Hi PvM,
I'm afraid we are confusing two different claims. In my original posting to
the list, I ended with the implications of Monod's assertion about teleology
and science: "there is the other side of this observation - if life was
indeed designed by an intelligent agent, science cannot incorporate this and
must come up with another explanation that fits the cannon." Then, in my
follow-up posting, I began with the following sentence: "Since science is
incapable of determining whether or not life was designed, it is quite
interesting to see science play the authoritative role in the debates about
ID." Then, somehow, this exchange was moved to this thread.
So the first claim is: "science is incapable of determining whether or not
life was designed."
The second claim is the one you are currently attacking: "science cannot
address purpose and design." The assertions differ in two ways: the second
is universal and expects less from science (addressing as opposed to
determining).
We can consider both, but let's first deal with the claim I put on the
table.
You said:
"So far it seems quite straightforward, you and your portrayal of
Monod's position are clearly wrong since it makes the claim that
science cannot (in principle) address issues of design and purpose,
and yet I have shown several instances in which science can in fact
address such issues."
Prior to your last reply, the "several instances" that you had "shown"
consisted of the single, hypothetical example of aliens visiting us to tell
us they had designed life. But as I noted, that would not be science.
In your last reply, you added two more instances - archaeology and
criminology. But those are disciplines devoted to studying human design
and, as such, heavily rely on our subjective and objective knowledge about
our fellow humans. While we could use this information to tell us that
humans did not design life, it doesn't detract from the claim that "science
is incapable of determining whether or not life was designed." That position
remains intact. And it is supported by the fact that the scientific
literature is mute on this subject.
Of course, I am not closed-minded about this. If someone has a method by
which science can determine whether or not life was designed, I am all ears.
So let's move on to the second claim, for neither am I closed-minded about
that one. Here we have the weaker claim of science addressing something
rather than reaching a determination. And the examples you cite are the
entire disciplines of archaeology and criminology. But it is of little help
to point out that an entire discipline can "address" design and purpose. In
what sense do they address it and what exact methods are used?
The closest you get to such specifics is this vague description:
"Based on known limitations and capabilities, based on known motives and
means, science can determine, with quite some success issues of design and
purpose."
Means, capabilities, and limitations are the same thing. So the
broad-brushed contours of the methodology entail that we have independent
knowledge of motives and means.
The motive would deliver the purpose. The means, which would include
intelligence and technique would, I suppose, deliver the design and its
implementation.
Yet motives are purely subjective and accessible only because of our shared
subjective sense (we detect (or so we think we do) another's motives by
projecting our own minds into others). Thus, the ability to detect purpose
depends on our subjectivity. This explains why your examples are
disciplines that detect human design.
Intelligence is also subjective and accessible largely (only?) because of
our shared subjective sense of it. Again, we project our own intelligence,
and our experience with other humans, into the subjects. This explains why
your examples are disciplines that detect human design.
Technique, which would include technology and its use, is more objective.
The existence of technology and its capabilities can be objectively
determined, but its use still relies on our subjective sense.
Again, we really need you to provide the specific methodology that is used
to detect purpose and design in these disciplines, but until then, it would
seems you are saying we have an interesting case where science can make use
of and build on subjectivity. In order to do so, we need to know that our
subjective extrapolations are reliable and we can do so by knowing the
designers are us - fellow human (explaining again why your examples are
disciplines that detect human design). But it raises an interesting
question. Is criminology/forensics, for example, a mosaic of science and
the subjective, or is the subjective element part of science? After all, I'll
bet you can find hardcore physical scientists who would scoff at the notion
that criminology is science.
For example, let's say a car crashes into a tree and puts the driver into a
hospital. Science can tell us how fast the car was going when it hit the
tree and that the driver was drunk. But is it science that tells us whether
it was an accident or whether the person was trying to commit suicide?
In summary, claim #1 remains intact. As for claim #2, instead of "science
cannot address purpose and design," we can modify it to say "science can
only address purpose and design IF we are dealing with human purpose and
design." Or better yet, "science can only address design and purpose IF we
can study the agents that exhibit purpose and implement their designs." The
relevance of science would thus be dependent on our ability to study and
know the agents.
But that just gets us back to Monod:
"Hence it is through reference to our own activity, conscious and
projective, intentional and purposive-it is as makers of artifacts-that we
judge of a given object's "naturalness" or "artificialness.""
In my first posting, I also noted:
"We have all been shaped by a culture that invests science with great
authority. This becomes clear even in the realm of pop culture, where a
late night TV ad for a new diet pill claims to have "scientific studies"
showing it works. Thus, it is no surprise that the culture war aspect of ID
is a play for science's authority. Everyone wants "science" to be on their
side."
Thus, we can expect that culture warriors, from either the pro- and anti-ID
spectrum, will find this all to be a very bitter pill to swallow. The
pro-ID side wants ID to be science for obvious cultural reasons. The
anti-ID side wants to be able to say that science has judged a teleological
origin to life as something that is complete nonsense.
-Mike
> It seems that Nucacids has chosen the same disastrous path by claiming
> that science or the scientific method cannot address purpose and
> design, even when they also argue that science has successfully
> addressed such issues in archaeology, criminology and other areas
> where design and purpose play an important role.
> Such foolishness, such extreme skepticism seems rather ironic given
> the facts. That you continue to further misrepresent my position by
> empty rhetoric is regrettable but understandable, it is hard to defend
> the indefensible which is the concept that science cannot address
> purpose and design and when pointed out that it can, calling in
> non-science. Funny how the demarcation problem which used to be on the
> side of ID creationists has now become a two edged sword. that you
> accuse me of misdirection and then claim that it follows from my own
> logic is rather rich my dear friend.
>
> So far it seems quite straightforward, you and your portrayal of
> Monod's position are clearly wrong since it makes the claim that
> science cannot (in principle) address issues of design and purpose,
> and yet I have shown several instances in which science can in fact
> address such issues. That you find it necessary to thus define the
> approach to be non-scientific is even more damning to your logic and
> reasoning.
>
> Your quote of Monod as described on Telic Thoughts explains the errors
> in your logic quite well
>
> <quote> Hence it is through reference to our own activity,
> conscious and projective, intentional and purposive-it is as makers of
> artifacts-that we judge of a given object's "naturalness" or
> "artificialness."</quote>
>
> Mike: Maybe it is simply not possible to make such judgments without
> accessing this subjective element. After all, recognizing design may
> indeed be akin to recognizing another mind. For how do we recognize
> other minds if not by recognizing what they design?
>
> "Reference to our own activity". Which seems to appear on the surface
> to be similar to subjective, and when it comes to day to day intuition
> then the application of these rules by humans to deduct design and
> purpose may very well lack the necessary objectivity of science.
> However, the suggestion that thus science cannot address purpose and
> design because it requires a subjective interpretation is a logical
> fallacy 101. Based on known limitations and capabilities, based on
> known motives and means, science can determine, with quite some
> success issues of design and purpose. Of course, in some cases science
> may have to conclude, we don't know rather than the ID 'default' of
> thus designed but the issue here is not whether or not science can
> reliably detect design in all circumstances but rather, can science
> detect purpose and design. At the simplest level, we can refer to the
> ID claims related to copying. A much touted example of the success of
> the ID inference is the one in which science established a positive
> case of fraudulent behavior on the part of a researcher when
> remarkable coincidences were found in some of his papers. Combined
> with other scientific evidences, a case was made that ruled out
> accidental explanations and a positive case was made based on the
> evidence science did uncover.
>
> In other words, contrary to Mike's claim science can and does in fact
> address the concepts of design and purpose quite accurately and the
> fact that we likely have evolved design detectors which have been
> formalized by science into a non or less subjective approach may be a
> lesson to all of us. Intuition can be a powerful tool for survival to
> detect design although we also know from science how easily our design
> inferences can be triggered to result in false positives, again well
> understandable when appreciating that false positives are far less
> costly than false negatives.
>
> The closest Mike comes to a more reasonable position is
>
> "And if science requires a certain amount of knowledge about the
> designer, and we don't have this knowledge, science cannot determine
> whether or not life was designed."
>
> Which seems to mirror what Wilkins and Elsberry have been saying for
> years now, that there are two kinds of design, one is regular design
> and one is rarefied design. However if his argument is that science
> cannot address 'purpose and design' then he has a problem. A way to
> 'resolve this' is to reject that knowledge which can detect design and
> knowledge can be science but that is merely making design
> tautologically non-scientific and the only reasonable conclusion is
> that design is thus supernatural.
>
>
> To recap, Mike's error in interpreting Monod's argument as 'science
> cannot address purpose and design' is that he takes the claim that
> humans use a subjective method to detect design and purpose is somehow
> equivalent to the claim that 'thus science, which has to be objective
> cannot detect design'. That's like saying that because we humans can
> detect fire by smell and smell is surely subjective, that fire
> detectors cannot work.
>
> Siemens; Note that Thomas was not asked to believe "without
> evidence." He had the testimony of those who had observed when he was
> absent, but refused to believe them. He demanded direct, personal
> evidence. How would you react if I insisted that Pim did not exist
> because I had never personally met him? If on meeting I declared, "I
> don't think you are Pim"? How far can one carry silly denials?
>
> Quite far it seems, all the way into a reply to my posting. But you
> seem to be missing my point namely that faith without evidence seems
> to be far more powerful than faith supported by scientific evidence
> and fact.
>
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Received on Fri Aug 15 09:59:55 2008
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