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.
LoL! This site is full of scientifically illiterate posters.
Remember that short leash you’re on Joe.
LoL! Full of cowards, too.
I absolutely agree that inferring design does not require a supernatural hypothesis. That was one of the points I was making in the OP.
I said that ID does not require the supernatural. I did not say that inferring design does not require the supernatural, even though that is true
Frankie,
Remember there is no ID hypothesis.
I posted one on this site and others have posted hypotheses for ID. strange, eh
From that, I infer that you don’t think that there’s a distinction between science and metaphysics.
I wanted to put it this way because I think that’s what the issue of methodological naturalism is all about: is there a distinction between science and metaphysics, or not?
My suggestion is that the best way of understanding “methodological naturalism” is as the idea that there is a distinction between science and metaphysics. On that proposal, Newton and Leibniz would be methodological naturalists as well as theists. So too would be Einstein, Ken Miller, Francis Collins, and a whole bunch of others.
I also think, quite frankly, that Dembski and Behe are also methodological naturalists (on my suggestion of what that concept means), and this comes out in their refusal to identify the putative designer(s) with any deity or deities. ID is consistent with methodological naturalism — as well as consistent with metaphysical naturalism.
The problem with ID isn’t that it violates methodological naturalism — it doesn’t — but that it has not yet been put in a form sufficiently precise to be tested. To use an outdated but useful term, design theory has not yet been operationalized.
Darwinism, Design and Public Education page 92:
1. High information content (or specified complexity) and irreducible complexity constitute strong indicators or hallmarks of (past) intelligent design.
2. Biological systems have a high information content (or specified complexity) and utilize subsystems that manifest irreducible complexity.
3. Naturalistic mechanisms or undirected causes do not suffice to explain the origin of information (specified complexity) or irreducible complexity.
4. Therefore, intelligent design constitutes the best explanations for the origin of information and irreducible complexity in biological systems.
Kantian Naturalist,
Compared to evolutionism ID easily wins the science battle.
Not an outdated term!!!!
But thank you for making that point. It’s one I keep trying to make.
ID
theory?hypothesis? You’re not imagining it are you? Do you have a link?There’s a non sequitur here between (2) and (3).
For one thing, (3) assumes that we have complete knowledge of what “naturalistic mechanisms or undirected causes” can do. That’s clearly false. Our theories of physics and chemistry are continually being challenged and revised.
For all anyone knows, there’s a major breakthrough right around the corner that will show exactly how undirected causes can generate self-maintaining, self-organizing complex systems (such as life) under precise conditions. Dembski insists on (3) only because he thinks that the Epicurean atomism is basically correct as a theory of nature sans intelligence. But there’s no reason to believe that that is so, and many reasons to think that it isn’t.
(I myself am of the view that the study of dynamical systems is on the verge of becoming precisely that theory.)
But even if (3) were acceptable, (4) does not follow. What would follow is a much weaker claim: “Therefore, we should investigate whether or not intelligent design constitutes the best explanations for the origin of information and irreducible complexity in biological systems.”
The argument can’t show that intelligent design is the best explanation. That can be done by empirical testing; it can’t be done by argument. That’s not how science advances. The most that mere argument can do is present a hypothesis as a reasonably good candidate for testing. But presenting a hypothesis as a good candidate for testing is not the same thing as showing that the hypothesis has been confirmed by testing!
Yes, I was looking at http://bio-complexity.org/ the other day. I see what you mean!
Kantian Naturalist,
And saying ID is therefore the best explanation whilst not having an ID explanation is not an explanation.
For one thing, (3) assumes that we have complete knowledge of what “naturalistic mechanisms or undirected causes” can do. That’s clearly false.
Do you think a prebiotic soup would make all the ingredients to make life just out of chance ? and arise with a genetic code, and information required to build the first organism ? To think that is possible is irrational to the extreme.
The hardware and software of the cell, evidence of design
http://reasonandscience.heavenforum.org/t2221-the-hardware-and-software-of-the-cell-evidence-of-design
What part of “complexity does not necessisarily mean design” don’t you understand?
That is pretty much my objection to naturalism and to methodological naturalism. I don’t have a clear idea as to what is or is not natural. I doubt that a precise definition is possible. And I don’t see that it actually matters.
That pretty well disembowels the ID argument. If you don’t know what it can do, you certainly don’t know what it can’t do.
Alan Fox,
What do you mean by an ID explanation?
Isn’t “it was designed to become like that” an explanation?
That’s why I prefer regular to natural.
“Regular” implies entailments and testability.
No.
Adapa,
Not just complexity, organized, complex, interdependently, systematically complex.
We have no reason to believe accidents can cause this.
petrushka,
Um, yes it is.
petrushka,
In fact, it is so much better of an explanation than accidental copying errors stuck around, that evolutionary biologists refrain from using this accurate description, and instead rely on teleological phrases to explain change, because they are well aware that it sounds so much more reasonable. They can’t ever explain their theory without it.
They say, Well, they have adapted to their environment by developing stronger hind legs…instead of saying, they accidentally got copying errors which so happen to add up to stronger hind legs….
Its a tacit acknowledgment of the ridiculous nature of the hypothesis.
Whereas “A designer designed” is not ridiculous at all.
The problem you have is that the value of an explanation is directly proportional to the number of things it can be applied to.
Why are hippos fat? They were designed that way.
Why do fleas bite? They were designed that way.
So while it’s true that these are “explanations” their explanatory value is precisely zero. That which explains everything, explains nothing.
OMagain,
At least its honest.
No it isn’t. Your post is just evidence of your ignorance and stupidity.
But misspelled.
In the case described, it means exactly that. Design is the best explanation for the complexity in question.
OMagain,
The explanation not being satisfactory enough for your curiousity is meaningless.
The explanation that accidents worked is not a better explanation.
But it does help you run from a scary God that you hate.
petrushka,
Then why don’t biologists say, copying errors accidentally accumulated into organization, when they want to describe adaptive systems?
Well, it tells me all I need to know about the level of your intellectual curiosity if “it was designed” is considered by you to be a satisfactory explanation.
I can’t hate things that don’t exist. And if I thought God existed, I’d be shit scared of it, not hating it. After all, we know what the people who think it exists think it gets up to of an evening…
That’s not stupid and ignorant.
People who can’t follow the reasoning are stupid and ignorant.
Lizzie,
Let me ask this a third time:
If you want your definition to supplant the common, widely-accepted usage of “supernatural”, I think you should offer some justification for that move.
Particularly when
a) it means that methodological naturalism is no longer a naturalism;
b) it ejects Yahweh and other creator-gods from the supernatural club;
c) it reclassifies Yahweh and other creator-gods as “natural”, despite the fact that they created nature, according to their adherents; and
d) it renders methodological naturalism redundant, since science already imposes a testability requirement.
Good thing then ToE doesn’t posit accidents.
I pretty much agree, actually. On my approach, the really interesting questions are whether we need metaphysics at all, and whether metaphysics should be constrained by science. (I would say “yes” to both questions.)
But I call my view “naturalism” only because of the historical tradition collected under that label that runs roughly from Epicurus and Lucretius through Spinoza, and then down to Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Dewey, Deleuze, etc. I would not want to put any eggs in the basket of trying to define “natural” or “supernatural”.
For one thing, I’ve been quite decisively shaped by Adorno’s arguments (since picked up by ecofeminism and other ecological philosophies) that our modern concept of nature is determined by the socioeconomic domination of nature.
The Epicurean conception of nature that ID takes for granted in its construal of “design” as the alternative to “chance and necessity” — a conception that we see repeated here in the emphasis on “accident” in the statements of design advocates — is the conception of disenchanted nature: nature as devoid of purpose, value, intention, and significance. ID only makes sense, conceptually, by taking this conception of nature for granted — because it depicts nature as something to which purposes, value, and intention have be added.
It has been a theme of mine for many years that a scientific metaphysics is not committed to a disenchanted conception of nature, in fact is deeply inconsistent with a disenchanted conception of nature, and can and should be used to disclose how the disenchanted conception of nature functions as the legitimizing ideology of the domination of nature on which capitalism depends. Conversely, a scientific metaphysics is consistent with and productive of a liberation of nature (including human nature) from capitalism.
Only if you ignore the huge amount of evidence we have for no external conscious design.
Sorry but in science you’re not allowed to ignore evidence just because you don’t like it.
ahm. Really ? And what evidence is that ?
Not a good strategy. You can’t prove a negative.
Better to ask whether IDists can show a before and after snapshot genomes that have discontinuities worthy of Jehovah.
I rather like that.
Yes, I agree that much of our scientific view is derived from our attempts to dominate nature — hence the mechanistic structure of a lot of scientific theories.
However, the theory of evolution is very different from other theories. And I think that’s something that ID proponents haven’t fully grasped.
Evidence for common descent
Might be helpful if you were to clarify what you think that is.
Dictionary.com suggests:
adjective
1. of, relating to, or being above or beyond what is natural; unexplainable by natural law or phenomena; abnormal.
2. of, pertaining to, characteristic of, or attributed to God or a deity.
3. of a superlative degree; preternatural: a missile of supernatural speed.
4. of, relating to, or attributed to ghosts, goblins, or other unearthly beings; eerie; occult.
The trouble with those definitions is they reify imaginary concepts. That’s why I prefer, well, imaginary.
Poorly worded on my part. Should read “lots of evidence no external conscious design is required.”
You are welcome to provide your own. I tend to think of “paranormal” when I hear the word. I have been trying to promote “real” and “imaginary” as categories of stuff that scientific endeavour can detect and categories of stuff that it can’t.
Sure. I’m guilty of it myself. I’m surprised very often how different other people’s perceptions and beliefs can be from my own.
I’m guessing then that a synonym for you would be unexplainable. To a scientist, something unexplainable is a challenge; something to be attacked rather than accepted. What we don’t know today is not necessarily the same tomorrow.
Mung has remarked that, for him, God is real, not supernatural. I see no problem with that. I’m not claiming an absolutely precise boundary for reality.
That’s true but I don’t find it a problem.
I’m not a reductionist. There is surprise at every level of emergence. I don’t think the universe is deterministic or determined.
An aside: it makes me chuckle when people append “intellectual” as an adjective to something. It seems an affectation very current in US speech. Why not just “poverty of thought”? I disagree. It is challenging not to have a rule book to refer to but I find it stimulating.
First of all, ‘Frankie’ is clueless about the IDM if he thinks that “ID does not require the supernatural”. Father of the IDM Phillip Johnson thought so, which was why he argued (and sometimes still argues after having a stroke) against ‘naturalism.’ Johnson’s ‘ID’ is supernaturalistic. Period. It’s lawyerly apologetics. That’s why the DI now marginalises him, depending in which PR company it keeps (he was a polemical black & white BAC).
Let’s get more personal. What’s the highest educational degree you hold, Frankie? And in which field(s)? Are you a ‘scientist’? It doesn’t sound like you have much education or knowledge (not that being a ‘scientist’ necessarily qualifies one as ‘knowledgeable’ about many things). You sound, frankly (no pun intended). Instead, your IDist advocacy here sounds like its coming from a hillbilly drunk on IDism, who could use some straight talk from theistic anti-IDists.
I have to say that asking about a poster’s educational credentials is the stupidest effing argument I can think of.
It makes me think that any degrees held by the questioner are without value, and that the institution that granted them slipped up.