Am I the only ID proponent that doesn’t like the phrase “positive case for ID”?

_{Salvador Cordova

August 19, 2013

Intelligent Design, News}

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Probably, with possible exception of Mike Gene.

My good friend and colleague Casey Luskin writes:

ID offers a strong positive argument, based on finding in nature the type of information and complexity that, in our experience, comes from intelligence alone. I will explain this positive argument further in Part B of this article. Those who claim ID is nothing more than a negative argument against evolution are misrepresenting ID. –
ID uses a positive argument based upon finding high levels of complex and specified information.

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/08/what_is_the_the075281.html#sthash.D6IZUcb1.dpuf

I rarely disagree with Casey Luskin, and Casey echoes the majority view of ID, and I’m clearly in the minority to disagree with him.

However, “positive argument of ID” in some people’s view would mean: “we see the Designer in action creating designs in the present day, therefore the designs of life in the present were made by the same Designer we see creating designs today.” So by that definition, there isn’t a positive argument for Design. I don’t like that situation, but that’s the hand we’ve been dealt…

We can believe Stonehenge is designed because we see designers today that can make similar structures. If we saw the Designer creating new biological life forms or making planets and stars in the present day, that would be a positive case for ID in biology, but we don’t have such evidence in the present day. The only other ID proponent that seems to share my reluctance to promote ID as having a positive case is Mike Gene.

ID is mostly based on analogy and heavy amounts of negative arguments. Negative means: not by chance, not by law, not by mindless evolution.

But let me make a little nuance. Life’s resemblance to human designs is overwhelming, and in many cases surpassing of human design. That is the argument that can be made. We can also criticize mechanisms of chance, law, physics, and chemistry as being the sole source of the designs in life.

No need to start debates about whether or not ID makes positive arguments, it’s somewhat irrelevant. Purely negative arguments have been used in math, so a purely negative approach is not invalid in and of itself. Assume for the sake of argument that ID makes no positive arguments, does that somehow prove mindless evolution true? No.

NOTES:

1. Stephen Meyer unwittingly described my view of ID:
ID is a quasi scientific historical speculation with strong metaphysical overtones. I posted this just in case there are like-minded ID proponents out there that share mine and Mike Gene’s view.

Comments

Well, scientists certainly assume that natural phenomena have natural causes. The alternative would be to stop looking, and there are never good reasons for doing that. And I agree, that philosophically some scientists may be naturalists - i.e. "philosophical naturalists" - but, as you say, as scientists, all they have to be is "methodological naturalists" - because scientific methodology is predicated on the assumption that natural phenomena have findable i.e. natural causes. That doesn't mean that an interventionist deity can't slip in with a miracle from time to time, or plan the whole thing in advance, or sneak in constantly under the cover of quantum randomness - it's just that science won't be much use for telling us so.Elizabeth B Liddle_{August 19, 2013
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Elizabeth, re #21:
Yes, in the sense that scientific methodology only extends to the natural world. But that does not entail the belief that some things may have non-natural causes; it merely limits what can be discovered via scientific methodology. And that certainly does not exclude intelligent causes
I think you're wrong here, but we may just have to agree to disagree. I think that methodological naturalism for most scientists includes the belief that natural phenomena have natural causes, period.
and most would argue that science has demonstrated that materialism is the truth. Well, in that case “most” would be incorrect! Science is not about finding “the truth” -it’s about fitting explanatory models to data. No model will ever fit the data perfectly, and sometimes two models will fit the data equally well. At other times two models will fit data in different ranges, but be incompatible (like relativity and quantum mechanics for instance).
Well, we may have to agree to disagree here as well. I think most scientists as scientists would agree with this, but would add, speaking philosophically rather than scientifically, that science has shown materialism to be the true state of the world as it is.Bruce David_{August 19, 2013
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PaV
I've said more than once, the day they can turn a cat into a dog is the day I believe in Darwinism. I see no evidence of this.
The day someone shows that dogs descended from cats is the day that I abandon Darwinism. Darwinian evolution is NOT the theory that some species evolved into other species.Elizabeth B Liddle_{August 19, 2013
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Because you say that Darwin supporters think that Darwinism involves the claim that there is no designer. Not only are scientific conclusions always provisional, but concluding a negative is notoriously difficulty.Elizabeth B Liddle_{August 19, 2013
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Alan Fox:
Scientific explanations are provisional, subject to revision as evidence emerges to confirm or falsify current hypotheses.
What in what I have written makes you think I don't already know this?Bruce David_{August 19, 2013
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Bruce
I don’t believe most defenders of Darwinism would agree with you on this.
I'm pretty sure any scientist would.
For one thing, the majority view is that scientific inquiry requires methodological naturalism to be valid,
Yes, in the sense that scientific methodology only extends to the natural world. But that does not entail the belief that some things may have non-natural causes; it merely limits what can be discovered via scientific methodology. And that certainly does not exclude intelligent causes.
and most would argue that science has demonstrated that materialism is the truth.
Well, in that case "most" would be incorrect! Science is not about finding "the truth" -it's about fitting explanatory models to data. No model will ever fit the data perfectly, and sometimes two models will fit the data equally well. At other times two models will fit data in different ranges, but be incompatible (like relativity and quantum mechanics for instance). We assume that the better fitting model is the one that is closer to reality but no model can be a sufficient explanation. And ID, being capable of explaining anything, cannot be falsfied.Elizabeth B Liddle_{August 19, 2013
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Does anyone have a hypothesis of 'Intelligent Design' that we could test or falsify?Alan Fox_{August 19, 2013
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Gregory, re. #15:
IDists, among which you appear to be one, are the dramatically over-confident ones, i.e. who claim that mere probabilistics determine a Designer.
You haven't been listening, Gregory. Probabilistics only argues that a Darwinian explanation doesn't cut it. It is the existence of complex, functionally specified information (CFSI) that argues for the existence of a designer, since the only known cause of CFSI is an intelligent agent.
“acceptance of ID as the cause of the variety of living organisms past and present requires one to accept the possibility of non-human intelligence operating during most of earth’s [natural] history.” What ‘non-human intelligence’ do you suggest? Please be specific.
ID as science is limited to the ability to recognize the hallmarks of design in any particular phenomenon. It does not have the ability to identify who the designer or designers were, nor is it in general capable of ascertaining how the design was implemented. Identification of the designer is in general within the purview of other (non-scientific) disciplines. That said, any theist will have no difficulty in accepting the possibility of a non-human designer---it could either be God acting directly in the world or through non-incarnated spirits of whatever variety is compatible with that person's particular beliefs.Bruce David_{August 19, 2013
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@ Bruce David Scientific explanations are provisional, subject to revision as evidence emerges to confirm or falsify current hypotheses.Alan Fox_{August 19, 2013
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Sal: It's a bit ironic that you subscribe to the evolutionist's argument that we know nothing about the Designer, and hence, we cannot know anything about 'design.' And why? Because we don't see the Designer acting these days. But isn't it just as true that we don't see 'macroevolution' happening these days? The ESSENTIAL claim of Darwin revolves around the Law of Divergence, something Wallace believed to have seen in Indonesia. But do we really see lines of major taxa being crossed these days? I'm not aware of any. So, then, why should we accept Darwinism? [I've said more than once, the day they can turn a cat into a dog is the day I believe in Darwinism. I see no evidence of this.] If we then have a stand-off, then ID wins because of its greater explanatory power; viz. Darwin's Doubt.PaV_{August 19, 2013
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Elizabeth, re. #14:
This only applies if you regard “Darwinism” as involving the claim that there was no designer. That is not a scientific claim.
I don't believe most defenders of Darwinism would agree with you on this. For one thing, the majority view is that scientific inquiry requires methodological naturalism to be valid, and most would argue that science has demonstrated that materialism is the truth.Bruce David_{August 19, 2013
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Bruce, Your Darwin-phobia is duly noted. Most people who accept (neo-)Darwinian evolution as a limited theory in biology answer the challenge of OoL with “We don’t know” or "We're not sure" or "Science has not solved it one way or another." IDists, among which you appear to be one, are the dramatically over-confident ones, i.e. who claim that mere probabilistics determine a Designer. Elisabeth openly rejected the label 'Darwinism' as an ideology on her website. Yet IDists will continue to try to cram anyone who rejects IDT, including Christians (as Denyse does regularly), with the label 'Darwinist' in order to try to suit their purposes. It doesn't seem to matter if people like BioLogos president's openly deny being 'Darwinists' because IDist fanatics will insist they are 'Darwinists' anyway. And keep heaping the blame on a 'Darwinist' ghost, upheld by only a few vocal fanatics that have become your favourite dancing partners. IDism is easily shown as an unnecessary ideology (bad science, bad theology) by higlighting the distinctiveness (analogy) between human-made and non-human made things. Salvador sees this: "ID[T] is mostly based on analogy and heavy amounts of negative arguments." That's at least a fair concession. "acceptance of ID as the cause of the variety of living organisms past and present requires one to accept the possibility of non-human intelligence operating during most of earth’s [natural] history." What 'non-human intelligence' do you suggest? Please be specific. Dembski speaks of a (singular) 'transcendent designer' (by which he means Designer). IDism won't allow such talk of 'Intelligence' as part of its scientistic ideology. Father of the IDM Johnson made it clear that 'naturalism' was the enemy and that 'Intelligent Design' meant something not 'natural'. So, what non-natural, non-human intelligence does Bruce David think *can* be studied by a 'strictly natural science', as IDism claims to be?Gregory_{August 19, 2013
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Bruce
Hi Elizabeth, long time no talk.
Good to see you, Bruce!
It is important to recognize that falsifiability works a bit differently in the historical sciences than it does in non-historical ones. In historical sciences, the task is to find the best explanation for the phenomenon in question, with the proviso that one should reference in such explanations only causes known to exist currently according to the accepted state of scientific knowledge. So falsification of a given explanation amounts to demonstrating that another is a better one.
I don't fully agree. I don't think there is a clear distinction between "historical" and other sciences - both require models that explain existing data and predict new data. The new data don't have to be new events. And while I very much agree that one approach to hypothesis testing (and a better one, in my view, than null hypothesis testing) is to compare one model with another. This is the Bayesian approach, and if I were an IDer, it's a Bayesian approach I'd be taking. But, oddly, at least some IDers (Dembski, for instance) are very much against a Bayesian approach, I'm not sure why - especially as "inference to best explanation" is essentially a Bayesian approach, or would be if people put numbers on it.
Now it needs to be noted that ID theorists have from the beginning made the following concession: If some combination of chance and natural law can be shown to have a reasonable probability of explaining the phenomenon in question within the available probabilistic resources, that is sufficient to disqualify ID as the best explanation for that phenomenon (see, for example, Dembski’s design filter). So all that is required to “falsify” ID as the best explanation for the variety and complexity of life is to show that some combination of natural law and chance can explain it, including a demonstration that the probabilistic resources are available. So far no Darwinist has been able to do so.
That would not "falsify" ID. ID - or any model - can only be falsified if it has constraints. ID models have no constraints, so they cannot be falsified. We could certainly claim, using Bayesian methods, that ID was the bestexplanation, but that would not be a falsification approach - and would be critically dependent on our personal priors.
That said, the other way to falsify ID would be to show that the proposed cause, a designing intelligence, was not available at the time the phenomenon was occurring. This, I think, is a more fruitful avenue for the Darwinist to take, since one can argue that the “intelligent causes” that we observe as being responsible for CFSI in the present are in all cases actual human beings, and there were no human beings present during most of the time that known living species came into existence. So acceptance of ID as the cause of the variety of living organisms past and present requires one to accept the possibility of non-human intelligence operating during most of earth’s history.
It does indeed.
The denial of this possibility still doesn’t save Darwinism, however, since there have been many calculations of the probabilities involved in a Darwinistic explanation with findings that the probabilistic resources simply were not available, and Darwinists have not been able to answer such objections.
This only applies if you regard "Darwinism" as involving the claim that there was no designer. That is not a scientific claim.
Until they can be answered satisfactorily, there are really only two answers to the question, “How did life arise and proliferate on earth?”: “It was designed.” or “We don’t know.”
Absolutely. Scientific models can never be sufficient i.e. complete. There will always be explanatory gaps.Elizabeth B Liddle_{August 19, 2013
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Johnnyfarmer:
But Elizabeth you said nobody has tried to prove unguided evolution is true.
Yes, and I stand by that. What people have proposed is that a process of variation governed only by the laws of physics and chemistry coupled with the tendency of variants better suited to an environment to reproduce more will result in optimised "designs". We cannot prove that the system is "unguided" - what we can show is that is that unguided systems seem to fit the data quite well. Some people here have suggested that the "guidance" could take the form of slight nudges at the quantum level, to ensure outcome X from the chemistry rather than outcome Y, but that would certainly not be detectable by scientific methodology, and therefore not falsifiable. And I look forward to seeing you at TSZ :)Elizabeth B Liddle_{August 19, 2013
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Elizabeth, re. #4: Hi Elizabeth, long time no talk. It is important to recognize that falsifiability works a bit differently in the historical sciences than it does in non-historical ones. In historical sciences, the task is to find the best explanation for the phenomenon in question, with the proviso that one should reference in such explanations only causes known to exist currently according to the accepted state of scientific knowledge. So falsification of a given explanation amounts to demonstrating that another is a better one. Now it needs to be noted that ID theorists have from the beginning made the following concession: If some combination of chance and natural law can be shown to have a reasonable probability of explaining the phenomenon in question within the available probabilistic resources, that is sufficient to disqualify ID as the best explanation for that phenomenon (see, for example, Dembski's design filter). So all that is required to "falsify" ID as the best explanation for the variety and complexity of life is to show that some combination of natural law and chance can explain it, including a demonstration that the probabilistic resources are available. So far no Darwinist has been able to do so. That said, the other way to falsify ID would be to show that the proposed cause, a designing intelligence, was not available at the time the phenomenon was occurring. This, I think, is a more fruitful avenue for the Darwinist to take, since one can argue that the "intelligent causes" that we observe as being responsible for CFSI in the present are in all cases actual human beings, and there were no human beings present during most of the time that known living species came into existence. So acceptance of ID as the cause of the variety of living organisms past and present requires one to accept the possibility of non-human intelligence operating during most of earth's history. The denial of this possibility still doesn't save Darwinism, however, since there have been many calculations of the probabilities involved in a Darwinistic explanation with findings that the probabilistic resources simply were not available, and Darwinists have not been able to answer such objections. Until they can be answered satisfactorily, there are really only two answers to the question, "How did life arise and proliferate on earth?": "It was designed." or "We don't know."Bruce David_{August 19, 2013
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But Elizabeth you said nobody has tried to prove unguided evolution is true. That sounds a bit far fetched. ....which is why I inferred sarcasm. BTW I will be JF also when I register at The Skeptical Zone.... been lurking there a bit.Johnnyfarmer_{August 19, 2013
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Johnnyfarmer: I wasn't being sarcastic at all. I rarely am.Elizabeth B Liddle_{August 19, 2013
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We see designers today that can make similar structures...
And by what criterion, exactly, do we decide that those building structures today are "designers" rather than "makers of random junk-piles"? Isn't it by recognizing the design in what they are creating? Design recognition is logically prior to calling any entity whatsoever a designer whether present or past. We can recognize the existence of designers at work today because we recognize the design in what they create. So why can't we recognize the existence of designers in the remote past by the same means? If we could not perceive design in the finished product, then why would the term "designer" exist at all, no matter what time period or agent it refers to?Matteo_{August 19, 2013
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@ 4 OK a specific proposal is "an intelligent agent is unnecessary for evolution to occur". This one can be falsified if adequate unguided mechanisms can be shown to exist. and @ 1 Elizabeth were you being totally sarcastic or just partially sarcastic ?Johnnyfarmer_{August 19, 2013
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Correction: "Without a positive 'scientific' case, IDT falls apart, it’s not needed, it’s superfluous."Gregory_{August 19, 2013
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"Life’s resemblance to human designs is overwhelming..." Flip. Human design's resemblance to life is overwhelming. This is called 'mimetics,' but not 'memetics.' You are technically (for a person of faith who does not check their theism at the door to do 'just science') correct, Salvador, to capitalise 'Design' and 'Designer.' Why then do you think in the DI's 'official' outlets they almost always use 'intelligent designer' and 'intelligent design' without the capital letters? Is it because you are obviously more openly 'evangelical' than they are? "The only other ID proponent that seems to share my reluctance to promote ID as having a positive case is Mike Gene." He just doesn't think 'Design' can be proven by natural science. Sadly, much of his efforts are now spend on anti-new atheism. I guess he realised he couldn't make a contribution to 'Intelligent Design Science' and gave up trying. With a positive 'scientific' case, IDT falls apart, it's not needed, it's superfluous. One can criticise any ideology, like Darwinism or Marxism or capitalism or reductionism or triumphalism, but without a positive alternative, no one's gonna care much. The quasi-positivism of the IDM, as demonstrated by Luskin's 'strictly scientific' pleas to the cardholding members, creates an unhealthy repulsion from reflexivity. As a typical human trait, reflexivity offers a healthy humanistic alternative to positivism. Luskin is bad at this; it might be the lawyer background. "ID is mostly based on analogy and heavy amounts of negative arguments." Yeah. "Assume for the sake of argument that ID makes no positive arguments, does that somehow prove mindless evolution true?" Theistic evolution and evolutionary creation have that covered. And they've seen through the IDist mirage of positivism and scientism because you can't 'scientifically prove' Intelligent Evolution any more than they can prove Theistic Evolution or Evolutionary Creation. Probabilistics and informatics aren't enough. The major question, which is still unclear because IDism wants politically to accept a wide range of contradictory views, is: How anti-evolutionary do you want to be; just anti-mindless evolution? If so, that's just an apologetic that shows you believe in Mind. Apologetics, nothing more. And if IDism can't come up with a suitable alternative to 'evolutionism,' which is the major problem here, then what other alternative(s) are available?Gregory_{August 19, 2013
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I think certain ID inferences for specific artifacts can be falsified. For example, some thought the craters of the moon were designed by some civilization. That was falsified...scordova_{August 19, 2013
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Some things are not possible within scientific methodology, Johnnyfarmer. One is proving things are true. We can, at, best, demonstrate that they are probably false. But we can only do that if they are "falsifiable". ID is not falsifiable unless we have a specific ID proposal, so we can't even demonstrate that it is probably false. That's OK. But what isn't OK is when ID proponents accuse "Darwinists" of claiming that ID is false. We can't do that, at least not as scientists. We can show that an ID inference is unwarranted or invalid, but not that it is false.Elizabeth B Liddle_{August 19, 2013
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Science has not tried to prove "mindless evolution" is true, and science is not allowed to prove that "mindless evolution" is not true. Which puts science in a precarious position. I'm not a tea toddler.Johnnyfarmer_{August 19, 2013
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Nobody can prove that “mindless evolution” is “true”. Nobody has tried to, and nobody will ever succeed.
Wow, thank you for being forthright. We can have tea now. I like Earl Grey.scordova_{August 19, 2013
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Assume for the sake of argument that ID makes no positive arguments, does that somehow prove mindless evolution true? No.
Nobody can prove that "mindless evolution" is "true". Nobody has tried to, and nobody will ever succeed.Elizabeth B Liddle_{August 19, 2013
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