Dear List,
I was sent a personal email from someone responding to one of my posts.
I can only suppose the person is a list subscriber, but before I realized
it was one-to-one, I had written a lengthy reply. I would like to send
the reply for everyone to see, but of course I've deleted all references
to the original sender. I want to encourage the person to send their
message to everyone, since I think it was a good post. I've benefited
from it, and I'm sure others would as well.
===========================
...
> ID theory doesn't need to posit the supernatural in explaining how
> molecular machines may have been designed. All that is necessary is
> human-like intelligence and human-like intentions.
...
Thank you for your message. After reading it, I am convinced that ID'ers
and myself are almost unanimously agreed across the board. I fully
believe the case for ID, but the one area where I am inclined to disagree
is the nature of that case. Much of it has to do with the above
statements.
ID'ers seem to want very much to avoid the charge that they are making
religious, metaphysical claims. This desire on their part is no doubt
due to their commitment to the scientific method, but it also makes good
political sense since nobody wants to be labelled by the courts as
actually following "religion" when doing their science. So how does ID
maneuver around the charge of being inherently religious?
One could possibly make the astounding claim that design does not need a
designer. But ID'ers realize that the logic here is inescapable. If
there is the presence of design, then there necessarily is -- or once was
-- the existence of a designer or designers. Thus, ID'ers do not
entertain the thought of believing in a "design" where no one designed
it. It would be intellectual suicide.
Instead of this, ID'ers shift up to the next gear. They choose to leave
the identity of the designer or designers completely anonymous. And so,
the designer(s) could be God, aliens, a powerful demigod, the tooth
fairy, or what have you. He/she/it/they could be supernatural or
completely physical. Using this tactic ID'ers hope to gain a certain
measure of scientific recognition. "Look, everybody. We only claim that
a designer exists or once existed. We do not make any claims as to the
who, what, where, when, how, or why of this entity or entities. An
existential claim is our only claim."
Now, the rest of the world rightly asks if even this modest-sounding
assertion has a certain sequence of its own inescapable logic. Can a
non-supernatural designer truly be possible within ID theory?
It seems that any potentially natural designer would have to be some type
of alien lifeform, one that originated elsewhere in the physical
Universe. Most of us are probably familiar with the plot of 2001: A
Space Odyssey as well as the recent movie Mission to Mars. But, having
taken this route, we must also ask if this entity itself demonstrates
evidences of design. Is the designer of life on Earth likewise designed?
There seems to be only two possibilities:
(1) Our own designer demonstrates design of its own. This would mean
that the designer of Earth's life points the way to another designer
existing someplace else. Once again, another alien lifeform seems to be
the only recourse if we truly wish to avoid the supernatural. But this
only begs the question more. Does that second designer also show
evidence of design? If so, then a third alien designer needs to be
postulated -- and so on.
Thus, in this first case, the logic seems to lead to some fantastic
conclusions. If we suppose that designers are themselves designed, then
an endless recursion is set up. This would mean that, in order for ID to
stay within the physical Universe, it must imagine an infinite sequence
of alien lifeforms. It would essentially say that the Universe is
eternal -- or at least some part of the Universe is eternal, namely all
the designers.
(2) This brings us to the second possibility that somewhere along the way
we reach a designer that was not designed. This by far appears to be the
more preferable scenario, both logically and scientifically. The
evidence for a Universe of finite age is just too strong to overthrow.
Furthermore, the notion of an infinitely recursive sequence of designed
designers has all kinds of unlovely logical-philosophical problems.
Therefore, for ID to make any real sense, it seems that we must sooner or
later postulate a designer whose own existence was not implemented
according to a pre-existing plan.
This leads us to ask the question: does ID allow this undesigned designer
to be a physical, material being? Again, the logic seems inescapable.
If the undesigned designer is a natural entity such as an alien lifeform,
then we come face-to-face with the startling conclusion that ID is just
another form of evolution. Sure, ID'ers claim that evolution -- at least
that of Earth's first lifeform -- did not happen here on this planet.
But for ID'ers to believe in a natural undesigned designer they must
inevitably conclude that some kind of evolution of a first lifeform did
take place. It might not have occurred here, but it did happen at least
somewhere in the Universe.
And so, in this scenario, we have a grand paradox: ID is against
undesigned evolution on this planet, but not necessarily against it
happening elsewhere. The driver of the car called Earth would indeed be
designed, but somewhere in the backseat still sits evolutionary theory.
We are thus tempted to label ID as simply a type of "removed
evolutionism." There would be no significant difference between this
kind of ID and the theories proposed by such men as Francis Crick or Sir
Fred Hoyle.
However, the sine qua non of ID is inherently anti-evolutionary, or so
its proponents tell us. Therefore, we appear to have no other
alternative than that the undesigned designer is something other than a
physical organism. It is an entity that is not part of natural reality.
If we truly want to avoid an infinitely old Universe and if we really
want a theory that is substantially different from naturalistic
evolution, then by all appearances ID must invoke a supernatural entity.
Therefore, ID's undesigned designer does indeed fall under the category
of a deity of some sort. ID's claim is found to be more than just
existential. In order for it to make any sense, ID theory necessarily
invokes an undesigned designer whose nature is spiritual and
metaphysical.
Everyone else sees ID for what it is: a supernaturalistic theory of
origins. As I tried to point out with the concept of scientific
undecidability, there is nothing inherently wrong with this. Science
does not rule out the existence of the supernatural anymore than it rules
out the existence of design. But I do think it is a mistake to claim
that ID falls completely within the confines of the scientific method.
I for one am not afraid to identify the undesigned Designer. He is the
Deity revealed in the Holy Scriptures, the God who is Three in One --
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I realize this is quite unscientific of
me. I know I have not the least shred of experimental data to prove it.
I freely admit that it's the Bible, not science, that tells me this. And
I do not fear if mainstream science or the courts rule this out from
being a purely scientific option. If they do, then I would
wholeheartedly agree with them.
Steve C.
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