We Have No Excuse- A Scientific Case for Relating Life to Mind (PART II)
By Robert Deyes And John Calvert
PART II: THE ULTIMATE RELATIONSHIP – ANALYZING PATTERNS THAT COMPRISE LIFE
Many scientific disciplines that seek to determine the relationship of an existing pattern to past events analyze them as we analyzed the letters on the drawing board (See PART I). Coroners seek to know the cause of a death – is the death related to a mind or a natural or accidental cause? Those searching for extraterrestrial intelligence seek to know whether a sequence of radio waves from outer space is related to an intelligent rather than a natural or accidental cause. Archeologists seek to know whether a hammer shaped rock got its shape from a mind or a stream.
Our analyses show that the determination of causal relationships involve three inquiries. First, does the pattern manifest a function or purpose – an effect to occur in the future, such as the meaning of the word “Think?” If not there is no necessity to infer a mind. Second, are the various components of the pattern related to or dependent on material causes driven by physical and chemical forces – by necessity? A snowflake looks designed, but its beautiful hexagonal symmetry simply reflects the way water molecules necessarily organize under certain conditions. If chemical necessity can explain the pattern, there is no necessity to infer a mind. Third, if a functional relationship reflected in the pattern is physically independent (not necessary like the snowflake), can chance explain it? If not then a mind – an intention becomes the best explanation for the functional relationship reflected in the pattern. The methodology is explained with great precision by William Dembski in The Design Inference (Refs 1,2). Read More ›