Ludwitt is writing a paper. I’m answering his questions as if he were a student writing a paper. Let’s say hypothetically his professor hates ID like some of my professors, but were fair and just. I want him to be able to articulate ID clearly in his paper, but I want also for him not to overstate the case of ID as some ID proponents occasionally do. Since my views are not the same as other ID proponents, I invite their differing responses to Ludwitt’s questions. Here are his comments and questions from the Russel Crowe thread:
Please note that I am writing a paper with the speculative hypothesis that ID is a valid scientific position. I do not know much about ID. I have started off reading, “Intelligent Design Creationism and its Critics”, Edited by Robert Pennock. But I need more from the horses mouth so to speak.
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I do not understand something. The intelligence designs but does not create. Or the intelligence designs and creates from those designs. If the intelligence designs and creates then intelligent design is a form of creationism. If the intelligence does not create then what is the causal chain from design to creation
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Scordova,
Thank you for your responce.
You say, “I’m an ID proponent, but I don’t argue all of ID is science. Meyer echoes my views on the matter.”
Can you answer a few questions quickly?
What is the relation between design and creation?
What ID is science?
Could you provide me with a paper that has ID as a hypothesis. One that perhaps refutes Darwinian theory and another that goes beyond refuting Darwin to claim the testing of and confirmation of an ID hypothesis.
What ID is not science? And if not what is ID, Philosophy
What is Design, Intelligent Design, and Creation (creationism)?
There are several definitions of each, and that is no small problem! If you are writing a paper you’ll have to point out all the definitions through history, and then choose the definition you’d like to work from. But here I’ll provide what I think would be the definitions I would work from if writing a paper.
DESIGN
Straight out of Wiki and engineering notions of design:
Design is the creation of a plan or convention for the construction of an object or a system (as in architectural blueprints, engineering drawings, business processes, circuit diagrams and sewing patterns).[1] Design has different connotations in different fields (see design disciplines below). In some cases the direct construction of an object (as in pottery, engineering, management, cowboy coding and graphic design) is also considered to be design.
More formally design has been defined as follows.
(noun) a specification of an object, manifested by an agent, intended to accomplish goals, in a particular environment, using a set of primitive components, satisfying a set of requirements, subject to constraints;(verb, transitive) to create a design, in an environment (where the designer operates)[2]
Another definition for design is a roadmap or a strategic approach for someone to achieve a unique expectation. It defines the specifications, plans, parameters, costs, activities, processes and how and what to do within legal, political, social, environmental, safety and economic constraints in achieving that objective.[3]Here, a “specification” can be manifested as either a plan or a finished product, and “primitives” are the elements from which the design object is composed.
That should be non-controversial! The claim of intelligent design is that features of life and the universe appear to satisfy that definition of design. They appear to satisfy the patterns and specifications of an engineering design. For example, life appears to satisfy the specifications of a complex computerized copying machine. Life is more than a copying machine, but it has properties that are so analogous to human made machines that we borrow verbatim engineering terms to describe the systems that compose life. There is an old saying, a picture is worth a thousand words. Here is a pair of gears found inside an insect. The photo probably gets the point across more than anything I can say, if you know what I mean. You ought to include it in your paper, imho. 🙂
and this photo of the bacterial flagellum from wiki:
It would be helpful to note the many engineering sounding descriptions of the flagellums parts. It is almost impossible to describe such biological systems in the scientific literature without using the word “design” or “function”. The word “function” implies purpose, and if something serves a purpose, it suggests it was designed to serve a purpose.
You might even point out the standford encyclopedia says as much!
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/teleology-biology/
Teleological terms such as “function” and “design” appear frequently in the biological sciences. Examples of teleological claims include:
•A (biological) function of stotting by antelopes is to communicate to predators that they have been detected.
•Eagles’ wings are (naturally) designed for soaring.
It becomes then difficult when looking at biology not think the following: “This organism has features that look like a design, therefore the organism must have an intelligent designer who made it”. Thus we have this typical definition of the claim of ID:
Intelligent design is the claim that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause.
but be careful, there are several other definitions out there! Mention them in your paper, but the above is one I’d work from. It would be good to point out Darwin used the phrase “intelligent design”. Paley and even Cicero made design arguments, similar to the one I just laid out. In sum, biology resembles designs familiar to humans (except they are often more sophisticated), and almost as far back as the Ancient Greeks, designs in biology suggested there is an intelligent designer. It is that simple.
CREATION or CREAIONISM
Again there are many definitions. Here I would be careful to use actually a couple of definitions. The notion of “special creation” was actually what Darwin wrote his Origin of Species to criticize, and Darwin uses the phrase “special creations”. “Special creation” was the notion that the Creator made (presumably in a miraculous way) all the ancestors of the creatures we see today very close to the way they are today as opposed to being evolved from one ancestor. That’s probably a good definition.
But be careful, because people calling themselves creationists (like myself) will say that belief in creation is belief in the book of Genesis in the Bible. It might not hurt to point out the two definitions, but the hypothesis of “special creation” was specifically criticized by Charles Darwin.
Intelligent Design does not preclude the hypothetical possibility that everything evolved from a common ancestor, so in that respect ID is not a creationist theory formally speaking, but there is no escaping the fact creationist love ID because it suggests a creator! You can see this from the Creation Research Quarterly’s description of its journal:
◦Emphasis on scientific evidence supporting: intelligent design, a recent creation, and a catastrophic worldwide flood”
So the relation of ID to creation is that ID supports the hypothesis of creation because it suggests there is a Designer or Creator. But ID does not specifically say there is no process of common descent, and creationists despise the notion of common descent. ID proponent Michael Behe, for example, strictly speaking is not a creationist since he accepts common descent. There are a few ID proponents who accept common descent….
So if there is “Intelligent Design Creationism” there is also “Intelligent Design Evolutionism”. It is not fair to say ID is “Intelligent Design Creationism” it is not because there is arguably “Intelligent Design Evolutionism” even though “Intelligent Design Evolutionism” is a distinct minority in ID’s big tent.
Could you provide me with a paper that has ID as a hypothesis. One that perhaps refutes Darwinian theory and another that goes beyond refuting Darwin to claim the testing of and confirmation of an ID hypothesis.
It would be fair to say I could probably give you a stack of books and papers that will reach the ceiling as far as refuting Darwinian theory. As far as testing and confirming the ID hypothesis, I will have to part company with most of my ID colleagues and say, the most important observation that would confirm ID is inaccessible to us, namely seeing the Intelligent Designer in action. We can witness the mechanism of reaction of the synthesis of chemical compounds in the lab, we can even see car manufacturers create cars, but we cannot have the same level of confirmation watching the Intelligent Designer make life.
Further we can’t even define what intelligence is whereas we can define the mechanisms of quantum mechanics that govern chemistry. That’s why, even as a card carrying ID proponent, I wouldn’t say, “ID is science”. Other ID proponents will insist ID is science, I won’t. They’ll give me flak for saying that, but I couldn’t in good conscience tell a student “ID is science”. In fact, I’ve told students, “it’s a pointless question any way, so why go there?”
Now what is scientific in the search for ID is their critique of the Origin of Life and Darwinian evolution. That would fill a stack books to the ceiling. If you want to see some examples here at UD just for starters:
Relevance of coin analogies to homochirality and symbolic organization
What ID is not science? And if not what is ID, Philosophy
The question is not whether ID is science or philosophy, the question is whether it is true. If the central claim of ID is true (that life was the product of Intelligent Design), the question of whether it is science, philosophy, or theology is rather unimportant in the scheme of things, wouldn’t you say. 😉
NOTES
1. photo credits: