From: Josh Bembenek (jbembe@hotmail.com)
Date: Fri Oct 18 2002 - 11:49:14 EDT
Howard-
I saw your post when you originally put it up a while ago, however I have
been busy preparing for a WIPS (work in progress seminar) completed this
wednesday among other things. I also have a tendency to respond to things
that I can touch on without much thought and put off things that require
deeper investigation and time committment, hence my lack of response to
Terry and Tim on other issues. (I still have intentions though....) I
assume you were resubmitting the post to ASA to jostle my response so here
goes (with enthusiasm.)
Previous Discussion
{{{{--How much of the E. coli bacterium do you believe was actualized
without the form-conferring intervention of God?
Using the term "form-conferring intervention" as the label for a divine act
that interrupts, overpowers or supercedes creaturely action, my answer is,
"all of it."
--Is the fully-gifted creation devoid of God's design and form-conferring
action?
If "design" means "intentional conceptualization," then the fully-gifted
creation is permeated with design. If, however, "designed" means "actualized
by means of form-conferring intervention" (see preceding comment) then the
fully-gifted creation was not designed (in the ID sense.)}}}}
--How do you distinguish these concepts? For me, intentional
conceptualization requires God to act in some fashion, whether or not we can
decipher His ways is a different question altogether. To me there is the
question of design, and then the question of design implementation,
addressed in further detail below.
Much confusion could have been avoided if the ID movement had chosen its
terminology differently. In the confusing jargon of ID, to be "intelligently
designed" is to be "formed in a way that requires, in addition to some
natural processes, occasional acts of form-conferring intervention by an
unidentified and unembodied choice-making agent."
--From my understanding of ID, while your interpretation is correct, it is
also somewhat semantic. IMO, ID is attempting first to establish the
criteria for the positive identification of Design within natural structures
such that an inference must be made to their derivation by an intelligent
designer. Now this argument comes partially in the form of identifying
structures that are incapable of being generated through RM & NS, but it
does not specifically require that each new IC structure be generated by a
specific intervening act of God (even though ID theorists mostly argue
that). IMO ID is perfectly compatible with a theory which states that
initial conditions held all capacity to derive life given by God. In both
scenarios, RM & NS are not the source of creative activity, God is. Just
how much RM & NS can accomplish may be under question, but it seems that
your position holds that initial conditions were set up correctly to give RM
& NS the help they needed to originate God's creative works. To use an
analogy, your theory resembles RM & NS as a vehicle that moves down God's
road of initial conditions, whereas in the other opinion, RM & NS is a term
that really describes what God was doing while he constructed everything and
it has no internal power/usage. In both situations, God is our creator.
This follows back to our discussion...
{{{{ > Is it only the intervening that you have quarrel with? How is
God's
> intervention in the initial conditions different than his intervention
> downstream? I would appreciate your elaboration on this point.
I think a case can be made that the act of choosing the character of the
creation to which God gives being is distinctly different from any act of
form-conferring intervention. The first does not entail an overpowering or
superceding of the action of a creation that already had some particular
character. The second, what you call "intervention downstream," entails the
coercive interruption of the flow of natural actions in a creation whose
character was already in place.}}}}
--But is there a useful distinction here? Isn't everyone claiming nature
was designed by God? Wouldn't it be prudent to first establish that fact
through explanatory filters or something, and then establish how much help
the vehicle of RM & NS need to make it down the road? Does it only need a
road or a driver carefully monitoring each turn? These questions become
much more useful after characterizing design in the first place, correct?
Let's say that your scenario is correct, that RM & NS can accomplish the
origin of IC and biological structures. This implies that once all the
accurate and relevant calculations are in place, Dembski's filter will give
a thumbs-up for the origin of life and IC as possible by RM & NS. However,
when Dembski's filter is applied to development of the universe from initial
conditions, at some point, in your opinion at the point of the initial
conditions, Dembski's filter will reveal a deficit in the formational
economy of the universe based upon physical laws alone that will infer to
the act of a creator. In either case, without Dembski's filter as a tool,
we have no rigorous methodology of testing design within the universe and
are left saying, to me it looks such and such and to you it looks so and so.
Once again, problems arise because of the confusion in the meaning of the
word "design." I would say that the potentiality for a bacterial flagellum
and all of the creaturely resources and capabilities needed for its
actualization in time were both conceptualized by God and included in the
character of the creation from the outset.
--Do you think the case I made for the utility of an explanatory filter
sufficiently addresses this exact point? It seems to me that there exists
more of a disagreement on the exact timing of when the filter will reveal
God's design in the universe instead of whether it will reveal such a thing.
IC is an amazing thing and it required an act no short of God's creative
activity to originate it. It seems the judgement we are making is then how
far can the mechanisms of evolution take us. The current formulation of ID
could possibly validate your position just as easily as it could invalidate
it despite the force of rhetoric and argument proponents of ID currently
take.
Two Quotes to relate another point:
One of my long- claims of standing requests is the ID advocates follow the
same practice and avoid the repetition of overblown having generated an
airtight "proof" that there are extant "natural" objects that had to be
formed by the non-natural action called "intelligent design"
(form-conferring intervention by an unidentified and unembodied
choice-making agent)...
...And...
...Point out bias where it is evident and demand that such bias be removed
form the classroom. What my 4) excludes is the simple replacement of one
bias with another. Committing the same error as the adversary does not
constitute a correction.
--My feeling is that the only way to gain enough credibility for their
viewpoint to even allow it to get close to entering the classroom is to
advertise it in such a fashion. Most scientists have no intention
whatsoever to just let some "quacks" walk into the classroom and question
their golden theory that they've built up such a case for on a whim. I mean
who does this nobody Behe guy think he is?? There is a worldview war going
on here, but most evolutionists would never admit it, or even be aware of it
(IMO). Therefore I see no problem with presenting as bulletproof a critique
and case against pure darwinism as possible to open the bias in the
classroom without having to taint their case with talk of worldviews and
religion. This way there can be no clever silencing attempt under freedom
of religion or something like that (I'm no lawyer.) I agree that replacing
one bias for another is bad, but I think to even get a hearing they have to
be as biased and convicted in the formulation of their argument as possible.
You may accept and welcome such openness but legislatures and media won't.
When there is enough evidence to resolve this issue once and for all, we
won't have to debate anymore, we'll simply refer to "that old evolution/ID
cult idea" probably the same way we treat Lamarckian theory. At this time,
however, ID has a serious uphill battle to be taken seriously and it
requires a degree of confidence that may be unwarranted and not fully
supported by factual data. This is not a new phenomena especially if you
read literature like "The Blind Watchmaker."
But if worldview concerns form the core of the movement, why not challenge
other worldviews openly and with candor? Would that not build respect?
-Perhaps it would build respect among those aware and intentional about
worldview issues, but most scientists and legislatures of science education
do not seem to be worried too much about this issue. They hide under the
umbrella of preventing anyone from forcing one or any religion in the
classroom to accomplish their goal of muting all other worldviews but an
agnostic or atheistic one, IMO.
I saw people like Phil Johnson loading the term "naturalism" with all of the
connotations of maximal naturalism (without acknowledging there were
substantially different kinds of naturalism) and then referring to people
like myself as "theistic naturalists." That rhetorical strategy was
offensive.
--This is to be faulted, however I find most unaware of worldview issues and
thus distinguishing among close worldview issues even more difficult. In
the quest for simplicity and clarity of argument perhaps they have trapped
the discussion as God verses atheistic science, and cast ideas along your
off as irrelevant. Still, their agenda is somewhat of a decent starting
point even if not completely fair? This is, after all, a debate, with the
goal of gaining credibility for classroom acceptance. Debates have a
particular way of construing every facet of reality to conform distinctly to
one and only one position, yours. If all science classrooms took the form
of open dialogue with experts from several viewpoints, I think everyone
could relax a bit. Unfortunately this is not the situation.
Thank you also for your patience and engagement in this discussion, it has
been very useful for my thinking on these issues.
Josh Bembenek
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