Reply to John West on ID and Metaphysics

At Hillsdale, after his public lecture, I challenged Behe in a small-group discussion to give us a positive statement of exactly how the "Intelligent Designer" creates bacterial flagella. As usual, he was evasive. But I didn't let him get away. And finally, he answered: "In a puff of smoke!" A physicist in our group asked, "Do you mean that the Intelligent Designer suspends the laws of physics through working a miracle?" And Behe answered: "Yes.".

Fundamentally at odds?

That is the inevitable outcome when mistaking religion for God.

The real problem with ID is that ID advocates claim it is meta-evident. However, every time we look, ID is sub-evident in nature, and sub-evident in theory.

The standard for what we teach in science classes is what is evidenced. Consequently, it is fair to say ID is sub-standard, too.

Not metaphysical?! Not divine?!

How the hell else would you describe something with the capability of creation at will??

The real problem with ID is that ID advocates claim it is meta-evident.

That's exactly right, Mr. Darrell. As my colleague Dr. Vinny Boombatz likes to say, "The ID movement believes in a God, but he did such a poor job on himself that he had to intervene and create a universe, and he don't get no respect."

I don't see any way for IDers to rule out aliens as the designers of life on Earth. It seems to me that they claim life can only arise in the universe by divine intervention, but once intellegent life is here who knows? We may be just a hobby of or a poor self-built knock off of the true chosen form of life. That would explain a lot, IDers for example.

Extra-universal intelligent entities that go about creating universes don't need to be dieties, unless you specifically define diety in that manner. We don't have any idea what it would take to intentionally create a universe, or if that is even possible, so it's difficult to determine what sort of features are neccessary for such an intelligence to have. ID claims to have empirical evidence that the universe or features within it are the result of intelligently directed processes. I don't think they do, and their arguments are extraordinarily poor, be it new wave creationism or anthropic coincidences (fine-tuning). However, demonstrating this definitely doesn't rise to the level of demonstrating the omnimax properites typically ascribed to a diety in classical theism, where a diety is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, etc. There's no logical reason the creator of this universe, assuming there was one, would have to have those properties. So it wouldn't get you to God per se, though it might get you to an alien intelligence so powerful that for all practical purposes it is a diety. We can't say, becuase we don't know what powers it takes. So unless anything that can create a universe is by defintion a diety, I don't think you can say ID alone gets you to it, even if ID advocates are transparently using ID as a form of religious apologetics.

Would that be an old-fashioned diety or the new (allegedly intelligently designed) Atkins diety though? ;-) People find it hard to stick with one (ie in all its details, especially if they didn't carefully check those first) but they nearly always lose pounds and pounds at the start ...

Osmo - since when has omnimax been synonymous with deity? Or were the worshippers of Qetzlcoatl really followers of a space alien?

Ah, Dr. Vinny Boombatz. I can't resist. Have to post a great Dangerfield line:

"I remember the time that I was kidnapped and they sent a piece of my finger to my father. He said he wanted more proof."

The ID movement's insistence that they are only identifying "design", without necessarily identifying a designer or making any specific statements about the natural world, makes ID more metaphysical, not less. By using "design" as a vague and fluid concept without any clear-cut statements about the physical world, they've pretty much rendered ID nothing but metaphysics.

Shorter John West:

So what if Brayton can produce quotes where leading ID advocates claim that ID is religion? I can produce quotes where they say it's not. Therefore, it's not.

Re "they've pretty much rendered ID nothing but metaphysics."

In which case it wouldn't conflict with descent with change anyway, so where's the beef? (Wendy's?)

Who cares who the designer is? Unless it's found to be really cool design, what does it matter? And if it is really cool, the demand from the nouveaux riche and Paris Hiltons would be so great, who else could afford it?

I think by Dembski's own logic, physical beings cannot be ultimately responsible for the design of life on Earth. If life contains CSI, and CSI can only be created by intelligence, then either:
a) intelligence can exist without CSI, or
b) all intelligent agents of this universe must have been ultimately created by something not of this universe.

So unless Dembski wants to argue that an intelligent agent that has less than 500 bits of information exists, he must side with option b.

He has essentially two arguments: A) that ID only has "metaphysical implications" rather than being inherently metaphysical, and B) so does evolution:

He has essentially two arguments: A) that ID only has "metaphysical implications" rather than being inherently metaphysical, and B) so does evolution:

Osmo - since when has omnimax been synonymous with deity? Or were the worshippers of Qetzlcoatl really followers of a space alien.

However, demonstrating this definitely doesn't rise to the level of demonstrating the omnimax properites typically ascribed to a diety in classical theism, where a diety is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, etc. There's no logical reason the creator of this universe, assuming there was one, would have to have those properties. So it wouldn't get you to God per se, though it might get you to an alien intelligence so powerful that for all practical purposes it is a diety.

Osmo,

Guess you never bothered to even read Tillich, Barth, Bultmann, Spong, Kung...Traditional conservative Christian dogma has no privileged claim on the concept of "God". Nor is there any reason why the concept of "God" as understood by many Christians cannot be bridged to versions of theistic Hinduism and Buddhism. Karen Armstrong discusses this in the first chapters of her book "The History of God". It's worth reading on into later chapters as well to understand her discussion of Christian mystics.

Personally, I don't self identify as a Christian or theist. I suppose I'm a fence sitter. I lack the faith either way.

But all that said it seems we should be able to have discussions of theism without setting up the straw man of fundamentalism.

Even a conservative theologian such as Howard Van Tills can conceive of God more broadly than Phillipp Johnson. So can Ken Miller. For that matter, so could Theodosius Dobzhansky.

"All the information we have to go on here is a an intelligence who has the features neccessary to create a universe per its intent. Since we don't know what those features are, unless "mind that creates a universe" is tautologically defined as qualifying as "diety" we really don't have the ability to say."

Heck, apparently our universe might have been created by a physicist in a lab!
http://www.slate.com/id/2100715

Heck, apparently our universe might have been created by a physicist in a lab!

Since many of the molecular machines are analogous to inventions that have only been conceived since the coming of the age of physics, I would say that is a pretty good bet!

Chip -

What are you talking about? I'm discussing a popular defintion of God held by a significant amount of contemporary theologians - to the point which it is assumed what is meant by theism unless otherwise specified. It isn't a strawman. It isn't a fundamentalist notion. I'm not even trying to refute it. I'm merely pointing out how cosmological ID arguments, even if they were effective, wouldn't get you to a being with those properties. I've clarified myself enough that this shouldn't be missed. I'm fairly certain Ken Miller and Howard Van Till do believe in the God of classical theism, though I don't know enough about what Dobzhansky's beliefs were to reasonably speculate.

Osmo:

Who created those that created us? And who created them? And on and on....

Do you not end w/ God?

Osmo: Who created those that created us? And who created them? And on and on . . . ...Do you not end w/ God?

I think I hear you too Paul.
But is it not the case that we have an infinite regression? And if so, what is at the end? IF not, how/why does it end/begin?
Respectfully, Quentin

But, to be negatively critical of Osmo's argument, I would add that it is not a sub-infinitely powerful not-God that the ID'ers are ultimately trying to get into the science classes. It IS the omnimax christian god that they want. As such your argument, while not wrong, is seemingly irrelevant. The rank and file want THEIR god and no other will do. Whether their god is omnimax or not I don't think really matters.
Paul

...But is it not the case that we have an infinite regression? And if so, what is at the end? IF not, how/why does it end/begin?

At Hillsdale, after his public lecture, I challenged Behe in a small-group discussion to give us a positive statement of exactly how the "Intelligent Designer" creates bacterial flagella. As usual, he was evasive. But I didn't let him get away. And finally, he answered: "In a puff of smoke!" A physicist in our group asked, "Do you mean that the Intelligent Designer suspends the laws of physics through working a miracle?" And Behe answered: "Yes."

Hmm. Seems to me if it's not an infinite regression, then it would be something that had been stable for eternity and then suddenly decided to make something. On the face of it, that sounds less plausible than an finite regression of physical causes.

Re "It IS the omnimax christian god that they want. As such your argument, while not wrong, is seemingly irrelevant."
Another Hmm for this - I don't see how evidence for deliberate engineering of life could distinguish between something omniscient and something that we couldn't distinguish from omniscient. Well, unless the evidence pointed to multiple engineers working at cross purposes. (Which on the face of it does look more plausible than the single purpose engineer apparently presupposed by most "I.D." advocates.)

Henry

Frank,

http://www.evowiki.org/index.php/Puff_of_Smoke

Osmo,

If I misunderstood you then my apologies. But I take you to be saying two things:

1) There is no point in discussing a deity unless the deity fits the traditional Christian definition of Omnimax;
2) The Omnimax definitin of God is the position of most, if not all of modern Christian theology.

My point with respect to 1 is that if that is your argument, it is a strawman.

My point with respect to 2 is that many modern Christian theologians do not accept that definition of God. Tillich and Barth, at least, represented mainstream Protestant theology of American Protestants in much of the 20th century. So to argue that the omnimax is the position of most modern theologians is just plain wrong.

As to what kind of God Miller believes in, I believe the answer to that is quite simple to find out. One need merely read his book. Personally, I think Miller is a much better biologist than theologian, but then again, he is a trained biologist and not a trained theologian. I think that Miller believes in 1) a personal God 2) a God who acts in History 3) a God who creates through the subtle manipulation of quantam mechanics but 4) a God who is ultimately constrained by and works through, natural law. Since as a Catholic, Miller presumably believes in miracles he must believe God can suspend or manipulate natural law at will. But I do not have the impression Miller believes in a God who just goes "poof" and makes things appear.

Dobzhansky's position on God is spelled out in "The Biology of Ultimate Concern" which is in many ways a restatement of de Chardin's earlier work, albeit from the point of view of the modern synthesis, which of course, Dobzhansky helped to create. Dobzhansky's God is Tillich's God and Dobzhansky was quite explicit about that.

Hmm. Seems to me if it's not an infinite regression, then it would be something that had been stable for eternity and then suddenly decided to make something.

But is it not the case that we have an infinite regression? And if so, what is at the end? IF not, how/why does it end/begin?

Steve,

I see that it was confirmed by Larry Arnhart, and I have no reason to doubt his honesty. But did Behe ever confirm or deny it? Then again, does it matter? Behe's only proposal for a potentially scientific alternative to evolution - the "first designed cell" - is in print (in "Darwin's Black Box"). But AIUI he later said that he never took it seriously. Although that was after H. Allen Orr suggested some easy ways to confirm it. IDers have a way of slipping out of anything anyone tries to pin on them.

It was obvious to Paley and to other purveyors of the organismic design argument that if an intelligent designer built organisms, that designer would have to be far more intelligent than any human being could ever be. This is why the organismic design argument was for them an argument for the existence of God. I predict that it will eventually become clear that the organismic design argument should never have been understood in this way. This is because I expect that human beings will eventually build organisms from nonliving materials. This achievement will not close down the question of whether the organisms we observe were created by intelligent design or by mindless natural processes; in fact, it will give that question a practical meaning, since the organisms we will see around us will be of both kinds.29stripped of its theological trappings. However, it will be abundantly clear that the fact of organismic adaptation has nothing to do with whether God exists. When the Spanish conquistadors arrived in the New World, several indigenous peoples thought these intruders were gods, so powerful was the technology that the intruders possessed. Alas, the locals were mistaken; they did not realize that these beings with guns and horses were merely human beings. The organismic design argument for the existence of God embodies the same mistake. Human beings in the future will be the conquistadors, and Paley will be our Montezuma.

If I misunderstood you then my apologies. But I take you to be saying two things: 1) There is no point in discussing a deity unless the deity fits the traditional Christian definition of Omnimax; 2) The Omnimax definitin of God is the position of most, if not all of modern Christian theology.

Frank, I don't know anything more about it than I sent. I don't know if Behe's ever confirmed it. Knowing what we know about the IDers, I'd say we can assume it's true. I would spend more time researching it, but Sabado Gigante just came on.

Cosmo,

I agree with your last point. Even if the evidence for human beings points to design, it does not point to an omnimax designer. In fact, there are some interesting avenues to explore here. Any designer must meet constraints and face tradeoffs. No design is actually perfect. My Honda runs pretty well and is a pretty nice car. But the model I have still has a little bit of engine noise as you accelarate. Later models reduce the noise through a series of tinkerings. Push the analogy a bit and you have a rather curious designer-more like a Honda engineer than an Omnimax deity.

Except, no Honda engineer would do something so cruel as engineer a birth canal to misfit the human infant's head, thus increasing the amount of pain and risk of death to both mother and child. Of course, ID advocates have a perfect **theological** answer here: It is a result of original sin "in sorrow shalt thou bring forth childen". Which makes the designer a nasty misogynist intent on punishing women. It also leads to a clear admission of a theological position. Id'ers tend to want to argue for some sort of optimal human design, but there are numerous sub-optimal features of organisms.

It's curious that ID advocates don't get confronted more on their theological problems.

So, we agree on that point.

Now, the lesser point is what do most theologians learn in seminary. I suppose it depends on which seminary you attend. But I would hazard to guess that if you attended a United Methodist or an Episcopalian seminary, Tillich and Barth would be quite mainstream. In fact, Barth was considered rather conservative, hence his brand as "neo-orthodox". It was only the fundamentalists who had a hard time with Barth. For that matter, I can see no reason why a normal, mainstream moderate Protestant would find anything particularly objectionable about Tillich.

However, this becomes more fuzzy when the issue is something like fine-tuning. The problem is we don't know what sort of existence this designer has. Is it a disembodied mind on some mentalist plane of reality? Is it in some other physical universe with different physical laws? What's going on here?