Re: [asa] ID/Miracles/Design

<Cameron>
In the new, polished formulation, ID is not a theory of historical
origins but a theory of design detection. The argument from the flagellum
is not an argument that one or more miracles must have historically
intervened (between natural steps on either side) in order to create the
flagellum; it is an argument that the flagellum is designed, rather than a
product of chance, so that whatever the efficient-cause explanation of its
production, its existence is an argument for a higher intelligence of some
kind.
 </Cameron>

This idea that ID is a “theory of design detection” is the version of ID
I have always believed in. I've been talking about the mathematics of
detecting design versus non-design since 2004. But other folks have other
definitions of ID where they insist ID is entangled only with
transcendental sources of the design and therefore is defined as
religion. To me this isn't ID at all but is TD (Transcendental Design).
ID, to me, simply means finding an intelligence. Any intelligence
qualifies. Even that of lower animals.

BTW, on this ASA list what I call “ID” has a tendency to be called “id”.

To me, ID (or id) is naturalistic. It isn't any different than any other
form of science one might do.
Sadly, religionists have muddied the waters so badly that almost
everybody thinks thats TD is ID and ID is TD. Everyone seems so concerned
that some transcendental agent is at work. That is because religionists
start with the proposition:

SYLLOGISM #1
==============================
“I believe in something transcendental”
“I believe something transcendental designs”
“Therefore I should be able to detect design in the natural world”

To me this this completely illogical and irrelevant. But to religionists
it is the core concern.

<Cameron>
So, for strict naturalists, the historical cause, i.e, the efficient cause
of the flagellum, could be some form of front-loaded evolution, in which
there is obviously some sort of intelligence at work, but no "miracles" in
the sense of "interventions".
</Cameron>

“Some sort of intelligence” may possibly allow a transcendental type of
intelligence but it doesn't confine the possibilities to only a
transcendental intelligence. This is true regardless of “front-loading”.
This is why making judgments about transcendental agents is vastly
premature!

There is no need to talk of miracles until one gets to the subset of
issues that are transcendental. What I see going on is “the question” is
almost always pre-judged. That is why, to me, it is almost always a
religious conversation, not a scientific conversation. It is why I want
such conversations separated from schools.

<Cameron>
 On the other hand, for those who believe in divine interventions, the
efficient cause of the flagellum might have been a blast of mysterious
energy from God, that transformed a bacterium without a flagellum into one
with a flagellum. There may be other possibilities as well.
</Cameron>

I think the IDM (ID Movement) has always been pretty clear that it is
“information” that is injected, not energy.

Behe talks about organism A with information content I(A) followed by
organism B with information content I(B) where I(B) did not previously
exist. (BTW, I dont see how front-loading can possibly account for any
possible X(B) because it would need to contain the entire set of X(B)'s
from the beginning.) Behe's point is that traditional evolutionary theory
says that the amount and quantity of I increases from A to B. Behe says
this is not true, if anything it usually decreases. The argument has always
been about information flow. To me it is purely a matter of statistics.
If the source of information isn't in the universe then it may come from
intelligence (a pre-loaded intelligence), or may even come from outside the
universe (again, from an intelligence?). But that doesn't have to mean the
source has to be transcendental.

But the religionists, on both sides, say there are only two possibilities:
            No-Design (no-non-human-design) versus Transcendental
Design

And so it begins.... (the war, that is)

My point has always been that government cannot be allowed to choose
between these two. One side cannot legitimately use government to crush the
other side. (Except in Canada?) :)

<Cameron>
 ID theory can't distinguish between the various historical possibilities,
because it's powerless to detect anything but the design itself.
</Cameron>

BINGO!

This is why around 2005 I started telling the IDM they should separate
intelligence from design. Detecting design tells one very little about
intelligence. And it says nothing about whether the intelligence is
transcendental. The IDM was not very happy with this. After all, if one's
goals are driven by syllogism #1 above, disallowing discussion of the
intelligence is fatal to the syllogism.

Of course this suggestion was not well received. A lot of people started
challenging my salvation and asking what I believe about the Bible. I
thought that was horrible.

<Cameron>
So it's now clear that ID does not rule out naturalism per se, but of course
there are different kinds of naturalism. Denton's necessitarian naturalism
is explicitly different from Darwin's naturalism of chance. ID refutes, or
purports to refute, the naturalism of chance. If ID is right, Darwin
misconceived how nature works, but "evolution" is not thereby falsified or
rejected.
</Cameron>

Gee, isn't this kind of important to decide before having a war?

Best Regards,
David Clounch

On Wed, Apr 22, 2009 at 8:14 PM, Cameron Wybrow <wybrowc@sympatico.ca>wrote:

> Thanks for your reply on Biblical miracles, George. I found it somewhat
> clarifying, and will get back to you on the subject later. For now,
> however, I will restrict myself to replying to just one point in your post.
> You wrote:
>
>
> "But even more relevant to the ID context you’ve noted is that the
> fundamental claim of the ID program is that some phenomena (bacterial
> flagellum, blood clotting cascade) must be miraculous. Of course that
> isn’t the language ID proponents use, but when they say that those phenomena
> cannot be explained in terms of natural processes, & when one recognizes
> that the Intelligent Designer is a rather transparent disguise for God, then
> what is being spoken about is a classic definition of miracle. And when
> ordinary Christians believe these arguments, use them to support their faith
> and resist scientific arguments that those phenomena can be explained in
> terms of natural processes, we have a situation not unlike that in the
> Marcan text."
>
>
> This criticism of ID would be understandable a few years ago, when the ID
> people weren't being 100% clear about a number of things. I think the
> lowest point of ID fortunes in this area was the Dover trial, where some ID
> proponents gave, to my mind, some confusing testimony about naturalism and
> natural causes, which would justify the sort of criticism you offer here.
> (Of course, to be fair, it is hard to think straight in a courtroom
> situation where lawyers, who are interested in victory rather than truth,
> are controlling the line of questioning in an aggressive way. But
> nonetheless, some damage was done.)
>
> However, in recent years, ID has been correcting and refining itself, and I
> think your criticism is no longer applicable (as I think Keith Miller's
> criticism, made the other day, and to which I responded, is no longer
> applicable). I think that the whole business about "intelligent vs.
> natural" and "supernatural vs. natural" and "designed vs. natural" has
> become much better formulated now, as can be seen in Dembski's *No Free
> Lunch* and in Behe's second book, and in the work of non-DI people like
> Denton who think in design terms.
>
> In the new, polished formulation, ID is not a theory of historical
> origins but a theory of design detection. The argument from the flagellum
> is not an argument that one or more miracles must have historically
> intervened (between natural steps on either side) in order to create the
> flagellum; it is an argument that the flagellum is designed, rather than a
> product of chance, so that whatever the efficient-cause explanation of its
> production, its existence is an argument for a higher intelligence of some
> kind.
>
> So, for strict naturalists, the historical cause, i.e, the efficient cause
> of the flagellum, could be some form of front-loaded evolution, in which
> there is obviously some sort of intelligence at work, but no "miracles" in
> the sense of "interventions". On the other hand, for those who believe in
> divine interventions, the efficient cause of the flagellum might have been a
> blast of mysterious energy from God, that transformed a bacterium without a
> flagellum into one with a flagellum. There may be other possibilities as
> well. ID theory can't distinguish between the various historical
> possibilities, because it's powerless to detect anything but the design
> itself. So ID theory is compatible both with traditional notions of divine
> intervention and with modern notions of seamless naturalism. That leaves
> the field wide open for evolutionary biologists to try to explain the
> flagellum in terms of stepwise natural modifications, if they can. (Though
> so far they've come up with only one possible intermediate stage, which is
> nowhere near an adequate explanation.)
>
> So it's now clear that ID does not rule out naturalism per se, but of
> course there are different kinds of naturalism. Denton's necessitarian
> naturalism is explicitly different from Darwin's naturalism of chance. ID
> refutes, or purports to refute, the naturalism of chance. If ID is right,
> Darwin misconceived how nature works, but "evolution" is not thereby
> falsified or rejected.
>
> Cameron.
>
>
>
>

-- 
=========================
I often suffer from nostalgia, that fondness for something that never was.
Pleasant memories have a tendency to expand.
To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.