What Theological Claims Does ID Make?

[Dan_Eastwood]

@Eddie

No ID proponent has claimed that science can measure God. All ID proponents I know of would deny that science can measure God. You are probably referring to the idea that God, or at least a designer, can be inferred from the facts of nature. But that is not the idea that “science can measure God”. Aquinas, Newton, Boyle, Kepler, etc., all thought that a designer could be inferred from the facts of nature, but none of them thought that science could measure God.

No ID proponent has claimed ID can measure God - this is true - but neither have they ruled out this possibility. They deny ID can measure God when they want ID to be scientific and claim ID can measure the designer when it is “just their opinion”. (my quotes)
I’m actually OK with ID as a philosophy that accommodates both religion and scientific understanding, but that philosophy falls down when claims of material evidence for design are made. The Designer might be God implies a material measure - a quantification - of God. I do not think an entity that can be measured fits the definition of anything anyone would accept as a god. At the same time this measure lends equal support to the Designer being FSM; that is ridicule of God, and it’s coming from the proponents of ID.

@Eddie

See the discussion here on Natural Theology for more details.

I will follow up on that. Thanks. Really!

@Eddie

In the absence of complete information about all the complex interactions of creatures with their environments (and complete information we will never have), natural selection is a supremely elastic explanation that can explain pretty well any outcome – after the fact. But if one asks a biologist to predict what natural selection will accomplish in the future , the biologist will decline to say. (Like economists who know exactly why a Depression occurred after the fact, but strangely didn’t see it coming beforehand.)

BUT we do not operate in complete absence of information. We examine interactions and environments and find a variety of environmental pressures. Then we apply the same basic principle Darwin identified; selection happens “naturally” to try to understand what happened. We don’t stop there - the science of evolution has added new concepts like neutral selection and drift, genetics, and more.
One thing evolutionary science is not, is a crystal ball. It does not allow us to peer into the future as you claim it should - that is a mis-characterization of evolutionary theory. If you want an example of a prediction of evolution, look at Tiktaalik (there are several good discussions of Tiktaalik here, check them out).

Gould is correct about some claims, but the same can be said of most claims in science. MOST initial claims and findings are overturned or corrected in some way. Have any of Gould’s claims been shot down?

@Eddie

My point was that Darwinian natural selection allows for a huge degree of flexibility in explanation, and that almost any evolutionary outcome can be explained as in accord with the principle of natural selection.

So let’s apply this same standard to ID, to see what sort of answers ID can provide:

• Does ID identify WHO the designer is? No.
• Does ID identify WHAT is or is not designed? No.
• Does ID identify WHY something is designed? No.
• Does ID identify WHEN designed has occurred? No.
• Does ID identify HOW the design was formed? No.

ID is undefined as to anything that it does, and as such is completely free to make any and every claim, including some about Flying Spaghetti Monsters. It also denies any possibility of falsification, because it never rules out that omnipotent designer who can do anything and everything.

Meanwhile, evolutionary theory is remarkable successful at the What/Why/When/How questions. “Who” doesn’t really apply except for those nice OEC/EC folks, and they are don’t make a fuss about their beliefs being scientific.

[Eddie (Edward Robinson)]

@Dan_Eastwood

I do not think an entity that can be measured fits the definition of anything anyone would accept as a god.

You’re still misapplying concepts of measurement and design here.

Can an Olympic weight-lifter lift a 100-pound barbell? Yes.

Could God life a 100-pound barbell? Yes.

Does answering the second question in the affirmative reduce the infinite God to the level of a mere human muscleman, and hence unworthy of worship?

I don’t think so.

Now, apply this to design.

Can an architect design a Gothic cathedral? Yes.

Could God design a Gothic cathedral? Yes.

Does answering the second question in the affirmative reduce the infinite God to the level of a mere human architect, and hence unworthy of worship?

I don’t think so.

You seem to think that inferring a designer of something, and then acknowledging that the designer could be God, somehow belittles God. That doesn’t follow, in either philosophy or theology.

The fact that neither Newton nor Boyle, good scientists and pious Christians both, didn’t adopt your reasoning should make you pause.

[Dan_Eastwood]

We still aren’t quite on the same page yet, This is the part about falsification:

@Eddie

Can an Olympic weight-lifter lift a 100-pound barbell? Yes.
Could God life a 100-pound barbell? Yes.

So an ID advocate might say (and I know one who does), “XYZ is so complex it could not possibly have evolved, but if you want to falsify Design then demonstrate a stepwise pathway where XYZ could evolve.”

But a designer capable of creating something complex must also be capable of creating something very simple. So even if science can demonstrate some series of simple steps to the evolution of XYZ. that still does not falsify design, because the Designer (whoever that is) could easily do that too.
God is still OK so far, it’s just that God isn’t falsifiable.

The other part of this, the part that reduces the concept of God, is more subtle. It involves the implicit assumption in the alternative hypothesis, that disproof (evidence against) of evolution is positive evidence for design, which is false. Design cannot be a valid conclusion when there is no evidence to support it (or even a definition, I would contend). If we allow this sort of inference then any prior assumption we care to make is equally valid, be it God, FSM, The Great Green Arkleseizure, etc… This is BAD inference, a form of circular reasoning, which can only conclude the implicit assumption.

@Eddie

You seem to think that inferring a designer of something, and then acknowledging that the designer could be God, somehow belittles God. That doesn’t follow, in either philosophy or theology.

If we acknowledge that the designer could be God, then by the same argument we also must acknowledge FSM, GGA, etc… THAT is what belittles God.

For that matter, if we acknowledge that the designer could be God, then we know it cannot be a scientific argument by definition. This detail often gets swept under the rug. I see this done all the time, with the ID advocate arguing the scientific position one moment, and switching to the philosophical argument the next. It’s a Bait & Switch tactic. (That’s what I often see, not what I think you are doing here).

Somewhere above I made a comment about idolatry, I think I should withdraw that, because you do not seem to be making that sort of argument either.

[Eddie (Edward Robinson)]

Dan:

The problem with your response is that you are bringing in all kinds of statements and arguments that I wasn’t purporting to defend. Most of your response doesn’t deal directly with the simple point I was trying to make, i.e.: suggesting that the designer of life was God doesn’t reduce God to a being unworthy of worship.

At the end, you mention withdrawing the charge of idolatry. If that means that you accept the argument I have laid out above, then we are in agreement: it’s not unworthy of God to suppose that God designs things. If so, that’s great!

Some arguments I would not make include:

1. “XYZ is so complex that it could not possibly have evolved.”

I would instead argue:

“XYZ is so complex that it is very unlikely that it could have evolved in the manner conceived of by Darwin or the neo-Darwinians.”

And I wouldn’t bring “God” into the discussion at all.

2. “disproof (evidence against) of evolution is positive evidence for design”

I would never say this, since I would never oppose “evolution” to “design” in the first place.

I would oppose “chance” to “design” and “evolution” to “special creation”. “Design” and “evolution” are not necessarily at odds, as the positions of Behe and Denton show. And even Dembski, who opposes evolution (in the sense of macroevolution), doesn’t say that common descent is incompatible with ID, as a quotation of Dembski by Jon Garvey on another thread here shows. It is unfortunate that some ID supporters continue to oppose “evolution” to “design”. In almost every case where this happens, the ID supporter in question is also a creationist, and quite often a young-earth creationist. What can I say? I’m not a creationist. I’m not in that wing of the the ID movement.

One last point. You wrote:

@Dan_Eastwood

if we acknowledge that the designer could be God, then we know it cannot be a scientific argument by definition.

The antecedent of “it” is not clear. Does “it” refer to the argument for design in nature, or the argument that the designer is God? ID people claim that the first type of argument is scientific, not that the second type of argument is scientific. They are very clear that the second type of argument belongs to philosophy, religion, theology, faith, etc. Another way of putting it: according to ID, the argument to design is scientific, but the argument from design [to God] is not scientific. So I don’t see any deliberate attempt to obfuscate.

Of course, I am speaking of how ID proponents argue when they are consistent with their own definitions and stated principles. It is unfortunately the case, especially in debates on blog sites but also in churches, in popular books by Christian apologists, etc., that some ID proponents (or people who claim to speak for ID, but may not understand it very well) are not very consistent about definitions and principles, and I think that is the sort of argument you are running into, and protesting against. Well, I too am against lack of clarity, inconsistent application of principles, etc. It’s too bad there is no “ID exam” that people have to pass before they are allowed to speak for ID in public; an exam which required the examinee to show knowledge of official Discovery statements and the main writings of the ID leaders would get rid of a lot of the confusion. But the nature of internet discussion (and popular discussion generally) is such that, in the absence of such an exam, your are going to get a lot of sloppy arguing done in the name of ID.

[T_aquaticus]

@Eddie

I would oppose “chance” to “design” and “evolution” to “special creation”. “Design” and “evolution” are not necessarily at odds, as the positions of Behe and Denton show.

This confuses me. Behe has said outright that there are certain features that could not evolve and are instead the product of design. I don’t see how you can square this circle.

[Dan_Eastwood]

Our recent visitor, EricMH, went so far as to claim that evolution cannot add information at all, which arguably rules out any form of evolution without the guidance of a Designer. We don’t need to argue this point here, I just wanted to note that this opinion exists within ID.

[Eddie (Edward Robinson)]

@T_aquaticus

Behe has said outright that there are certain features that could not evolve and are instead the product of design.

Almost never has Behe said this of “evolution” unqualified by “Darwinian” or “neo-Darwinian”. And even in the spots where he says just “evolution” for short, the context usually makes clear that he has the Darwinian or neo-Darwinian understanding of evolution in mind. The fact that he so often bends over backwards to insert these adjectives is important.

He has said elsewhere that Michael Denton’s proposal of a front-loaded evolutionary process is a logical possibility – but that is not a Darwinian or neo-Darwinian conception of how evolution works.

Behe is writing in the tradition of the Wistar Conference of 1966, which considered possible scientific weaknesses in “the neo-Darwinian interpretation of evolution.” He’s writing against conceptions of evolution which rest a huge amount of weight on the right mutations showing up at the right time to produce certain forms of complex order. But if there is within life any kind of “tilt” or “bias” or “nudge” (as Mike Gene put it) that tends to push evolution in certain directions rather than others, then that isn’t necessarily incompatible with a notion of design.

All the official statements at Discovery, and many of the individual statements of Behe, Richards, Dembski, etc., allow that design theory is in principle compatible with theories of common descent. They endorse design as opposed to theories which place too much weight on chance, even chance filtered by natural selection; but they don’t say that if you accept design you have to reject evolution.

The difficulty in sorting this out is that many ID proponents, speaking for themselves as individuals and not for ID as a theory of design detection or for Discovery as an institution, do personally oppose evolution. Behe and others get judged by association with these others. That is the public relations problem which the “Big Tent” approach of ID creates.

Approaches which aren’t “Big Tent”, such as atheism/materialism and YEC, don’t have this public relations problem; they can present a less ambiguous and clearer picture of themselves. ID’s Big Tent straddles the creation/evolution divide, allowing both creationists and evolutionists to be ID theorists, and this is confusing in America, where the polarization of “creation vs. evolution” has captured the popular imagination for nearly 100 years, and especially since 1960 and the meteoric rise of YEC after Henry Morris. Behe is constantly having to repeat himself and clarify his position, because people by a kind of reflex are trying to fit him into the creation/evolution dichotomy, and he resists that. All I’m trying to do here is describe the ID movement and some of its individuals as accurately as I can, based on a close study of their writings. I’m not trying to sell anyone on particular ID arguments. I just want to make clear what people are claiming, so that acceptance or rejection is based on what they are actually asserting, not on a distorted version of their assertions coming from third parties.

My debates with George are often along this line. I’m not trying to get George to accept the views of Michael Denton, but merely to make sure he knows what Denton says before he tries to classify him.

[T_aquaticus]

@Eddie

Almost never has Behe said this of “evolution” unqualified by “Darwinian” or “neo-Darwinian”. And even in the spots where he says just “evolution” for short, the context usually makes clear that he has the Darwinian or neo-Darwinian understanding of evolution in mind. The fact that he so often bends over backwards to insert these adjectives is important.

What do those qualifications even mean? How does the type of evolution Behe refers to differ from the mainstream theory found in modern biology?

From my reading, the use of “Darwinian” is little more than rhetoric. It is an attempt to make evolution look like a religion and has little descriptive power when it comes to the actual science.

@Eddie

Behe is writing in the tradition of the Wistar Conference of 1966, which considered possible scientific weaknesses in “ the neo-Darwinian interpretation of evolution.” He’s writing against conceptions of evolution which rest a huge amount of weight on the right mutations showing up at the right time to produce certain forms of complex order. But if there is within life any kind of “tilt” or “bias” or “nudge” (as Mike Gene put it) that tends to push evolution in certain directions rather than others, then that isn’t necessarily incompatible with a notion of design.

If Behe were mapping the mutations in real time in real populations he wouldn’t be able to say which were the right mutations.

[Eddie (Edward Robinson)]

All I undertook to establish is that Behe does not normally oppose “design” to “evolution”, where “evolution” refers to a process of descent with modification. Your subsequent remarks, above, I have to decline to discuss, due to lack of time – I am behind on my work obligations. And I don’t need to provide answers to them to establish my previous point. Best wishes.

[Dan_Eastwood]

@Eddie

The problem with your response is that you are bringing in all kinds of statements and arguments that I wasn’t purporting to defend. Most of your response doesn’t deal directly with the simple point I was trying to make, i.e.: suggesting that the designer of life was God doesn’t reduce God to a being unworthy of worship.

At the end, you mention withdrawing the charge of idolatry. If that means that you accept the argument I have laid out above, then we are in agreement: it’s not unworthy of God to suppose that God designs things. If so, that’s great!

Cool! Mostly.
It was not clear just what you were defending, but I think we are closer to agreement.

suggesting that the designer of life was God doesn’t reduce God to a being unworthy of worship.

Provisional on this being a philosophical position or statement of belief, then yes agree. It’s the claims of material evidence that might cause trouble, and might “reduce” God. Do we still agree?

I would instead argue: “XYZ is so complex that it is very unlikely that it could have evolved in the manner conceived of by Darwin or the neo-Darwinians .””

That is a better statement of the argument, but it still leads to the same problem of not being falsifiable.

And I wouldn’t bring “God” into the discussion at all.

To show how this is not-falsifiable doesn’t require bringing God into the argument. IF the designer is God then it is clearly not-falsifiable.

I would never say this [“evidence against evolution is positive evidence for design”], since I would never oppose “evolution” to “design” in the first place.

Also good.

@Eddie

The antecedent of “it” is not clear. Does “it” refer to the argument for design in nature, or the argument that the designer is God?

I see the confusion - “it” refers to a scientific (therefore material) claim of the Designer being God. IF ID is science, then it is making a material claim about the designer.
We still haven’t established what sort of claim this might be, as we still have no Who/What/Why/When/How claims to evaluate.

@Eddie

Of course, I am speaking of how ID proponents argue when they are consistent with their own definitions and stated principles. … [medium snip] … some ID proponents … are not very consistent about definitions and principles, and I think that is the sort of argument you are running into, and protesting against

I would make a stronger statement here; ID is rife with equivocation (present company excepted!). For instance, Dembsky is inconsistent is the meaning of “specification”, and also in his use of probability. Equivocation between the philosophical proposition of ID and the scientific proposition, as we discussed above, is so common that few ever make this distinction.

Not particularly relevant, but that “demonstration of a stepwise pathway for evolution to falsify design” argument I use as an example came of someone who claims to be an atheist.

[Patrick]

@Eddie

Could God life a 100-pound barbell? Yes.

Has God ever picked up a 100 pound barbell?

@Eddie

Could God design a Gothic cathedral? Yes.

Has God ever designed a Gothic cathedral?

[Eddie (Edward Robinson)]

Hi, Dan. Getting back to you late – some teaching intervened.

@Dan_Eastwood

Provisional on this being a philosophical position or statement of belief, then yes agree. It’s the claims of material evidence that might cause trouble, and might “reduce” God. Do we still agree?

I’m not sure what you mean by “material evidence.” Newton thought that it was possible to speak about God based on the character of his works, i.e., the planetary system with its wonderfully contrived arrangements. That is, we can look at material things – things that aren’t God – and infer something about an immaterial being – God – based on those material things. Newton did not see such inferences as reducing God to the level of material reality. So I’m not sure what the threat is that you are perceiving here. If we allow design inferences from nature to an intelligence behind nature, what theological doctrine, what religious conviction is threatened?

@Dan_Eastwood

I see the confusion - “it” refers to a scientific (therefore material) claim of the Designer being God.

Good. Now I understand you. But then you lose me again, when you write:

@Dan_Eastwood

IF ID is science, then it is making a material claim about the designer.

As far as I can see, insofar as ID is scientific [I say “insofar as” to indicate that I’m not demanding this assumption, but merely adopting it for discussion purposes], it would be making no “material claim” about the designer. It can’t tell the difference between a divine and a human designer, for example. Supposing Dembski or Meyer wrote an essay proving that Stonehenge was designed rather than a product of accidents like earthquakes and floods. None of their tools (specified complexity etc.) could disprove the hypothesis that Martians or God or Satan designed Stonehenge. Their science doesn’t extend that far. The same would be the case with the bacterial flagellum, or the fine-tuning of the universe.

So they can’t infer anything about the nature of the designer by the methods they use to detect design. But they might be able to reason to a divine rather than a mortal designer by other means, i.e., by reasoning that a human (or alien) designer is a bit short on power to fine-tune the entire universe from the start. But that’s a general metaphysical argument, not one that employs the methods of design detection that ID people write about. It would an argument that none of them – Dembski, Meyer, Behe, etc. – would call a scientific argument.

So, for example, let’s say, for the sake of argument, that Behe’s argument about the designed character of the flagellum were established. Would that say anything about the material nature of the designer? Behe would say, no, it doesn’t. It would say that the designer was intelligent, but that’s already implied in the very notion of “design”, and doesn’t tell us much. Does it tell us whether the designer was Vishnu or Ahura Mazda or the God of the Bible or an evil Demiurge? No, it doesn’t. So how would a demonstration that the flagellum was designed [supposing such a demonstration existed] entail a material claim about the nature of the designer?

[gbrooks9 (GeorgeB)]

@swamidass

The book is hard to obtain… the book review waa easier to find:

The first WISTAR conference:

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/160/3826/408.1

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

Already covered this: Doug Axe and Wistar II.

[gbrooks9 (GeorgeB)]

Wistar I was covered in Wistar II link?

What link covers the Templeton grant money that was not collected for a lack of proposals?

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

@gbrooks9

Wistar I was covered in Wistar II link?

I think so. At least implicitly. Do you want to discuss it more?

[gbrooks9 (GeorgeB)]

@swamidass

I think so. At least implicitly. Do you want to discuss it more?

@swamidass

Actually, I wanted to find an explicit discussion of the un-spend grants…

[Eddie (Edward Robinson)]

I don’t see any discussion of the first Wistar Conference (1966) on the linked pages. I have read the proceedings of that conference. Of course, the version of evolution that was being criticized then was neo-Darwinism as it existed in 1966, so not all criticisms offered then would still be relevant today.