The Three Faces of ID
At a conference on Intelligent Design (ID) last semester I was sitting in the audience listening to some lively panel discussion when it occurred to me that many of the insights people were offering were confused about their target. They did not seem clear about what they were aiming at. And while I could filter out at least three different, related targets, there was a tendency to treat all the arguments and evidence as if they had the same single conclusion: ID is true.These three targets seem to be: 1) problems with evolution, 2) validation of ID as science, and 3) confirmation of ID as correct. Hitting one does not guarantee the others. Nor need we isolate them from each other. Yet without distinguishing which target one is aiming for, opponents can easily find fault. For example, “You fallaciously assume that you are proving ID when all you’re doing is poking holes in evolution.” Or, “You are arguing about how ID is the best explanation, but you haven’t even shown yet that it’s science!”So I propose three facets in establishing Intelligent Design. This is just a conceptual framework, and I only intend here to helpfully structure the discussion so that the different respective targets can be handled fairly and carefully. But this is not intended as a “proof” for intelligent design, it is only a proposed schema for addressing ID-related arguments.
1) The Negative Case
2) The Qualifying or Neutral Case
3) The Positive Case
1) The Negative case argues against evolution, attacks apparent flaws and inadequacies in evolutionary theory, together with naturalism, materialism, scientism, etc. The negative case aims at instilling discontent with the current paradigms of scientific naturalism and its champion theory of (Darwinian) Evolution. Without the negative case, one may not realize whether there are even alternatives to be considered besides reductive, materialistic, naturalistic, scientistic evolutionary theory. And even if one is aware of theoretical alternatives, they would come off as superfluous–regardless of any truth, validity, or scientific quality they might have.
2) The Qualifying Case–arguing neither for ID nor against evolution, the qualifying case argues simply that ID qualifies as science. This kind of argument targets the Demarcation Problem in Science (ie: how is science defined) and is liable to include heavy doses of ID theory to show how ID seems to satisfy the criteria needed to qualify as science. The qualifying case may also have to dive into issues of the relation between Science and Religion, Faith and Reason, and the definition of Religion (which is just as difficult if not harder to establish than the definition of science).
3) The Positive Case–finally, this brand of argument seeks to show how ID is indeed correct, answering real problems and giving superior explanations than current evolutionary theory can offer. The positive case generally requires some amount of the prior two kinds: negative and neutral case–before the positive evidences even make sense. Unless ID is science then it looks like a merely theological perspective on what science has already explained sufficiently through evolutionary theory. Unless Darwinian evolutionary theory, and scientific naturalism are shown to be inadequate, the ID just looks like a another kid who didn’t make the team. ID then is superfluous, and uninteresting. It is not “superior” to naturalistic approaches to science, unless there has already been shown some weaknesses and inadequacies in naturalism that effectively leave a crack in the levy which ID might be able to fill-in.
February 22nd, 2010 at 2:22 am
The negative case supposes a dualistic positive and negative. I prefer to approach things from the position of reconciliation. Very few people deliberately propagate things they know to be false. Most genuinely think their position is backed by truth. Two blind people both feeling different parts on an elephant might be equally convinced as to the truth of what kind of animal it was. At this point, neither evolutionists nor bible adherents are going to abandon what they know to be true so the only thing left is the possibility that both sides are right.
Eg. Evolution is Creation in slow motion. Time can be 6 literal days to God/Adam and yet still be no less truthfully described as appearing to be millions of years to other observers at a different point in space/time. A system which one person sees as being without an external agent could be viewed as the single MOST intelligent way to design THAT system.
That having been said, I find the term “intelligent” design grossly arrogant. We are looking at a system (universe), the mechanics of which we don’t even remotely begin to understand. We are observing from a tiny little spec of mass which we have not even managed to keep free from hatred and sin and pollution. We don’t understand how gas/petrol gets put into the engine of this machine. We don’t understand mechanisms which are much less complex than the universe – eg. Our neighbour and our daily bread.
And yet we have the audacity to pronounce judgement on God’s IQ and say…yep it’s definitely “intelligent” as if WE were capable of saying anything other about the Creator of Heaven and Earth.
Lion (IRC)
February 22nd, 2010 at 9:05 am
When I read this topic title, I assumed you were referring to the psychological concept of the “Id,” and I was a bit surprised….I knew that seemed a little too “scientific” to be discussed here~
In any case, this article points out something that I’ve long argued:
Unless Darwinian evolutionary theory, and scientific naturalism are shown to be inadequate, the ID just looks like a another kid who didn’t make the team. ID then is superfluous, and uninteresting. It is not “superior” to naturalistic approaches to science, unless there has already been shown some weaknesses and inadequacies in naturalism that effectively leave a crack in the levy which ID might be able to fill-in.
One of the (many) reasons why many of us cannot take “intelligent design” seriously as a “scientific theory” is for this exact reason — it can only even begin to seem credible when it is compared against a theory like evolution through natural selection, or a naturalistic origin to life (such as abiogenesis); it requires a “host theory” to attach itself to, which explains many of the apparently “less important” aspects of the physical universe, but that can be “chipped away at” by the “intelligent design” argument until the few parts that contradict or rule out a supernatural origin can be neatly replaced with the supernatural arguments.
Simply put, ID on its own does not explain very much. Rather, it assumes the truth of the vast majority of standing scientific theories, and then “cherry picks” the parts that prevent ID proponents from successfully making the case for ID. I’d dare call it a “parasitic argument” for that reason.
February 22nd, 2010 at 9:47 am
Good point Tim.
As for “host theory” perhaps ID follows from a broadly teleological theory of the universe (ala, Aristotelian cosmology–minus the geocentrism of course)–ie: the entire universe and everything that exists is directed towards their respective natural ends or goals, perhaps even toward the same ultimate unifying goal (hence the “uni” in universe). In early evolutionary days, many people were still thinking in teleological terms, and it was only after evolutionary theory became deeply instantiated in our psyche that people began absorbing notions like:
* the earth is not really that rare, strange, or special.
* apparent design is only apparent, and not really design.
* chance and random variation are grand-scale explanatory mechanisms.
* the emergence of life was inevitable given enough time and some basic non-living preconditions.
This isn’t to say that these ideas are “false” but just that they are relatively new thoughts in the history of ideas.
February 22nd, 2010 at 10:02 am
Lion, I have a few questions for you.
1) Are you saying that Biblical creationists aren’t really making claims that exclude evolutionary theory?–You’re allowed to say this, of course, but you might be putting words in the mouths of many Biblically minded creationists.
2) Are you conflating Biblical creationism with Intelligent Design?–I carefully distinguish those categories, if for no other reason than that, they themselves have strict party lines separating them in theory and in practice so that, for example, folks from the Institute for Creation Research (pro-Creationism) and the Discovery Institute (pro-ID) require a mediator before they play nice together. This conflation is one of the most misinformed presumptions I hear strong-evolutionists make.
3) Are you arrogantly claiming to KNOW that the universe does not appear to manifest any design? That kind of certitude and universal knowledge seems pretty bold to me. In particular, consider the billions of people throughout history who have perceived what seems to be intelligence manifested in the order of the world, and they report on it in their writings and oral traditions–by your assessment they aren’t really seeing any intelligence manifested like they think they are. Remember, that evolutionary theory is relatively young in scope and there are whole religions and cultures throughout world history who have coped with reality fairly well without it. Though I’m not suggesting that we swallow any of those worldviews in total, it seems pretty arrogant to presume that they have NOTHING to teach us about perceiving design in nature.
Otherwise Lion, I do agree with you that there is some conceptual space for real reconciliation. For example, a person can affirm both Intelligent Design and Evolutionary theory, provided they deny the comprehensive sufficiency of evolution, or, what I like to call Evolutionary Wholism. One can grant some forms of Darwinian speciation and still deny that Darwinian concepts are sufficient to explain other things. (I personally prefer a more conservative track than even this, but this reconciliation is at least theoretically possible).
February 22nd, 2010 at 7:15 pm
* the earth is not really that rare, strange, or special.
* apparent design is only apparent, and not really design.
* chance and random variation are grand-scale explanatory mechanisms.
* the emergence of life was inevitable given enough time and some basic non-living preconditions.
This is just my experience, of course, but I don’t really see these particular angles being explored a whole lot. For one, every science class I’ve ever taken has been pretty focal around the idea that the earth is somewhat unusual in the grand scope of the universe, simply because we have yet to discover life on another planet. I think it’s less of a statement that the earth just plain isn’t rare or unique, but rather that it’s not necessarily unique — which is to say, the conditions that could have produced it can, at least theoretically, have occurred elsewhere beyond our current scope of observation.
As for chance and variation being grand-scale explanatory mechanisms, I’d say that’s only true in instances where chance and variation can be shown to be an innate part of the process beforehand.
Also, I don’t believe (and I don’t think you’ll find many that do, other than people who are being arrogant, who are getting distracted trying to counterattack people who are claiming to have more knowledge than they possibly can) that the emergence of life was “inevitable” in any case, even a naturalistic one. Any honest historical pursuit must acknowledge that ultimately nothing was “inevitable,” and instead focus on how it happened.
An important factor to consider, of course, is that while odds and likelihood are sometimes a factor in determining whether we believe something happened or something didn’t, they are not a *complete* dealbreaker because sometimes “unlikely” or “improbable” things do happen.
February 22nd, 2010 at 7:16 pm
*we have yet to discover life on another planet
What I meant was, intelligent life….
February 22nd, 2010 at 7:24 pm
Hi John Ferrer,
1) Yes, I accept the bible account of creation and I claim that nothing therein excludes any facts contained in evolutionary evidence. If one single thing (one jot) said by God in the bible is accused by a human of being untrue, then that human need not argue their case any further. They don’t need to “prove” 100 errors in the bible. One is enough.
2) Design/Create. No I am not conflating. In order to conflate them they would have to be apart. I don’t separate the two AT ALL and I never have. In this case, the architect, the hardware store, quantity surveyor, carpenter, the plumber, electrician, interior designer – all part of the same single act.
3) I understand your point and I understand that people DO look and point and say… “See! Intelligent Design” as if there were some alternative adjective. My answer – Well Duh!
Reconciling biblical facts with non-biblical facts is not just a theoretical “possibility” it is something which I feel is mandatory and the sooner both diametrical “sides” stop thinking dualistically the better. There cannot be “overlapping” magisteria unless true and false can happily overlap.
Lion (IRC)
February 23rd, 2010 at 1:40 am
So Lion, would you say you are a Theistic Evolutionist? I’m not quite clear on your wording. The reason I make all the hubbub about the difference between Creationism and Intelligent Design is that these two concepts have a whole history behind each of them, and their own respective baggage. For example “Creationism” does not merely affirm some broadly conceived creation–perhaps including evolution, perhaps affirming ID arguments, etc. It affirms the explicitly Biblical 6 day (24hr days) creation account, understood directly and literally, and historically. While many ID proponents likewise affirm this, they are not advocating and defending those details within their ID advocacy but are putting forth the more conservative suggestions of things like: irreducible complexity, specified complexity, and the anthropic principle. And they refrain from having to defend the more tenuous or difficult parts of Biblical creationism according to scientific rigor. ID has also tended towards an old-earth model, though it is not restricted to that. Furthermore, Creationism is–to my knowledge–exclusively opposed to any and all forms of macro-evolution. Whereas, ID is entirely open to even macro-evolution provided one does not assert the wholistic sufficiency of evolutionary mechanisms (ie: evolutionary theory is sufficient for explaining away every instance of apparent design).
Tim, thank you for the clarifications. I fumbled over my wording a bit, but I maintain that there is something like those listed ideas that are relatively new since the onset of evolutionary cosmology.
Many people aren’t aware of the Teleological vs Evolutionary Cosmological distinction, and presume that modern science was born under the auspices of a strictly materialistic naturalism–and that just is not the case. Materialistic naturalism is not even the only kind of naturalism, much less the only way to do science. Modern science has a rich history of religiously motivated, spiritually minded, and theistically oriented scientists–and it is revisionist to secularize science’s history. But that need not be a bad thing, at least, not any more than any other cultural phenomenon of that time. If there were a divine causal force, science should allow that possibility. As Bradley Monton (atheist) argues (and I’m paraphrasing here), if the possibility of a divine cause is ruled out a priori, science no longer seeks true answers–since it is deciding beforehand what answers it will allow–but has instead defined itself as naturalistic pragmatism unconcerned with whatever the truth might be. By this insightful though, if science refuses to allow certain causal explanations–which theoretically could be true–then it is not a pursuit of truth anymore, even though historically Science’s greatness has been it humble but audacious courage to face whatever may loom over the horizon of inquiry. It is not concerned with liking or preference or expectation, but facts, data, results, and (ideally) truth–even if the truth hurts.
February 23rd, 2010 at 2:09 am
Hi John Ferrer,
I am a theistic-everything. I cannot view anything without God as the context, The Word as the lamp unto my feet and Jesus Christ as the Way.
Sorry if that isnt expansive enough. I am a bit distracted by the sudden implosion of the Richard Dawkins forum.
Lion (IRC)