No, I just changed my mind; my original claim was too general, though still
I claim that the kind of
intelligent design I had in mind is still outside the pale of science; for
example, typical Christian
design theory that takes existing scientific data and claims to find design
in it, merely because it
exhibits certain features that its adherents don't understand (i.e., order,
which is simply an
implication of the law of identity). Also, design theories that involve
"innaparent" design; if it's
inapparent, then, almost by definition, it's undetectable (unless the
"inapparence" is only a matter
of degree or of locating specific evidence).
>When he makes up his mind that ID is in principle scientific, then we can
move on to tests of ID.
Well, certain SUB-categories of ID theory can be tested, anyway, but even
with these, there are
serious limitations that are not present with non-design theories. But the
ones that most ID folks
are so desperate to have people believe (i.e., theological ones) are also
among the ones with the
least chance of having strong support, because, by the very claims of their
adherents, they are the
ones that go most beyond support.
Further, even if ID is strongly supported, it would be hard to imagine that
it would be
supernaturalistic design that would be supported. Naturalistic design
theories would always (?) be
better than SUPERnaturalistic theories. For example, we might suppose that
aliens are, even as
we speak, "managing" evolution on Earth, but doing it so cleverly that even
elaborate statistical
analysis of chemical bonding variations in DNA replication will not make it
evident.
Further still, the kind of evidence needed to prove design would have to be
quite extensive,
because the apparent deviations from the laws of natural evolution and
chemistry would have to
be systematic and extensive to be very strong evidence. If one type of
variation were shown to be
more common for a species in one environment than the same variation in the
same species in
another environment, weâd have to make sure that it was not because of
incidental changes in the
chemical environment during DNA replication.
>>CC>This would mean that design theorists
>>should be proposing experiments and investigations to locate the kinds of
>>facts that they claim are specific to their designer. For example, it
might
>>be possible to create two sub-populations of an organism, put them into
>>different environments, and make systematic counts of the various kinds of
>>variations that occur. If the designer is active, then there should be
>>violations of the rates of variations that would be predicted on the basis
>>of even a very nearly PERFECT knowledge of chemistry and of the chemical
>>environment in which DNA replication takes place.
>
>See above. Chris proposes a test of ID before he acknowledges that ID is
>scientific! This shows his claim that ID is outside of science has no
>basis. If ID can *in principle* be tested, then how can it be maintained
>that ID is outside of science?
I was no longer maintaining that.
SJ
>As for Chris' example, this is not a real test of ID, but is an attempt
>to set up a straw man and knock ID down right away. One wonders why
>materialist-naturalists are so frightened of ID? ID theory does not make
>any specific claims about variations in present populations of organisms.
>ID is more interested in explaining the origin of the evident *design*
>of living organisms, which even Dawkins admits is how they appear to
>be:
>
>"Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of
>having been designed for a purpose." (Dawkins R., "The Blind Watchmaker,"
>1991, p1)
CC
Notice that STEVE doesnât say WHY itâs not a real test, when this is
precisely the type of test that is
needed, and that scientists commonly use to draw subtle information out of
ãnoiseä (i.e., a signal
out of static, or an image out of a ãpictureä that at first looks like
uniform grayness, etc.).
What tests does STEVE propose? Intuition? Faith? If it ãfeelsä like design,
it must BE design?
What? Or is this going to be another area in which design theorists refuse
to put their minds where
their mouths are?
>And why should ID predict "violations of the rates of variations"? If
>there are "rates of variations" are a consequence of the general laws of
>the physical and biological worlds, then ID would maintain that the
>Intelligent Designer is ultimately *responsible* for those laws and
>hence the "rates of variations"! See again my first post to the
>Reflector:
Now you are back to the type of design theory that I had in mind when I said
that design theory
could not be tested. You are claiming that the laws of physics were
designed. I suggest that, if you
believe that such a claim IS scientific and that it IS testable, that YOU
propose such tests.
(Even here, there is at least one subcategory that IS testable. But I think
it includes almost
EXCLUSIVELY theories that virtually all ID theorists would reject out of
hand. I wonât say that it IS
exclusively such theories, having found my foot in my mouth (above) about
the total untestability of
design theories. :-) )
>"In my world view, all natural forces and events are fully contingent
>on the free choice of the sovereign God." (Wilcox D.L., in Buell J. &
>Hearn V., eds., "Darwinism: Science or Philosophy?" 1994, p215).
So: If you think this is a SCIENTIFIC theory, go ahead and propose an
empirical TEST of it. What
facts will we find that it says we will find and that are not also facts
that are or could be predicted
on the basis of naturalistic theories? I offered a test above for the
category of designers in which
the manipulation of the physical Universe is an ongoing process aimed at
causing evolution to
produce certain results and not others. Since, if this designer is not
hiding, the statistics of
variation would have to be skewed in certain ways in order to achieve the
desired results, my
statistical test (or a tightened up version of it) would detect (and even
measure) this design
influence.
But, if the designer is like the God of Deism, who designs and builds a
Universe and then simply
puts it over a low heat to simmer with no FURTHER intervention, then the
problem of testing is
much more difficult. IF such a design theory predicts that we will find
strings of DNA that, when
deciphered in a certain way, will produce, in one long chunk, a
previously-unpublished document
in an unknown engineering language that describes the design in detail, and
if there is found the
genetic equivalent of a ãRosetta Stone,ä and if the cipher is not merely
created to produce that
particular result (where another cipher of the same type but different
variables might cause the
string of genetic material to ãencodeä some small cityâs phone book), then
the design theorists
would have something.
However, this is not the sort of thing that most design theorists are
prepared to accept, and,
besides, they have no evidentiary basis for producing a theory of this type
that they could have any
rational basis for believing would pass such a test without cheating (by,
for example, creating the
deciphering method on a totally ad hoc basis to extract the exact message
desired out of an
already known string of genetic material).
But, as I said once before, Iâd LOVE to see a genuine test made of design
theories, partly because I
love to see epistemological egotists learning real-world epistemology the
hard way.
[Footnote:
I define an epistemological egotist as a person who believes that HE does
not have to adhere to
the constraints of normal cognition to know the truth about things. He doesn
ât have to build up his
knowledge of the world with all the struggle that the rest of us have to go
through, because HIS
mind is SO superior that he automatically knows the truth. His rule is: If
it FEELS right, then itâs
true. The most blatant epistemological egotists are those who openly admit
to, or even brag about,
believing things on faith. But thereâs a more subtle category of people who
donât straightforwardly
admit, most likely not even to themselves, that they believe important ideas
on faith. Some of them
claim to want to do science, but when it comes to doing what actual
empirical science DOES
(make hypotheses and test them against real-world facts) ö well, that may be
just too much effort,
ãand besides, it would just prove what I already know, anywayä (the
rationalizing evasion says).
End note]
I initially said that design theory could not be scientifically tested,
because of a kind of simple
category mistake: Taking a major subset of all possible design theories as
if it were the entire set.
I apologize, and Iâve even proposed tests for one kind of design theory. But
now it turns out that SJ
DOES, after all, want to include as part of science a design theory that is
of the type that, without
special additions or modifications, cannot be tested, or so I still believe.
If SJ can specify a test,
fine, let him do so soon. But, as far as I can see, his claim to seeing
design in the laws of physics is
no better than Fred Hoyleâs, and Fred at least had the excuse of the
ignorance of his time about
much of the sciences of computation, information storage, algorithmic
programming,
microbiology, computer science, artificial life, genetics, physics,
cosmology, and even astronomy.
You donât have to read a lot of Fredâs work, even ãThe Black Cloudä to see
that, by todayâs
standards, he was ignorant of much that most likely would have relieved his
atheistic mind set of
the disturbance caused by an overly-assumptive argument for the rarity of
life-supporting laws of
physics. Fred, I believe, would not have been averse to learning the kinds
of things that now show
that that argument was a tad naive. I suppose it remains to be seen whether
SJ will either propose
a test of his own or admit that the design he thinks he sees in nature is no
more than a kind of
Rorshcach response to order, especially the order that MUST arise out of
extended evolution.
>[...]
>
>CC>I look forward to design-theory supporters jumping on this opportunity
to
>>empirically support their case.
>
>The only interesting thing about Chris' case is that he has (whether he
>likes it or not) accepted that Intelligent Design is *in principle*
>empirically testable, and hence scientific!
CC
Now letâs see if SJ will actually propose a real empirical test for the
specific kind of designer he
has in mind
CC
>Obviously, my exclusionary remarks only pertain to alleged "hidden"
>>designers, designers who DON'T (in any reasonably systematic way that we
can
>>currently detect) interfere with what "should" happen, given a strictly
>>naturalistic theory of evolution.
>
>Chris does not realise that if there is an Intelligent Designer, then
>He would be ultimately be responsible for "*all* natural forces and events"
>as Wilcox points out. If there is an Intelligent Designer, then there is
>*no* "naturalistic theory of evolution"!
CC
False. Evolution as a fact need not be excluded by Original Design theories.
Suppose your
ãdesignerä said, ãOkay, letâs make a Universe with THIS set of laws of
physics and see what
evolves.ä Evolution is a process. As long as that process is not manipulated
in too much detail, it is
still a process of evolution. In fact, thatâs what animal breeders do; they
DIRECT evolution, by
providing a semi-non-natural culling process, but itâs STILL evolution, it
is still waiting for
variations and then culling some out of the gene pool the breeder is working
with. In fact, since
humans are an apparently naturally-occurring species, even deliberate animal
breeding must still
fall under the general description of variation and NATURAL selection.
Yes, of course, IF the designer was sufficiently knowledgeable, as,
presumably, SJâs designer is,
then he WOULD be ultimately responsible for whatever happens. However, that
ALONE would not
interfere with the fact that the process would be the same. If you choose a
set of laws of physics
knowing their outcome or not knowing their outcome, itâs irrelevant to what
actually happens once
theyâve been set in place, as long as the designer (or someone else) does
not continue to be
involved in the process).
Naturalism predicts that given certain general conditions, evolution will
occur, life will arise, and
so on. This is true REGARDLESS of whether the original conditions were the
result of design or
not.
Further, unless we are going to simply ASSUME that the designer is nearly
omniscient as to the consequences of his actions, this is just as much a
fact to be proved as any other. Steve cannot arbitrarily and presumptively
exclude all other design theories but his particular pet one. How will he
SCIENTIFICALLY test to distinguish ORDINARY intelligent design (such as a
computer programmer playing around with artificial life might exhibit) and
REALLY intelligent design (such as that that would presumably come from an
omniscient and omnipotent God)? Mightn't the laws of physics designed by an
ordinary intelligent designer turn out (if only by chance) to be the SAME
set of laws that God might design?
This is, in fact, one of the many reasons why such design theories are so
hard to test. How do we
know whether the original laws were designed or not, given the results, when
those SAME results
would occur if those conditions were designed or not? If someone on a roof
gently tips a piano off
a roof onto you, it squashes you just as much as it would had it been pushed
by a gust of wind. How
do you tell from the remains and the dents in the sidewalk whether the piano
was pushed by a
person or by an unplanned gust of wind?
SJ
>Just as Darwin proposed his
>"naturalistic theory of evolution" as a complete replacement of the
>then century Intelligent Design theory of Paley, so modern ID theory aims
>to update Paley and return the complement to Darwin, and be a complete
>replacement of Darwin's "naturalistic theory of evolution", as Hoyle and
>Wickramasinghe realise:
>
>"The speculations of the Origin of Species turned out to be wrong, as
>we have seen in this chapter. It is ironic that the scientific facts
>throw Darwin out, but leave William Paley, a figure of fun to the
scientific
>world for more than a century, still in the tournament with a chance
>of being the ultimate winner." (Hoyle F. & Wickramasinghe C., "Evolution
>from Space," 1981, pp96-97)
CC
It might be accurate to say that SOME of the speculations of the Origin of
Species turned out to be
wrong, but the basic claim (that evolution by variation and culling is a
fact) has yet to be scratched
by the claws of religionists and any other design theorists.
So, okay Steve, where are your proposed tests? In fact, what is your
proposed THEORY that can
give rise to such tests? Now that we are all attentively gathered around,
you can tell us what
designer theory you have in mind that implies as-yet-unestablished facts to
seek out as tests, and
as tests that, if they succeed, give credence to YOUR theory of design while
at least relatively
weakening naturalistic evolution theory? Come on, now, donât be shy.
>--------------------------------------------------------------------
>"...it is the Christian world which finally gave birth in a clear
articulate
>fashion to the experimental method of science itself...It is surely one of
the
>curious paradoxes of history that science which professionally has little
to
>do with faith, owes its origins to an act of faith that the universe can be
>rationally interpreted, and that science today-is sustained by that
>assumption." (Eiseley L., "Darwin's Century: Evolution and the Men Who
>Discovered It," [1958], Anchor Books: Doubleday & Co: Garden City NY,
>1961, reprint, p62)
>--------------------------------------------------------------------
CC
Very interesting, as the character with the helmet used to say on
ãLaugh-In.ä But, as far back as
the ancient Greeks (i.e., Aristotle), it was KNOWN that the universe can be
rationally interpreted.
Christianity did not come along until later, and then it did everything it
could, almost, to PREVENT
anyone from rationally interpreting it (or even from gathering the data with
which to do so). Itâs
embarrassing that Eiseley was so ignorant of the history of ideas.
Further, as this example shows, the view that the Universe is rationally
interpretable is hardly
inherent in, or limited to, Christianity. Rational interpretability is, in
fact, deducible, up to a point,
from the fact that we interpret the world rationally enough to be able to
formulate the question as
to whether it is rationally interpretable. The fact of our existence and the
fact that we can grasp
enough of our world to be able to deliberately walk across a room shows that
the universe is
rationally interpretable. Further, ultimately, rational interpretability is
guaranteed by the law of
identity (what a thing is, IS what it is) and the ãlaw of existenceä (to be
is to be something IN
PARTICULAR). It is not even LOGICALLY possible for a truly existing universe
to be beyond
rational interpretation in principle (even if WE would not be able to make
sense of it).