[asa] ID, TE, and the culture war--who is the audience?

The conversation we have had recently about ID, TE, and their different
strategies in engaging atheism prompts me to wonder about a specific
question. I've copied Bill Dembski and Denyse O'Leary on this, not because
this post involves them in any direct way (it does not), but b/c I would be
surprised if they have not also thought about this, and they might want to
contributed some observations here. It's fine, of course, if they pass, but
I at least would be very interested in what they may have to say. Obviously
it relates to recent conversations in which they were involved, but (I hope)
without some of the tension that came with that. Indeed, I suggest that
perhaps this thread could be one that would illuminate and benefit all of
us, whether we prefer ID or TE, and I invite Bill and Densye, and anyone
else for that matter, to join in the discussion. I very much hope they will
do so. Or, if not, that they will invite some of their friends to take part
in their stead. There are some ID supporters on the ASA list now, but not
that many, and IMO it would be good to have more. It would also be good to
keep it temperate, all around. We all know that in lots of electronic
spaces that is simply not the case.

Let me articulate the question. I'll start with an assumption.

Suppose we assume (as I have been assuming) that ID generally takes a more
confrontational approach to atheism, the "slam dunk" language I've used; and
that TE is generally less confrontational in responding to atheism, the
"backdoor layup" as I had called it.

I haven't seen here disagreements with that assumption, but we haven't
talked about it very much and there well could be dissenters. Dissenters,
I'd like to hear other views if you hold them.

If this assumption is granted, then let me follow with this question: Is
either strategy effective at all? If so, for which audiences, and why? If
not, why not? Here is what I am getting at. Richard Dawkins, Michael
Shermer, and others in the atheist camp seem to be "worldview foreclosed,"
if that is the right term. To borrow Darwin's words from the end of "Origin
of Species," (481-2 in 1st edn) their "minds are stocked with a multitude of
facts all viewed, during a course of years, from a point of view directly
oposite to mine.... Any one whose disposition leads him to attach more
weight to unexplained difficulties than to the explanation of a certain
number of facts will certainly reject my theory. A few naturalists, endowed
with much flexibility of mind, and who have already begun to doubt on the
immutability of species, may be influenced by this volume; but I look with
confidend to the future, to young and rising naturalists, who will be able
to view both sides of the question with impartiality."

OK, Darwin of course was speaking about common descent vs separate
creation, but what I am suggesting is that we assume this is a Christian
theist, talking to an atheist, about theism itself. A whole bunch of the
facts themselves (chemical periodicity, the physiology of digestion, the
size of the earth's orbit around the sun, the charge of the electron, the
existence of suffering, the existence of many different religions, the Civil
War, the holocaust, the Rex Sox finally winning the world series, the
structure of the bacterial flagellum) are going to be the same for the
theist and the atheist. But that multitude of facts have all been viewed,
during a course of years, from a point of view directly opposite to mine.
Obviously only certain of these facts are important in this context, but I
think the point should be clear.

Are the kinds of "apologetics" engaged in by IDs and TEs aimed at different
audiences? Are they aimed more at Dawkins now or our own children in a few
years time? At the American evangelical person in the pew, or the Hindu
mystic in Bombay, or the university student at Berkeley? Obviously,
different books can take similar ideas and package them for different
audiences; I'm not getting at that. I'm getting at the fundamental
difference between the "slam dunk" and the "backdoor layup," in terms of
overall attitude in responding to Dawkins and company.

I'm not at all sure about how I would answer this one myself. Nor am I too
confident about the following observations, though I've done my best in a
short space and time to get it right.

I think I'd be inclined to say that ID is aimed more at "calling the bluff"
(as IDs see it) of mainstream science, concerning the explanatory efficacy
of unguided mechanisms to account for "irreducibly complex" things (whether
they be at the level of life itself, bacteria, phyla, thinking creatures, or
the whole universe), with both eyes clearly on the goal of "proving" the
existence of a mind above/beyond nature. Whereras TE is aimed more at
"making rational space" for religious faith, by "finessing" the standard
scientific story around its metaphysical edges, such as the origin of the
specific order of the only universe we actually experience, the amazing
ability of mathematics to describe nature in deep, and deeply surprising,
ways, and the importance and universal presence of moral instincts. It
isn't as though ID proponents would overlook the things that TEs often
stress, but they obviously place much more stock on those things that TEs
mostly do not stress. If this is at all fair and accurate, would we expect
different audiences to respond differently to ID vs TE?

ID probably has nothing directly to say about theodicy (please correct this
if not accurate), but quite a bit of things have been said by various ID
proponents about imperfect adaptation. I don't know how much has been said
about apparently devious design, such as parasites or the AIDS virus, and
why they may imply about the identity of the designer, but I know it does
come up. As for human wickedness, my sense is that ID doesn't go there as
ID, but that many (most?) ID proponents when speaking as individuals would
employ a free will theodicy of one sort or another--as many (most?) TE
proponents probably do. But I don't see these issues on the center of the
ID table. TE, on the other hand, usually confronts the "dark side of
nature" (if I may call it that) and human nature head on, or at least with
one eye fully gazing upon it. IMO, this is one reason (among others) that
many TEs are wont to say that God creates mediately, rather than
immediately, using processes that do employ what looks like "chance" to us.
If this is at all fair and accurate, would we expect different audiences to
respond differently to ID vs TE?

Overall, then, (and I do realize this discussion only touches the surface,
so it's not ideal to say "overall"), would we expect different audiences to
respond differently to ID vs TE? If so, what might this imply about the
culture wars?

Whaddya think?

ted

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Received on Fri Apr 27 15:08:46 2007