Lehigh University biochemist and IDT spokesperson Dr. Michael Behe was recently asked by the Discovery Institute (DI) to write about covid-19. The following is to be found among what he wrote:
“do I think viruses were designed? Yes, I most certainly do! The viruses of which we are aware — including the coronaviruses, Ebola, and HIV — are exquisitely, purposively arranged, which is the clear signature of intelligent design [sic, properly “Intelligent Design”, since this “signature” is not being attributed to “strictly natural causes”]. Well, then does that mean the designer [sic, Divine Name = properly capitalized, “the Designer”] is evil and wants people to suffer? No, not necessarily. I’m a biochemist, not a philosopher. Nonetheless, I see no reason why a designer [sic, Divine Name = properly capitalized, “the Designer”] even of such things as viruses should be classified as bad on that basis alone.” – Michael Behe (10-03-2020, https://evolutionnews.org/2020/03/evolution-design-and-covid-19/
Behe concluded the article stating that he has “no reason to think either that viruses weren’t designed [meaning, by a Divine Designer] or that the designer [sic, Divine Name = properly capitalized, “the Designer”] of viruses isn’t good”.
Since Behe didn’t raise the possibility of covid-19 being human-made, iow, a synthetic, manufactured virus, rather than arising naturally, i.e. “in nature”, this means that in his “heart of hearts” he truly believes covid-19 is “designed” by “the Intelligent Designer” (meaning, the God of his Roman Catholic faith). That alone should be a shocker statement enough to throw the average religious person of faith and belief in God out of their seat, full of doubt toward this IDM leader. Does Behe really believe what he is saying or is it just parlour tricks to draw an audience for IDT?! Let’s leave aside the moralizing about “good Designer” vs. “bad Designer” at this stage to simply focus on Behe and other IDM leaders’ framing of what is and isn’t “designed” and “by whom”.
Neuroscientist and surgeon Michael Egnor, another of the few Roman Catholics remaining in the IDM, followed up a couple of weeks later at the same site, saying:
“Design science [sic, presumptuousness regarding Intelligent Design “theory”] is at the forefront of research on the emergence of coronavirus. Based on the available evidence and using the [just one?] inference to design [sic, IDism language, rather than that of “real design theory” by non-ID theorists] as a scientific hypothesis, intelligent design of the COVID-19 virus seems unlikely.” – Michael Egnor (31-03-2020,
https://evolutionnews.org/2020/03/did-covid-19-virus-evolve-by-natural-selection/
So we seem to now have a contradiction within the “little tent” of the shrinking IDM when it comes to their IDism/IDT. Is covid-19 “designed” or not?
What Egnor means above when he writes “intelligent design of COVID-19 virus seems unlikely” is clearly that he believes covid-19 was not made by human beings, that it wasn’t manufactured as a biological weapon. There’s really no need to use “design” language, however, when the usage clearly indicates Egnor’s intended meaning that covid-19 was not manufactured in a laboratory, e.g. in Wuhan, China or, perhaps even by accident in Frederick, Maryland, USA. In short, Behe & Egnor are speaking about two different things, yet doing so using the exact same language: “intelligent design” (always non-capitalized according to unspoken PR rules of the DI). This double-talking with terms is either unintentionally or intentionally confusing and serves to muddy the communicative waters, if not also while displaying a level of deviousness and duplicity that this pair of Roman Catholic scientists should not now be engaging, if they were wiser than merely “scientists”.
A third, more recent article on the Evolution News & Views closed-comment site run by the DI, without naming the author(s), says this:
“The design filter [i.e. Dembski’s model] does not concern itself with the purpose of a design, whether for good or bad, but just whether a purpose exists. OK. So it seems that viruses are intelligently designed.” – anonymous IDist(s) (01-04-2020, https://evolutionnews.org/2020/04/viruses-an-intelligent-design-perspective/)
Goodness, now we have another flip-flop in just a couple of weeks!
To summarize, according to the most visible IDist, Senior Fellow of the DI, Michael Behe, who is definitely “not a philosopher,” covid-19 *is* “intelligently designed” (insert ideological reason, meant to look as if it is “strictly scientific”). Then another DI Senior Fellow, Michael Egnor, claims covid-19 *is not* “intelligently designed”, while abusing the term “design science”, and trying to pretend that IDists are “design scientists”, yet without acknowledging a HUGE amount of real design theory, design thinkers, and design theorists who both do “design science” (most of them/us don’t call it a “science”, for obvious reasons) and at the same time reject IDT. Then, for damage control or filibustering over definitions, (an) anonymous voice(s) for the DI & IDM, changes the message again, suggesting that covid-19, like all viruses, is “intelligently designed”. How to parse this semantic mess?
What can one conclude except for that these Senior Fellows of the DI & prominent leaders of the IDM are both quite amazingly, astonishingly, and at the end of the day, most sadly, perhaps even dangerously confused? It is utterly baffling how people could take the DI or IDM seriously after this cover-up mess of semantic slight of hand and trickery. Are they simply naive or blind to their own double-talking, or are they really suggesting that we should follow their lead and enter a discussion about “the purpose of covid-19”?! If the latter, then that surely wouldn’t be a “strictly scientific” conversation or “theory” anymore.
Let me assure the balanced and patient reader that I really do wish to treat the DI and IDM fairly, and at the same time to gently offer correction and a better way forward, if they are willing to pause and listen to others. It is simply difficult to do this, however, given what I’ve witnessed in their communications strategy, and how they have responded to both atheistic and theistic scientists with dismissal and feigned impunity over the years. Again, let’s leave aside the morality of the “good” or “bad” involved with the covid-19 virus (or viruses) for the moment, which in this case has to do mainly with the private (-> movement-centric) theologies of Behe and Egnor. They could indeed be devout, simple, honest men of faith when not peddling IDism, for all we know. Yet their claims about IDT, and awkwardly in the name of “ID”, are patently ludicrous, no question about it.
That said, should anyone actually defending IDT and the IDM (EricMH, looking at you here, as well as johnnyb, recently thread author & IDist, since both of you are “Fellows” at the Bradley Center https://centerforintelligence.org/about/staff-and-fellows/) wish to argue with me that this is too strong or pointed of a rebuke, or that it is unfair, or even somehow morally wrong to protest against the DI’s now obvious and repeated double-talking communications strategy this way, please pause to consider this: in responding openly to the confusion displayed above, I’m not a “Darwinist”, and do not wish to promote “Darwinism” or “neo-Darwinism.” That is, I’m not the specific type of “opponent” that the DI and IDM are reserving their most stringent criticism for. Instead, I’m an Abrahamic monotheist who is simply sick and tired of the DI and IDM miring “good theology” in their “junk science” with theologically disturbing undertones. Will any serious proponent of ID THEORY respond to this without evasiveness or jiggery-pokery?
Yet, wait, let me demonstrate caution, in case what is above suggests to some people otherwise. What if there actually are IDists who in their hearts and minds don’t think (read: don’t wish for any possible reason to accept) that IDT is already well-established as “junk science”, but wish, immediately upon hearing this rebuke, instead to turn and accuse others, particularly biologists, labelling them as “(neo-)Darwinists”, of “junk science”, like a vicious cycle of co-accusation that most of the rest of us “normal people” want no part of? Let me give credit where it is due, as at least this is one thing Egnor got right; he was speaking recently about “textbook politicized junk science — the perversion of science to accomplish political ends”. Unfortunately for him, it is IDism from the DI and IDM that are (also) promoting this, just as much as, if not more than their wily, small in number, largely strawperson “Darwinist” (read: contemporary scientist across the “faith spectrum” who critically accepts the biological “modern evolutionary synthesis”) opponents. (https://evolutionnews.org/2020/03/are-evangelicals-crippling-coronavirus-response/)
To conclude, there is no need to speak about the moral qualities of Senior Fellows at the DI or IDists, members of the IDM. One may even without this dimension involved, faithfully critique either their “theory” or strategic approach to “dialogue”, including their linguistic choice that continually flip-flops from “Divine Design” to “human design” and back again, over and over. Ideological evolutionism will surely not ever be taken down by such slippery arguments as those that have come out of the DI and IDM, by people who sadly don’t appear to love wisdom of clarity in communication, i.e. anti-philosophers like Drs. Behe and Egnor. Isn’t it finally time for these IDists to fold their hand and walk away from the table, ashamed at how they have bluffed and played their own linguistic cards over the years, taking responsibility upon themselves for the perhaps unintended, though nevertheless real divisions in society and culture that they have fuelled?
I think what Behe is saying makes perfect sense. Its not his job to somehow figure out the parameters and motivations of a separate universe of reality which we have no metrics with which to analyze.
I do find it surprising that with all the critiquing you do, you don’t seem to have ever verbalized a cogent theory of life which doesn’t contradict with your God view.
Care to try? Are viruses random? Does free will exist? Is God evil. Enlighten us.
Why is it Gregory’s job to somehow figure out the parameters and motivations of a separate universe of reality which we have no metrics with which to analyze?
newton,
I am not asking him to figure out what happens in other universe, I am asking him to say what he thinks happens in this universe. Seems he seems more than prepared to ask that from those at DI.
Are you saying ID detects design in a theoretical universe , not this one? Handy.
What are you talking about?? This universe! ID in THIS universe.
Behe has been disowned by his entire faculty, in writing.
So Im not sure I would waste time on what he has to say.
Note that he was asked to comment, NOT by his own university, but by the DI.
And the designer, he resides in the universe?
Not that we can see! That’s why ID doesn’t talk about the designer, get it?
The design exists in this universe, however.
Untrue.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theophany#Christianity
There are many other examples on that page of people ‘seeing’ god.
Untrue.
They seem to be talking about the designer there. Unless by ‘ID’ you mean something else? If so, what?
Was covid-19 designed by this purported designer then?
Given that you don’t, iirc, believe anything is random, how can viruses be random? How can something happen that your god did not intend to happen?
So, once again, you are demonstrably wrong.
Not that we have seen is more accurate but you do think we see the results of the designers actions. But we can only conclude intelligence, and of course the ability to do whatever was done. And a unique relationship with time since The Universe itself might be the product of the designer.
So ID cannot even say whether it is talking about something happening in another universe affecting this Universe or not.
So not seeing how you can conclude “This universe! ID in THIS universe.” The effect may be but the intelligent designing and designer might not be.
Perhaps Intelligent Designs might be a better name for it.
I get ID was created to get around the restriction of teaching religious doctrines in public science class. I get that it is a problem in a scientific theory to require the actions of a supernatural being in some undefined way. It is a practical choice, if it looks complicated it is designed is easier to defend.
No doubt about it, my IPad is designed. But that is not mean it follows that the Grand Canyon was. Unless faith itself is evidence of design. I have faith therefore design.
The OP was written to highlight this flip-flopping and double-talking between Divine Design and human design. Other than for IDists, that this is happening by DI Senior Fellows should be obvious.
There is little incentive to take seriously phoodoo’s “big questions”, when he is too filled with rage and accusation towards others, to possibly believe he holds in his heart a religion of peace or joy. He didn’t address the comparison of 3 articles in the OP, with the flip-flopping now shown again in short above.
1. Yes. 2. No.
Yet to state that simply, there is no need to hide behind esoteric tom-foolery, as phoodoo does, while posing as “religious”; a false witness. The anger phoodoo has displayed on this site towards others mars his claims of holding a “religious” worldview, such that no onlooker would envy his beliefs, an ex-pat American living in China, condescending towards anyone who rejects the “theory” of the DI in Seattle, and apparently relentlessly angry at (his place in) the world. No repentance shines forth in his communications here at TSZ. Not a person to easily engage in “discussion” with. : (
To a “skeptic” (as I don’t know his worldview, or just forgot if he once or twice mentioned it) respondent, one correction for newton. ID “theory” differs from “ID”, the latter which is just code name for “God”; “IDer” = “God of the Abrahamic faiths.” Thus, when you write, “ID cannot even say whether…”, it is the theory and theorists that cannot say, rather that a judgment on God.
Otherwise, you have phrased it well and accurately in what follows:
Your iPad was designed and manufactured by human designers & manufacturers. The Grand Canyon is a different category to consider. IDists conflate these two categories under their “design universalism”. That is the single issue that I pointed out to Behe when I met him recently, and he failed to try an answer, retreating into “I’m a simple biochemist”. He shrunk away from being a human being at that moment, and revealed himself a mere ideologue in the pockets of the DI for his wages. This is not a man Abrahamic religious believers, or anyone else should trust in his evasiveness.
Yet the category error is glaring with Egnor’s words for those who see through the DI’s double-talking. Sadly, there are IDists, as phoodoo here, who simply refuse to acknowledge the different categories. They then, as if a pattern has been established, quickly turn around with accusations and demand answers to “big questions”, that they themselves cannot or will not answer publicly. It’s just a devious trick, not to be taken seriously at the end of the day. Indeed, it is shameful, as the OP shows.
Shameful indeed.
For whatever it may be worth (and perhaps not very much, if anything at all), I quite agree with Gregory that the ideological commitments of the Discovery Institute and its fellow-travelers are nicely revealed by their complete lack of interest in the empirical study of how human beings design, or what’s called “design studies“.
I would add that their ideologically motivated close-mindedness is similarly revealed by their lack of interest in the empirical study of intelligence.
Kantian Naturalist,
Yea, I know, I have read almost nothing in the DI literature about kites. Shocking!
But then I had a revelation! Evolutionary biologists also don’t seem to study much about kite building and macrame. So how would they be able to know if life was designed or not? Isn’t that a huge problem? I think you have just figured out why their science is so flawed.
phoodoo,
I actually agree with you up to a point: that biology needs to articulate some criterion whereby designed systems can be distinguished from non-designed systems, in order to then posit evolutionary processes to account for non-designed systems.
I see it as actually quite simple. If biology is really about ‘codes’ then codes are about programming. And programmers strive for simplicity and reusablity.
However over at UD BA77 makes a big deal over the fact there are complex overlapping codes in DNA where changing one thing may have unpredictable results. This is not the result of anything that humans would recognise as design.
When we evolve computer programs they end up like biology, unintelligible, sometimes impossibly so. There are even ethical considerations regarding the use of evolved software.
So we have clear examples already of evolved design and designed design and they are utterly unlike and trivial to tell apart.
In most cases anyway, Perl seems to disprove the rule 😉
Hard to see where he lives is relevant to the soundness of his argument.
An omnipotent ,omniscient Being is capable of anything logically possible, that would be my only judgement on God.
And over here we’ve had OP’s from J-Mac, Sal and colewd touting the polyconstrained nature of duons, Zn-fingers, and ubiquitin ligases as evidence of design.
Really not thought it through at all.
You seem to be nibbling at the edges of the basic semantic issue: distinguishing design-the-verb from design-the-noun.
I have no problem regarding the noun design to refer to anything material, anything that has substance, shape, texture, color, etc. But unfortunately, in English we have a verb, which refers to a process performed deliberately and consciously for some purpose. We don’t say, for example, that the wind “designs” sand dunes or waves.
The semantic confusion arises when we see some material object, a noun design, and apply the verb form to the process which created it. Sounds semantically reasonable that if we see a design, it must have BEEN designed. And directly, we attempt to extract the purpose behind that creation, even without any clue (or even any interest) in the process.
And since we know that designs are not produced without designing, and since inanimate process have no purpose or motivation, we lump the process with the result, and suddenly all material objects not obviously the result of inanimate processes must have resulted from deliberate conscious intent!.
None of this would ever have arisen if our language had entirely separate words for the process and the result.
Shout it from the rooftops!
Gregory,
When an argument is based upon a false premise, such contradictions are to be expected.
newton,
Perhaps you ought instead to hope God’s judgment on you doesn’t mirror your judgment on God?
Yeah, we’re agreed on that too, though more than just “empirical” study is of course needed in both cases.
I find it funny when philosophers say things like “biology needs to…” as if people should listen to or in any way trust them. No surprise, I don’t listen to such persons claims of “need”.
First address “design” vs. “non-design” * before * addressing evolutionary processes = KN has an pining IDist inside him too! = P
As for “designed systems can be distinguished from non-designed systems…” it is largely a semantic issue, prior to the “operational” definition for whichever topic and field is at issue.
When people do “design thinking” … “outside of biology”, we aren’t focusing on the “ontological” question, as IDists mainly do. We empathise, define, iterate, prototype, test. Forcing this into a “strictly scientific” conversation limited to biology (biologism) is sorely myopic.
This wasn’t meant to be a thread “only in biology”, though the focus is indeed largely on semantics of ID theory as used in biology. Egnor made the mistake of applying “intelligently designed” to include human designers, who can be studied, along with the design processes. In contrast, “The [Divine] Designer” cannot be studied in ID theory, nor can the “design process”. By fiat, end of story for official ID theory, according to DI. (For IDM crazies, they can and do say anything, so there’s little need to pay them attention. It’s what the leaders of the IDM say that should be focused on here.)
Ah, so another “design” proponent?
No, we don’t. We “develop” computer programs. Never heard the position, i.e. job “computer developer” or “software developer”? I’ve never seen an advertised job for a “software evolver”, for good reason. LOL!
If one “gets” the language usage more clearly & coherently, then much else that follows is easier. The “everything evolves” trope is over-used & boring to people who can properly limit the “evolution” metaphor. Some people simply can’t, sadly. But the rest of us “normal people” needn’t follow their “evolution fetish”.
And thus, incoherent language such as this is “developed” & used behind internet pseudonyms as if it speaks for others, when really it doesn’t. Please start citing these “clear examples” in the professional literature that address this use of terms directly, and we’d have progress rather than trusting ideological evolutionist (everything evolves) language made up as if it is common, when really it isn’t. Such awkward misuse of “evolved”!
Yes and no. And it’s surely not very helpful to fault English language for this, since that’s the language of this forum. Yet if you wish to do so, why not then at least directly confront how non-English native speaker Adrian Bejan uses the term “design” as in “design in nature”?
Yet you’re not an IDist & speak/think this way?! That’s frankly bizarre.
Apparently, you haven’t read Bejan’s “logic” on this topic. IMHO, he mangles English language and doesn’t know it. But hey, he’s a “constructal law is greater than anything we now have” kinda voice, so it’s no surprise more people don’t use his version of “design theory.”
Sometimes, isn’t the process the result? “I am the way, the truth and the life”.
Here’s also a good place to enter the language of “extension”, which differs considerably from “evolution”, in the sense that one doesn’t use it to describe one’s actions or processes, from inside-out. “I am extending” & “I extended” make much more sense than “I am evolving” & “I evolved.” Don’t you agree?
Tomato Addict,
Please spell out the false premise.
Btw, this is the kind of thing that riles KN’s loopy post-philosophical ideology. Such ideology is what has made “human design” (type 2) so impossible to imagine for most left-leaning thinkers. Here’s a story about a man who most here would probably otherwise support, who recently decided to quit trying on his career path because of ideologues like KN promoting their genderist views that erase “human design” (type 2) for ideological purposes. KN might even get upset here with me using the subject “him” and “his” in this case, as if there is no “design” to “gender”! It is relevant because the same “intervention” issue as Egnor raised in the OP, surely applies to “gender reassignment surgeries”, which would count as supposedly “intelligently designed”.
Gregory,
I can’t figure out what you imagine would get me riled up about this story.
Kantian Naturalist,
Sorry, not focused on what “riles you up”. It just sounds like you’ve swallowed at least some IDist language. Nice of you to proclaim about biology that it has a “design” responsibility, before (“in order to then“) biologists study the evolution of life. It’s not like you’re therefore committing yourself to accepting/believing in the Divine Creation of life and humanity, as it is known here at TSZ that you do not accept/believe that. Rather it just reflects that you’ve been inundated with IDist language. Strange to see that, though not such a surprise for a philosophist. As you know, I always address your utterances only to connect with the larger “origin story”, as you seem incorrigible and a-spiritually stubborn with your ideologies (Marxist, naturalist, etc.). Yet, perhaps that too can change if you are so defenceless as to accept the language of IDism as your own.
If His judgement is He isn’t sure I exist , I could live with that. Better to be ignored than micromanaged. Still banking on this
“ According to the words of Christ through His apparitions to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, there are several promises to those who practice the First Friday Devotions:
“In the excess of the mercy of my Heart, I promise you that my all powerful love will grant to all those who will receive Communion on the First Fridays, for nine consecutive months, the grace of final repentance: they will not die in my displeasure, nor without receiving the sacraments; and my Heart will be their secure refuge in that last hour.”