Saving Leonardo is about how the arts reflect ideas. It’s not about art theory, but about how secular worldviews are communicated through art and literature. After all, this is how most people’s worldview is shaped. Ideas do not typically come neatly packaged with a warning label attached. Instead there is a kind of “stealth” secularism that permeates society through books, music, movies, and television.

Saving Leonardo shows how the arts “channel” secular worldviews deeply into people’s minds and emotions. As a result, people are often co-opted by secular worldviews without even knowing it. Read More ›

“What is the difference between Creationism and Intelligent Design” I asked Stephen Meyer in 2009. He answered that what distinguished Creationism from Intelligent Design is that Creationism outlined a chronology whereas ID did not.

I will add my own thoughts on the matter. What I say in this post is my answer to the same question I posed to Dr. Meyer.

As a scholarly discipline Intelligent Design is described elegantly by Bill Dembski:

Intelligent design is the science that studies signs of intelligence.

Bill Dembski
10 Questions

Frankly, I’ve been mortified that so much theological discussion is to conflated with this simple and elegant description of ID! I’m appalled to hear that some claim “the science that studies signs of intelligence” conflicts with theological ideas and is therefore a futile endeavor.

Theology may proceed from the idea that there is intelligent design in the universe, but at its root, Bill’s definition of ID isn’t inherently theological and would fit well with engineering and the forensic sciences. ID is not theological in itself, but it can serve as bridge a between science and theology.

Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Theology
Bill Dembski

Combining the above two ideas, I came up with:
Read More ›

Here. Dedicated to philosopher of science Ernan McMullin (1924–2011).

(Contest now closed for judging. Results here. ) Yes, a prominent Canadian cosmologist has written to a number of science notables to ask this simple question: Does Richard Dawkins or Francis Collins convert more people to Darwinism? For a free copy of The Nature of Nature , which do you pick and why? The cosmologist wants a pollster to do a study to find out which method works best. What questions would you recommend asking? (Note:This contest would normally run Saturday, but it’s a busy time of year for a lot of people, so you are getting a head start. Judging is Saturday, April 30.)

In “A golden orb-weaver spider from the Middle Jurassic” (4/21/11), David Tyler at manchester U comments on a recent find:

The golden orb-weaver spider features in newly reported research and provides an exciting insight into past ecosystems. Today, these animals adorn tropical rainforests, with giant females of Nephila maculate (legs spanning up to 20 cm), and small males (just a few centimetres across). However, the fossil record of the Nephilidae family is meagre. The earliest example of the genus Nephila comes from the Eocene (considered to be about 34 Ma) and the earliest example of the family Nephilidae is a male from the Cretaceous (considered to be 130 Ma). The newly reported fossil golden orb-weaver spider is a giant female with a leg span of about 15 cm.

and observes

So this particular living fossil exhibits stasis at the genus level and raises again the issue of what can be learned from the phenomenon of stasis. A previous blog expressed some frustration at Neodarwinian evolutionists who file stasis in a box that says: no environmental change, no selection pressures, no evolution. The problem with Read More ›

Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piatelli-Palmarini, explain, Such cases of elaborate innate behavioural programs (spider webs, bee foraging as we saw above, and many more) cannot be ccounted for by means of optimizing physico-chemical or geometric factors. But they csan hardly be accounted for by gradualistic adaptation either. It’s fair to acknowledge that, although we bet that some naturalistic explanations will one day found, we have no such explanation at present. And if we insist that natural selection is the only way to try, we will never have one. – What Darwin Got Wrong (London: Profile Books, 2010), p. 91

I would like to commend Thomas Cudworth for his latest attempt to engage ID critic Professor Edward Feser in dialogue. Over the past few weeks, I have been greatly heartened by Professor Feser’s clarifications of his position vis-a-vis Intelligent Design. For instance, in a recent post on his blog site, he wrote:

The dispute between Thomism on the one hand and Paley (and ID theory) on the other is not over whether God is in some sense the “designer” of the universe and of living things – both sides agree that He is – but rather over what exactly it means to say that He is, and in particular over the metaphysics of life and of creation.

Moreover, in an email sent to me last month, Professor Feser wrote:

I have never accused any ID defender of heresy, and would never do so. To say to a theological opponent “Your views have implications you may not like, including ones that I believe are hard to reconcile with what we both agree to be definitive of orthodoxy” is simply not the same thing as saying “You are a heretic!” Rather, it’s what theologians do all the time in debate with their fellow orthodox believers.

I welcome Professor Feser’s statements that he regards the Intelligent Design movement as theologically orthodox, and that he believes God is the designer of living things.

In his latest post, Thomas Cudworth put a question to Professor Feser. He asked Professor Feser whether, in his view, God could have possibly planned to create a universe in which intelligent beings could infer His existence from studying nature – in particular, from observing clues such as cosmic fine-tuning and irreducible complexity, which would show that the evolutionary process must have been intelligently planned. I know that Professor Feser is a very busy man with a lot of work on his hands, so I’d like to attempt a reply on his behalf. Read More ›

Recently, the physicist Sean Carroll, Senior Research Associate in Physics at the California Institute of Technology, composed an article entitled Does the Universe need God? for The Blackwell Companion to Science and Christianity (eds. James B. Stump and Alan G. Padgett, Wiley-Blackwell, due for publication in 2012). There are lots of things I’d like to say in response to Professor Carroll’s article, but instead, I’ve decided to condense my remarks into a set of seven questions, which I hope Professor Carroll will be kind enough to answer.

1. In your article, you’ve argued that the ultimate explanation of why events happen is that things are simply obeying the laws of nature – in particular, the laws of physics. What do you mean by the term “law of nature”? Specifically, are the laws of nature (a) rules which prescribe the behavior of objects, or (b) mere regularities which describe the behavior of objects?
Read More ›

Over the past several months, Dr. Edward Feser has been engaged in debate with various ID proponents, most recently Jay Richards and Vincent Torley, over the relationship between two types of argument for God’s existence:  on the one hand, arguments from design such as are found in Paley and in the writings of some ID proponents, and on the other hand, philosophical arguments of the sort proposed by Thomas Aquinas.  Whereas ID proponents tend to see Paley-type arguments and Thomistic arguments as different but compatible, Feser sees them as incompatible.  He thinks that the Paley/ID type of argument implies a wrong picture (i.e., a heretical picture) of God, and a wrong understanding (i.e., a heretical understanding) of the relationship between creator and creation.  He thinks that Paley/ID sorts of argument lead to belief in a mere mechanic-God, a God unlike the God of what he calls “classical theism,” and hence a god unworthy of worship by Christians.

I am unconvinced that Paley/ID lines of argument produce a mere “mechanic” God, since I’m unconvinced that arguments that choose to focus on what we might call the mechanics of creation necessarily exclude other (i.e., metaphysical) aspects of creation.  However, in this post I am not going to try to defend Paleyan or ID arguments, or to criticize Feser’s interpretation of Aquinas on creation, or to raise objections to what Feser calls “Thomistic-Aristotelian” thought or “classic theism.”  I leave such detailed arguments to people such as Vincent Torley who have made a special study of Aquinas and of the Aristotelian tradition.  Rather, I want to make sure that I fully understand Feser’s general position regarding design, creation, and the Christian God.  To this end, I am going to ask Professor Feser for clarification by conceding, for the sake of argument, much of what he has said, and then posing a question for him. Read More ›

In “Jesus would believe in evolution and so should you” (CNN, April 10, 2011) Christian Darwinist Karl Giberson, BioLogos vice-prez, enlightens: Science is not a sinister enterprise aimed at destroying faith. It’s an honest exploration of the wonderful world that God created. We are often asked to think about what Jesus would do, if he lived among us today. Who would Jesus vote for? What car would he drive? To these questions we should add “What would Jesus believe about origins?” And the answer? Jesus would believe evolution, of course. He cares for the Truth. Here’s Southern Baptist seminary prez Albert Mohler’s response.

Intelligent design theorist Bill Dembski and and Christian Darwinist Karl Giberson at Patheos. Some of Giberson’s views are featured here and here. Details to come.

Recently, I observed a thread at a Christian apologetics site, CARM, “Francis *******g Beckwith”/”most snaky Christian theologian,” which really did not reflect well on the site’s goals.

jpark320, a thoughtful CARM volunteer, wrote to point out that

First the link to the “trolled’ CARM site is on their forums, not an official article that was posted from the staff.Second there is not enough manpower to keep watch over every single forum people can make. It is the double of sword of allowing people to freely express their thoughts (the side of the sword that hurts…)

So it should be easy to monitor “flame wars” and “trolling” here given the limited number of post and that only official UD people can make those posts.

I replied at 5:

jpark320, thanks for clarification. However, I am not sure that the service CARM is providing in hosting “FB/snaky” needs doing.

Anyone can start a blog at Blogger for free in five minutes and start trashing just about anyone from there, and get all their friends to do it too.

So why facilitate – and in some measure, take responsibility for – what happens anyway with no intervention?

Incidentally, one needn’t be “official UD people” to post here, just Read More ›

“…liberals, when you mention Christ, they will bring up’Darwin.” True? False? No fair? On to something? Hat tip: Five Feet of Fury (“A blog. A lawsuit. A way of life. Posting daily since 2000. ‘Kathy Shaidle is one of the great virtuoso polemicists of our day’ – Mark Steyn.”)

We were all taught to look up to E. O. Wilson as the eminent, gentlemanly, Dear Pastor … Darwinist, not the “secular bigot” kind. And some were duly grateful.

So Wilson disowning his own kin selection theory was an almost incredible development. That theory – that caring for others can be explained by a desire to pass on our selfish genes – is the heart and soul of the “evolutionary” psychology he founded.* Which in turn is the heart and soul of pop science coverage of human psychology.

Leon Neyfakh  offers a look at what happened:

What Wilson is trying to do, late in his influential career, is nothing less than overturn a central plank of established evolutionary theory: the origins of altruism. His position is provoking ferocious criticism from other scientists. Last month, the leading scientific journal Nature published five strongly worded letters saying, more or less, that Wilson has misunderstood the theory of evolution and generally doesn’t know what he’s talking about. One of these carried the signatures of an eye-popping 137 scientists, including two of Wilson’s colleagues at Harvard.

– “Where does good come from?: Harvard’s Edward O. Wilson tries to upend biology, again”  (Boston Globe, April 17, 2011)

The cause of their dismay and anger is spelled out:

The puzzle of altruism is more than just a technical curiosity for evolutionary theorists. It amounts to a high-stakes inquiry into the nature of good. By identifying the mechanisms through which altruism and other advanced social behaviors have evolved in all kinds of living creatures — like ants, wasps, termites, and mole rats — we stand to gain a better understanding of the human race, and the evolutionary processes that helped us develop the capacity for collaboration, loyalty, and even morality. Figure out where altruism comes from, you might say, and you’ve figured out the magic ingredient that makes human civilization the wondrous, complex thing that it is. And perhaps this is the reason that the debate between Wilson and his critics, actually somewhat esoteric in substance, has become so heated.

It’s heated because the commander of the beachhead of materialist atheism into human psychology has abandoned the battle … Read More ›