Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Intelligent Design

  • Don McLeroy and his Big Creationist Tent

    I’ve written a great deal recently (here, here, and here) about the use of the term “worldview” to attempt to create a level playing field, particularly for young earth creationism. I don’t have a problem with the term “worldview” in a strictly limited sense. If we exclude particular possibilities a priori, and refuse to reexamine those assumptions, we can be locked into a worldview.

    One of my major problems with common use of the term “worldview” is that it tends to be used in a binary fashion. I don’t mean that there are only two worldviews, seen as mutually exclusive, but rather that each worldview is seen as totally exclusive of all others.

    Don McLeroy, newly named head of the Texas Board of Education (Hat Tip: NCSE, the Texas Freedom Network, and The Panda’s Thumb) gave a speech in 2005 that illulstrates some of my points very well, even better than I stated them. In a somewhat incoherent and disjointed speech, he managed to lay the boundaries of intelligent design creationism (IDC), to justify the inclusion of “creationism” in that label, to employ the scriptures extensively in support of his position, and to claim that it was all scientific.

    As a theistic evolutionist, I found his discussion interesting, and it affirms the most negative comments I have made about the intelligent design movement. There have been intelligent design advocates who have tried to include me in their camp, saying that theistic evolution is really a form of intelligent design. I disagree; so does McLeroy, thought it seems for different reasons.

    I want to focus just on McLeroy’s definition of the “big tent” of IDC, and just what it is he says they are in opposition to. Look at the following quotes from the speech:

    . . . And one other thing about these lessons, big tent, and this is, uh, in the big tent of evolution we all have disagreements, but we’re united in one thing, and we’re united in what we oppose. And you’ll see this later. This is the power of the deductive argument, but nature is all there is. We’re united against the fact that that’s a true statement.

    . . . and . . .

    . . . Actually, in intelligent design we are focused on a on a bigger target, and in the words of Phillip Johnson “the target is metaphysical naturalism, materialism or just plain old naturalism. The idea that nature is all there is.” Modern science today is totally based on naturalism, and all of intelligent design’s arguments against evolution and chemical origin of life it is the naturalistic base that is the target. . . .

    . . . and . . .

    Now I would like to talk a little bit about the big tent. Why is intelligent design the big tent? It’s because we’re all lined up against the fact that naturalism, that nature is all there is. Whether you’re a progressive creationist, recent creationist, young earth, old earth, it’s all in the tent of intelligent design. And intelligent design here at Grace Bible Church actually is a smaller, uh, tent than you would have in the intelligent design movement as a whole. Because we are all Biblical literalists, we all believe the Bible to be inerrant, and it’s good to remember, though, that the entire intelligent design movement as a whole is a bigger tent. So because it’s a bigger tent, just don’t waste our time arguing with each other about some of the, all of the side issues. And that’s one thing that I really enjoyed about our group is that we’ve put that all in the big tent, we’re all working together.

    So what we have here is a big tend of IDC that includes just about everyone out there. Young earth creationists, old earth creationists, more general ID proponents, and one guesses even those who hold the gap theory. Thus on one side of the debate we are supposed to see people who believe the earth is 6,000 years old and those who believe it is 4.5 billion years old. We are to combine people who believe there was a global flood and those who believe it was just a very large localized event. Within that range we have giant differences between the evidence required for each option.

    This is not the picture of a scientific movement. It is the picture of a political movement, involving a temporary religious alliance. I would warn the old earth creationists to beware. Should this “big tent” ever succeed in its goals, the young earth creationists who now accept IDC (and many of them do not) will be after you guys in a minute.

    But what is the goal of this diverse group? The defeat of naturalism, what else? Now notice that if naturalism is defeated, there will be some form of supernaturalism to take its place. In a philosophical sense, I’m fine with that. I’m a supernaturalist myself, on which more later. But let’s continue:

    So what is naturalism? It’s the idea that nature is all there is. . . .

    So now McLeroy makes it explicit. In his big tent belongs everyone who is opposed to naturalism, and he defines naturalism as the belief that nature is all there is. Now forgive me for being dense, but as a theist, I would think that I qualify as someone who does not believe that nature is all there is. In fact, every so often one of my atheist friends reminds me of that “weakness” in my thinking.

    So perhaps the main thing that keeps me out of McLeroy’s big tent is the fact that I have a hard time seeing how young earth creationists and old earth creationists belong in the same tent. From the scientific point of view, they don’t. At a minimum, one must recognize that different arguments are required against each one.

    But I would be wrong to think that’s the problem. Now let’s look at what is not included in the “big tent.”

    I’d like to make a quick comment about the option of theistic evolution, and it’s a very poor option. There’s not anybody in our group that’s advocating this. Because Darwinism doesn’t allow God to do anything. Consider natural selection of random mutations. If they’re random mutations, they can’t be God-directed, and if they’re naturally selected, you can’t hav, quote, “God-selecteds.” And so no one in our group represents theistic evolution, and the big tent of intelligent design does not include theistic evolutionists. Because intelligent design is opposed to evolution. Theistic evolutionists embrace it. So, you know, there are some in the Christian camp that just say, “Well, I am a theistic evolutionist.” And there are some bright minds that are that way, but they aren’t part really of the intelligent design group. It just doesn’t fit.

    I hope you read that paragraph carefully. The problem is not whether God exists or not, or whether there is something other than nature–no matter how much someone tries to tell you other wise. The issue is about detecting and measuring God’s presence scientifically. If I say that the world exists because God brought the universe into existence, and that life appeared in accordance with God’s natural laws and then further diversified in accordance with those laws, I am not welcome in this big tent.

    The reason cannot be that I’m a naturalist. I just said God (something other than nature) is the cause of all of this. The reason is that I don’t believe that God’s fingerprints can be found where he tinkered with the processes. Unfortunately for my welcome into McLeroy’s big tent, I believe that the process God created to produce life and diversify it actually works, and doesn’t require periodic adjustments.

    This issue is not naturalism or not. The issue is whether the scientific method is to be called upon to measure the supernatural. I don’t think that will ever work. In fact, I would be unsurprised if in the scientific sense we ever found the point at which we say “God did it” because I believe that “God did it” in such a comprehensive and consistent way that we’re never going to find the seams or the fingerprints.

    One can wonder why I’m a theist, in that case, a point which I’ve discussed elsewhere, but in terms of science, “God did it” is never an answer, and should never be used as a stop sign for scientific effort.

    That’s why I totally agree with McLeroy that I belong outside his big tent, but I do so by disagreeing with the common element. It is not that they are supernaturalists. It is that they believe God must have left fingerprints on nature. They can’t agree on just what he left and where, but they’re willing to get together to push the rest of us out of the way.

    To me engaging naturalism does bring religion into the equation, though I think by bringing in scientific method some of the points – I hadn’t thought about that, so I really gotten a lot out of this discussion. That you can do it without bringing religion into it, so I think you can go both ways. . . .

    And this is simply ridiculous. Of course the intention is religious. The intent is to make sure that we get God into the equation. All this stuff about unidentified intelligent designers is a smokescreen, though the smoke is so transparent that everyone other than those generating the smoke are seeing through it. It is only the IDC folks who think that they have covered something up when they refer to an undetermined intelligent designer. The rest of us know who they’re talking about.

    McLeroy invokes the matrix in accusing evolutionary scientists of being hopelessly deceived by their worldview. But there is nothing about a methodological naturalism that prevents one from seeing any sort of evidence. I would suggest that the filter is much in evidence inside the big tent. It’s a filter that removes the abundant evidence of common descent. It also prevents people from seeing new evidence found regularly that advances our knowledge of evolutionary processes.

    I am perfectly willing to be proven wrong, for someone to find God’s fingerprints showing his tinkering. I don’t think it’s going to happen, but I’m open to such evidence. Thus far, none has been forthcoming.

  • The Danger of Teaching the Controversy

    The Florida Citizens for Science blog has a post, Best practice with an integrated curriculum?, which looks at some approaches teachers might take to including both creation and evolution in the classroom. The FCS blog does a pretty good job of pointing out the discrepancies. (I should disclose here that I am a board member of Florida Citizens for Science.)

    I just want to look at one aspect: teaching the controversy. Despite different vocabulary, that is, in fact, what these suggestions amount to. The question on many people’s mind is this: Why not teach the controversy? Isn’t that just simple fairness?

    But that is the wrong question. Why? Because we must first ask just how one should determine the curriculum for public school classrooms. Without some sort of standards for that, it’s very hard to answer such a question. I know it annoys people to have their principles applied to different situations, but that is an appropriate test of a principle. Will it work, for example, when the shoe is on the other foot?

    Should Christian schools, for example, teach the controversy? If the issue is fairness and sound education, both of which are given as reasons for teaching the controversy, should it not be regarded then as unsound educational practice not to teach the controversy in private Christian schools? I know many involved in these schools think they do, and I believe some actually are right, but many do not.

    More importantly, however, let’s consider how this “teach the controversy” principle would work in public schools. Should science teachers be asked to teach the controvery on geocentrism? I know some people are just about to explode on that one. “Nobody believes that any more, or at least only a few kooks.” Well, that may be true, though I believe there’s even a kook with a PhD who tries to teach geocentrism. But this does illustrate the problem. We argue for teaching the controversy on creation and evolution or on intelligent design and evolution, but we are unwilling to invoke the same phrase for all controversial issues.

    And that is actually as it should be, since “teach the controversy” doesn’t express any relevant principle at all. The real question is how much support some scientific view needs to have before it should be included in elementary school, middle school, and high school curricula. I believe the answer would be different in each case.

    We don’t just teach controversies in science. We teach methods and how to evaluate results, how to make observations and categorize them sensibly. We also do not have unlimited time in which to teach the things we need to teach. Thus we pick and choose. And that is where I get my principle for determining what should be taught: consensus science. What has undergone testing, evaluation, and acceptance in the scientific community? Leading edge theories need not apply at these levels. Let them be evaluated first, then include those that make the grade.

    There is, of course, prioritizing amongst those things which are consensus science, but considering that a large amount of well-established material will likely not get taught, those priorities need to be set for scientific reasons in order to prepare our children to understand their world.

    Intelligent design doesn’t meet the criteria. It should not be offered in high school classrooms. There is no theory of creation, either old or young earth, that has met this kind of testing. They don’t belong in the high school and lower science classroom.

    Now I don’t believe that discussion of these ideas should be cut off. There should be a free exchange of ideas. But a free exchange involves vigorous criticism, and as appropriate, even ridicule of ideas that are ridiculous. People today often complain about censorship because other people don’t like them. But I’m writing this blog entry on a very low cost web site using free blog software. It’s not hard to make ideas available. Getting people to pay attention? That’s more work–as it should be!

    And on that note one more point about the science classroom. People who want religious ideas included in the science curriculum often don’t think of the fact that these young people need to learn to evaluate, and that means criticizes ideas. Do you want your high school science teachers offering a critique of your religious ideas?

    My personal commitment to openness involves including discussion of these ideas in church programs and in the material that I publish.

    . . . there is considerable scientific evidence against the theory that everything occurred simply by chance, and in favor of the theory that there was some sort of intelligent design involved. (Source: Hushbeck, Elgin L. Christianity and Secularism. Gonzalez, FL: Energion Publications, 2006, page 28.)

    What is the importance of that quote? Well, I’m the publisher of the work in question. I do believe these ideas should be made available and should be discussed, especially those ideas with which I disagree. I’ve put my dollars into action in making that so.

    But not in high school science, unless the scientific community arrives at a consensus.

  • Creationism and Christianity

    One frequent response I get when criticizing certain views of creation is that I believe the people who hold those views are wrong, not really Christian, and/or are incredibly stupid. Now there are occasional folks whose intelligence seems questionable, though I prefer to question the intelligence of their arguments, and not their actual IQ. I believe quite intelligent people can hold incorrect views. I’m certain I do. That certainty is fed by the fact that I’ve changed my views on some topics. For example, I was once a young earth creationist myself and I was a precinct worker for Ronald Regan in 1976, you know, the campaign against Gerald Ford, four years before he was actually elected. Now I’m registered independent and lean somewhat more to the left.

    My position on Christianity and creationism is simply that the church’s position should be that God is the creator and allow the “how” to be an open question on which people can disagree. I do not want theistic evolution to be doctrine any more than I want young earth creationism to be doctrine. Individual denominations not only have the right to determine their own position, but certainly will, irrespective of what I think. While I think it is unfortunate when certain conservative denominations close the door on this particular issue, it’s a fact of life.

    At the same time, I do not intend to be quiet on the issue myself. I believe the young earth creationists are massively wrong, and old earth and ID creationists are wrong to lesser extents and I will go on debating those issues and calling things wrong when I think they are. At the same time I will note that they certainly have no slowed down the propaganda for their own point of view.

    In addition, I will note that I object when they call defending their particular view of creation “defending the faith.” This is not because I have a better reason to call my view of the “how” of creation “the faith.” I would be quite wrong to call a defense of theistic evolution “defending the faith.” Thus the Answers in Genesis creation museum is not designed to defend the Christian faith; it is designed to defend one particular view of how and when God created. I regard it as dishonest to portray it otherwise.

  • Boundaries of Science and a Shocking Lack of Curiosity

    I know, long title, but I’m having fun.

    One of the things I have noticed about intelligent design (ID) is its shocking lack of curiosity about the designer. One can guess that they’re either afraid of what they will find (God) or what they won’t find (God). Take your pick. ID proponents regularly claim that they have no need to identify the designer; they have only to identify his work. Yet the scientific approach, upon detecting design, would be to promptly look for the designer. (I have previously discussed this natural desire here.)

    Yet for some reason ID proponents try to avoid this issue whenever they are not admitting to Christian groups that the designer, wink wink, is very clearly God. There are two reasons for this. First is the political reason. If ID were billed as a means of scientifically detecting God, it would need to meet much higher standards in the courts. That would be inconvenient especially since actions, speaking much louder than words, indicate that a major goal of ID is to get God into the High School science classroom. Second, however, is the religious issue which is a catch-22. If you detect God scientifically, he’s not really God. We Christians tend to oppose the idea that God is located in images, and we are also not so happy with him turning up in laboratories, nicely pinned between two slides.

    When I place a boundary between science and theology I am not merely trying to protect science from theological incursions, I’m trying to protect theology. And there comes the big problem. The ID proponents clearly know there’s a boundary. It’s recognized by both sides, but that boundary is inconvenient. They want to cross a legal boundary (church / state) by means of ignoring a logical boundary (science studying the natural world / theology and the supernatural). Like good magicians, they try to distract us from their foray across the natural/supernatural boundary by manifesting a shocking lack of curiosity. “Never mind me peaking around this corner,” says the wizard, “I have no interest in what is on the other side at all!”

    This issue came up in a Panda’s Thumb post by Pim van Meurs yesterday. He says:

    ID faces a real problem: Either it insists that it cannot determine much of anything about the Designer which makes the ID inference inherently unreliable and thus useless (Dembski) or it attempts to become scientifically relevant but then it can at best conclude ‘we don’t know’.

    Just so! Commenters jumped on this issue and down the line we had an exchange between Larry Gilman with Pim van Meurs’ response. To avoid the long quotes let me note that Gilman is concerned with crossing that boundary from the side of science, and van Meurs is pointing out that the problem initiates with ID. (One should continue reading the exchange which talks a great deal of what Dawkins is actually saying, and what everyone ought to do. My point is a simpler than that.)

    If God is an entity of the natural world, then Dawkins is right and science should be able, at least in theory, to locate him. I think there are some horrible holes in Dawkins’ logic, and I do believe he goes beyond science in a number of cases. But if there is a designer, whose designs beyond the “design” of the universe as a whole can be detected, then that designer is detectable, but not God. Both Dawkins and the ID crowd seem to me to have an appointment to fight it out on the far side of the natural/supernatural boundary, which Dawkins says isn’t there, and the ID proponents say they don’t care about.

    It is only fair, of course, to point out that Dawkins doesn’t think folks like me have dodged his bullet either, but based on the boundary I’ve mentioned, I don’t hold that God is a bad hypothesis; I hold that it is ridiculous to regard God as a hypothesis at all. For those who want to read more than that, a small number, I suspect, my response to The God Delusion starts here and goes on for several posts. At brevity, I’m a complete failure.

  • More on the Cheri Yecke Story

    Wesley Elsberry has posted some additional information on this story on The Panda’s Thumb, and on his blog in which he states he believes the story is confirmed.

    . . . As far as I am concerned, the Princeton Union-Eagle is vindicated in this matter; at the time that they reported, Cheri Pierson Yecke was indeed saying that teaching “intelligent design” was a decision that local school districts could undertake. Both the quote from the Princeton Union-Eagle and the subsequent criticism I made of Yecke’s position on the issue are upheld by this source.

    Wesley is quite right to point out that Yecke has only to hold a press conference and state her change of view if she no longer supports teaching intelligent design in high school classrooms. If she does still believe it should be taught, that is information the public has a right to know.

    Since this whole issue resulted from Yecke’s use of ReputationDefender to look for negative material, I would like to call attention to this article on MSNBC, which reports on the other side of such activity. There can be a problem with negative information overwhelming the positive. It’s also quite possible for positive information to overwhelm necessary and important negative information. Search providers such as Google are right to battle spammy methods that try to get positive information into the highest search slots.

    There is an apparent bias in the MSNBC story toward “cleaning up” negative information. But there is no guarantee that the negative information someone wants to clean up is actually inaccurate. Accurate negative information, especially for those involved in the public sector, is important. The search engines cannot guarantee accuracy; they can only aim for relevance.

    In an age when information can be readily disseminated by just about anyone, and accessed just as easily, each reader needs to beware of lies.

  • Scientists Thinking about Intelligent Design

    In an extraordinarily inane post over on Uncommon Descent, titled The best evolutionary biologists think about intelligent design, S. Cordova tells us that, well, as the title says, the best evolutionary biologists are thinking about intelligent design. This strikes me as rather like the child who provokes his parents into punishing him just because he wants attention. He is getting attention after all.

    Here’s why it looks like that to me.

    1. He references “Richard Dawkins, Jerry Coyne, Ken Miller, Sean Carroll, and Michael Ruse.” Why? Well, as he continues, they have all reviewed Michael Behe’s new book. Their reviews? They systematically demolished it. You will find links to Jerry Coyne’s review, Behe’s ineffectual response, and Coyne’s response along with some dot connecting info here. Yep! Evolutionary scientists are thinking about intelligent design and they think it’s not science.
    2. He references an article in Medical Systems Biology, in which he places ellipses right after the line “intelligent design is making headway in the laboratory…” Guess what the next sentence is in the article. “In this case, though, the designer turned out to be just some clever scientist.” Wow! It’s hard to even consider this deception, it’s so weak.
    3. The last one? Well, they have found a copy of Darwin’s Black Box on the shelf of John Maynard-Smith. Hmmm! You’ll find that I have a considerable library of young earth creationist literature. Does that mean I think it’s serious? No. It simply means I believe that many people are led astray by it.

    Rather an odd way to “defend” ID, isn’t it?

  • Intelligent Design and Answer All Questions

    Through this week’s Christian Carnival I found two posts on science and religion that interested me. One I agree with completely, and I just want to underline a couple of points. The other, not so much, though it is still a good article.

    The first is An intelligently designed universe from Sun and Shield. Now since I scan Sun and Shield fairly often, I should have caught this one, but I didn’t.

    Here’s the key quote:

    I don’t believe that it is possible to prove that Intelligent Design occurred. (see here for discussion) I am also not persuaded that it is appropriate to teach about God’s design in the science classes of the public schools. However, it is certainly also not appropriate to teach that science proves that there is no God, or that there is no purpose in the universe, or that humans are only animals. Science has proved no such things, and can’t, as they are outside the scope of science.

    I agree entirely. I also think Martin has specified the question correctly. The issue is not whether the universe is designed. Theists generally and Christians in particular are bound to believe that God designed the universe. The question is the detection of design, and I would add, the detection of more design one place than another. My problem with Paley’s watch is not that the watch is not designed, but rather that the rocks, the grains of sand, and even the water are all where they are ultimately as products of design–ultimately. Distinguishing that sort of design is not a function of science.

    In addition, conclusions about what is beyond the scope of science are also not scientific. “I know X about the physical world,” is within the bounds of science. “I know the physical world is all there is,” steps outside those bounds. This doesn’t mean the person who says that is wrong. It merely means that their assertion is not scientific, any more than my assertion that God designed everything is scientific. Neither implies a measurable change in the nature of the physical universe.

    The other article is Science’s Overlooked Problem. Here’s a quote:

    Yet I have been a firm believer that science cannot, and does not, provide ample explanation for things such as life, purpose, or even God (despite rather poor attempts).

    Now Justin goes on to quote Huston Smith on the failure of science to answer the why questions. I don’t think this is a failure of science, however, but rather a failure of people who expect science to answer such questions. Science is well designed to study physical stuff. That it fails to comment successfully on other matters is simply a matter of its design. The problem occurs not because of the limitation, but because of the failure of some people to recognize that limitation. Thus they try to answer non-scientific questions using science with predictable results.

    In any case, I think it’s worthwhile reading Justin’s post and the Huston Smith quotes, because one way or another you’re going to need to think about that, either by recognizing the limits of science or by finding a way in which science can address those questions successfully. My observation thus far is that science is ill-equipped for the task.

  • Information from Minnesota Newspaper on Cheri Yecke Challenged

    The blog of Florida Citizens for Science (of which I am a board member) is reporting that “Dr. Cheri Pierson Yecke, K-12 chancellor for Florida’s Department of Education, has apparently hired a company called ReputationDefender to search the Internet for information about her and, on her behalf, challenge items she disputes.”

    You can find more on the particular item in dispute here. Dr. Wesley Elsberry, who originally posted the information, continues to look for confirmation, and in the meantime has posted a note immediately following the quotation, indicating this information is disputed. That seems to be a very responsible way to handle the information.

    What is the importance of this issue? As a public official, Dr. Cheri Yecke should be held accountable for her statements about public policy. If a correct quote is disputed, that is a significant matter for such a person. On the other hand, if this quote were proven to be incorrect, it is important that the record be corrected and indicate Dr. Yecke’s actual position and record.

    My own position is that consensus science should be taught in the public school classroom, and the scientific consensus is that the theory of evolution is well confirmed.

  • Condescension on Creationism

    A recent comment by seeker accuses me of condescension:

    It would be hard for us to have a conversation on this, because your condescension is so thick it would be like climbing uphill through dirty axle grease.

    What interests me is that if a moderate or liberal remains quiet or speaks tolerantly of another position, he or she is regarded as wishy-washy, a typical liberal who won’t take a stand. On the other hand, if a liberal is so gauche as to take a stand on something, he is condescending. This sort of accusation often comes from people who have made a habit of being condescending, usually in a moral of spiritual sense. This is no exception.

    Seeker refers me, amongst other posts, to this one, in which he accuses the vast majority of the scientific community of being deluded. He even titles the post Mass Delusion. There must be some special gift of chutzpah given to someone who can write such a piece, and then accuse someone else of being condescending.

    In fact, Seeker invited me to critique a post he had written, and in that post there were a number of accusations raised against those of us who are Christians and also evolutionists. Apparently the only option he wishes to leave us is to acknowledge the great wisdom of his post and become convinced creationists. But unfortunately he fails to provide any reason to do that.

    If it’s condescension to point out where one disagrees with another, then I’m guilty. If it’s condescension to require that someone provide some sort of evidence, then I’m quite guilty. My liberal tolerance allows me to say that I’m fine with having a variety of views on origins in the Christian community. At the same time, simple honesty calls me to point out that I believe that creationists, whether of the young earth, old earth, or intelligent design varieties are wrong. The extent to which they are wrong differs. At the same time, I have no problem with them telling me that they believe that I’m wrong. We can both take those comments for what they’re worth.

    Now for just a couple of points of non-response in seeker’s comment:

    1. One of seeker’s original accusations was that I was using “evolutionary thinking” rather than “scientific thinking.” I called him on it, and how does he respond?

    Perhaps you can do a little self-examination, and, using your impressive intellect, postulate on what ideas might be evolutionary thinking rather than scientific? Are the two synonymous in your opinion? Then what do you think a creatoinist would say?

    So I am supposed to provide my own accusation and then defend myself against it. That’s not how it works. You tell me how my thinking is not scientific, using examples from things I have actually written, and then I’ll be glad to defend myself. Otherwise your accusation is simply yet another unsubstantiated claim.

    2. Seeker states: “Creationists HAVE proposed full orbed models for origins.” Great! Point out where these models are, what they predict, and how this is being scientifically tested.

    3. And then,

    – you appear to assume evolution to be fact, which to me is intellectual suicide
    – you fail to recognize or separate the philosophy of Darwinism from the scientific model

    On what possible basis would you suggest that I assume evolution to be fact? At what point did I say that, imply that, or give any reasonable person a reason to suppose it? No, it’s just a standard creationist attack line to see if an opponent will fold to a bluff. I believe that the theory of evolution is the best theory we currently have to explain the data. None of the potential explanations by creationists have anything like the explanatory power and the confirmation by numerous lines of evidence from various branches of science. This “philosophy of Darwinism” is a figment of some people’s imagination. There are those who draw unjustified philosophical conclusions from the theory of evolution, but calling them “Darwinists” is a slur on Charles Darwin and his tremendous scientific accomplishments.

    4. Finally, in an attempt to appear prophetic, seeker announces that I will not accept any of his arguments.

    I’m sure you’ll find none of this satisfactory, and find all kinds of supposed faults with my answer. Why am I sure? Because I’ve argued with evolutionary believers before, and you sound like one of the faithful.

    I presume this is because he knows they are so weak. Or, NO! It couldn’t possibly be! Is he being condescending?

  • A Singular Lack of Imagination in ID

    A post today dealing with junk DNA led me to some thinking about just how the nature of a designer might impact the nature of the things designed. It seems to me that no matter where we are looking for design, whether in the form of alien artifacts on a distant planet (in our imaginations) or for the footprints of God in living creatures, what we end up searching for is signs of human-like design, i.e. at a minimum we are looking for something that is designed the way we might design it.

    Casey Luskin at (HT: The Panda’s Thumb) Evolution News & Views says:

    Proponents of intelligent design have long maintained that Neo-Darwinism’s widely held assumption that our cells contain much genetic “junk” is both dangerous to the progress of science and wrong. As I explain here, design theorists recognize that “Intelligent agents typically create functional things,” and thus Jonathan Wells has suggested, “From an ID perspective, however, it is extremely unlikely that an organism would expend its resources on preserving and transmitting so much ‘junk’.” [4] Design theorists have thus been predicting the death of the junk-DNA paradigm for many years . . .

    But this really avoids the issue. Let’s consider some analogies, starting with architecture. What is the purpose of decorative elements on a building. I live in a very simple building, with almost nothing about its design that could be called decorative. I work in a similar building. But I know of numerous houses that are clearly designed (I not only know the nature of the designer, I know him personally) that nonetheless have wasted space, and elements of their design that are just there because they looked good to someone.

    I’ve heard this home designer explain to a client that doing something in a certain way will cost extra in materials and may not be the most efficient use of space, but if they like that appearance, it can be done that way. In general those clients decide to make the house look the way they want to, even if they could get more square footage of usable floor space at less cost by eliminating some of the odd shapes. The point here is that there is “junk” in the design, and it would be very difficult to determine why if we didn’t know something about the designers (and clients) and why they might want a certain design.

    Now let’s consider a horse. Horse ancestors in the wild are not “designed” for humans to ride them. Human beings thought of how to tame them, to breed them for particular characteristics, and train them for particular activities. A horse in the wild might be mistaken as something that had a human-oriented purpose (though without humans it would be unlikely that an imaginary alien would figure it out), and a “designed” horse, that is one that was bred for particular characteristics but which had then been released into the wild might be assumed to have no human intervention.

    My point is that our “instincts” on these issues all have a strong element of our understanding of how various humans think and what the possibilities are for human designers. I’m wondering if we would necessarily recognize something designed by a completely alien culture. How much would it overlap? Would it be possible, for example, to have an alien science that was totally centered around biology and solved various problems through manipulation of living things? Science fiction writers have certainly imagined such civilizations. The question I have is how long it would take us, with our assumptions and “instincts” to recognize such a cultures products as designed.

    From the theological point of view, I would suggest that we make excessive assumptions about the desires of the creator. Very commonly people assume that human beings are the only intelligent creation. But we have only our lack of knowledge of anyone else to make us assume that. There is plenty of room for other creatures out there. There are those who argue that the Bible is addressed to us and doesn’t mention those other creatures, yet to whom precisely do they expect that a divine revelation would be addressed, except, well, to the folks to whom it is addressed? In other words, we do not know the answer to that question. We don’t know if human life, or life on earth in general, is the one and only form of life the creator might have created.

    This is one of the possibilities that biological evolution opens up for theologians. The observations that stand behind the theory of evolution let us know that there is a tremendous freedom and a certain level of disorder behind our observed order. This suggests to a number of people, including me, that God is less interested in a fixed order and more interested in the freedom of creation–a creative creation–than we might normally have imagined.

    Due to our fears and uncertainties, we tend to try to take control of our environment and fix things in place. Then we try to make God in our image by assuming that he is going to do the same thing. We try to conserve our resources when we create something, though even at that we expend resources on decoration. Just look at any church building if you doubt me. But is there any reason to assume that God as creator would behave in the same way? Can we assume that an alien culture would share our insecurities?

    I have previously stated it this way:

    We put a low value on freedom of choice, on autonomy, and on creativity. We prefer comfort and safety. Many, many people will give up their own decisions and their own stewardship in exchange for the feeling that they are safe. But it appears that in the way that God has arranged the universe, physical safety is much lower on the priority list. Spiritual safety is much more assured than is physical safety. (Not Ashamed of the Gospel, p. 55)

    All of these questions suggest that we need to know the nature of a designer before we can discuss just what that designer would design.

    Again, to quote myself:

    When we deal with the creation, we’re in a similar position with God. We can look at the way the universe functions and we can see certain things about what is necessary to live in the universe. We can try to imagine the attributes of God that are reflected in his natural universe. These would include the law of cause and effect, and the apparent desire for creatures that have a range of freedom of action. Simple application of the law of cause and effect could make moral creatures of us, though we might choose rather different value systems.

    But if God has a greater purpose for this world, this universe, and for our individual lives, the universe itself is not going to inform us. For that we would need special revelation if we are to know at all. (Source: When People Speak for God, p. 21

    Now I’m somewhat unorthodox in much of my theology, but on this I believe I’m quite thoroughly orthodox. We will not comprehend God’s purposes purely from natural things. We require God’s self-revelation. I think it is logical to derive from that the idea that the purpose of some elements of creation may look like one thing to us without special revelation, and may look quite different in the light of God’s revelation in scripture.

    Intelligent design may claim to detect design without any comment on the designer, but it looks to me as though through a foundational lack of imagination, it is stuck looking at totally natural design, and thus providing nothing new that could ultimate explain the existence of anything.