It's a free country -- but don't expect people to take these kinds of
polemics as science, or as rigorous philosophy. And while "define your way
to victory" is a common political strategy, it's also notoriously dishonest
and unfair.
I continue to be disappointed in the quality of arguments that go out under
the ID tag. Even if there is merit to what they're saying, sometimes it
seems they're doing their best to keep them hidden from those who aren't
already convinced. There are genuine insights behind some of the ID claims,
I think -- but it's almost like they just can't figure out ways to express
them without name calling, simplistic overstatement, and sloppy mistakes.
Their critics are often enough in the same boat, of course. But then, their
critics can afford to be sloppy, wrt persuasive rigor, since they're the
status quo. If ID wants to succeed, it needs to be smarter than the
opposition, not just fair to middlin' so far as rigor goes. And wrt this
document, "fair to middlin'" is being generous.
Just one example: by this set of definitions, pretty much every theistic
evolutionist would be firmly in the design camp. No problem there. But
then, why do ID theorists continually attack theistic evolutionists as not
believing in design, as being "theistic naturalists", etc. etc. If they
want to use the notions below, fine. But then there should be never a peep
that evolutionary creationists reject design simply because they criticize
the arguments for what usually passes as ID (what would be called rungs 7
and 8 here).
Okay, one more example: these rungs are not mutually exclusive, -based on
the way the terms are ordinarily used-: one can be an atheistic naturalist
(in the ordinary sense of the words) and still be at rung 8, e.g. (Of
course, one can redefine "atheistic naturalist" -- which is itself redundant
in the common use of the terms -- to mean "atheist who rejects design", but
that's a bizarre and misleading coinage.)
I take it YEC would be rung 9 or 10? Interesting that they don't put it
here. (They may want to leave themselves at the top of the ladder lest they
make their metaphor work against them.)
Steve, do you know if this set of definitions is being widely adopted in the
ID movement? Given their prima facie incoherence, I hope not, of course.
But these defns are a -start- toward rigor.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: evolution-owner@udomo3.calvin.edu
> [mailto:evolution-owner@udomo3.calvin.edu]On Behalf Of Stephen E. Jones
> Sent: Wednesday, December 15, 1999 6:03 AM
> To: Evolution Reflector
> Subject: Re: A Ladder of Positions Concerning Intelligent Design
>
>
> Reflectorites
>
> Here is a paper I found on the 'net which sets out clearly
> a `taxonomy' of various anti-design and design positions.
>
> The author, Prof. J. Budziszewski, of the Departments of
> Government and Philosophy, The University of Texas at Austin,
> Texas, is a member of the ID movement.
>
> He has kindly given me permission to repost his paper
> to the Calvin Reflector, with his name and university
> address attrubuted, but with his email address not included.
>
> Steve
>
> =======================================================
> A LADDER OF POSITIONS CONCERNING INTELLIGENT DESIGN
>
> I. SOME COMMON ANTI-DESIGN POSITIONS
> (the names for these positions vary among different writers)
>
> The contemporary anti-design movement reflects not a single naturalistic
> philosophy but a coalition among people with various naturalistic philo-
> sophies.
>
> RUNG 1: ATHEIST NATURALISM. There is no God.
> There is no design. Nature is all there is.
>
> RUNG 2: AGNOSTIC NATURALISM. There may be a God,
> but He doesn't do anything. There is no design,
> and though Nature is not all there is, Nature is
> certainly all that matters.
>
> RUNG 3: THEISTIC NATURALISM. God fashioned the
> natural laws, but without any particular outcome
> in mind. There is still no design in the strict sense,
> and although *in principle* Nature is not all that
> matters, *in effect* it is.
>
> RUNG 4: METHODOLOGICAL NATURALISM. God may have acted
> as a designer, but in the study of Nature, we must act
> as though he couldn't have. In particular, we must deny
> that Nature could contain *evidence* for design, and refuse,
> when asked, to look for any.
>
> II. SOME COMMON DESIGN POSITIONS
> (again, the names for the positions vary)
>
> Like the contemporary anti-design movement, the contemporary design
> movement reflects not a single philosophy but a coalition -- in this
> case, a coalition among people with various design philosophies.
>
> Design thinkers are united in accepting the Design Inference, by
> which we recognize that design has taken place. In other words, they
> agree not only that there has been design, but that its effects are
> empirically detectable. They amicably disagree over how it was done.
> Whether any *further* empirical evidence might help to resolve that
> question is not yet known; that would be the *next* Design Inference.
> First things first.
>
> RUNG 5: NOMOLOGICAL DESIGN. A Designer designed the
> natural laws so that their ordinary operation would result
> in the intended outcome.
>
> RUNG 6: INITIALIST DESIGN. To ensure the intended
> outcome, the Designer not only designed the natural laws,
> but also determined their initial conditions.
>
> RUNG 7: INTERVENTIONIST DESIGN. To ensure the intended
> outcome, the Designer not only designed the natural laws and
> determined their initial conditions, but also *intervened*
> in at least some of the subsequent conditions.
>
> RUNG 8: INSERTIONIST DESIGN ("SPECIAL" CREATION). Still for
> the same reason, the Designer not only designed the natural
> laws, determined their initial conditions, and intervened in
> subsequent conditions, but directly inserted at least some
> information into the genetic code.
>
> OTHER RUNGS. It is logically possible to make the Design
> Inference without adopting any of the positions listed above.
> In particular, one might suggest that the Designer acted in
> the later stages of the process but not the earlier ones --
> an option which attracts atheists who cannot resist the Design
> Inference but refuse to identify the Designer with God. Fred
> Hoyle, for example, speculated that extraterrestrial races
> might have long ago seeded our planet with germs of life which
> would not have arisen spontaneously.
>
> A CRUCIAL CLARIFICATION
>
> It is crucial to understand that although most Intelligent Design
> thinkers believe that the Designer is God, all of them make a strict
> distinction between the Design Inference, and the Theistic Inference
> -- the inference by which we recognize that design has taken place,
> and the inference by which we identify the Designer with God.
>
> The theological import of the Design Inference is not that it coincides
> with the Theistic Inference, but that it eliminates a common *objection*
> to the Theistic Inference (that we don't need to assume God because we
> can explain everything just fine without Him). Richard Dawkins credits
> Darwin with making it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.
> If the Design Inference is valid, then it is still possible to be an
> atheist -- but not so easy for an atheist to be intellectually fulfilled.
>
> One disadvantage of any Intelligent Design theory which *refused* to
> identify the Designer with God would be that in this case the Designer is
> not a necessary being, but a contingent being or beings. But if we have
> reason to believe that we could not have come to be without the designing
> actions of these contingent beings, of design, then we must ask how they
> could have come to be without still earlier acts of design -- and so on,
> producing an infinite regress.
>
> J. Budziszewski
> Departments of Government and Philosophy
> The University of Texas at Austin
> Austin, Texas
> =======================================================
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> Stephen E. (Steve) Jones ,--_|\ Email: sejones@iinet.net.au
> 3 Hawker Avenue / Oz \ Web: http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
> Warwick 6024 -> *_,--\_/ Phone: +61 8 9448 7439
> Perth, Western Australia v "Test everything." (1 Thess. 5:21)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>