Re: [asa] evidence for design

Hi Don,

"Life isn't a game. What motive would you ascribe to an intelligent designer who designed almost all of his organisms so that they go extinct?"

One might imagine that we are dealing with a designer that recruited evolution to carry out design objectives. Thus, the question is not about the "organisms," but the designs. That is, the designer would not want to the original designs, needed to shape/guide subsequent evolution, to go extinct. It is thus encouraging to note that not only have the genetic code and use of the same set of amino acids remained to this day, in all organisms, but that it is becoming more and more clear that evolution relies on ancient, deeply homologous, molecular toolkits.

"And why would he generate many avenues of development that turn out to be dead ends?"

What dead ends did you have in mind? Dead ends would only become a problem if they served as sufficient noise to drown out the original design signals. From the design perspective, not every aspect of the biotic need be intended.

"And if his objective is humanity, why would he be fiddling around for billions of years with lower organisms that never amount to anything?"

Actually, humanity could NOT exist if it was not for scores of these lower organisms. A painfully obvious example are all the lower organisms that carry out photosynthesis. No photosynthesis in lower organisms - > no humanity. In fact, we should also remember that human beings are really symbiotic organisms. The bacteria that live in your gut are not simply along for the ride. They actively induced the formation of the gut. Heck, it was even a humble virus that probably played a key role in the emergence of the placenta. No placenta - no humanity.

"The individual organisms emerging can and do look designed, but the processes that give rise to them don't."

The process is looking more and more like something that fits seamlessly with design. I have an entire blog chock full of examples. I even wrote a book that systematically outlines the logic of using evolution in the service of design.

"It's these processes that the designer presumably is controlling. The evidence says either he doesn't know how to control or he isn't able to."

Evidence is merely interpreted data. I don't see this "evidence" that says "either he doesn't know how to control or he isn't able to." The evidence of control is slowly coming into focus.

"One would suppose an intelligent designer who had the knowledge and power to control and who also had a well-defined objective in mind would have generated life forms in a vastly more efficient way."

Why would one suppose that? Efficiency is only one metric of design and it typically comes at the expense of flexibility. What you see as an inefficient way is a remarkably flexible way, allowing a single-celled organism to unfold into complex metazoan creatures in response to cues from the environment.

"Ultimately I'm arguing that, because the outcome is what it is, the whole thing in some way was designed by an intelligent designer after all. But on the basis of what I know about historical geology and paleontology, I claim it is a humongous stretch to say there is evidence of intelligent design in the way that organisms have emerged--until modern humanity. If you have such evidence, please share."

Just read my blog. :)

http://designmatrix.wordpress.com/

Mike Gene

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Don Winterstein
  To: asa@calvin.edu
  Sent: Thursday, February 05, 2009 12:15 PM
  Subject: Re: [asa] evidence for design

  ...things which 'look haphazard' do not look undesigned to me, certainly in the context of natural science. ... from an intellectual and philosophical vantage point, life on earth looks shot through with design to me.

  Life isn't a game. What motive would you ascribe to an intelligent designer who designed almost all of his organisms so that they go extinct? And why would he generate many avenues of development that turn out to be dead ends? And if his objective is humanity, why would he be fiddling around for billions of years with lower organisms that never amount to anything? The individual organisms emerging can and do look designed, but the processes that give rise to them don't. It's these processes that the designer presumably is controlling. The evidence says either he doesn't know how to control or he isn't able to. One would suppose an intelligent designer who had the knowledge and power to control and who also had a well-defined objective in mind would have generated life forms in a vastly more efficient way.

  Ultimately I'm arguing that, because the outcome is what it is, the whole thing in some way was designed by an intelligent designer after all. But on the basis of what I know about historical geology and paleontology, I claim it is a humongous stretch to say there is evidence of intelligent design in the way that organisms have emerged--until modern humanity. If you have such evidence, please share.

  Don

    ----- Original Message -----
    From: Schwarzwald
    To: asa@calvin.edu
    Sent: Thursday, February 05, 2009 7:46 AM
    Subject: Re: [asa] evidence for design

    Heya Don,

    On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 10:02 AM, Don Winterstein <dfwinterstein@msn.com> wrote:

      Even Dawkins will, if I recall right, admit to seeing 'illusions of design' in nature.

      More than that, many atheists and agnostics even have "religious experiences." I recall reading such testimony years ago in the Skeptical Inquirer: someone described such experience in detail and subsequently dismissed the whole thing as illusion. Many atheists acknowledge that their bodies and minds are primed to receive "spiritual illusions" along with sensory illusions. They simply categorize such "illusions" as stemming from human frailty and are careful to dismiss them. That's what I mean when I say they suppress that side of themselves. They can't completely control it, but if and when "illusions" come, they are careful to "recognize them for what they are." In the end, they make their intellects dominate and see only nature in nature.

    Perhaps, and I'm sure there's something to be said for there being an appropriate amount of skepticism even for christians. I'd put what they're doing differently, I think - rationalizing, denying what's apparent and often doing so without much thought or justification, or really giving consideration to what's entailed by what they deny. But, again, it seems like that's a point where we diverge.
     

       ...The universe, for whatever reason, just happens to spit out rational minds and illusions of design left and right.

      There's a difference between mere design and design that requires an intelligent designer. Plant parts, animal parts and whole plants and animals often display various symmetries. Think of many kinds of flowers. And crystals are known for their symmetries. Such designs most of the time (excepting crystals here) can be readily ascribed to evolutionary processes. Microscopic things like bacterial flagella are admittedly much harder to explain, if it's even possible. But as I pointed out before, on the largest evolutionary scale, the emergence of the various organisms as seen in the fossil record seems utterly haphazard in the sense of being unguided by any force except nature. The observed sequences of organisms beg the question of why an intelligent being who had any degree of control over what was going on would choose to bring organisms into the world so haphazardly. If at this largest scale, the scale that presumablly would be most important for an intelligent designer, we see only apparent randomness, an implication is that examples of order and design at lesser scales are only apparent and do not witness to an intelligent designer. As Dawkins has pointed out, evolution is what makes atheism respectable (or whatever it was he said along those lines).

    And this is where I would disagree strongly. The typical way I see this explained is with snowflakes - 'every snowflake is unique, and they have noticeable patterns - some of them very beautiful. But we know the various natural processes involved in making each and every snowflake, so therefore snowflakes aren't designed.' One problem I have with this comes from some meager programming experience - procedural content generation being a particularly good example. I can name probably a dozen or more (at the least) games where content is generated on the fly. But it would be a tremendous mistake to, say, play one of these games and go 'Well, this stuff is generated according to these algorithms which the programmer has no direct control over, therefore it was not designed.' Even in the case of the programmer, what you're playing with is the result of a designed program - the specific outcomes may be of surprise to a mere human programmer, but quite a lot of the content and what you experience would be part of a plan. That before realizing that some content can be 'guaranteed' to show up mixed in with the rest of what's procedurally generated. Saying 'Well, a natural (or evolutionary) process did this, therefore there is no design' strikes me as equivalent to saying 'Well, a procedural content-generating algorithm did this, therefore no programmer'.

    So no, I disagree sharply with Dawkins on this point - and certainly with the conclusion that nothing (or few things) in nature looks designed 'because natural processes (which themselves, in my view, positively reek of design - before looking at the specific organisms and micro-organisms) can explain what we see'. It's akin to explaining away programmers because, really, computers alone can explain software. In my view - and admittedly, it's probably too strong for some - evolution made atheism intellectually respectable only by comparison with YEC (or outright denials of any substantial evolution), and only with the assumption that if YEC is not true that no God exists. There's a reason why atheists almost exclusively promote atheism indirectly (by attacking/insisting on skepticism of claims of religion(s)) rather than positively offering up atheistic explanations for the universe. Not just because said offering is emotionally undesirable, but because it would sound more ridiculous than the most ancient, myth-laden religion.

    But still, my main point here is that things which 'look haphazard' do not look undesigned to me, certainly in the context of natural science. Again, we may just end up disagreeing here, but from an intellectual and philosophical vantage point, life on earth looks shot through with design to me. I don't rule out a designer just because natural forces may have been in use, anymore than I rule out toy designers just because every GI Joe I've ever come across was assembled by an unthinking machine.
     

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Received on Thu Feb 5 22:41:25 2009