I have been seeking clarification of ideas put forward by Bill
Hamilton. In particular, the thought that "design is in the
properties of entities in nature" and the thought of God
invisibly intervening in nature as an intelligent designer and
overseer, maintaining "control over the direction of nature by
means of infinitesimal perturbations".
Of the first thought I said: "This seems to me to advocate a
model of "design-for-self-assembly" ..." to which Bill replied:
"It doesn't look like self-assembly to me".
Loren has explored the thought that a type of self-assembly is
to be understood here:
LH> "Consider two extreme versions of design-for-self-assembly.
1) An engineer designs component pieces to self-assemble into the
same final (complex) form or forms every time. Each time the
process starts, the pathway taken might be considerably
different, but it always finishes with identical products. 2) An
artist designs component pieces to self-assemble into beautiful,
complex forms which are radically different from each other each
time, depending sensitively on which "pathway" is taken.
You wouldn't expect the engineer in version #1 to
"intervene" very much. However, it would be quite natural for the
artist in version #2 to subtly intervene and influence the
pathway, especially if she was skilled enough to predict the
long-term consequences.
I see Bill's stated version of intervention to correspond
to the artist."
I would not expect _any_ intervention in version #1. To me,
"self-assemble" means that it is natural for the entities to come
together in certain specific ways. I still think version 1#
self-assembly is in tension with the idea of intervention.
I can see that version #2 self-assembly is consistent with
intervention - and since Bill has commented "This is indeed what
I had in mind" - I thank you for a helpful clarification of the
issues.
LH> "Assuming that biological life really is designed-for-self-
assembly, is it version #1 or #2? It seems to me that there's
some data pointing in each direction, so my guess is that it's
somewhere in between".
Sometime, it would be interesting to discuss this data and where
it points.
In my post to Bill, I wrote these words, which were stimulated
by his comments on continuous guiding intervention:
DT> "Is there a genuinely natural explanation of origins or not?
With the views Bill expresses, I think he would be disowned by
the evolutionary biology community".
Loren responded:
LH> "On the contrary, I strongly suspect that most of the
evolutionary biology community would have no problem with the
artist's version (or Bill's version) of design-for-self-assembly.
The emergence of complex animals and plants would be "possible"
without God's subtle intervention; but God's subtle intervention
influenced or chose the particular pathway".
I'm afraid this does not make the position clearer to me. The
problem is - how does intelligent design enter into the world of
living things? I thought Bill was invoking a combination of
inherent properties (which I've interpreted as design-for-self-
assembly) and continuous undetectable intervention by God. In
the quote above, you are saying that organised complexity/design
would be possible without God's subtle intervention. All that
the intervention does is select one pathway rather than another.
To me, this throws the main burden of explaining intelligent
design back on the properties of entities in nature. This is a
real problem in my mind - partly because I see no link between
the _information_ necessary for organised complexity and the
properties of entities in nature, and partly because my reading
of Scripture leads to a much stronger role for intervention in
creation.
Best wishes,
*** From David J. Tyler, CDT Department, Hollings Faculty,
Manchester Metropolitan University, UK.
Telephone: 0161-247-2636 ***