Reflectorites
On Mon, 3 Apr 2000 16:02:53 -0600, Terry M. Gray wrote:
TG>I'll have no problem accepting Stephen's comments and in fact I do not
>doubt that IDer's, if they are Christian, do in fact regard the "canvas" as
>being designed. Dembski's quote shows that well. Thanks for keeping me
>honest, Steve.
My claim is not that Terry is not "honest". It is that (like many other
TE/ECs) naturalistic philosophy so controls his thinking that he genuinely
*sees* that IDers are denying design. This is evident by what Terry said:
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On Fri, 31 Mar 2000 10:47:51 -0700, Terry M. Gray wrote:
[...]
TG>... It seems to me that even
>ID'ers, at least in the rhetoric, share the naturalism of Dennett and
>Dawkins by being unwilling to consider that divinely guided "natural"
>processes can produce design by even their definition.
>
>By my consideration everything is divinely designed. ID'ers don't like this
>because it takes the apologetic sting out of their argument. In my opinion
>that exposes the motive for the whole enterprise.
[...]
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This is no aberration. TE/ECs keep saying this sort of thing, even after it is
pointed out to them that it's false, and they admit it is. Indeed, Terry keeps
saying this sort of thing in this very post!
TG>But, really, my point is made even more pointedly by the
>distinctions that Stephen makes. You see, rather than argue as Stephen has
>accused me in the following quote:
>SJ>This misunderstanding probably arises and persists among the Theistic
>>Evolutionist/Evolutionary Creationists (TE/ECs) like Terry because they
>>deny that here is anything in the natural world which did not arise
>>naturalistically (ie. as the result of either law and chance).
This was not merely an accusation. It is the plain *truth*. TE/ECs like
Terry *do* "deny that here is anything in the natural world which did not
arise naturalistically (ie. as the result of either law and chance). In Terry's
very next paragraph he says "in one sense nothing arises "naturalistically
(i.e. as the result of either law and chance)". This means that for Terry, in
another sense *everything* arises "naturalistically (i.e. as the result of
either law and chance)"!
TG>I want to to argue that in one sense nothing arises "naturalistically (i.e.
>as the result of either law and chance) and that everything is
>designed--even the flop of hair on my head or the arrangement of the sand
>on the seashore or the particular arrangement of gas molecules in the room
>at this particular point in time.
See what I mean? Terry has just admitted that "IDer's, if they are Christian,
do in fact regard the "canvas" [i.e. the whole universe] as being designed"
and yet here he is, in his next paragraph contrasting their position with his,
which is "everything is designed"!
It never seems to sink in to TE/ECs like Terry that the difference between
their position and that of IDers has nothing to do with whether they believe
"everything is designed". *All* Christians believe that "everything is
designed" at this "canvas" level . As the great theistic evolutionist botanist
Asa Gray pointed out, the denial of design (at this "canvas" level) is
"tantamount to atheism":
"Dr. [Asa] Gray goes further. He says, `The proposition that the things and
events in nature were not designed to be so, if logically carried out, is
doubtless tantamount to atheism.' Again, "To us, a fortuitous Cosmos is
simply inconceivable. The alternative is a designed Cosmos... If Mr.
Darwin believes that the events which he supposes to have occurred and
the results we behold around us were undirected and undesigned; or if the
physicist believes that the natural forces to which he refers phenomena are
uncaused and undirected, no argument is needed to show that such belief is
atheistic." (Noll M.A. & Livingstone D.N., eds., Hodge C. "What Is
Darwinism?", 1994, pp.156-157).
The point is that Terry (and other TE/ECs) just rule out apriori that there
*can* be a "painting" level of design. To them it must be *all* "canvas",
and no "painting" irrespective of the evidence. That is why they oppose
IDers looking for evidence of such "painting".
TG>This is what IDer's object to because
>then there is no difference between the special instance of design that
>supposedly cannot be explained naturalistically and the special instance of
>design that can be explained naturalistically.
Note the "supposedly". Terry (and other TE/ECs) just assume apriori that
*all* "design...can be explained naturalistically". That is, there is *no*
design which "cannot be explained naturalistically".
It would be nice is TE/ECs just came out and said openly that: "We
TE/ECs believe, on naturalistic philosophical grounds, that all design can
be explained naturalistically and there is no design which cannot be
explained naturalistically."
But they never do, because then it would be *obvious* that their
naturalistic philosophy is the controlling factor in their thinking. So all we
get is a continual stream of `weasel words' like "in one sense nothing arises
"naturalistically (i.e. as the result of either law and chance) and that
everything is designed".
I want to stress here that I am *not* saying that Terry and other TE/ECs
are not good Christians personally, and I am *not* saying that they are
aware of the extent to which naturalistic philosophy controls their thinking.
I am in the privileged position of being a 1st year university Biology
student. Our lecturer is an atheist and a very caring, very good, lecturer.
But she presents the evidence in a one-sided way, which no doubt she
really believes. In the origin of life we got the whole Oparin-Haldane
primordial soup served up, garnished with a reducing atmosphere, and
washed down with the Miller-Urey experiment. The other side that there is
no evidence for a primordial soup, the atmosphere is now thought not to be
reducing, and even Dawkins doesn't think much of the Miller-Urey
experiment, was not mentioned.
But the kids don't know there is another side so they have no choice but to
believe her. If I had not been `vaccinated' by being aware of the weak
points and counter evidence, I would get `infected' too. This university is
the main university for science teachers and I know two friends of my
daughters who went through it on to become professional biologists. There
are no more lectures in the whole course on the origin of life, so even if
some of them become biologists, that 2 hours may be all they may ever be
taught about it.
To make sure the kids were themselves `vaccinated' against creationism,
she told a little story about how she read a Jehovah's Witness book of
quotes, and that she had some of the original books and the quotes were
out of context. The class all sniggered along with her. So if they ever hear
creationists' criticism of the origin of life, they will probably dismiss it out
of hand. It is *very* instructive seeing how this new generation of
biologists and science teachers are being trained to think like good
evolutionists!
I can well imagine young would-be scientist even from Christian homes
adapting to such powerful indoctrination by adopting a Theistic Evolution
interpretation of the evidence. I do not criticise them for it, because I
would probably have done the same in their circumstances.
But the basic problem is that it just accepts the naturalists' evidence
without challenging it at any point. And that evidence has been carefully
selected and interpreted to support a naturalistic philosophy. None of this is
reprehensible, because philosophical naturalists really believe that their
interpretation is the way things really are. But once that naturalistic
evolutionary way of thinking is internalised and in entrenched, it become
difficult (if not impossible) to even *conceive* of things happening any
other way.
There is also the Concorde Fallacy of having invested much of one's life in
a certain way of thinking, it is very hard to admit that much of it was
wasted. A psychologically easier course of action is to try to discredit one's
critics, even when they happen to be the majority of one's fellow Christians
who have not accepted (or have thrown off) those naturalistic evolutionary
ways of thinking!
So those Christians like IDers and creationists who have not been trained
to think naturalistically and who are trying to challenge the naturalistic
domination of science, education, law and government, are forced to also
defend themselves against a `fifth column' of TE/ECs! The whole thing
would be funny if it wasn't so tragic.
But there is nothing new in this. It happens in theology too, but in that case
the effects of naturalistic thinking are usually more devastating and the
would-be theologian often gives up Christianity altogether. Or else he
continues on as a liberal, denying supernatural elements of Christianity, and
even in some cases central ones like the Resurrection of Christ.
TG>The want to use the term
>design to only apply to the former case.
This is half-true. IDers agree that there are multiple meanings of the word
"design". What they mean by the word "intelligent design" or "design" is
that type of design which did not arise naturalistically, ie. as a result of
what science calls law (i.e. regularity) and chance.
"Whenever explaining an event, we must choose from three competing
modes of explanation. These are regularity, chance, and design. ... Defining
design as the set-theoretic complement of the disjunction regularity-or-
chance guarantees that the three modes of explanation are mutually
exclusive and exhaustive. .. The principal advantage of characterizing
design as the complement of regularity and chance is that it avoids
committing itself to a doctrine of intelligent agency. In practice, when we
eliminate regularity and chance, we typically do end up with an intelligent
agent. Thus, in practice, to infer design is typically to end up with a
"designer" in the classical sense. Nevertheless, it is useful to separate
design from theories of intelligence and intelligent agency. ... Defining
design as the negation of regularity and chance avoids prejudicing the
causal stories we associate with design inferences. When called to explain
an event, we therefore have a decision to make - are we going to attribute
it to regularity or chance or design? To answer this question we employ a
standard operating procedure. The flowchart in Figure 2.1 summarizes this
procedure. It will be called the Explanatory Filter, or simply the filter.
(Dembski W.A., "The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance Through
Small Probabilities," 1998, p.36)
TG>I don't have the time to find the old email where my ID discussion partner
>at the time--it may have even have been Stephen Meyer or Bill Dembski. But
>the upshot of the discussion was this very point. They did not want me
>calling everything "designed" because that takes the sting out of their
>special instance of design.
No doubt this is how Terry genuinely perceives it, through his naturalistic
philosophical filter. Because he really does not think that there could be any
such think as the "painting" level of design, he simply cannot understand
why IDers like Meyer or Dembski would want to make a distinction
between "painting" and "canvas" levels of design.
So Terry *interprets* them as trying to stop him "calling everything
`designed'", when what they are really trying to do is stop Terry "calling
everything designed' *at the `canvas' level only*.
TG>I still believe that the heart of this debate
>lies in our attempt to treat God as human designer. We fail to see him as
>the sovereign Lord over every detail of creation.
Here again, Terry slips back into claiming that IDers "fail to see him (God)
as the sovereign Lord over every detail of creation". This is just another
way of saying that IDers deny that "everything is divinely designed".
The boot is actually on the other foot. IDers who are Christians (there are
some IDers who are agnostics) do see God as the sovereign Lord over
every detail of creation". I certainly do. But what they don't do (which
TE/ECs does) is *limit* God's working to only the `canvas' level. They
hold open the possibility that God may have also worked at the `painting'
level and try to find evidence of same.
TG>No human designer
>sustains the very being of his/her designed thing. No human designer gives
>to the designed thing the very properties that the designed thing needs.
>We're not dealing with artifacts here the way we would think about an
>archeological dig or SETI.
Of course the analogy between human designers and the Intelligent
Designer breaks down at some point. Dembski says as much:
"The design of the canvas corresponds to the design of the universe as a
whole. The design of some configuration of paint corresponds to an
instance of design within the universe. Though not perfect, this analogy is
useful. The universe is a canvas on which is depicted natural history. One
can ask whether that canvas itself is designed. On the other hand, one can
ask whether features of natural history depicted on that canvas are
designed."(Dembski W.A., "Intelligent Design," 1999, p.14)
TG>Now I've often said that I'm willing in principle to accept a miraculously
>designed thing if I thought the evidence pointed to that, I still maintain
>that. (Although I don't think that there is any Biblical-theological reason
>to expect it in origins except wrt origin of human beings.)
The fact is that given Terry's naturalistic philosophical filter, it would be
difficult (if not impossible) for him to even *see* that "the evidence pointed
to" a "miraculously designed thing". Scientific naturalistic philosophy has
*plenty* of ways of dealing with things that appear to be "miraculously
designed".
TG>What irks me
>most about IDers is their appeal to passages like Romans 1 and Psalm 19 as
>suggesting their enterprise as if the heavens didn't declare the glory of
>God until Mike Behe told us about the irreducible complexity of molecular
>motors or as if God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine
>nature--were not clearly seen until Steve Meyer told us about the
>information content of DNA. Give me a break! These passage are talking
>about the canvas as a whole and the creation was doing its thing long
>before our detailed knowledge of biology came about. And these passages are
>not simply talking about knowledge that mankind didn't understand (at the
>time) as if the ancient psalmist was wowed into confessing God as creator
>but we wouldn't be today because we know alot more about stars than he did.
This is just a straw man. IDers would agree that "Romans 1 and Psalm 19"
are talking about "the canvas as a whole". See Dembski's quote above
about "The design of the canvas corresponds to the design of the universe
as a whole."
And Mike Behe's arguments about the "irreducible complexity of molecular
motors" and Steve Meyer's arguments about the "information content of
DNA" are about the `painting' level of design.
Because Terry (along with other TE/ECs) denies that there *is* a `painting'
level of design he slips back into a variation of his error of thinking that
IDers are denying design in "the canvas as a whole".
On Terry's (and other TE/ECs) theistic-naturalistic philosophical
assumptions, there simply is no `painting' level of design, but it is all
`canvas'. Therefore all evidence for the `painting' level of design will be
forced to fit the Procrustean bed of the `canvas' level, because that is
assumed on naturalistic philosophical grounds, to be the *only* level there
is.
And Terry (and other TE/ECs) will continue to misinterpret IDers as
denying the `canvas' level of design!
Steve
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"Nor would it, I apprehend, weaken the conclusion, that we had never seen
a watch made; that we had never known an artist capable of making one;
that we were altogether incapable of executing such a piece of
workmanship ourselves, or of understanding in what manner it was
performed; all this being no more than what is true of some exquisite
remains of ancient art, of some lost arts, and to the generality of mankind,
of the more curious productions: of modern manufacture. Does one man in
a million know how oval frames are turned? Ignorance of this kind exalts
our opinion of the unseen and unknown artist's skill, if he be unseen and
unknown, but raises no doubt in our minds of the existence and agency of
such an artist, at some former time, and in some place or other. Nor can I
perceive that it varies at all the inference, whether the question arise
concerning a human agent, or concerning an agent of a different species, or
an agent possessing, in some respects, a different nature." (Paley W.,
"Natural Theology: or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the
Deity, Collected from the Appearances of Nature," [1802], St. Thomas
Press: Houston, TX, 1972, reprint, p.3)
Stephen E. Jones | sejones@iinet.net.au | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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