Today at HuffPost: Intelligent Design is dead
I’ve a new piece up today at the Huffington Post. It is the reworking of an essay I wrote a few years ago about Johannes Kepler and Intelligent Design. Here’s a teaser:
Kepler reminds us that religious people do not need to shrink from science and its naturalistic methods, because they more than others have a rich tradition in which to locate these things, a context that allows them to take science seriously but not too seriously, and a strong bulwark against the lull of materialism.
For a person of faith, ID is not just an unnecessary choice; it is a harmful one. It reduces God to a kind of holy tinkerer. It locates the divine in places of ignorance and obscurity. And this gives it a defensive and fearful spirit that is out of place in Christian faith and theology.
There are 9 Comments to "Today at HuffPost: Intelligent Design is dead"
By chance I just finished reading Bruce Stephenson’s Kepler’s Physical Astronomy last night, so I was thrilled to see that your discussion of Kepler’s anti-ID stance has appeared at HuffPost. It is right on target. For Kepler, empirically grounded science that makes use of PHYSICAL explanations (rather than spiritual ones) was not just consistent with religious faith but it was, in essence, part of his practice of religious faith.
One thing I find very interesting about Kepler is that he effectively uses his faith as a way of avoiding the epistemological problem that empirical adequacy doesn’t imply truth. Kepler was very much aware of this problem, because he knew that one could have several theories that were genuinely different and yet empirically identical. But Kepler distinguished between such theories by requiring that the motions predicted by these theories be explainable in terms of physical principles, and be “beautiful” in the sense of revealing the archetypes (or mathematical structures) that he thought were the clue to understanding God’s design. In this way humans could actually tell which of several empirically identical theories was true (or at least more likely to be true).
In some sense, Kepler did believe in “intelligent design” (no capitals). He thought God had created the Universe according to certain principles. Where Kepler’s idea of design deviates radically from modern ID is that Kepler thought these design principles could be figured out by human beings. They were not incomprehensible. For Kepler, design occurred at the level of the architecture of the Universe, not in tinkering with the bacterial flagellum, making a new star appear, etc. And that architecture was best revealed through empirical science. Your essay does a great job of highlighting this dichotomy.
I D showed up while I was an Academic V.P. at a small Baptist University in TX. It sounded DOA to me because of all the huffing and puffing associated with it. I simply sat back and listened while proponents worked hard, very hard to demonstrate the self evidence of the whole thing. I often thought, this is probably what alchemist must have sounded like while holding a chunk of lead. Next.
Then there is this. Note found in the margin of a sermon manuscript. “Argument weak here, shout louder. ” Todays logic of choice?
I have a question for you. Are various rules of algebra “fixed”? In other words, once you learn those, do you “know the answer” when someone poses an algebra question to you? Or do you have to “keep investigating” in the hopes that you will find–what? Not the answer, surely. For if you did actually find the answer, then you would know something for sure, and that is out of bounds.
Why is “science” necessarily different from algebra in that respect? (Or, do you indeed hold that nothing in algebra can be “certain” either?) And what is the point of searching for “answers” when the premise is that none can be found? Surely we don’t want to be like Quixote and continuously tilt at windmills.
Once admit that is actually possible to find a “true answer” that one can latch onto with certainty and confidence (else, we are striving with wind), then there is no telling how many “answers” may be found.
So the question simply becomes: “Can the source for any such certain answers be found in the Bible?” The presumption in this instance is that this is impossible. Nothing in the Bible can be taken as “gospel” (except, perhaps, “the gospel”?).
What is the source of such “negative confidence”? In fact, if science can never fully and totally latch onto anything, how can it latch onto the inefficacy of scripture to state anything true about “nature”?
I submit there is no rational basis to deny scripture any “answers” any more than any other source of “discovery of truth.” For, there must be some absolute truths–else all is lost and we should, perhaps, just drink more beers and watch more football (not that we necessarily should abstain from those).
The only argument that can be made is simply that various statements in the Bible have been “proved false.” In other words, science has found “truths,” and they are contrary to what is stated in the Bible. But isn’t this contradictory? Don’t we have to know the answers to some questions of science “with certainty”? In other words, no further investigation is needed on those points? But isn’t this contradictory to the premise that science is “open-ended” whereas scripture is “fixed”? Again, something must be certain in order for biblical claims to be certainly false. And if so, then science has no a priori “advantage” of being always “malleable” than scripture does.
Of course, the charge that “Christian scientists” are not open to discovery and further enlightenment is simply palpably false. Isaac Newton, surely one of the greatest of all scientists, was a firm Christian believer who studied the Bible regularly. All that can really be meant is that Christians are not open to an evolutionary development of the universe/world/life. Well, can the truth on those points be “known,” or not? If they can be “known,” then the “always open to further proof” rationale for preference of the one over the other simply vanishes. It simply becomes a question of, “Whose certainty is actually correct?”
I can’t take any time with the obviously fruitless effort of arguing for the superiority of the “intervention” model of ID, attempted many times previously with no effect. Nevertheless, I do note the logical fallacy of saying that science is “open to anything,” when in fact it is not “open” to the intervention model.
Tom,
I think the primary answer to your query is that science deals not in absolute truth, but in probable truth. The notion of probable truth is much harder to deal with than absolute truth – we all prefer certainty to uncertainty. And I would claim that the GOAL of science is to reach absolute truth (not about everything, but about some things). But we recognize that we cannot achieve that goal because we have limited access to the reality we are trying to learn about.
This is in contrast to the idea of a mathematical proof, which can deliver absolute certainty in this sense that one can show that if the axioms are true, then a theorem derived from those axioms must also be true, period. Math can get away with this kind of thing because it deals with abstract structures that exist only in the mind (or perhaps in some Platonic realm of idea forms if one takes that view). A theorem doesn’t really have any new information content that wasn’t already in the axioms. But science is not mathematics – a scientific theory has much more information content than any set of measurements that were used to construct the theory. (To use some fancy terminology, science uses what philosophers have called “abductive reasoning” while mathematical proofs rely only on deductive reasoning.)
So your analogy between science and algebra is, in my opinion, not valid. Absolute proof is possible in algebra, but not in science. At the same time, the fact that scientific theories are uncertain doesn’t mean they are all equally uncertain. We have a high degree of certainty in quantum mechanics because it has been so well tested in such a wide variety of circumstances and it always seems to be on target. Quantum mechanics may some day be superseded by a better theory (it almost certainly will be), but that theory is likely to contain quantum mechanics in some way – much as General Relativity contains Newtonian gravitation as an approximation that is valid in many situations. There are other scientific theories that a very uncertain, are considered speculative, and are the subjects of much debate.
And, yes, we do keep testing theories that have high degrees of certainty. We test them by using them all the time. Newtonian gravity was tested in this way long after it had achieved a high degree of certainty, and it was found that there were a few cases where it didn’t quite seem to work. Ultimately these cases were resolved (either by realizing that there were unknown objects out there, or by General Relativity). But the point is that science doesn’t deal in final answers because we recognize that we may encounter problems with any theory, even those we are most confident in.
So we are left with uncertainty. And that’s hard. But it does not mean all is lost. For one thing, science only deals with certain things and not with others. There are plenty of questions, big questions, that lie outside of science and might admit of 100% definite answers (I’m not sure this is true, but science itself doesn’t exclude this possibility). But I also think we can learn to live with uncertainty. In our day to day lives we make choices based on probability all the time. We decide that certain things are safe and others are harmful – but that doesn’t mean the safe things can NEVER hurt us, or that the harmful things ALWAYS will. We play the odds, and for the most part that works out well as long as we can get a handle on what the odds really are.
Being condemned to uncertainty doesn’t mean we are just “tilting at windmills.” If I make a guess about how a certain thing works, let’s say my conclusion has a low degree of certainty, maybe 10%. If I follow that up with a thorough scientific study that seems to confirm my guess, maybe I raise that level of certainty to 60%. That is a real accomplishment. It is not tilting at a windmill. It’s not as nice as being 100% certain, but as Mick Jagger told us you can’t always get what you want.
In reviewing my previous post it occurs to me that when one is discussing certainty and uncertainty, one should not use the word “certain” where one means “some”. Sorry about that. Doh!
Todd, I always did like that Stones’ song. I think your response is quite helpful. So, are you saying that in the case of “interventionism” versus “chance developments,” the abductions are so close to 100% in favor of chance developments that we can definitely rule out any possibility of a “grown up” creation, as upposed to, for example, Big Bang? Paul’s premise is that ID is “dead”; i.e., moribund; i.e., of no possible validity. That’s a pretty “certain” statement, it seems to me. There are certainly a lot of “abductions” in the theories of “Big Bang to man”.
I’m not sure I would say that ID is “of no possible validity.” It MIGHT be true. But even if it is true (and let me state that I think the probability of that is VERY low) it is not scientifically useful. It doesn’t really explain anything in a way that can be used to help us understand other phenomena, make predictions of future behavior, develop new technologies, etc.
It is in that sense that I believe ID is dead. It just doesn’t lead anywhere, except to the final answer that it purports to give, and which cannot really be tested by us mere humans.
I guess it comes down to distinguishing between ID as a belief, and ID as a scientific theory. I cannot absolutely prove that ID is false (again, science doesn’t deal in absolute proof). So I can’t force you or anyone else to stop believing in ID. (I’m not sure I could even if there WAS absolute proof that it was wrong. If someone believes that 2+2=5, can you force them to stop believing that? I don’t know.) But not all individual beliefs are useful scientific theories. This doesn’t necessarily make those beliefs wrong (though, of course, many of them are) but it does mean those beliefs are unlikely to be embraced by the scientific community, used for conducting scientific research, or taught in school science courses.
Todd, I am not sure that I can agree with you as to the impact of believing in “Special Creation” versus “chance over time” as the method by which we have gotten to where we are. First, Special Creation tells us that all life forms are self-perpetuating; i.e., reproduce “after their kind.” Therefore, if we want new oranges, we plant orange seeds, not apple seeds or grass, and, voila, we obtain more oranges. So we know what to plant. And so on for all other reproduction.
Second, beyond “kinds,” we have an expectation of “orderliness,” whereby we can calculate how to build houses without any worry that there will be some “mutation” occurring in the wood used that will weaken the structure. (After all, if we are proceeding on chance mutations, why do we know that they can only occur in “living” matter, as opposed to matter which PREVIOUSLY was “alive”–in fact, belief in evolution necessarily assumes “transformation” from previous elements into new ones.)
“Natural laws” are a subject where “chance” would seem to falter whereas Special Creation by a God of order (a la the Creation account) is sustained. What are the “laws” which caused the “Big Bang” to “explode” (or “expand”, or whatever). If those laws are “unique,” then how can we trust the laws we now operate under not to change in the next minute. “Chance” is “chancy.”
I actually have a hard time seeing what it is about evolutionary beliefs (speaking inclusive of the stellar variety) that is actually so helpful or indispensable to present day research and development. Does it matter how the apple tree “got there” under some evolutionary scenario to be able to use apples? What about monkeys? Or human beings? Or anything?
Finally, I reject the idea that ID is some type of merely “religious belief” that “has no place” with respect to science. If you mean to say, theories of origins are out of bounds in a science classroom, this excuses evolution from the room as well as Creation. If, however, origins are somehow relevant, then for the reasons I have set forth above, understanding “kinds,” “laws,” “consistency,” etc. warrants ID consideration. If you don’t believe in ID, fine. But to be “scientific,” it is appropriate to consider the various possible theories “out there” as may relate to the field of study, and see which is more “consistent” with the evidence. You can’t just say, “Evolution wins,” when you preclude any opposing view for it to win against.
Tom,
The idea of natural kinds is not part of the interventionist ID model, as far as I can tell. Sure, it can be assumed alongside that model, and you may have Biblical reasons for making that assumption. But ID is basically an attempt to explain the existence of certain physiological structures that the proponents of ID claims could not have come about through natural processes. Suppose the DNA of a particular animal was specially created through some supernatural process. Why couldn’t that DNA have been created in such a way that the animal would be a leopard, but it would give birth to a turtle? In other words, what are the RULES that constrain the special creation? Unless you can tell me that, then ID and special creation are, from a scientific perspective, just ways of sweeping the question under the rug. Doesn’t mean you can’t believe it, but it is not helpful within science. Darwinism and modern genetics provide at least partial answers about the rules that constrain variation in species, and the time scales that must be involved, etc. So far these answers are consistent with other evidence (differences between parent and offspring tend to be very minor in a single generation, the Earth must be vastly older than 6000 years, etc).
Your example about a piece of wood mutating and making a house fall down – well, I just don’t know what to say about that. If you are serious about that being some sort of counter-argument to evolutionary theory then you really misunderstand genetics.
Note that the argument against ID is not an argument against the idea that God created the universe and established the natural laws that govern it. ID doesn’t purport to explain where natural laws come from, but where certain physical traits of living things (like the bacterial flagellum) come from. It seems like you are arguing for a much broader sort of Creationism, not so much for ID.
Anyway, I won’t draw out this argument. I think we both know from past experience that we are unlikely to make much progress in convincing each other. So I’ll just end by wishing you a lovely day.