Barry finally gets it?

Barry Arrington was astonished to find that Larry Moran agreed with him that it would be possible for some future biologist to detect design in a Venter-designed genome.

He was further astonished to find that REC, a commenter at UD, agreed with Larry Moran.

Barry expresses his epiphany in a UD post REC Becomes a Design Proponent.

Has Barry finally realised that those of us who oppose the ideas of Intelligent Design proponents do not dispute that it is possible, in principle, to make a reasonable inference of design?  That rather our opposition is based on the evidence and argument advanced, not on some principled (or unprincipled!) objection to the entire project?

Sadly, it seems not.  Because Barry then gives some examples of his continued lack of appreciation of this point.  Here they are:

For example, consider this typical objection:  “All scientific claims must employ methodological naturalism, and you violate the principle of methodological naturalism when you make a design inference in biology.”

If that objection is valid (it is not, but set that aside for now), it is just as valid against REC’s and Dr. Moran’s design inferences as it is against any other design inference.

Yes, indeed, Barry.  It is not a valid objection, and if it were, it would be as valid against REC’s and Dr. Moran’s as against ID.  There is nothing wrong with making a design inference in principle. We do it all the time, as IDists like to point out.  And there’s nothing wrong with making it in biology, at least in principle.  There is certainly nothing that violates the “principle of methodological naturalism when you make a design inference in biology”.  I wonder where Barry found that quotation?

The point sailed right over REC’s head.  He responded that the objections were not valid as to his design inference, because his design inference (opposed to ID’s design inferences) was “valid and well evidenced.”

I doubt it sailed over REC’s head.  I expect it was the very point he was making – that there  is no reason in principle why one cannot make a valid design inference in biology, but whether the inference is valid or not would depend on the specifics of the evidence and argument.

But that is exactly what ID proponents have been saying for decades REC!  We have been saying all along that the various “typical objections” are invalid if the evidence leads to a design inference.

REC, the only difference between you and us is that you are persuaded by the evidence in a particular case and not in our case.  But you are missing the point.  If what is important is the EVIDENCE, then th “typical objections” lose all force all the time.

Barry, consider the possibility that you have been misreading the “typical objections” the entire time.  That the yards of text that are spilled daily at UD railing against Lewontin and us benighted “materialists” are entirely irrelevant.   The objection to ID by people like me (and Moran, and REC, and any other ID opponent I’ve come across, including Richard Dawkins in fact) is not that it is impossible that terrestrial life was designed by an intelligent agent, nor that it would be necessarily impossible to discover that it was, nor even, I suggest, impossible to infer a designer even if we had no clue as to who the designer might be (although that might make it trickier).  The objection is that the arguments advanced by ID proponents are fallacious.  They don’t work.  Some are circular, some are based on bad math, and some are based on a misunderstanding of biochemistry and biology.  They are not bad because they are design inferences, they are bad because they are bad design inferences.

In other words, the objection “all scientific claims must employ methodological naturalism” is invalid in principle, not in application, if it is even possible to make a valid design inference based on the EVIDENCE.

And here is where Barry steps on the rake again. Of course all scientific claims must employ methodological naturalism. It’s the only methodology we have in science – it is another way of saying that scientific claims must be falsifiable.  That doesn’t mean we can’t infer design. Design is a perfectly natural phenomenon.  If Barry means that we can only infer natural, not supernatural, design, he is absolutely correct, but that is simply because a supernatural design hypothesis is unfalsifiable. The reason Lewontin was correct is not that science is terrified of letting the supernatural in the door of science lest we have to face our worst nightmares, but that if you accept the supernatural as a valid hypothesis, you throw falsifiability out of the window.

You agree with us that it is the EVIDENCE that is important, and objections thrown up for the purpose of ruling that evidence out of court before it is even considered are invalid.

Yes, it is the EVIDENCE that is important,  But on the other side of the EVIDENCE coin are the predictions we derive from the theory that we are testing against that EVIDENCE. If there are no predictions – and a theory that can predict anything predicts nothing – then we have no way of evaluating whether our EVIDENCE supports our theory.  In fact, the word EVIDENCE only makes sense in relation to a theory. I’m no lawyer (heh) but doesn’t there have to be a charge before there is a trial?

Of course, by the same token, nobody can claim that ID is false – it may well be true that life was designed by a supernatural designer, whether at the origin-of-life stage as some claim, or at key stages, such as the Cambrian “Explosion” (scare quotes deliberate), as others claim; or for certain features too hard to leave to evolution such as the E.coli flagellae that enhance their ability to maim and kill our children. Or even to design a universe so fine-tuned that it contains the laws and materials necessary for life to emerge without further interference.   Science cannot falsify any of that – nor, for that matter the theory that it was all created ex nihilo Last Thursday.

That’s why nothing in evolutionary biology is a threat to belief in God or gods, and why the paranoia surrounding “methodological naturalism” is so completely misplaced.

What is a threat to us all, though, I suggest, is bad science masquerading as science, and that is my objection to ID.  Not the “broader” project itself as stated in the UD FAQ:

In a broader sense, Intelligent Design is simply the science of design detection — how to recognize patterns arranged by an intelligent cause for a purpose. Design detection is used in a number of scientific fields, including anthropology, forensic sciences that seek to explain the cause of events such as a death or fire, cryptanalysis and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). An inference that certain biological information may be the product of an intelligent cause can be tested or evaluated in the same manner as scientists daily test for design in other sciences.

but its fallacious (in my view) conclusion that:

…that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause rather than an undirected process such as natural selection.

Fallacious not because I assume that the “intelligent cause” is supernatural, but because the math and biochemistry simply do not support that inference.  Even if it’s true.

1,072 thoughts on “Barry finally gets it?

  1. fifthmonarchyman: That merely assumes that the Christian God does not actually exist. You make that assumption based only on your fallible intellect.

    If it is unwise to assume an entity derived from our fallible intellect how is it wise to use that same intellect to assume that an entity independent of us does not exist?

    I am not assuming that He exists or not, I have one less presupposition than you.

  2. Allan Miller: As a paradigm in itself (of sorts), the adoption of empirical approaches is likely to change much more slowly

    How does it change?
    Who determines that it should change?
    why?

    peace

  3. newton: I have one less presupposition than you.

    I only have one. That leaves you with?

    Never mind you already said, You are all alone with your own fallible intellect.

    like I said poverty

    peace

  4. newton: If it is unwise to assume an entity derived from our fallible intellect how is it wise to use that same intellect to assume that an entity independent of us does not exist?

    I am not saying that it is unwise either, if your version of the Christian God exists.

  5. newton: I am not saying that it is unwise either, if your version of the Christian God exists.

    Since God exists I can have truth and logic and knowledge and love and etc etc etc

    If he did not exist I would be alone with my own fallible intellect —-Poverty

    peace

  6. fifthmonarchyman: I only have one. That leaves you with?

    Never mind you already said, You are all alone with your own fallible intellect.

    like I said poverty

    peace

    No Fmm, to get to your presupposition of a Christian God ,you must presuppose logic exists to derive your divine presupposition at the very least. What is basis of your knowledge of what to presuppose, why the Christian God and not Allah or Thor? Even your divine presupposition is a multiple , first God exists, then the Christian God exists,then your version of the Christian God exists.

    It is Ok, I can assume other people have more or less fallible minds so there is plenty of company. After all to assume less seems to be extraordinarily conceited. I do envy you ,to have an omnipotent being whispering in your ear.

  7. BruceS: Perhaps this suggestion might be more appropriate then:
    Philosophy of Science: A Very Short Introduction
    Joking aside, it’s actually a good summary of key issues.

    In general I’ve found that the Very Short Introduction series is superb. They get top-notch scholars to contribute.

    The overviews by Alex Rosenburg, Ladyman, and Godfrey-Smith all cover the same ground at greater length.They are available online (news groups is where I found them).

    Do you have links to share? I’d like to look at those!

    KN’s books are, I believe, defending specific points of view rather than giving an overview of the issues in philosophy of science and the various approaches to them.

    That’s correct — I have a specific philosophical agenda that I’m pursuing, and since I don’t teach philosophy of science and I don’t publish in it, my reading in philosophy of science is very selective. Still, it comes up often enough in my reading that I’m reasonably conversant with it. In fact, two of the books I’m now reading are deeply immersed in philosophy of science: Margolis’s Pragmatism Without Foundations (which deals at length with realism and anti-realism in Sellars, van Fraassen, and Cartwright) and Rouse’s just-published magnum opus, Articulating the World.

  8. fifth:

    Since God exists I can have truth and logic and knowledge and love and etc etc etc

    If he did not exist I would be alone with my own fallible intellect —-Poverty

    This statement brought to you by fifth’s fallible intellect.

  9. Alan:

    You appear determined to oppose a position I do not hold.

    No, I’m opposing your stated position:

    keiths:

    You don’t know ahead of time that it’s an unnecessary link, Alan.To do good science, it helps to isolate your prejudices from your scientific thinking.

    Alan:

    It doesn’t matter since bias is dealt with on repeating others’ work.

    keiths, incredulously:

    Now there’s a recipe for good science: “Just let me indulge my prejudices. Someone else will fix it.”

  10. newton:
    It is Ok, I can assume other people have more or less fallible minds so there is plenty of company. After all to assume less seems to be extraordinarily conceited. I do envy you ,to have an omnipotent being whispering in your ear.

    I don’t envy him at all. Because he constantly has to pick out whether the voice he hears is the omnipotent being telling him to kill children because they’re infested with demons — as ever so many christians do. to their earthly sorrow — and he has no basis for denying its suggestions/orders.

    Unlike us sane non-theists.

    People who believe in revelation can never trust themselves. That must be a terrible burden.

  11. Kantian Naturalist:

    Do you have links to share? I’d like to look at those!

    I did not see the note of Alan’s that you replied to; I assumed he was looking for introductory overviews. The books I suggested are targeted at 2nd or 3rd year undergrad philosophy courses, I believe, so I don’t know if they would interest you.

    I don’t have internet links for them. I downloaded them using a newsreader from a technical ebook group some time ago.

    If you want to take a look at them, I can email them to the email address in the cv on your academia page. PM me here or just reply if you do want them.

  12. BruceS: erhaps this suggestion might be more appropriate then:
    Philosophy of Science: A Very Short Introduction
    Joking aside, it’s actually a good summary of key issues.

    Good suggestion! Why is the name, Samir Okasha, familiar to me, I wondered? Do I recall some earlier thread where his name cropped up? What do I find? 🙂

  13. keiths: keiths, incredulously:

    Now there’s a recipe for good science: “Just let me indulge my prejudices. Someone else will fix it.”

    I’m not advocating your misrepresentation of my point. The recipe you describe would not work because of the regulatory nature of science, peer review, repeating other’s experiments etc.

    An analogy. Pretending you are a great horseman does not work the moment you get on a horse.

    Say Richard Lenski was not the great guy he is. His secret agenda is to promote neo-atheist-materialist-Darwinist propaganda. His LTEE doesn’t produce the required data. He can fudge his data to produce the result he wants or he can fudge his interpretation of the data. Either will be caught by others repeating his work or reinterpreting his analysis. It would be shocking if a scientist behaved in this way but it ultimately wouldn’t matter because scientific experiments are not a matter of opinion.

  14. fifthmonarchyman: Since God exists I can have truth and logic and knowledge and love and etc etc etc

    If he did not exist I would be alone with my own fallible intellect —-Poverty

    peace

    That equation is the result of your fallible intellect, add that to your presuppositions

  15. hotshoe_: I don’t envy him at all. Because he constantly has to pick out whether the voice he hears is the omnipotent being telling him to kill children because they’re infested with demons — as ever so many christians do. to their earthly sorrow — and he has no basis for denying its suggestions/orders.

    In my experience Christians don’t kill their children or hear voices , crazy people do. I expect crazy is equally represented between religious and not religious. Fmm is not a divine command believer

  16. newton: No Fmm, to get to your presupposition of a Christian God ,you must presuppose logic exists to derive your divine presupposition at the very least.

    The Christian God is Logic. That is part of what Logos means.

    newton: What is basis of your knowledge of what to presuppose

    Revelation

    newton: why the Christian God and not Allah or Thor?

    Because the Christian God exists and other gods do not.
    Besides all other proposed gods like Thor and Allah are insufficient for grounding things like truth logic and knowledge.

    If you disagree please explain your argument.

    newton: Even your divine presupposition is a multiple , first God exists, then the Christian God exists,then your version of the Christian God exists.

    Not at all The Christian God of scripture is the only foundation. If He did not exist I would have no way of knowing anything at all.

    newton: I can assume other people have more or less fallible minds so there is plenty of company.

    Do you base that assumption on the reliability of your admittedly fallible mind? Isn’t it possible that you have no company at all and you are alone?

    newton: After all to assume less seems to be extraordinarily conceited.

    What do you base that value judgement on?

    peace

  17. keiths: This statement brought to you by fifth’s fallible intellect.

    Nope, that is revealed knowledge we all have. You know it as well as I do

    peace

  18. newton: That equation is the result of your fallible intellect, add that to your presuppositions

    See above,
    It is revealed knowledge and we all have it

    peace

  19. Alan Fox: In a book, then?

    No, in the things that have been made so they(we) are without excuse.

    Was that not clear? I don’t think I stuttered

    peace

  20. fifthmonarchyman: No, in the things that have been made so they(we) are without excuse.

    Was that not clear?

    Not clear. Not in a book then? Where then?

    I don’t think I stuttered

    I only have the input of what you write in a comment.

  21. Alan Fox: Not in a book then? Where then?

    third time:

    in the things that have been made so they(we) are without excuse.

    peace

  22. fifthmonarchyman: Asking “Where” assumes an external spatial reality and therefore the Christian God

    I hope you were sitting inside your cardboard pyramid when you said that!

  23. Alan Fox: third time:

    I have a French-Moroccan friend who, when he thinks I haven’t grasped something, repeats it at high speed fifteen times or so. I point out to him it might work better if he said it once more slowly and clearly.

  24. Alan Fox: I have a French-Moroccan friend who, when he thinks I haven’t grasped something, repeats it at high speed fifteen times or so. I point out to him it might work better if he said it once more slowly and clearly.

    Actually making sense is helpful, too, I’ve found.

    Glen Davidson

  25. fifthmonarchyman: Asking “Where” assumes an external spatial reality and therefore the Christian God

    Asking “where” is trying to get an answer to the question “where”. You surely can’t mean to suggest that merely typing a word forces me to commit to a Christian paradigm.

  26. Alan Fox: ou surely can’t mean to suggest that merely typing a word forces me to commit to a Christian paradigm.

    I can’t force you to commit to anything. You can Continue to deny God it’s just that you have no excuse for doing so

    peace

  27. fifthmonarchyman: I can’t force you to commit to anything.

    No indeed and I thank God for that.

    You can Continue to deny God it’s just that you have no excuse for doing so.

    I have a very good excuse. I am not persuaded (because I’m not forced to be, thank God) by the concept of a Christian version of God. It’s too, well, humanly-created in my view to be a candidate for the supreme being.

  28. fifthmonarchyman: You can Continue to deny God it’s just that you have no excuse for doing so

    Would this be the same god that uses cancer as a learning opportunity for children?

  29. in the things that have been made so they(we) are without excuse

    Which calls to mind this, offered without attribution, but those who seek Googlewards, if not already possessed of that knowledge, shall know whence it came:

    There shall in that time be rumours of things going astray, and there will be a great confusion as to where things really are, and nobody will really know where lieth those little things with the sort of raffia work base, that has an attachment…at this time, a friend shall lose his friends’s hammer and the young shall not know where lieth the things possessed by their fathers that their fathers put there only just the night before around eight o’clock…

  30. Alan Fox:

    fifthmonarchyman: He has revealed himself to me.

    In what way?

    And you

    You’re mistaken.

    Mistaken?

    Or lying for some reason?

    Given he’s repeated that stupid thing several times (that we’ve all known the revealed god, and just don’t acknowledge it because we’re wicked or self-deluded or whatever) and he adamantly refuses to reform his idea when corrected. and he has been corrected many times by many different individuals here …

    Balance of probabilities. Not mistaken. The other thing.

  31. OMagain:

    fifthmonarchyman: You can Continue to deny God it’s just that you have no excuse for doing so

    Would this be the same god that uses cancer as a learning opportunity for children?

    Exactly that same god.

    And the same god that created the flagella of E. coli (which couldn’t have evolved naturally without god’s designing intervention/guidance) so that E. coli can kill and cripple our innocent children.

    But — it’s got a plan, doesn’t it. And who are we to question its plans?

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