“Put Up or Shut Up!” OK, UD Puts Up $1,000.00 Prize

_{Barry Arrington

September 12, 2011

Intelligent Design}

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ID is often disparaged as “creationism in a cheap tuxedo.” One assumes the point being made is that ID is a stalking horse for theistic creationists. Now, as has been explained on this site many times, while many ID proponents are theists, ID itself stands apart from theistic belief. For the umpteenth time, ID does not posit a supernatural designer. Nor does ID posit any suspension of the laws of nature.
To drive this point home UD is going to put its money where its mouth is. UD hereby offers a $1,000 prize to anyone who is able to demonstrate that the design of a living thing by an intelligent agent necessarily requires a supernatural act (i.e., the suspension of the laws of nature).
Update: Some commenters have gotten bogged down on whether an immaterial mind counts as supernatural. The answer is “no.” If an immaterial mind counts as supernatural and all intelligent agents including humans have immaterial minds, then all volitional acts of all intelligent agents would be supernatural acts. That’s a silly way to construe the word “supernatural.” It is not how the word is used in ordinary English usage and it is not how the word is used for purposes of this contest. Resolving the hard problem of consciousness is not necessary for this contest. Therefore, we will simply avoid it, and contestants shall operate under the assumption I made in this post. Specifically, I wrote: “Therefore, I am going to make a bold assumption for the sake of argument. Let us assume for the sake of argument that intelligent agents do NOT have free will, i.e., that the tertium quid does not exist. Let us assume instead, for the sake of argument, that the cause of all activity of all intelligent agents can be reduced to physical causes.”

Comments

I guess on this side, it is too easy!kairosfocus_{September 12, 2011
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He gave us proof of concept. Technological manipulation and integration of relevant elements is demonstrably possible. We are at ver 0.1.1 Now go for ver 7.0 or so . . .kairosfocus_{September 12, 2011
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You just strawmannishly redefined "creationism," so what does that tell us? NWE, art on creationism:
Creationism, in its most widely used sense, is a set of religious positions opposed to modern materialistic views of the origin of the Earth and of living things. In a different and much older sense, creationism is a particular theological position on the origin of the human soul. Both senses are described here. In the first sense, creationism (not to be confused with the doctrine of creation) has various meanings. Most broadly, it can mean simply that the universe was divinely created. Somewhat more specifically, it can also mean that life on Earth was divinely created. Even Charles Darwin (1809-1882) could have been called a "creationist" in this second meaning, since he concluded The Origin of Species (after the first edition) with the statement that life was “originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one.” But Darwin believed that the evolution of living things after their initial creation could be explained without God’s further involvement,[1] and “creationist” is usually used to describe someone who rejects this aspect of Darwin’s theory of evolution. In the second sense, Christian theologians have debated for centuries whether the human soul is created directly by God (“creationism”) or produced by human parents (“traducianism”). The former is more consistent with the immaterial and eternal nature of the soul, while the latter makes it easier to explain the transmission of original sin. In modern controversies over cosmic and biological origins, creationism takes two general forms: Old-Earth creationism (OEC) and young-Earth creationism (YEC). The former infers from evidence in nature that the Earth is many millions of years old, and it interprets Genesis to mean that God created the universe and living things through a long process of change. The latter interprets Genesis to mean that God created the universe and living things in a short time (usually six 24-hour days) a few thousand years ago, and it regards the natural evidence as compatible with this interpretation. U.S. courts have ruled that creationism is a religious view that cannot be taught in public school science courses, though polls show that most Americans subscribe to some form of it. Creationism is often confused with intelligent design, but there are significant differences between them.
kairosfocus_{September 12, 2011
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So fCSI is path-dependent? i.e. design simplifies the search, and does not have to try all possibilities because of of intelligence selecting a narrow subset of possibilities? Do you think evolution acted by using huge resources to try all genomic possibilities, or a very narrow subset, filtered by differential survival and reproduction? +++++ I think I find myself in the same boat as others-what is this intelligence that designed life prior to intelligent life? +++++++++ "BTW, in the relevant sense beavers are intelligent — your absence from this thread was “interesting.”" Why the insinuating quotes? I very rarely post here, and mostly ignore the site. I'm not making a career out of ID, and can't attend to every thread.DrREC_{September 12, 2011
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Venter copied a genome, and added a few words. He did not design a living thing from scratch by any means.DrREC_{September 12, 2011
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Sorry GEM. No counter-prize. ;-)Barry Arrington_{September 12, 2011
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johnnyb, that is what I tried to do by referring to my earlier post.Barry Arrington_{September 12, 2011
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DrBot, that's about right. And of course as you have pointed out the "immaterial mind," if it exists, does not fit neatly into the categories you describe.Barry Arrington_{September 12, 2011
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ben h, my point is very narrow, and it is a linguistic, not an ontological, point. In normal English usage we do not ascribe acts of human agents to the category "supernatural," and when I use "supernatural" in the OP, I am using it in the ordinary everyday sense of the word.Barry Arrington_{September 12, 2011
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You sure you guys want to go there with respect to ID literature? "Creation is the theory that various forms of life began abruptly" changed to "Design theorists" or "Intelligent Design means" and more recently "Sudden Emergence". Add that to all the anti-evolutionary arguments regularly appearing on env and here.Starbuck_{September 12, 2011
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Your typical computer program is beyond the blind chance and mechanical necessity resources of the cosmos. But that's no problem, it is an artifact, as its FSCI testifies to. BTW, a moderately long post here at UD is in exactly the same boat. No need to appeal to infinite resources, just to intelligence. And, BTW, in the relevant sense beavers are intelligent -- your absence from this thread was "interesting."kairosfocus_{September 12, 2011
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Recall, the second law of thermodynamics was in large part developed to explain the behaviour of steam engines. It is entirely compatible with the presence and action of design that carries out specifically directed and sequenced patterns of effort according to plans that create highly organised and functional structures and processes.kairosfocus_{September 12, 2011
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Mr Arrington: Do you have a counter-prize, for showing the prize is un-winnable? Let's take:
UD hereby offers a $1,000 prize to anyone who is able to demonstrate that the design of a living thing by an intelligent agent necessarily requires a supernatural act (i.e., the suspension of the laws of nature).
The easy answer to this is that Venter et al have given proof of concept that a molecular nanotech lab could design cell based, Carbon chemistry aqueous medium life forms. That is, we know that relevant molecules can be manipulated by sufficiently sophisticated engineering techniques within the known laws of the cosmos, to engineer living forms. All, therefore, without recourse to miracles. So, it stands as empirically well warranted, that an intelligent agent or agents, in such a facility that is several technological generations beyond Venter, could be a SUFFICIENT cause for the living cell. As opposed to a NECESSARY cause. Indeed, from the days of Plato in The Laws, Bk X c. 360 BC, and more recently from Newton's General Scholium c. 1680 AD, up to the remarks of the likes of a Sir Fred Hoyle and others, up to Robin Collins currently, even through a speculative multiverse, the area of design thought and theory that does seriously raise the direct question of a designer beyond the cosmos, is cosmological origins. Of course, if one infers to such a designer as the best explanation for a cosmos that seems to have had a beginning some 13.7 BYA, and which seems to be fine tuned for C Chemistry cell based aqueous medium life, then such a designer is a very strong candidate to be designer of life as well, directly or indirectly. But inference to best explanation -- a good basis for accepting matters of claimed fact and explanations for facts -- is not a proof of necessity. Warrant is not equal to proof beyond all rational doubt. Howbeit, warrant (if we are lucky, to moral certainty) is what we have for living, making decisions and acting responsibly in the real world. Or, are we "really" brains in vats or dream-state captives in the pods of a Matrix world? (That is, empirical experience under-determines absolute reality, but is sufficient for us to practically and confidently dismiss Plato's Cave type speculative worlds of mass deception absent serious evidence to point to such. We have no good reason to believe that we live in a world of utterly unimaginable mass delusion; agit-prop aplenty from various parties, yes, Matrix or brains in vats, no.) Nor is any of this new. Right from the beginning of modern design theory in the early 1980's, design thinkers on life and its origin such as Thaxton et al, and latterly Dembski et al, have repeatedly, freely, publicly and plainly stated that inference to intelligent design is not capable of inference on this to designer as necessarily beyond the cosmos. Why then the "creationism in a cheap tuxedo" talking point? Simple, it is the other party which has strongly emphasised how the theories of evolution put God out of a job. And, this by making the strong appearance of design in life SEEM illusory. So, given their a priori commitments, regardless of evidence, they cannot allow a "~~Divine~~ [designer's] Foot" in the door. Hence, the intensity with which this particular persistently continued willful miserepresentation is promoted. And, that is a very serious moral issue: slander. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{September 12, 2011
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"UD hereby offers a $1,000 prize to anyone who is able to demonstrate that the design of a living thing by an intelligent agent necessarily requires a supernatural act (i.e., the suspension of the laws of nature)." The money's safe. Designing a living thing is precisely what Craig Venter is doing, and he has already succeeded with his laboratory-designed microbe. But if you mean, the design of a living thing by an intelligent agent - meaning a living thing considered by science to have evolved or arisen by abiogenesis, my answer is as follows: If ID is correct and life could not have arisen without intelligence, then the first living thing must have been designed by an intelligence that was not living (otherwise it would not be the first living thing). The intelligence that was not living must either have been of natural origin or of non-natural origin (there being no other possibility). The only intelligence that has ever been observed in nature has either been alive or the product of life - but that cannot be true for the intelligence that designed the first living thing (by definition). Therefore the intelligence that designed the first living thing cannot have been natural and must therefore have been non-natural - and must therefore be supernatural by definition.Grunty_{September 12, 2011
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Starbuck, you seem to suggest that ID arguments are old creationist arguments - just using different words. I've read a good many ID arguments, so I hope to ask you a question: Can you back up that claim with any actual evidence? Please do, thanks.Upright BiPed_{September 12, 2011
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Which ID arguments are indistinquishable from older forms of creationism?StephenB_{September 12, 2011
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The burden of defining the word "supernatural" falls on the Darwinists who claim that ID posits a supernatural designer. Part of the exercise, after all, is to show that they are just throwing words around for effect and don't even know what they mean when they issue the charge.StephenB_{September 12, 2011
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Really? Have you read any of the ID literature?Collin_{September 12, 2011
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I think the question poorly reflects the reason why most people conclude ID is just dressed up creationism, which is that the intelligent design movement's arguments are indistinguishable from older forms of creationism (except that some of the words used are different).Starbuck_{September 12, 2011
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You could also define supernatural as that which is outside the universe (though perhaps "superuniversal" would be a better term). That such a place/time is (currently) unmeasurable does not mean that it does not nor can not exist.rhampton7_{September 12, 2011
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For the purposes of this contest, would it be proper to simply say that humans are a def facto part of the natural order, and therefore any capacity within humanity, while perhaps not *physical*, does not count as *supernatural*? Perhaps this would clarify the contest.johnnyb_{September 12, 2011
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I agree!DrBot_{September 12, 2011
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Sounds like an interesting idea but needs rewording to not get bogged down in definitional ambiguities . . .Eric Anderson_{September 12, 2011
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I would also add the points EL has made about how evolutionary process can be defined as intelligent, and the important distinction she tried to draw between that and an intentional agent.DrBot_{September 12, 2011
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I think it relates to the laws of physics. A supernatural act is something that defies the laws of physics - this of course relates to the constraints of our universe so something beyond our universe might still be subject to laws that constrain their behavior, but not in the same way that our universe imposes limits on us. The point is that they can do things to parts of our universe that nothing that iswithin and constrained by our universe could do. To put it another way - Natural or nature is defined as operating within the laws that our universe operates by. Super-natural implies a transgression of those laws or something operating outside them.DrBot_{September 12, 2011
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To clarify: I'm not saying that God does not exist, but just that He falls within the term "natural." I mean, why not? If it exists, then what makes it unnatural?Collin_{September 12, 2011
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Civility marches on!paragwinn_{September 12, 2011
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Barry, thanks for the reply and for editing out the part where I implicitly agree that the consciousness problem is irrelevant so long as some clear statements about the challenge in relation to the definition of 'mind' are made. I made no attempt to sidetrack the issue, I just asked for clarification because I suspected others would bring it up and because the issue of intelligence requiring a mind, and a mind having to be immaterial, often comes up here. To clarify - the prerequisites for an 'intelligent agent' need to be clear so that one cannot argue that an intelligent act does, or does not, not depend on a supernatural one. I am suggesting that the challenge be annotated with some qualifying statements about the nature of intelligence etc precisely so that things won't get sidetracked.DrBot_{September 12, 2011
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The main problem is that the word "supernatural" has no real coherent meaning. I mean, doesn't natural mean "that which exists?" Therefore nothing supernatural can exist. Am I wrong? Please let me know.Collin_{September 12, 2011
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BarryA:
If an immaterial mind counts as supernatural and all intelligent agents including humans have immaterial minds, then all volitional acts of all intelligent agents would be supernatural acts. That’s just a silly way to construe the word “supernatural.” It is not how the word is used in ordinary English usage and it is not how the word is used here.
Just a point of clarification. Does this mean you consider human intelligence to be a natural phenomenom? Thank you.ben h_{September 12, 2011
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