In a message dated 7/1/2000 8:40:16 AM, gmurphy@raex.com writes:
<< Your examples which I snip) point out the possibility of studying a
subject
without being able to give a precise & unambiguous definition of the subject
matter. An example even closer to the ID debate can be given - "life".
Biology studies living
things, yet a precise & unambiguous definition of "life" or "living" is
difficult. You
can get a good debate going among some scientists by asking whether viruses
are alive. But in reality biologists don't worry about the lack of such a
precise definition and operate a "If it walks like a duck ..." understanding
of life.
Now is "intelligent design" the same sort of thing? It depends on what
types of
phenomena are being considered. Art critics or historians of technology
recognize quite explicitly that they are studying the products of ID & don't
have to worry about defining just what ID _is_: "Everybody" knows that there
have been human beings around to produce paintings, clocks, &c & only a few
people on the fringes of those fields are going to argue that these things
were produced by dolphins or ETs.
The situation is different when we ask study living things, because here
there
definitely is NOT a tacit consensus that they have been "intelligently
designed". The
claim that they have been is precisely the point at issue. Thus a more
explicit &
careful definition is needed, which is what Howard is asking for. This is
especially so because what the term "intelligent design" in fact connotes for
most people on both sides of the debate is "made by God in a way science
can't explain."
Shalom,
George >>
Thanks, George, for your clarifying remarks. Of course, I agree that
intelligent design is an inference, a judgment. But I fail to see that it
requires a prior definition of the term. Let me give an example and you tell
me why it requires a prior definition of design.
This has to do with the biconvex lens of the trilobite eye. (Taken from
_Trilobites_ Riccardo Levi-Straus, 1993, pp. 44-57 passim). Levi-Straus
wrote:
"The biconvex lenses of trilobites are made up of the doublet structures that
were constructed for an unmistakable purpose: to correct for the large
spherical distortion (aberration) of simple thick lenses....
"When we humans construct optical elements, we sometimes cement together two
lenses that have different refracting indices, as a means of correcting
particular lens defects. In fact, this doublet is a device so typically
associated with human invention that its discovery in trilobites comes as
something of a shock. The realization that trilobites developed and used
such devices half a billion years ago makes the shock even greater. And a
final discovery--that the refracting interface between the two lens elements
in a trilobite's eye was designed in accordance with optical constructions
worked out by Descartes and Huygens in the mid-seventeenth century--borders
on sheer science fiction....
"By comparing the shape of the aspheric lens exit surfaces constructed by
Huygens and Descartes with the two lens structures identified by Clarkson
[figures are added in the text showing the lens structure, DH] little doubt
remains that trilobites utilized the properties of Cartesian Ovals more than
400 million years before the seventeenth-century masters discovered the
principle..."
And finally,
"The design of the trilobite's eye could well qualify for a patent
disclosure."
Levi-Straus tried to provide a Darwinian explanation. He suggested, "What we
would like to hear, to appease our Darwinian upbringing, is that new visual
structures were evolved in response to new environmental pressures as a means
of survival." As possibilities he suggests that it "allowed the trilobite
to see at some depth in sea, at dusk, or in turbid water." He added the
advantage that they provided a prompter recognition of and response to
impending danger. To this hypothetical mix he adds “mating may have proven
more effective with sharper images". (p. 59)
These suggestions of his do not even touch on how natural selection might
have constructed such a biconvex lens.
Levi-Straus clearly admits that the biconvex lens is designed, and long
before human beings understood or were able to construct such a lens. Do you
demand of him that "a more explicit & careful definition is needed"?
When evolutionary authors themselves use design concepts, isn't that clear
evidence that the term is understood, that it doesn't need the precise
definition that Howard demands, and that only the ascription of causality is
at issue?
If you have a choice between saying that the biconvex lens of the trilobite
is designed by an intelligent agent or Levi-Straus' Darwinian explanation,
(or some other more sophisticated one) which would you choose?
I submit that the design inference of the trilobite convex lens is more
heuristic than Darwinian theory. The logical steps for an ID researcher
would be to ask how it was designed. What should follow would be some kind
of reverse engineering of the biconvex lens, trying to determine what steps
went into its construction. A flow chart of the construction steps might
eventually be forthcoming. Perhaps the puzzle of the construction of the
biconvex lens may never be solved. Reverse engineering probably works better
for complex biochemical and biomechanical systems than for the biconvex lens.
IMHO a reverse engineering approach to biological design, as IDer Scott
Minnich advocates, will become the method of choice for ID research, and will
prove to be more productive than trying to create Darwinian scenarios to
account for it.
As ever,
Bob.
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