Bob,
One more reply....
In regard to ID and evolution being an either/or situation you said:
> Sorry for the confusion. I do not mean an either-or situation. Since I come
> from a social science background, I am used to the idea of multiple
> causation. Human behavior is rarely if ever caused by a single variable. To
> tease out the differential contribution of various causal variables (assuming
> correlation is indicative of causality) social scientists employ various
> statistical procedures, such as analysis of variance.
>
> I would like to see a similar approach used in biological studies where the
> issue is natural selection or intelligent design. I think it is a
> methodological mistake to assume at the outset that either process did it
> all.
But once again I see the same choice that some specific outcome (even if not
the whole ensemble of outcomes) is either "natural selection or intelligent
design." The either/or language is remarkably persistent in your
presentation.
> Rather it is better to start with the assumption that both processes
> were at work and then try to assess the differential contribution of each to
> the phenomenon.
Note what this seems to entail: that some specific outcome (presumably a
particular biotic structure) is caused by a linear combination of "natural"
and divine actions. Theologically this is most awkward; divine action and
creaturely action are here placed at the same level and freely mixed. You
are free to propose that, but I believe that you would be parting company
with some good theologians if you did.
> Here is what Bill Dembski wrote in his forthcoming book, _No Free Lunch_
> about the meaning of design;
>
> "How a designer gets from thought to thing is, at
> least in broad strokes, straightforward: (1) A
> designer conceives a purpose. (2) To accomplish that
> purpose, the designer forms a plan. (3) To execute
> the plan, the designer specifies building materials
> and assembly instructions. (4) Finally, the designer
> or some surrogate applies the assembly instructions
> to the building materials. What emerges is a designed
> object,
NO, what emerges is a designed AND ASSEMBLED object. This is precisely where
the ID folk play loose with their language. NON-NATURAL ASSEMBLY is in fact
the core of the ID picture of how living things got to be as they are. The
ID program is built on the platform of DIVINE FORM-IMPOSING INTERVENTION as
the only possible means for the assembly of some (why not all?) specific
organisms or biotic subsystems.
> and the designer is successful to the degree
> that the object fulfills the designer's purpose. In
> the case of human designers, this four-part design
> process is uncontroversial. Baking a cake, driving a
> car, embezzling funds, and building a supercomputer
> each presuppose it. Not only do we repeatedly engage
> in this four-part design process, but we've witnessed
> other people engage in it countless times. Given a
> sufficiently detailed causal history, we are able to
> track this process from start to finish....
For human artisans, this 4-part process might be reasonable. However, to
force divine creative action into this same recipe is indefensibly
presumptuous. For instance: (1) human artisans cannot give being to the raw
materials with freely chosen properties/capabilities; a Creator, on the
other hand, _gives being_ to the entire system of resources, capabilities
and potentialities; (2) human artisans have finite capabilities for
conceptualizing outcomes; would you propose that a Creator is stuck with the
same limits?
> "Nevertheless, when it comes to living things, the
> biological community holds that a very different type
> of causal story is required.
Could it be that the biological community has a higher view of the
robustness of the universe's formational economy, a higher view of the
Creator's creativity (in conceptualizing the Creation's formational economy)
and the Creator's generosity (in giving such integrity/wholeness of being to
the Creation)? That's exactly what it looks like to me. ID's concept entails
"capability gaps" (missing formational capabilities); biology's concept
entails a gapless (fully-gifted) formational economy. What a colossal irony
it would be if the scientific community held a higher view of the Creation's
giftedness than did the believers in a Creator.
> To be sure, the
> biological community admits that biological systems
> appear to be designed.
Which meaning of 'designed' this time?
> For instance, Richard Dawkins
> writes, "Biology is the study of complicated things
> that give the appearance of having been designed for
> a purpose." 1 Likewise, Francis Crick writes,
> "Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what
> they see was not designed, but rather evolved." 2 Or
> consider the title of Renato Dulbecco's biology text
> -- The Design of Life.3 The term "design" is
> everywhere in the biological literature. Even so, its
> use is carefully regulated. According to the
> biological community the appearance of design in
> biology is misleading. This is not to deny that
> biology is filled with marvelous contrivances.
> Biologists readily admit as much. Yet as far as the
> biological community is concerned, living things are
> not the result of the four-part design process
> described above. "
I heartily agree with the "biological community" here. I see no reason at
all (especially for Christians who profess to believe in a Creator
characterized by unfathomable creativity and unlimited generosity) for
presuming that the universe is lacking the requisite formational resources,
capabilities or potentialities to make to make the remarkable process of
evolutionary development possible.
> Does this satisfy your desire for the leadership of ID to come forward and
> declare whether design is just the creative thought, or the implementation of
> it as well?
Has Dembski made a clear distinction between 'design' as mind action and
'assembly' as hand action? Or does he adopt the strategy of using the word
'design' sometimes to mean one, sometimes the other, and sometimes both? Has
he ( or any other proponent of ID) acknowledged the need for divine
conceptualization of the robust system of natural resources, capabilities
and potentialities needed to make evolution possible? Or, has the ID
leadership persistently used the word 'design' (which usually focuses
attention on the mind action of planning/conceptualizing) as the label for
the hand action of non-natural assembly?
> hvt wrote:
>
> <<If the distinction between God's conceptualizing a Creation and God's
> performance of form-imposing interventions is not made, then discussion of
> divine creative action is, I believe, not likely to be fruitful. My
> experience of being in the thick of the creation/evolution discussion for
> the last two decades affirms this judgment.>>
Bob replied:
> Isn't that largely because you deny that "God's performance of form-imposing
> interventions" ever occurred?
No, regardless of the position one wishes to defend, the distinction must be
honored or the discussion fails.
Howard
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon May 07 2001 - 10:04:04 EDT