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Ayn Rand's Arbitrary Rules Won’t Stop ID From Explaining Complexity
- From Discovery Institute
By Discovery Institute - A Positive Vision of the Future
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Equivocation
--DI--
As I explained in my fourth opening statement, design can be inferred regardless of whether the designer is natural or supernatural.
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That of course is incorrect and has been discussed many times now, although the ID proponents do not seem to have a response, which is fine.
It's the bait and switch between ordinary design for which we have some independent evidence, and rarefied design which lack such distinction which makes the latter one highly unreliable.
Ask yourself this simple question: How does ID explain the bacterial flagella?
It doesn't, it merely calls it 'designed' which is a placeholder for our ignorance as to how to explain the flagella.
But it gets worse, ID is doomed to sit back idling while science has continued to expand its knowledge of the flagella and likely evolutionary pathways. And while ID could not even compete with our ignorance, it now faces an even bigger challenge, namely a scientific hypothesis.
That my friends is why ID has to resort to equivocation on the terms natural and supernatural, to include 'intelligence' as a supernatural cause.
What a shame that good science is used to support such a vacuous notion
- PvM
September 12, 2008 1:32PM
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The 'design inference' is foundational to ID
PvM:
(1) "Ask yourself this simple question: How does ID explain the bacterial flagella?
(2) "It doesn't, it merely calls it 'designed' which is a placeholder for our ignorance as to how to explain the flagella."
(1) Answer: It's a machine with functional components. The design and construct process is largely unknown, but researchable.
(2) The 'designed' designation IS in fact a placeholder, but for further study. This brings up a common complaint that ID offers no testable hypotheses. I submit that a hypothesis comes first; the testing later. Since there's no funding, and there is stigma attached, there has been little confirming research done as yet. I predict that that will change with the new crop of scientists, a few of whom may see its relevance, and pursue it. A word to any out there who may fit that category. That word is 'Nobel.'
- Lee Bowman
September 12, 2008 3:32PM
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Telling differences
==I asked==
(1) "Ask yourself this simple question: How does ID explain the bacterial flagella?
(2) "It doesn't, it merely calls it 'designed' which is a placeholder for our ignorance as to how to explain the flagella."
===
Bowman responds
===
(1) Answer: It's a machine with functional components. The design and construct process is largely unknown, but researchable.
==
In other words, it does not explain but rather describes. And so while science has in fact researched the 'design' and construction process, ID has done exactly what to further its case?
==Bowman
(2) The 'designed' designation IS in fact a placeholder, but for further study. This brings up a common complaint that ID offers no testable hypotheses. I submit that a hypothesis comes first; the testing later. Since there's no funding, and there is stigma attached, there has been little confirming research done as yet. I predict that that will change with the new crop of scientists, a few of whom may see its relevance, and pursue it. A word to any out there who may fit that category. That word is 'Nobel.'
==
Why should we accept 'design' as a placeholder when 'we don't know' is a much better one.
I appreciate the wishful thinking and the ever prevalent promissory note. Yes, blame it on lack of funding and yet insist it is also taught in schools under the guise of 'teach the controversy' or 'academic freedom'
So what hypothesis does ID propose in a non ad hoc manner?
"we don't know so let's call it designed"
How does real science explain it?
"we don't know" let's develop new hypotheses before we jump to conclusion
Telling difference...
- PvM
September 12, 2008 4:09PM
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That assumption of intelligence and nothing further
"An underlying assumption of ID is that intelligence is a property which we can generally understand through our observations of intelligent agents in the natural world."
Ok. And how many types of "intelligent agents" have you observed in this natural world? I can think of one obvious type - humans. Do you wish to specify other types of intelligent agents that you are observing? Ants? Chimpanzees? Computers? Hmm. It seems that you would mainly observe us humans.
So what makes you think that observing human intelligence means that "intelligence is a property which we can generally understand"? I think you are committing the fallacy of trying to appeal to "common sense" in a very inappropriate manner.
Humans are intelligent.
Humans design things.
Living entities appear designed.
Therefore there must be some natural or supernatural designer who designed those living things.
But, of course, this is a silly non sequitur.
"An underlying assumption of ID is that intelligence is a property which we can generally understand through our observations of intelligent agents in the natural world."
I think your assumption is false as a generalization. Perhaps we understand a lot of things about human intelligence. But generalizing to ANY intelligence is silly. I assume you don't have any good examples of alien intelligence. And you don't want to admit that your designing intelligence has to be a supernatural intelligence.
You want to have your cake and eat it too. For you, obviously life is intelligently designed, but you refuse to get serious about who, how, why or when this intelligent agent actually did something in this natural world.
Well, you can't have a "theory" of "intelligent design" without actually saying something about what actually happened so that your "theory" would actually mean something.
"allowing us to detect design in biology"
Nonsense.
"I explained that the refusal of ID proponents to use ID to draw scientific conclusions about the nature or identity of the designer is principled rather than merely rhetorical."
Riiight. And that's one very good reason why there is no such thing as a theory of intelligent design.
"Thus for the scientific theory of ID to try to identify the designer would be to inappropriately conflate science with religion."
And to fail to even think about the attributes required for the designer means that there is no such thing as the "theory of ID". You are making "observations" and jumping to your conclusion and there's nothing in between that would generate a "theory".
- onein6billion
October 3, 2008 3:02PM
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What does "natural", and hence, "supernatural" mean?
1) Without a scientific definition of "natural", scientists cannot distinguish between natural explanations and supernatural ones. Since they cannot make this distinction, they lack a scientifically-based justification for insisting that supernatural explanations be kept out of science.
2) When actually doing science, scientists do not care if their explanations are natural. Their only concern is if an explanation leads to predictions. The predictive power is all that matters in science. A supernatural explanation that leads to accurate predictions is better for science than a natural explanation that does not lead to accurate predictions. Conceptions of "natural" and "supernatural" are relevant only in philosophy.
3) "Everything that exists" is the only adequate definition of "natural" that I have been given by someone opposed to religion. If this is a proper definition, then God and/or the intelligent designer would be natural according to science. Therefore, anti-IDists' "It-Uses-The-Supernatural-To-Explain" argument would be moot.
- ufcarazy
January 23, 2009 12:29AM
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Critics have never given clear definitions of those terms
You're right, much if not all of the claims about "supernatural claims/premises of ID make it invalid" rest on some faulty views on what supernatural actually means.
My main criticism of anyone who tries to disqualify ID from science (because it has the implication that supernatural forces might exist) is that they usually fail to make the distinction between the IMPLICATIONS of a theory and the EVIDENCE for a theory.
It wouldn't matter if the force behind design is a supernatural entity because if we make those conclusions based on what we OBSERVE in physics or biological systems then we can safely say it's testable.
If we applied the same standard that critics of ID are applying to everything else in science, then we may as well conclude the big bang isn't science (since that has supernatural implications of a first cause).
- F2XL
January 23, 2009 1:14PM
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natural vs. supernatural
Natural: pertaining to or part of the observable world. Something that behaves according to physical laws.
Supernatural: pertaining to something beyond the observable world. Something that does not behave according to physical laws.
- MrBook
September 18, 2009 6:30AM
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Supernatural?
I don't really believe in the supernatural unless you wanted to say that the first cause behind the big bang is beyond the observable world and therefor supernatural. Everything after the beginning is natural. What we think of as supernatural is just that which science hasn't figured out yet.
- mike1948
September 18, 2009 1:02PM
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Very true
But where does that leave ID? Without a theory for the designer then that aspect remains unknown, and would thus be called supernatural.
- MrBook
September 20, 2009 7:51AM
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ID.
ID without a designer? The cause of the big bang is unknown. Does that make it supernatural?
- mike1948
September 20, 2009 11:19PM
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Presently
The cause of the big bang is currently unknown, but it is also undergoing investigation. Once a theory is found then where will that leave the supernatural? Where will it leave the designer?
- MrBook
September 21, 2009 5:47AM
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