DonaldM, at UD, asks…

…an odd, but revelatory, set of questions:

1. How do you know scientifically (and I emphasize “scientifically” here because I want to make it clear that theological, metaphysical or philosophical opinions – while important for other reasons – have no bearing on the question at hand) that the properties of the Cosmos are such that any apparent design we observe in natural systems can not be actual design, even in principle?

I don’t.

2. How do you know scientifically that Nature (or the Cosmos) is a completely closed system of natural cause and effect? (Recall Dawkins claim that a universe superintended by a Deity would look much different than ours as he says in The God Delusion several times)

I don’t.

3. How do you know scientifically that the properties of biological systems are such that any apparent design we observe in them can not be actual design, even in principle? (The Blind Watchmaker and Dawkins’s claim that “Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance [emphasis mine] of having been designed for a purpose.”)

I don’t.

4. How do you know scientifically that no supernatural being, if such actually existed, could ever take any action within nature itself that would produce observable phenomenon or effect any change in the arrangement of matter or energy anywhere in the Cosmos?

I don’t.

Does anyone here?  And does any one make any such claims?  I don’t.

Let me ask DonaldM a question in return (as well as cordially invite him to join a discussion of his questions):

How would you conclude scientifically that any apparent design we observe in natural systems is actual design, as opposed to merely concluding that we do not currently have a n0n-design model that fits the data?

My point being that so much of the heat generated in ID discussions seems to me consist of ID proponents attempting to demonstrate the inadequacy of support for claims that ID opponents do not actually make.  Or do not make qua scientists.  Scientists do not claim that there is no designer of the universe or of biology.  They merely propose models that do not usually incorporate a designer, and fit some data well, and some data not so well.

ID proponents on the other hand, claim that the data indicate a designer.  What I want to know is, how, apart from finding existing models too inadequate a fit, they conclude this, scientifically? Why, in other words, should we regard ID as the null?  Because, Dembski notwithstanding, the null is what IDists regard Design as.  Dembski only manages to get his equation round the other way by lumping <i>all other hypotheses, including hypotheses we haven’t thought of yet</i> into the null.  And, not surprisingly, provides no way of calculating the probability of observing what we observe under that null. We can only reject a null if we can calculate the probability of an observation under that null.

So how do we calculate the probability of an observation under the null of Design?  And, if you want to go Dembski’s route, how do we calculate the probability of an observation under the null of no-Design?

No IDist has answered either of those questions, to my knowledge.  And until they have, IDists are incorrect to suggest that we can conclude scientifically that the world was designed.

Even if it was.  Which it might have been.

17 thoughts on “DonaldM, at UD, asks…

  1. Exactly. If natural events provide a thoroughly plausible explanation for the weather last evening in Texas, then for what reason would one presume God smited the Lone Star state? It possible, but certainly not detectable by scientific means.

    Now suppose that instead of tornadoes there were mico-blizzards that left frozen dozen tracks of ice and snow, immediately adjacent to dry, warm areas. One house collapsed due to the weight of snow while the neighboring property had a light dusting that melted in minutes. An event so unusual would challenge meterology and might defy any natural explanation. A claim of divine intervention would be a stronger grounds.

  2. Actually, I think that there’s a much more interesting question arising out of kairosfocus’ OP (which is a textbook exercise in taking offencein that thread.
    He’s banging on about “progressivist anti-christian bias” in academia and beyond, citing:
    ” Video: Dr George Yancey documents progressivist anti-Christian and partisan biases in the university and even in IQ tests . . . with implications for addressing the commonly encountered “ID is Creationism in a cheap tuxedo” smear”.

    In a screenshot therefrom is a figure purporting to show how negative are the perceptions, by faculty of various disciplines, of various groups.

    Fundamentalists and evangelicals (presumably christian, but not explicitly stated) score highest, with Mormons not that far behind. Catholics, “mainline”, and Jews, barely register. Atheists and Muslims have slight and approximately equal negative perceptions.

    Now, obviously I don’t care that KF thinks that this heralds the end of civilisation. What interests me is WHY the fundagelical axis causes such revulsion (KF seems to think that it’s all because all faculty are left-leaning)

    I think it’s actually because a higher proportion of fundagelicals are actually rather unpleasant people.

  3. They are upset because regularity is the default assumption.

    And regular process or effects is the default because that’s something we can test for.

    How do you test for capricious causes?

  4. The problem with allowing supernatural beings to help explain natural phenomena is that if they show up often enough, then they actually are natiural phenomena and can be investigated as such.

    So if someone gives me a bottle and says a genie (a djinn, a sort of Islamic angel) is in the bottle, and each time you rub the bottle it will come out and give you three wishes, then we have a natural phenomenon that is accessible to all sorts of intriguing experiments. So it is no longer supernatural.

  5. My answers agree with those of Lizzie. But I would like to be a tad more expansive.

    Question 1 (how do we know there was no design in the cosmos):
    I do not know. What I do know, however, is that asserting that there was design is useless to science. Asserting that there wasn’t design is also useless to science. We should stick to reporting and investigating what the evidence allows us to report and investigate. If other people want to speculate, let them do so. But don’t pretend it is science.

    Question 2 (how do we know that nature is a closed system):
    I do not know. What I do know, however, is that science has worked very well based on the assumption that it is a closed system. Any scientist who could find clear evidence that it is not a closed system would probably earn a Nobel prize for that discovery. Science is tentative, and has worked well under its current assumptions. Those who challenge the assumptions need to provide persuasive evidence that science could work even better with different assumptions.

    Question 3 (how do we know that apparent design in biology is not real):
    Again, I don’t know that. My current working assumption is that a lot of the apparent design is real. That is to say, it is self-design that results from adaptive processes during development, such as are to be expected given the feedbacks within those processes. What I do not see, is any evidence of external design. And it would be bad science to assume external design without evidence. If people, for whatever reason, want to assume external design, that’s fine with me provided that they do not falsely claim that it is science.

    Question 4 (how do we know that no supernatural agent could produce observable effects):
    I do not know this. However, if a supernatural agent produced supernatural effects that could be observed and be studied, I suspect that scientists would conclude that this was a previously undocumented part of nature and not supernatural at all. The terms “natural” and “supernatural” are social constructs, and their meanings tend to adapt to new knowledge. I do think that supernaturalists have painted themselves into a corner, and that corner is getting smaller and smaller as our knowledge of nature expands.

  6. petrushka:
    They are upset because regularity is the default assumption.

    And regular process or effects is the default because that’s something we can test for.

    How do you test for capricious causes?

    Well, I think you can test for purposeful causes. That’s the neat thing in Hoyle’s Black Cloud.

  7. scordova also links to this story:

    Florida Atlantic University Apologizes for ‘Jesus Stomping’ Classroom Exercise

    However all is not necessarily as it seems. According to that article, the instructor has had

    death threats so numerous that the university on Friday announced that Poole has been placed on paid leave because his safety could not be assured on campus.”

    Not clear whose paranoia is more justified here, but I think I’d rather be the student than the instructor.

    The past two weeks, Poole said, have been extremely stressful. “I wake up in the morning not knowing what the day is going to bring.”

    He said he has received hate mail and death threats, some of them coming in forms particularly hurtful to an African American. “One of the threats said that I might find myself hanging from a tree,” he said.

  8. I, too, would answer “I don’t” to all four questions.

    What I do know is that unguided evolution is far superior to ID as a scientific explanation of the characteristics of terrestrial life — hence my earlier post on the subject.

    I hope DonaldM will explain why he thinks his questions are pertinent.

  9. I too am curious where DonaldM came up with his conclusions. I certainly would answer “I don’t” to each assertion question he posited and can’t think of any actual scientist or anyone who understands even a little science who would answer otherwise.

    That said, I agree with you Lizzie – ID proponents certainly hold that the null hypothesis is design. But then that reflects ID’s creationist roots: in creationism, the null hypothesis is a Creator.

  10. We see the usual conflation of scientific knowledge with scientific utility.

    I looked at my copy of The God Delusion and Dawkins does not say that biology can’t be the result of intelligent design. He says that the specific god posited by Christians is inconsistent with both itself and with the universe we observe. What that particular god DOES is engineer paradoxes, inconsistencies, and miracles into the fabric of reality. These could be observed if there actually were any.

    Proving scientifically that some indetectable Designer is diddling with reality isn’t particularly helpful. How would one even go about it? Such a Designer is like the elephant in the bedroom – if it WERE there, surely there would be enough evidence of it to suspect its presence. If there isn’t enough evidence, why worry about it?

  11. Lizzie: Well, I think you can test for purposeful causes.That’s the neat thing in Hoyle’s Black w.

    I don’t know of any test for purposeful causes that does not involve knowing something about the agent and its motives and its history.

  12. I think Lizzie’s point is that supernatural causes needn’t be capricious.

    Suppose we write out the word ‘Yahweh’ and observe a bolt from the blue that leaves a blackened hole where the word was written.

    We could form hypotheses on the basis of that single observation, including supernatural ones. Note that we don’t need to know anything about the agent (if there is one) in order to form or test these hypotheses.

    Some supernatural hypotheses are untestable, such as ‘God sends lightning bolts to vaporize certain words, but only when he feels like it.’ If there is no independent way of determining ‘when he feels like it’, there is no way to test this hypothesis.

    Others are testable, such as ‘God will vaporize the word ‘Yahweh’ every time it appears,’ or ‘God created the earth 6000 years ago and would not deceive us by making it appear otherwise.’ Both of those hypotheses can be rejected based on the (lack of) evidence.

    The fact that some supernatural hypotheses are testable is why I am not a methodological naturalist, though I have yet to encounter an observation that seemed to require a supernatural explanation.

  13. Of course we don’t KNOW a deity does not operate in the universe+, but science has given us explanations which do not require divine tinkering. There is simply no reason to invoke a god when explaining the evolution* of the universe or the diversity of life.

    A god is not a good explanation: The notion that a god and how it allegedly operates do not need explanation is surely purely psychological in origin. I suggest it may have something to do with being reassured in less universal contexts that “at least someone is in charge” (of whatever), and possibly even the relaxation that a child feels when they learn an adult is overseeing a hitherto mysterious process.

    The cosmologist Sean Carroll (who had a guest post at UD a year or so ago) once wrote a provocative piece titled Why (Almost All) Cosmologists Are Atheists. Of course he doesn’t claim knowledge that gods are impossible in principle, but he does take inference from modern science further than many would be prepared to do. I am with him. Laplace’s reply to Napoleon is apposite.

    + But I can give at least 42 reasons why Christianity is untrue. A specific number because collating the reasons is something I am working on in my spare time and I am up to 42.

    * Let whoever wants to misunderstand my use of the word here do so. I cba.

  14. The whole mission of science is finding regularities. Even when looking for man made objects, as in archaeology, one looks for order and regularity in the location of objects. One does not expect to see toasters in ancient burial sites.

  15. I think it would be accurate to say that gods, considered generally, are anti-explanations in the sense that they both explain nothing, and actively discourage even looking for explanations.

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