Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Is a materialistic approach to teaching the origin of life inherently atheistic and therefore religious?

William Dembski
August 30, 2006
Darwinism, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Religion, Science
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[There’s] a new 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation that approaches the issue of teaching origin-of-life theories in public schools from a new angle . . .

Few are aware that the courts have ruled atheism is a religion for the purposes of the First Amendment in 2005 and thought about its implications on the teaching of origin-of-life theories in public schools. In brief, evolution becomes both a religious and scientifc theory (using the court’s definition of scientific theory), and abiogenesis becomes purely a religious theory. That being the case, these atheist origin-of-life theories should be treated the same as any other origin-of-life theory. Anything less is unconstitutional. Visit the website at http://originoflifefairness.org for much more information and the links/facts to back it up.

The mainstream media wants to keep this knowledge quiet. If you agree the public needs to know about this issue, your help would be greatly appreciated telling the public about this website. . . .

Sincerely,
Randel Huey
CEO/Founder “Origin of Life Fairness in Public Schools, Inc.”
Jacksonville, Florida

Comments
Is intelligent agency a natural thing or not? This seems to depend on what you mean by intelligent agency. I’m of the opinion that we are a natural thing in the universe and hence intelligent agency is not unnatural. I parse from this that "we are the intelligent agency". What scientific evidence is there for any other intelligent agency? See comment #68.Alan Fox
September 1, 2006
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Tom English I've always wondered how Darwin apologists hold out in one hand a narrative that claims humans evolved naturally and in the other hand hold a story that says human-made objects are not natural. This seems to be contradictory. Either humans are a natural part of nature (so to speak) and thus intelligent designers are a natural part of nature (since we are intelligent designers) or else they are supernatural. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Is intelligent agency a natural thing or not? I'm of the opinion that we are a natural thing in the universe and hence intelligent agency is not unnatural.DaveScot
September 1, 2006
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Tom, 1) Natural or un-natural, the car and the nest have been DESIGNED by intelligent beings and they have a very well established PURPOSE, they are not a result of undirected, unguided processes. 2) IMHO, it is important how we define supernatural. Supernatural doesn’t necessarily have to be unscientific, it may be something we cannot yet explain by (our present) science laws. It doesn’t mean that tomorrow we aren’t be able to find a scientific answer. And, of course, it’s not really necessary that the answer should be “NATURAL, UNGUIDED, PURPOSELESS process”… It may be DESIGN, as well. The only (philosophical) question is if we’ll ever be able to define/describe/locate the DESIGNER using our scientific knowledge…Sladjo
September 1, 2006
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avocationist: "It seems odd to call processes that involve any intelligent interference “not natural.” Is a car supernatural? What about a bird’s nest?" The car and the nest are natural. Their causes are non-natural, to use Bill Dembski's old parlance. But "non-natural" is synonymous with "supernatural" (first sense). As I intimated above, philosophers debate whether science should embrace supernaturalism (allowing natural phenomena to be explained by causes outside of nature). If you are an ID advocate, supernaturalism is your friend, even if it sounds odd to you.Tom English
August 31, 2006
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If there were a true gap, then there would be no influence of the one upon the other, and if that were the case, the spiritual world would effectively not exist. That which people call supernatural or miraculous, is merely outside the ability of our crude senses to detect. This is the crux of the matter. By definition no scientific evidence for the supernatural exists, because whatever science can detect, observe or measure is not supernatural. You can choose to believe in the supernatural or dismiss it as the realm of cranks. Science will only help you expose the charlatans who falsely claim to demonstrate the supernatural such as Uri Geller, other than that, it has nothing to say. Religion and Science are not really in conflict.Alan Fox
August 31, 2006
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Tom said: "If you do not agree with the scientific stance that the process giving rise to the sculpture was purely matter, energy, and their interactions, then from the prevailing perspective (not just scientific) you are saying that Mount Rushmore is not natural. And it is supernatural (sense 1). This is fair." It seems odd to call processes that involve any intelligent interference "not natural." Is a car supernatural? What about a bird's nest? Fross: “science can only work through a materialistic approach” Science can only investigate the material world, and that to the extent it has sensing equipment to do so. Of course science cannot investigate any phenomena for which it lacks tools. But that doesn't mean science must have a materialist bias as a philosophy. It is turning out that the material world is yielding up more and more subtle energies and particles and laws. What I predict is that there is no real gap between what we think of as the material world and what we think of as the spiritual world. If there were a true gap, then there would be no influence of the one upon the other, and if that were the case, the spiritual world would effectively not exist. That which people call supernatural or miraculous, is merely outside the ability of our crude senses to detect.avocationist
August 31, 2006
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"I never mention religion, you mention it at every turn." Are you INSANE? You mention religion in every one of your posts. Your very first sentence in this thread is about religion. Now tell me again how I'm turning this into a religious issue.improvius
August 31, 2006
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Improvious, I never mention religion, you mention it at every turn. I find it amazing. You seemed obsessed with having the other side invoke religion. Are you reading a script" "That shalt say religion" You are welcome to your time traveller or alien if you insist. So in our corner of the multiverse we had a time traveller or alien create life. OK. As one famous time traveller said "Hasta la vista, baby."jerry
August 31, 2006
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Jerry, that's exactly my point. The hypothetical designer could just as easily be an alien or time-traveling human. Neither of those causes could possibly be construed as conflicting with atheism or materialism. YOU are the one here who is trying to turn this into a religious issue, not me. Your claim that “The materialistic philosophy is essential for atheism because just one example of design obviates it" simply makes no sense.improvius
August 31, 2006
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Jerry says:"As hard as you insist there is no religious implication in ID other than there was someone who did it. Who, what the person did or, how they did it or why are not the province of ID. Is that hard to understand?" Well, yes it is. I am struggling to get my arms around ID here and am not succeeding. As near as I can tell in the short time here, ID seeks to detect design through something called Complex Specified Information. People can apparently assign values of "No CSI. Duh!" and "Alot of CSI. Duh!" by visual inspection, but don't seem to stray away from the extremes and actually calculate CSI on anything that is less than already obvious. That is, I suppose, a start, but until you get away from the extremes I am struggling to see the explanatory potential. Now you say that you don't seek to know who the designer is, what processes he used, or what his motivation was. Okay, fine. But, if you don't seek the designer or to understand his method or motive, and don't apply CSI in a rigorous way to discover his handiwork, I don't see any paths to new knowledge here.cjok
August 31, 2006
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Improvious, As hard as you insist there is no religious implication in ID other than there was someone who did it. Who, what the person did or, how they did it or why are not the province of ID. Is that hard to understand? Make your own assessments. It does not necessarily lead one to a religious view but it will be hard to deny that there isn't someone who is responsible for what we see around us. Many take the point of view that the world was created and the creator then took a hike and had no expectations of what was created. Now those people recognize a creator exist(ed) but have no religion because there is no relationship or responsibilities between the creator and the person. But what it doesn't allow is that no person was ever involved in the creation event(s). How hard is this to understand.jerry
August 31, 2006
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Carlos, If you want to say 'At this point I am interested only in arguing that non-interventionist models of abiogenesis do not imply “materialism,” let alone “atheism.” ' Fine go ahead an argue that. It has been done many times before and gets brought up here every couple of weeks or so. My guess about 20-30 times in the last year. That is where I was a few years ago, fat dumb and happy with Darwin and did not think it meant atheism. But I got curious and started to look at the discussion and what I found is that there are a zillion holes in this non-interventionist model in terms of evidence. Everything in the data screams lack of continuity. So I just followed the evidence as a lot of others here have done. It is interesting that you have swallowed like Mother's Milk the Talk Origin discussion on probabilities. What I suggest you do is go to Dave Scot's new thread referenced in my comment to Improvius above and suggest that this is support for why abiogenesis should be allowed into science school curriculums. That is what that discussion is about. See where that takes you. You should be ready to support their ideas even though no one in the research community seems to be really pursuing it. As I said, read Robert Hazen's book on origin of life called Genesis and see how much you find there that is on the Talk Origin site you referenced. If you rather watch or listen then the Teaching Company has a course by Hazen which is essentially the same material. By the way I once did an analysis of all the 40 long proteins that there possibly are and just for a complete set of proteins it was more atoms then in the entire universe. Maybe my analysis was simplistic but so is a protein of only 40 amino acids. As I said the number get staggering really quick especially when you deal with things like ribosomes and ATP synthase or other proteins that are very large. Life happened quick, almost immediately after water appeared on the planet. So the processes Talk Origin say are responsible must have happened so immediately.jerry
August 31, 2006
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Sorry, I meant Jerry.improvius
August 31, 2006
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Steve, ID can't be both antithetical to atheism and non-religious at the same time. You can't have it both ways. Let's pick one or the other and go with it.improvius
August 31, 2006
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BarryA, Question 1: No it would not be fair to accuse the alien of injecting the supernatural into the debate. It's also not fair to insist it choose from two answers which do not cover all of the possibilities - there is a good change it would give a reasoned answer that was neither "pure randomness" nor "CSI" (which it probably doesn't know how to calculate either). Question 2: ID supporters are not in an analogous situation to this hypothetical alien. Nobody is suggesting that ID is creationism in disguise because its proponents answered A in a flawed Rushmore quiz. I am sure a fuller answer would not be welcome here (it's off topic from the OP for a start). Stevesteveh
August 31, 2006
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Improvius, It is has nothing to do with religion but one may decide to embrace religion if one sees design in the universe or life. However, one could not say there was no creator of the design. Rather than repeat a detailed comment here, see the comment (#8) I made on DaveScot's new thread he started today. https://uncommondescent.com/index.php/archives/1534jerry
August 31, 2006
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Jerry, I'm not sure where the "appeal to authority" was there -- is in my suggestion that public school science teachers should teach the current consensus among practicing scientists? How is that an "appeal to authority"? It's no more of an "appeal to authority" than asking a panel of surgeons about the best way to remove a tumor is. About "materialism" and "atheism": when I say that I don't understand how these positions follow from abiogenesis, I mean "I don't understand" in the sense that Quine used when he said that he didn't understand what Kant meant by "analytic". He understood it perfectly well -- that is, he knew backwards and forwards what lots of people said about it. He just didn't see how such assertions were not something that, to put it politely, comes from the rear end of a bull. Likewise, I know perfectly well what creationists and IDists say about abiogenesis, the probability argument, the "747 from a junkyard," etc. I just don't see how these claims are not something that comes from the rear end of a bull. Because it sure looks like that to me. "The probabilities are staggering," you say? No, my good sir, I say no. They are not. Does this show that abiogenesis must have happened in this way? No; nor am I saying otherwise. At this point I am interested only in arguing that non-interventionist models of abiogenesis do not imply "materialism," let alone "atheism." Now: I have put "materialism" in scare-quotes because I am not really sure what it is (in the sense that Quine was not really sure what analyticity was). I know what people say about materialism, but it looks like something that's come from the rear end of a bull, and smells like it, too. Anyone who thinks that "everything that exists is made of matter" is a serious view -- let alone being one that requires a refutation -- had better have a very good theory about what "matter" is, and I don't think anyone does. Just ask three quantum physicists, and see how many different answers you get. I bet it'll be more than three. The more I look at it, the more "materialism" looks like "The unrefined and sluggish mind/ of Homo javanensis./ Could only treat of things concrete. And common to the senses" (Quine). It does not look like anything to take seriously. I also put "atheism" in scare-quotes because there are several different versions of atheism that are distinct and even incompatible, and I'm going to want to know which of them is supposed to be entailed by the RNA world. Finally: anyone who thinks that materialism and intelligent design are the only options shows a severe defect of philosophical imagination. I'm not an theistic evolutionist, but I play one on the Internet.Carlos
August 31, 2006
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Jerry, "Tom English is the ultimate sophist. He is obviously well read and knows things about information theory that we do not. However, his objective is not to make clear but to obscure." There are many here who see the world in US-THEM terms. Clearly I am not one of you, but I am not one of them. I am not here to deceive you. I have never sought to obscure. I disagree with you, but I am not your adversary. Unlike most of you, I am not a syncretist. I feel no need to resolve the contradictions of science and religion. The upshot is that I see things very differently than most people do. I have read and understood quite a bit of Bill Dembski's work, and I am genuinely interested in the procedure of the design inference, though I have my reservations about the interpretation. I have personally wished Bill good luck in showing that the "information ledger" of the universe is out of balance. I have no philosophical problems with an open universe. But I do have problems with people claiming that results have been established when no one has done the science. "What Tom English is saying is that we have not developed any coherent theory to verify that the book or the complicated piece of machinery has been constructed by an intelligence. I do not know enough about CSI to say one way or the other." On the contrary, I believe the theory of design inference is coherent (that's a weak requirement), but that those who sling it around are often incoherent. Ironically, I am treating design theory with more respect than they do. I am insisting that CSI be used with scientific rigor, while treat it as something one can assess ad hoc. Given all the expectations of response in this thread, note that I will be gone awhile.Tom English
August 31, 2006
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Ok, Jerry, you've got me confused. So is it a religious debate or isn't it? Does an atheistic methodology by definition rule out design? Because if you're saying it does (and it sure looks like that's what you're saying), then you're saying that a religious approach is the only way we can detect design. And you would be the one who's conflating ID and religion.improvius
August 31, 2006
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Improvius, Atheists don't seem to be able to recognize design in the universe or in life. So yes they seem to find it impossible to recognize design in these areas. That is what the whole debate is about.jerry
August 31, 2006
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"The materialistic philosophy is essential for atheism because just one example of design obviates it." You're saying that it's impossible to be an atheist and recognize design at the same time? NOW who's conflating?improvius
August 31, 2006
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BarryA: "DaveScott took care of this one with his usual aplomb above. The fact that I may not be able to hang a precise number on the CSI does not mean that the CSI is not obvious." ROTFLOL, again. CSI is beginning to sound like p*rnography: I may not be able to estimate it, but I know it when I see it. Or like an urban myth: I heard that some guy posted on the Web the CSI of Mt. Rushmore. "CSI bluffing" -- I plan to use the term often.Tom English
August 31, 2006
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Why teach abiogenesis at all? I would say because kids will inevitably ask about it. What else should we tell then other than our best guess? Anything about a designing intelligence is pure speculation, but we do know at least a little bit about how life works and we know a reasonable bit about organic chemistry. We also have reason to believe that we have a decent, albeit overly general, picture of what Earth was like at the dawn of life. We combine our knowledge to come up with a best guess. It is no where near certain and I have never heard anyone claim or teach otherwise.jmcd
August 31, 2006
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DaveScot: "In the case of Mt. Rushmore forming by natural processes we do indeed know how to come up with a reasonable estimate of the probability. The reasonable estimate is zero and it’s arrived at by way of elimination. If you think of a reasonable reason it should be non-zero to a significant degree please give those reasons otherwise through the process of elimination you must agree that a reasonable estimate is zero." Paraphrase: We don't know how to estimate the probability, but we need to sling the "complex specified information" jargon around because we don't have much else that makes us sound scientific. It puts us in a bind when you ask for the probability, so we will claim, from one side of our mouth, to have eliminated all nonzero values, and challenge, from the other side of our mouth, you to estimate a nonzero value yourself. Unless you do our estimation for us, then our undemonstrated "proof by elimination" that the probability is zero stands. ROTFLOL. You cannot legitimately ask me for a counterargument until you give an argument. Note that if the probability is zero, the complex specified information is infinite. Wow, that really is impressive -- infinite information in a sculpture. Furthermore, with infinite CSI in the sculpture, there is absolutely no way to justify Barry's claim that IDists are studying entities with CSI several orders of magnitude greater. Greater than infinity? "What we earthlings don’t know how to do is arrive at a precise probability." Irrelevant. I said "estimate." Have you ever heard of giving a lower bound on a quantity? By that, I mean by a procedure less vacuous than saying, "OK, zero." "There is some exceedingly small chance Mt. Rushmore could be a natural phenomenon but it’s so small there’s no way to give a precise number. Duh." Ah, but for almost all scientists (methodological naturalists), human sculptors are natural, and Mt. Rushmore is from a scientific point of view a natural phenomenon.Tom English
August 31, 2006
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Carlos, Failure to address an argument and then appealing to authority as support for a position is something I was alluding to. You should know better than I that sophistry can take many forms. In places on this website people have shown the dishonesty that takes place in the public school and college curriculums relative to evolution. Now you can challenge each one of these contentions but to blithely blow them off with an appeal to authority is what I call an example of sophism. You present no argument. Is that what Socrates would do? If you do not understand the arguments, then you have an obligation to learn what it is about before you advocate a position. If you do not understand abiogenesis, then you should abstain. I think you should read the two sides carefully and then come back with your arguments. Try Robert Hazen and his recent book Genesis and then look at what the ID people say about origen of life and see if in fact there are any decent theories out there to explain the origin of life. The first cell had to be incredibly complex and if there were an RNA world how did the incredibly complex RNA molecules come about. The probabilities are staggering. Several places on this website the discussion of atheism comes up. The materialistic philosophy is essential for atheism because just one example of design obviates it. Our take is that the science does not support naturalistic processes in many places. If you cannot see the connections then I have difficulty understanding how you could teach philosophy which is all about seeing connections. If you disagree, fine but just don't blow it off as an opinion unless you can make a good argument otherwise.jerry
August 31, 2006
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Truth is more pragmatic than materialism. Did materialism and Darwinism delay the discovery of uses for the tonsils and “junk DNA”? A) What non-materialistic techniques were used to determine the effectiveness of tonsils and junk DNA? B) Who ever said that tonsils and junk DNA were useless, and who discovered their uses? (Just because something is "vestigial" does not mean it serves no purpose, and the moniker "junk DNA" is used to describe non-coding DNA, not necessarily "useless DNA" (although it is interesting to note that many millions of base pairs of non-coding DNA can apparently be removed from at least some mammals without any adverse effects - see: here ).franky172
August 31, 2006
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Truth is more pragmatic than materialism. Did materialism and Darwinism delay the discovery of uses for the tonsils and "junk DNA"?geoffrobinson
August 31, 2006
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Dave, I don't understand. Did I mistakenly imply that you conflated religion with ID? If I did, then i screwed up which is quite possible. I accused materialists of doing that often and by materialists I mean those who deny anything but naturalistic causes for all of life's events. I write things quickly in between doing my work so my posts sometimes lack precision. I often point to the same sidebar to make sure everyone has the correct image of ID for this website and which is my working definition. Today on this thread, I only addressed Tom English, Fross and Carlos.jerry
August 31, 2006
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Although Dr. Dembski has stated that he considers intelligent causes to be different from natural causes, I don't believe that this is the case. Human beings are natural entities, and they can create information, such as mount rushmore (and this sentence), so I fail to see how intelligence need be non-natural at all. Treating ID as a "supernatural" theory is pidgeon-holing it, and anti-IDers and IDers alike often paint it as such to its detriment. The designer(s) need not be supernatural at all, it is merely philosphical wishful thinking - we should be willing to follow the evidence wherever it leads. One of the things that I find troubling about this discussion is that ID is considered to be the antithesis of "atheistic" theories such as evolution by natural selection. Theistic evolutionists are by no means atheists, so evolution does not necessitate atheism - and to suggest such a thing would be unproductive. Likewise, one need not be a theist to support ID theory, as it stands based upon evidence, not philosophical assumptions. For example, if I remember correctly, DaveScot identified himself as an agnostic. And I don't consider myself religious at all.EJ Klone
August 31, 2006
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"What other hypothetical origin other than abiogenesis do you imagine is introduced? Speak right up and include a link to support your claim." How about extra-terrestrial origins? http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/A/AbioticSynthesis.htmlimprovius
August 31, 2006
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