A reply, because it’s the ASA Executive Director, Randy Isaac, who wrote:
“For almost 15 years I've been trying to find a fair and comprehensive articulation of ID. I think I finally drafted one, though I have not yet vetted it with the ID community. I would propose the following:
“‘There are patterns in nature that are best explained by the action of a supernatural agent’ where the term ‘patterns’ is broadly interpreted to include, for example, the values of physical constants, the universal existence of moral law, or the existence of consciousness or perhaps the appearance of flagella, resistant strains of malaria, ultra-low probability events, etc.”
As far as I appreciate this definition because it centres on ‘patterns’ and I think the strongest aspect of IDM-ID is the notion of ‘pattern recognition,’ I support your ‘new’ (read: non-IDM) definition of ID.
However, there are a couple of things that sound dissonant:
1) The old (theological) dichotomy is upheld though it is no longer suitable today because in many discourses in the academy, natural and supernatural are not opposed. Thus, when you refer to a supernatural ‘agent,’ your discussion partner can immediately ask “what are you bringing IT into a ‘scientific’ discussion for,” i.e. something that ‘science’ cannot speak about one way or another. This is a problem with much ID discourse and which scientifically-minded Christians at ASA have repeatedly identified, IDM-ID seems to have theological 'implications' but rarely speaks about theology upfront.
2) By including physical constants, moral law, consciousness, biological entities and low-probability events, etc. you are spreading your ‘new’ intelligent design into so many fields that finding a ‘core’ definition will be difficult.
If I draw the proper conclusion from your main definition of ID, Randy, intelligent design (but yours seems to be Intelligent Design) contends that physical constants, moral law, consciousness, biological entities, low-probability events, etc. are all “best explained by the action of a supernatural agent.” Is this correct? If so, to me that is a mix of science and theology, and not specifically one or the other. (FBoW)
“It also implies that God's action is mutually exclusive to other explanations. The implication is that only some patterns in nature reflect God's action.” – Randy
Though you fault this definition of ID that the IDM presents (somewhat in consensus), in point of fact, the main sentence in your definition does exactly the same thing with your natural/supernatural dichotomy. So it seems your definition is no less inclusive than theirs on this ‘exclusivity’ and ‘inclusivity’ issue.
When you speak of ‘patterns in nature’ that ‘reflect God’s action,’ I wonder how far you’ve also wandered away from including moral law and consciousness in your definition because both of those things are studied predominantly in non-natural sciences, that is, in philosophy of mind, ethics, legal and cognitive studies (the latter which draws on both natural and non-natural sciences), et al. Though it is fair game for natural scientists to consider them, it is obvious that discussion of moral law and consciousness cannot fairly be reduced to ‘patterns in nature that reflect God’s action’ because such an approach would be incomplete, partial, and thus inevitably biased (if only against hearing the voices of non-naturalist scholars and even non-theists who investigate moral law and consciousness). So I think your definition still needs some fine tuning (perhaps my contribution p.s. below will help us meet half or part-way).
As for ‘actions of an intelligent agent,’ can anyone out there please explain to me why they think a natural science is a better place to discuss this than a social-humanitarian discipline? Forensics (i.e. detective work, rather than forensic rhetoric), for example, is a social-humanitarian discipline. This is one of those nagging questions that I have been negatively accused of repeating without succeeding to get past the impasse, though it is, imho, an extremely important question in the discourse. If you think it is unimportant, I’d appreciate your saying why so.
Regards,
Gregory
3X P.S.
1) This was the definition of ‘intelligent design’ that I drafted about four years ago: “You had a great idea, but never followed through with it…but someone else did, and it worked—that was intelligent design.” Of course, I think this is the best def’n of intelligent design yet, but that’s probably because it’s my def’n! :-) Anyone care to respectfully disagree?
Added comment: the subject ‘You’ in the above def’n refers to a ‘human person,’ as does ‘someone else.’ This is an inversion of IDM-ID because it focuses on precisely ‘who’ it is that is doing the ‘designing,’ ‘constructing,’ ‘building,’ ‘composing,’ ‘making,’ etc. Likewise, it erases the need for use of passive voice, i.e. the ‘There are’ in Randy’s def’n (and ‘that was’ in mine), which is so common in agent-less non-human sciences.
2) One def’n of ‘pattern’: “a complex of integrated parts functioning as an organized whole that is replicable.” What is your definition of ‘pattern,’ Randy?
3) Alvin Plantinga on evolution and naturalism: “In my paper I argue that the conjunction of naturalism with current evolutionary theory is self-defeating; the probability that our cognitive faculties are reliable, given naturalism (N) and the proposition that our faculties have arisen by way of the mechanisms suggested by current evolutionary theory (E), is low or inscrutable; either gives one who accepts N&E a defeater for the proposition that his cognitive faculties are reliable, but then also a defeater for anything else he believes, including N&E itself.” (“An Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism,” from “The Nature of Nature” Conference, Baylor, 2000)
Randy Isaac <randyisaac@comcast.net> wrote: John,
I think your point warrants a little further discussion.
John Walley wrote: "My friends point in his presentation is that here is an example of how the govt uses science and probability arguments to convict a man of a capital murder charge for which he could have been executed, so it is therefore disingenuous for Dawkins and others in academia to deny design in the universe in the face of the same massive amounts of circumstantial evidence. Granted neither case is totally airtight and they both come down to whether or not we can rationally infer a cause beyond a reasonable doubt but we seem to have different criteria in play here. It seems like Dawkins gets away with what Wayne Williams couldn’t.
To me this has always seemed like a very reasonable argument. So Dawkins want to make the metaphysical claim that evolution has no distant targets so therefore he gets to throw out all the complexity and probability evidence against him. How is this different than Wayne Williams attempting to come up with some claim to get all the carpet evidence against him thrown out that we would never buy? Why do we seem to allow this theoretical scientific ideal in academia but in the real world of the courts where people’s lives are on the line, we don’t? "
At first glance it seems inconsistent that we would expect a CSI-style judge to rationally infer that "the butler did it in the kitchen with a lead pipe" based on circumstantial evidence but not consider it reasonable for someone to infer that "God did it in the beginning and perhaps a few times along the way." I think there is a crucial distinguishing difference between the two. In the CSI-like approach, all possible scenarios are composed of cause and effect elements which have or can be confirmed independently of the specific case. Some may be probabilistic or psychosocial in nature while others may be based on classical mechanistics or whatever. However, the judge would be unlikely to rule in favor of a scenario that includes an element such as "the butler liquified the lead pipe in the freezer" or "an angel forced the butler's hand." For ID, the common element in all scenarios is the "action of an intelligent agent" which is not verifiable or demonstrable
independently. It is primarily for this reason that the ID inference is not accepted on the same level as a forensic CSI conclusion.
For almost 15 years I've been trying to find a fair and comprehensive articulation of ID. I think I finally drafted one, though I have not yet vetted it with the ID community. I would propose the following:
"There are patterns in nature that are best explained by the action of a supernatural agent"
where the term "patterns" is broadly interpreted to include, for example, the values of physical constants, the universal existence of moral law, or the existence of consciousness or perhaps the appearance of flagella, resistant strains of malaria, ultra-low probability events, etc.
Most of the debates on ID have centered on specific examples, like the flagella, and whether they constitute a valid instance of such a pattern in nature. It seems that the more fruitful debate would be on whether the core assertion is valid. I suggest that it may have a fundamental flaw, namely that God's action (as George says, let's no longer be coy and use the euphemistic 'intelligent agent' since it didn't lead anyone to think ID was non-religious) is at the same level as and competitive with other causal explanations. However, such an action is not and cannot be independently verified. It also implies that God's action is mutually exclusive to other explanations. The implication is that only some patterns in nature reflect God's action.
An alternative assertion for intelligent design (lower case version as Owen Gingerich would say) would be: "The entire pattern of the universe (or multi-verse if you prefer) reflects the action of God." This is universal and covers everything we can and cannot describe through some cause and effect relationship. Would a judge accept that in preference to the alternative, which I presume would be "...the action of 'nothingness'"? Not sure. Might someone claim the difference was trivial? That we simply gave the label "God" to "nothingness?" Perhaps, but then, as George has repeatedly reminded us, the story, and the real differentiation, begins with the incarnation and the cross.
Randy
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Received on Mon Nov 26 15:45:25 2007
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