(part 2, part 3, part 4)
I wanted to explore some of the 'Top Ten' to see how many of you feel about these points. They were listed in an article I read in Christian Research Journal.
ID must explain who designed the designer.
Dawkins raised this criticism against Design in The God Delusion. ID fails because it doesn't explain the Designer's designer. If we can't answer this then Dawkins claims "it's fruitless."
Is this how science works? Can scientists only accept explanations that themselves have been explained? The real problem with this objection is that it is always possible to ask for further explanation. Greg Koukl, president of Stand to Reason observed, "An explanation can be a good one even if you do not have and explanation for the explanation"
For example, if an archaeologist discovers an ancient object that looks like an arrowhead or digging tool, she would be fully justified in drawing a design inference. In fact, after a few clear instances she would be irrational not to infer design. She may have no clue as to the origin or even the identity of the designer, but certain patterns that the artifacts would point beyond natural forces to the work of an intelligent designer.
If every explanation needed a further explanation then nothing could ever be explained! If designer B was responsible for having designed designer A, then who designed B? Designer C of course and so on. Given the infinite regress of explanations, nothing could ever be explained and science itself would come to a standstill!
ID is Not Testable
The criticism is meant to disqualify ID as a science. If by "testable" we mean that a theory should be open to confirming or disconfirming evidence, then ID most certainly passes the test. Darwin presented what he regarded as strong evidence against design. So, claiming that ID has been tested by such evidence and shown to be false, however, creates a catch-22 for the critic: If evidence can count against a theory, evidence must also be able to count in favor of a theory. That knife must cut both ways.
Researchers have confirmed the evidence for ID across a wide range of disciplines including molecular biology, physics, and chemistry. (Design of Life)
Even if critics reject the evidence for ID, in the very act of rejecting the evidence, they put design to the test. (which is exactly what they do when no one is looking, I suspect)
Imagine what would happen if microscopic investigation revealed the words "Made by Yahweh" inscribed in the nucleus of every cell. The point is we wouldn't know this unless we actually "tested" cells for this sign of intelligence, which we couldn't do if ID were not testable. If ID fails, it won't be for lack of testability. I might add, unless the critics are afraid?
Obviously these are not all Ten, I will be addressing the rest in subsequent posts. Stay tuned!
I guess I'll have to do some more research. I was unaware there was actual evidence of a designer.
ReplyDeleteAll I've ever heard from the ID proponents is evidence that there are gaps in the human understanding of the universe. I think this is hardly evidence of design.
Imagine what would happen if microscopic investigation revealed the words "Made by Yahweh" inscribed in the nucleus of every cell.
ReplyDeleteThat would be awesome. We'd have to admit our fault, and we'd happily do so, but your dilemma would be no less -- there would exist compelling evidence for Judaism, but not for Christianity.
Alas, nice dream. In fact, it seems especially fitting to quote Carl Sagan:
God could have engraved the Ten Commandments on the Moon. Large. Ten kilometers across per commandment... Or why not a hundred-kilometer crucifix in Earth orbit? ...Or, put another way, why should God be so clear in the Bible and so obscure in the world?
Stamping cells with his signature, in something recognizable as such, would be a start. Something more dramatic such as Sagan suggests would be much more effective.
The problems with "Intelligent" Design are that a) it isn't falsifiable, the way it is presented -- it fails to explain why the designer must be intelligent, and b) it, like "goddidit", adds nothing to the scientific arena.
Pierre Simon de Laplace famously told Napoleon why no reference to god appeared in his treatise on celestial mechanics:
Your Highness, I have no need of this hypothesis.
This utterly profound statement is just as true today. Every step forward science takes results in a step backward for ID/Creationism. I suppose it's just Newton's Third Law:
For every action [in science], there is an equal and opposite reaction [in ID/Creationism/religion].
.: Science is the opposite of religion?
You know, as I re-read Dan's original post, something else leaps out at me: this notion that it's okay to stop asking "Why?" and simply assert "goddidit".
It's not okay.
Can scientists only accept explanations that themselves have been explained?
No, they only accept explanations that fit with the data and make testable predictions, and even then, they leave those explanations open to reinterpretation and refinement, and the foremost requirement is that if new data and/or phenomena surface, which break the old model, they are scrapped.
So in a sense, the complaint that "an explanation can be a good one even if you do not have and explanation for the explanation" somehow embodies science's resistance to ID/Creationism, is true -- like a persistent kid, science never stops asking "Why?"
Science never stops asking this question, and religion never starts.
--
Stan
Hello Dad and thank you for the comments left on the Mississippi Atheists website.
ReplyDeleteThe philosopher Karl Popper wrote that an idea is only scientific if it is falsifiable. To be falsifiable, a hypothesis must have two things: 1) it must be subject to doubt and 2) it must have a test to examine that area of doubt. The theory of evolution is falsifiable, where as intelligent design is not. Evolution has been tested repeatedly in a laboratory and given us many insights into our natural world. Intelligent Design supports the idea that some natural artifacts in our world must be designed. Unfortunately, this idea is currently impossible to test, even for William Dembski.
Therefore, Intelligent Design does not qualify as a science until they can devise an objective test for their criteria of design.
Dan, you say:
ReplyDeleteFor example, if an archaeologist discovers an ancient object that looks like an arrowhead or digging tool, she would be fully justified in drawing a design inference. In fact, after a few clear instances she would be irrational not to infer design. She may have no clue as to the origin or even the identity of the designer, but certain patterns that the artifacts would point beyond natural forces to the work of an intelligent designer.
First of all- so far, ID has been unable to define how to tell something that's "designed" from something that has evolved, and a number of their claims (blood clotting sequences, the bacterial flagellum) for which they have claimed design have since been debunked: there are plausible evolutionary pathways for them, so there's no reason to invoke a Designer.
Second: your archaeologist might not know who exactly made the arrowheads, but she would be able to say a lot about the designer nonetheless: at the very least, the arrowhead maker was a human being, a mammal, an animal, a living product of evolution and culture, and so forth. The IDers disingenuously claim to know absolutely nothing about their Designer: he, or she, or it, might be God, or perhaps an alien, or why not a computer or a robot? Of course, this is all a sham: all of the leaders of ID are believers, most of them Christian, and ID is simply Creation Science in a cheap tuxedo, trying to crash the public school science class party.
Dan- if you haven't done so already, please read the Wedge Document. ID is not science, but just a ploy to dress up religion as science.
Federal Judge Jones showed at the Dover Trial that ID is merely Creationism in disguise.
ReplyDeleteSee: Kitzmiller vs Dover School Board.
The judge also found that the IDers were liars and the trial cost the school district a million dollars.
All the members of the schoolboard who supported ID were defeated in the next election that occured only months after the trial.
Froggie:
ReplyDeleteA slight correction: Judge Jones ruled that ID was creationism in a cheap tuxedo. It would Kitzmiller that actually showed it. It is not a judge's job to show anything. For that matter, if he were to try, it would show that he was biased. (As I heard the story, both sides expected that he would favor intelligent design.)
I am repeting my self here but let me be clear for these posts.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I am defending Biblical Creationism not ID. I believe ID can be interpreted into anything that created us, even aliens!
So people tried to make it politically correct and more palatable by lumping/covering Biblical Creation shamelessly with the theory of ID, I feel that was a cop out and detrimental for the Kitzmiller v Dover, obviously. It was interesting how they tried to deceive or flat out lie to cover the agenda of Biblical Creation turning it to ID. So that is how to get things done? Did they think God wasn't watching that day? It really is these same compromises that Christians do that gets them in trouble.
I for one, cannot see how any Christian can compromise to believe in evolution. (Psalms 118:8)
Keep in mind, both creation and evolution make claims about an unrepeatable past that was not observed by humans.
Remember, the atheist asked the Christian, how do you know there is a God? The Christian answered, "I know there is, because I know Him." The atheist responded, "But how can I know that you are not in error?" The Christian said, "Knowing someone is not proven. It is experienced."
Zilch,
ReplyDelete"ID is not science, but just a ploy to dress up religion as science."
Funny Zilch that was objection #9 and we plan to state our case for that one in a later post
Just for kicks I will try to remember to include the response to objection#6 "ID is creationism in a cheap tuxedo"
Rebuked List
* Bob
* Diana Wilson PhD
* get_education
* Talk Origins
Sorry Bob your ad hominems about people got you ignored and then you come back to do the same. When are you going to grow a brain and bring your "A" game? Look how Zilch or Stan or Quasar or many more come to the plate with good game. I can respect their opinions because they are intelligently figuring these things out.
If "Liar for Jebus." is the best you have go talk over at Debunking Christianity's blog they love to hear that type of self validating stuff over there. (sorry John)
SP: repeating
ReplyDeleteI guess I am repeating myself, yet again.
//The IDers disingenuously claim to know absolutely nothing about their Designer: he, or she, or it, might be God, or perhaps an alien, or why not a computer or a robot?//
ReplyDeleteI don't believe ID claims it was god. All they say is "a designer". It could be panspermia or an alien for all they say.
//
all of the leaders of ID are believers, most of them Christian,//
What about David berlinski or Antony Flew?
MrFreeThinker: you say
ReplyDeleteI don't believe ID claims it was god. All they say is "a designer". It could be panspermia or an alien for all they say.
That is indeed what they claim, because they are trying to get their beliefs into public school science classes. But you go ahead and read the Wedge Document along with Dan, do a google search on "cdesign proponentsists", and come back here and tell me that they don't mean God.
What about David berlinski or Antony Flew?
I wouldn't count Berlinski as a "leader" of ID- I had actually never heard of him. The most prominent IDers are William Dembski, Michael Behe, Jonathan Wells, and Phillip Johnson, who are all Christians. This does not mean that all supporters of ID are believers- there are supposedly even a few atheist weirdos who claim to support it.
As far as I know, Anthony Flew has nothing to do with the ID movement whatsoever.
Zilch wrote:
ReplyDelete"As far as I know, Anthony Flew has nothing to do with the ID movement whatsoever."
Grammar Gorilla says: Antony Flew. No "h".
And I also have not heard that he has nothing to do with ID. Please elaborate, MrFreethinker.
MrFreethinker wrote:
'I don't believe ID claims it was god. All they say is "a designer". It could be panspermia or an alien for all they say."
Panspermia has nothing to do with a designer. It is merely the contention that life may be been delivered to earth aboard an extraterrestrial object, presumably a meteorite. [Insert Spore Intro Movie].
Philip Johnson, "the father of Intelligent Design", wrote:
"Our strategy has been to change the subject a bit so that we can get the issue of intelligent design, which really means the reality of God, before the academic world and into the schools (P. Johnson 2003)."
Dan
Thanks for the compliment.
Dan wrote:
"If an archaeologist discovers an ancient object that looks like an arrowhead or digging tool, she would be fully justified in drawing a design inference."
More accurately: If an archaeologist discovers an ancient object that looks like something humans "design" and make, has marks of the human tools used to make it, and exists in a place humans have existed in the past, she would be fully justified in concluding that humans made it.
The above example illustrates perfectly why the nature of the designer must be known, at least to a certain extent.
Dan wrote:
"The criticism is meant to disqualify ID as a science. If by "testable" we mean that a theory should be open to confirming or disconfirming evidence, then ID most certainly passes the test."
In science, to test something is to attempt the disprove it. Thus, "testable" means that it is falsifiable, that it can be disproven. Without knowing the capabilities or motives of the "designer", or even what exactly it is supposed to have designed, ID is most certainly not falsifiable.
Negative Evidence against evolution does nothing more than disprove evolution, it does not test ID. An example of a testable claim would be "x must be designed", which Behe attempted with the flagella. But when the flagella was demonstrated to have a plausible evolutionary pathway, Behe simply said that there were other examples which "must be designed" out there. Even if every possible example could be shown to have an evolutionary pathway, ID proponents can still claim that the designer might have designed some of them. This makes the whole idea unfalsifiable, which in turn makes it untestable.
Quasar wrote:
ReplyDeleteAnd I also have not heard that he has nothing to do with ID. Please elaborate, MrFreethinker.
Grammar Gorilla says: You dumbass. You mean to say: I also have not heard that he has anything to do with ID. My Eats Quasar!
*Om nom nom*
...
Ouch.
Quasar- my bad. You right: "Antony". All I can say is this.
ReplyDeleteDan: Personally, I am defending Biblical Creationism not ID.
ReplyDeleteOh... so you see the Bible literally. That's fine. I will ignore you from now on. I can't debate with that level of crazy.
Dan,
ReplyDelete"Remember, the atheist asked the Christian, how do you know there is a God? The Christian answered, "I know there is, because I know Him." The atheist responded, "But how can I know that you are not in error?" The Christian said, "Knowing someone is not proven. It is experienced.""
Very cute. Very trite. It proves nothing and is evidence of nothing. Merely more of your circumferential platitudes.
Cute isn't gonna cut it, Dan
just sayin.....
Antony Flew was known for many years as one of the worlds leading atheists. But Flew abandoned his atheism and accepted the existence of God because of the argument from design. Flew explained his new beliefs in an interview for 'Philosophia Christi' with Gary Habermas: " I had to go where the evidence leads."
ReplyDelete