The theme of design in nature has been much on my mind over the
past few weeks, not least because this was the theme of the
"Christians in Science" conference here in the UK. Several posts
have responded to the "Intelligent Design" approach by referring
to God having designed the Cosmos so that everything we see would
appear in a way that preserves the functional integrity of God's
creation. I'll remind you of a few of these posts.
Howard van Till wrote on Wed, 2 Oct 1996 (Subject: comments on
ID):
"With Behe, I believe that the universe is permeated with
evidence for its being the outcome of thoughtful and purposeful
intention. With Behe, I believe that the universe is a Creation
that has been given being by a mindful Creator. As a Creation,
each of its capacities for the actualization of form (the
realization of a created potentiality) is to be seen as a
God-given gift."
"Are there gaps in the fabric of Creation's developmental
capabilities? Did God withhold a few selected form-actualizing
gifts from his Creation, and is the science of biochemistry now
on the verge of detecting those missing gifts? Did God have to
forcibly assemble some of the creatures that he had earlier
planned? I think not. Given the increasing rate at which we are
becoming more aware of the remarkable robustness of the
Creation's gifts for actualizing potential forms and structures,
I see no reason whatsoever to expect that the Creator chose at
the beginning to withhold a few specific gifts so that a
succession of extraordinary acts of form-fabrication would then,
in the course of time, be required to bridge those developmental
gaps. As a Christian trained in science, then, I choose not to
search for gifts withheld from the Creation, but to recognize the
Creator's generosity in each creaturely gift that the sciences
are privileged to discover."
According to this, there is an inherent capacity "for the
actualization of form" within creation. These capacities can be
regarded as "form-actualizing gifts" from God. Research is
making us "more aware of the remarkable robustness of the
Creation's gifts for actualizing potential forms and structures".
A second example comes from Terry Gray, on Thu, 3 Oct 1996:
"It is possible for wholes to originate WITHOUT downward
causation. Micelles, membranes and liposomes emerge
spontaneously from aqueous solutions of bipolar molecules with
the latter evidencing the emergent property of having an inside
and an outside, which is a property of the whole and not of the
component material. Such a thing is irreducibly complex in the
in/out property. In-ness and out-ness disappears without the
whole structure being intact. A common fallacy among special
creationists and apparently design theorists is to confuse the
modern manifestation of a thing with the steps (even if
herky-jerky by virtue of emergent properties) that may have led
to its formation."
"I'm quick to say that I don't have the detailed answers that Paul
or Mike Behe are going to ask me for. [...] At the same time I
do think that the self-organization school offers tremendous
promise, which people like Phil Johnson and Mike Behe pooh-pooh
as the fantasizing of the mathematicians and computer
scientists."
Here is reference to "emergent properties" and
"self-organization" - and again a hint of a research agenda
("offers tremendous promise").
A third example is from a post of Glenn Morton, on Tue, 08 Oct
1996, under the thread: design: purposeful or random?
"I agree that there is no NATURALISTIC analogy for the engineer
in this situation. The engineer designed the computer and the
initial software. The engineer created an environment in which
software evolution could occur. But to reject this scenario for
the universe ignores an important fact."
"There is a SUPERNATURALISTIC analogy to the engineer and that
is God. Why is it not considered design if God creates the
universe with the ability for life to form hardwired into it?
Why must God violate the rules of the universe (which He set up)
in order to create life (which He foreknew he would do)? Does
this mean that God obviously failed to plan for that eventuality
when He initially created the whole universe? Does not that view
make life one of God's AFTER THOUGHTS rather than God's purpose
for this universe? I prefer to believe that life is here because
God wanted life to be here from the beginning."
The thought here is that God created "the universe with the
ability for life to form hardwired into it". For God to do
anything else would imply that life was an after-thought.
----------------------
On the one hand, I find these three closely-related contributions
to be a significant contribution to the debate about design. It
is important that we can point to design SOMEWHERE! Whereas
issues of purpose can readily be treated as complementary to
"natural" causation (as in the doctrine of providence), we cannot
treat design in the same way. Design requires us to address the
issue of an intelligent input to the Cosmos, and particularly to
life. It is a coherent philosophical position to attribute
design to "form-actualizing gifts", or "emergent properties", or
an "ability for life" to form by some form of
"self-organization".
If this approach (recognising INTELLIGENT design) were more
widely accepted among Christians, I think we would make more
progress than we do in our debates. For example, at the CiS
conference, there was a tremendous reluctance to be more than
tentative - after a very well-presented paper on the anthropic
principle, the authors were content to argue only that the
evidences of finely tuned constants could be ACCOMMODATED within
the Christian approach to science. There was certainly no
attempt to say that a Christian position requires a strong
position on intelligent design.
On the other hand, I have deep concerns about the scientific
rigour of "self-organisation" - at least in the biological realm.
It seems to me that information is a higher-order phenomenon in
living structures, and that there is no inherent cause coming
from physics or chemistry to influence the introduction of
information. My purpose in this post is to suggest that, at very
least, those advocating the "functional integrity" approach
should regard developing the anthropic principle in biology to
be a priority in research. If this is where "design" is to be
found, then it should lead to fruitful research programmes.
I am also puzzled why advocates of self-organisation should be
so accommodating towards Darwinian mechanisms. Darwinism does
not need "self-organisation" nor "form-actualizing gifts". It
has a "mechanism" which can (in principle) search every avenue
that is on offer - but it does so "blind". In several posts, the
innovative thinking of Brian Goodwin and Stuart Kauffman have
been mentioned - and I can only say that I wish more Christians
were aware of their work. But these men have already come to
regard Darwinian mechanisms as a side-issue - contributing little
if anything to the real problems of organised complexity.
At the conclusion of his comments on Mike Behe's book, Howard van
Till wrote:
"The fallacy is self-evident: if one places unachievable or
unrealistic demands on all explanations other than "design"
(imposed structure), then all explanations other than "design"
will surely fail. Behe (like ID theorists generally) has
demonstrated nothing more than the limits of our current
understanding."
Earlier, I cited HVT's reference to "the increasing rate at which
we are becoming more aware of the remarkable robustness of the
Creation's gifts for actualizing potential forms and structures"
and also reference to "a few specific gifts" which he apparently
considers sufficient to resolve the problems. If this is really
so, I consider it all the more urgent for the advocates of
"functional integrity" to articulate research directions which
will identify these "gifts" and so contribute in a more
substantial way to the development of a coherent approach to
design in creation.
Best wishes,
*** From David J. Tyler, CDT Department, Hollings Faculty,
Manchester Metropolitan University, UK.
Telephone: 0161-247-2636 ***