Are we on to the big guns yet? Maybe, maybe not. William Dembski's first contribution to his book Evidence for God (co-edited with Michael Licona) is "Intelligent Design — A Brief Introduction". SETI, Mount Rushmore, the bacterial flagellum — all the old favourites are lined up to illustrate the contention that intelligent design "...purports to find patterns in biological systems that signify intelligence. ID therefore directly challenges Darwinism and other materialistic approaches to the origin and evolution of life." (p 104.)
Hang on a minute. Dembski is clearly saying that ID is a challenge to "materialistic approaches". That means he's proposing an immaterial intelligence. He's going beyond what ID proponents normally admit, which is that ID doesn't say anything specific about the designer. ID proponents say that the designer isn't necessarily God — it could be aliens, but presumably these aliens would be material aliens. Dembski is saying, however, that the designer is — or could be — outside the material realm. Therefore, for ID to be science, and for the designer to be at the same time immaterial, science needs to be able to say something about the immaterial realm — such as, that it exists. Science of course says no such thing; speculations about the existence or non-existence of an immaterial realm are beyond its remit.
Dembski's problem is this, which he acknowledges in his third paragraph:
What has kept design outside the scientific mainstream since Darwin proposed his theory of evolution is that it lacked precise methods for distinguishing intelligently caused objects from unintelligently caused ones. For design to be a fruitful scientific concept, scientists need to be sure they can reliably determine whether something is designed. (p 104-5.)
For ID to be scientific, it needs to be able to distinguish actual design from the illusion of design. Dembski claims that this can be done, but examination reveals only buzzwords and vague promises. He's constantly running up blind alleys:
As a theory of biological origins and development, ID's central claim is that only intelligent causes can adequately explain the complex, information-rich structures of biology and that these causes are empirically detectable. To say intelligent causes are empirically detectable is to say there exist well-defined methods that, based on observable features of the world, can reliably distinguish intelligent causes from undirected material causes. (p 105.)
The problem, however, is that these well-defined methods are ... never defined. Dembski repeats that there are methods to detect design, but again and again these methods are revealed to be nothing more than, "If it looks designed, it must have had a designer."
That Dembski includes SETI, the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, as an example of design detection, is surprising, because SETI researchers are emphatically not looking for patterns in radio signals from space. What they're looking for is a narrow-band signal — any modulation of a potential carrier wave is expected to have been smeared out with time and distance, so there's likely to be no information present.
Dembski elaborates on his favourite buzz-phrase, specified complexity:
Within the theory of intelligent design, specified complexity is the characteristic trademark or signature of intelligence. It is a reliable empirical marker of intelligence in the same way that fingerprints are a reliable empirical marker of an individual's presence at the scene of a crime. Design theorists contend that undirected material causes, like natural selection acting on random genetic change, cannot generate specified complexity. (p 106.)
Unfortunately he never elaborates on how to identify specified complexity, other than variations of "if it looks designed, then it must have had a designer."
At the top of this post I wondered if we were on to the big guns. Apparently not, for this pea-shooter consistently fails to fire:
ID's chief claim is this: the world contains events, objects, and structures that exhaust the explanatory resources of undirected material causes and can be adequately explained by recourse to intelligent causes. Design theorists claim to demonstrate this rigorously. (p 107.)
That's what they claim, but they don't do it — not rigorously, or at all.
Noble is saying much the same as he did in his 4thought.tv contribution, but expanded a little. He appears to be claiming that methodological naturalism is an unwarranted philosophical constraint on the progress of science, and that intelligent design is an inference to the best explanation. But I still don't see how "Someone did this, we don't know who (and even if we think we do know, we're not saying)" is any kind of explanation. If you can't tell how something happened, how is it scientific to conclude that someone must have done it? The correct conclusion is to admit that you don't know how it happened, and then to attempt to find out. If you convince yourself that someone must have done it, where do you go from there?
All this week Channel 4's daily "let's have some controversial views, but not too much — in fact let's keep it down to under two minutes" slot, called 4thought.tv, has been attempting to answer the question "Is it possible to believe in God and Darwin?" An odd question — if to "believe" in something means you think it exists. I think Darwin existed. There's documentary evidence to show that Charles Darwin actually walked this Earth, and — famously — sailed the seas, as well as perambulating the tangled bank, and so forth.
That's not what Channel 4 means, I suspect, which gives us an indication how seriously or rigorously it's taking the real question, which I assume is "Is belief in God compatible with an understanding of Darwin's theory of evolution by random mutation and natural selection?" As a further demonstration of their lack of commitment to rationality, on Monday Channel 4's choice of first participant to discuss this important issue was a Young Earth Creationist:
Dr Sandré Fourie comes out with some dreadful nonsense that makes her credentials as a veterinary surgeon distinctly dubious (note the stethoscope round her neck, to add verisimilitude to her utterly unconvincing contribution — though to be fair I wouldn't be surprised if this medical adornment was at the instigation of the show's art director).
Next, on Tuesday, we have a voice of sanity with Simon Watt, an evolutionary biologist, who makes several valid and relevant points — including that the Bible story is not meant to be taken literally and is in a completely different category from what science has shown us about evolution, and that he's not irrevocably wedded to the theory of evolution. If something better comes along, he's ready to take on new scientific ideas:
Wednesday we heard Dr. Alastair Noble, director of the Centre for Intelligent Design, telling us that if something looks designed, it must have an intelligent cause. Not that Channel 4 mentions Noble's affiliations anywhere, only that he's been involved in science education (he's actually an ex-inspector of schools) and that he thinks science should take the "theory of intelligent design" seriously. A scientific theory, however, should make specific, testable predictions, which intelligent design has so far failed to do. Noble claims that evolution (he calls it "Darwinism") is inadequate to explain the complexity seen in living things. But then he says that intelligent design is a sufficient explanation, when it clearly isn't an explanation at all. ID is a philosophical idea — there's nothing scientific about it. He mentions that the cell is very complicated, and that anywhere else such complexity is observed (he means in engineering) we infer a designer. As usual he leaves out an important component in this inference: what we actually infer when we see such engineering is a human designer — every time. Even William Paley inferred a human watchmaker. We have no other examples of design intelligence, apart from human intelligence. ID proponents make an invalid extrapolation from an inadequate sample size:
Thursday and we're back to real science with Alanna Maltby, who announces that she's an evolutionary biologist and an atheist. Echoing Simon Watt she mentions the elegance of Darwin's theory, and the overwhelming evidence in support of it. She also hopes that there aren't too many people who believe in six-day creation and a 6000-year-old Earth. I hope so too, but so far in this series we've had two evolutionary biologists, a Young Earth Creationist and an intelligent design proponent:
On Friday Dr. Ruth Bancewicz began by saying "My Christian faith tells me who made something out of nothing. Science can't answer that question." She ought to realise that though science does not at present have an answer to that question — if indeed it's a valid one — the idea that her Christian faith does have an answer is obviously absurd. Christianity, or any other religion, just makes up an answer. There's no compelling evidence or reason supporting it, only variable interpretations of ancient texts of dubious provenance. Dr. Banciewicz goes on to tell us she has a PhD in genetics, and she thinks the word creationist has been hijacked by the young-earthers. She prefers to think of all people who believe that God set things in motion — including evolution — as creationists. I think she could be fairly described as a theistic evolutionist, but of a particularly vague and woolly kind:
Is it significant that of the five contributors so far, all three of those claiming that evolution is untrue, that "Darwinism" is inadequate, or that Goddidit — have "Dr." in front of their names?
There are two more "4thoughts" on this subject to come — I'm guessing we'll have one believer and one non-believer — as if such a near even split is representative of scientific opinion as a whole.
Micro-evolution, macro-evolution — it's just a matter of degree. At least, that's what I've always understood. The distinction between species is often described as a question of breeding. Males and females of different species can't interbreed (and produce fertile offspring). But I also understand that the difference between species isn't necessarily that clear cut. In fact it can be almost arbitrary, as a visit to the Natural History Museum's Darwin Centre and Cocoon will confirm.
Chapter 16 of Dembski & Licona's Evidence for God is titled "Limits to Evolvability" and is written by Ray Bohlin. It's all about how evolution cannot account for different species, how mutation cannot introduce additional genetic information, and how natural selection cannot produce all the different forms of animal life. It's all pretty tedious stuff that I've seen before in creationist literature, and I hardly need to go into why it's all mostly nonsense.
The fact that Bohlin has written this chapter, and it's in a book that purports to provide "evidence for God", really shows the creationist's hand. We have several lines of argument that attempt to show why evolution by random mutation and natural selection is impossible, which spawns the inevitable question: why are creationists so dead set against evolution? The answer is that evolution, if correct, removes the need for a sustaining creator god. Evolution shows how the complexity of organic life on this planet came to be, and it didn't require a god to do it. The creationist's god, who was once thought to be actively engaged in constant tinkering and routine maintenance, has nothing left to do. He's superfluous. The Earth — indeed the Universe — can get along quite nicely without an interventionist god. But the creationist can't let that be the case — evolution can't be right!
So presumably that's why we have creationists. Evolutionary theory contradicts scripture, therefore in the mind of a creationist it must be incorrect. The creationist must therefore work backwards from this conclusion to disprove evolutionary theory — hence this chapter. The irony is that even if Bohlin could disprove evolution he wouldn't have proved God.
But what I want to know is this: if Intelligent Design proponents evolved from creationists, why are there still creationists?
This week I received another email from the Centre for Intelligent Design, promoting its July Summer School. I know it's early days yet, but is the CID having trouble filling the 50 places at the event? The price has halved since it was announced, and various reduced deals have been added. At this rate people will be signing up just for the break and skipping all the talks. (According to the CID website there are some interesting local landmarks to explore.)
The email contains the following:
It's become a mantra for Darwinists to claim that ID isn't science. That's used as a put-down from the start as a device to ignore the gathering weight of empirical evidence that challenges Darwinism.
This epitomises the wrong-headedness of the ID crowd. To suggest that by claiming ID is not science one is ignoring "...the gathering weight of empirical evidence that challenges Darwinism" is a bizarre non sequitur. Whether or not empirical evidence challenging Darwinism is being ignored is neither here nor there in relation to intelligent design. It has no bearing on the scientific validity of ID. The quoted sentences are equivalent to saying:
"It's become a mantra for lawyers to claim that this woman is guilty of a crime. That's used as a put-down from the start as a device to ignore the gathering weight of empirical evidence that her neighbours watch Sky Sports on a Saturday."
It's ironic that they're accusing "Darwinists" of what they themselves are doing in these very sentences, but I'd be surprised if the CID isn't aware of this obvious logical fallacy. Perhaps they're using it as a smokescreen in a deliberate attempt to conceal the fact that ID is indeed not science. If they continue with such obfuscation they cannot expect to be taken seriously by those who value actual science above the cargo-cult version they espouse.
In July of this year the Centre for Intelligent Design is holding a week-long summer school, to "...clarify the various strands of the design argument, its basis in science, its distinct stance with respect to religious faith, and its wider implications." Fancy going along? You might find the £300 price-tag a bit much, though for four days of full board accommodation plus lectures and networking it appears good value. That price, by the way, is half what was originally advertised, so I wonder if perhaps the event has not proved as irresistible a prospect as the organisers first hoped. If you're a student you might even get in for a mere £100.
I say "might". There appear to be some other obstacles to admission to this exclusive (maximum 50 attendees) event:
"Applicants should be able to demonstrate an interest in and commitment to the design argument."
"You must be able to demonstrate an interest in and commitment to the design argument. Required application materials include (1) a résumé or C.V. (2) a short statement of your interest in intelligent design and its perceived relationship to your area of work and life and (3) a letter of recommendation from a person of standing who knows your work and is friendly towards ID."
Then there's the application process itself:
"Application to join the Summer School is a two-part process: 1: a preliminary application involving no cost; 2: final application with full agreed payment being made at the time of application."
As if to emphasise the organisers' apparent paranoia there's also a bit of cloak-and-dagger:
"Because of professional sensitivities, participation in the conference will be handled in strict confidence and with anonymity."
Naturally the C4ID are maintaining their charade that intelligent design isn't a religious idea, though the founders are religious believers (and, incidentally, the conference is being held in a centre operated by Pentecostalists).
How much of a threat to science education is this "summer school"? With only 50 (anonymous) people attending I wonder about the possible extent of its influence. It depends, of course, on precisely who those anonymous people are.
Chapter 12 of Dembski & Licona's Evidence for God is an accommodationist's dream. In "What Every High School Student Should Know about Science" Michael Newton Keas puts the case for "teaching the controversy" about evolution and the science of origins. It's a polemic aimed at presenting evolution and intelligent design creationism as equivalent scientific principles. But we know from the preceding chapter that intelligent design is a religious idea, and therefore has no place in school science lessons. Case closed, I think.
I'll readily grant that intelligent design is a valid philosophical idea, but as philosophy it doesn't belong in a science class. Science teaching for schoolchildren should comprise only accepted science, and until ID is accepted by the vast majority of the scientific community it will remain philosophy, not science. If ID proponents want their philosophy taught as science they need to carry out and publish peer-reviewed research to show that it actually is science. They don't get to change the rules by dint of special pleading.
Finally, I note that this chapter provides no evidence whatever for God.
The indecision of chapter 10 of Dembski & Licona's Evidence for God appears to have carried over to chapter 11. Walter Bradley spends most of "The Origin of Life" explaining just how impossible it is for life to get started on Earth by wholly natural means, and thereby nullifies one of theism's favourite arguments, the argument from fine-tuning. My review of chapter 10 applies equally here, even down to the supposed inherent complexity of early cellular life — that is, the first cells would necessarily have been much simpler than the cellular life we can see today.
Bradley appeals to the intelligent designer in his final paragraph (as well as to Michael Behe's irreducible complexity) but at least this is ID in its true colours:
The necessary information, which expresses itself as molecular complexity, simply cannot be developed by chance and necessity but requires an intelligent cause, an intelligent designer, a Creator God. (p 67)
When considering whether natural organisms have been designed, or alternatively have come to be the way they are through natural processes, it's a good idea to consider some examples.
Take the mousetrap. This is a purposeful arrangement of parts, obviously designed to do a particular job. One can examine all the individual parts and see how each uniquely contributes to the purpose for which the mousetrap was designed.
Look at Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. One can recognise faces carved into the mountainside, three-dimensional images of not just generic people, but specific men who actually lived — and these are their likenesses. We know, however, that these examples are not naturally occurring phenomena; they came into existence by the action of designing minds.
When we look at the forms taken by living organisms we see similar arrangements of parts, but to a much greater degree. Life is extremely complex — so complex, in fact, that to imagine that a designing mind could accurately specify such complexity is stretching credulity beyond reasonable limits. We simply cannot imagine any mind being sufficiently intelligent to be capable of such vast complexity. Even if such a complex designing mind was responsible for the complexity of life, one would be remiss in omitting to enquire where the complexity of the designer originated.
In the absence of any other explanation, therefore, we must by default assume that such complexity has arisen by gradual stepwise refinement of regressively simpler organisms. Such small steps seem intuitively more likely than the sudden fait accompli of a grand design.
Extrapolating these small steps backwards in time it seems obvious, therefore, that life originally began very simply, probably by random emergence of self-replicating molecules. It seems likely that in the not too distant future this mechanism will be demonstrated in the laboratory.
Westminster Chapel is a large 19thC Romanesque style evangelical church located in Buckingham Gate, London, opposite its junction with Petty France. On Monday 22nd November I arrived at the appointed hour of 6:30 pm just as the doors were opened. I presented my ticket and was given a question slip and a "Promo Copy — Not for Resale" DVD, Unlocking the Mystery of Life by Illustra Media.
Taking advantage of my punctuality I was able to grab a good position in the centre of the third pew from the front. Before me a large screen hung above a raised stage with a lectern to the right and a drum kit to the left. (I hoped we were not to be subjected to live evangelical music, though faint recorded music emanated from the PA speakers either side of the stage.) The screen above displayed the logo for Justin Brierley's Premier Christian RadioUnbelievable? show, promoting the evening's event, Darwin or Design: An Evening with Michael Behe.
Professor Behe arrived about 6:35, and a little later I noticed Keith Fox take a seat near the front. As seven o'clock approached I estimated that between 150 and 200 people filled the ground floor pews, leaving the galleries empty. (I saw no video cameras, though an official-looking photographer took pictures throughout the evening from various viewpoints, including of the audience).
At about 7:05 Justin Brierley mounted the stage to introduce the evening's proceedings. David Williams, a trustee of the Centre for Intelligent Design was first up, touting the centre's ID merchandise, including DVDs of that disgracefully mendacious film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, and the textbook Explore Evolution. Also available was Michael Behe's book Darwin's Black Box, though strangely not his latest, The Edge ofEvolution. After a short introduction from Justin, Prof. Behe took the stage.
I shall not give a blow by blow account of Michael Behe's talk. Justin mentioned that the event was being recorded for later broadcast, apparently including the Q&A, so those interested will be able to hear the talk for themselves. What follows are my comments on what I consider Behe's more contentious points.
Behe used the mousetrap as an example of irreducible complexity and proceeded to speculate as to how it might work if any one of its parts were removed — concluding that of course it wouldn't work, it would be broken. But Prof. Behe knows (I hope) that mousetraps don't reproduce, and that they are, in fact, designed. This IC argument is no better than Paley's Watch. Watches, you'll note, also don't reproduce.
Would you believe he's still using Mount Rushmore as an example of design detection? But the only reason we can tell that the sculptures of US presidents' heads were designed is because we know what faces look like, and we also have some concept of the shapes that natural erosion can produce on a mountainside. Suppose Mount Rushmore was observed by an alien race who had no concept of human faces — would they be able to detect that the mountain's contours had been designed? Behe's design detection is based entirely on preconceptions and comes down to no more than if it looks designed it must have had a designer.
Behe's problem is in the way he formulates his thesis. He claims that the way to detect design is to look for "a purposeful arrangement of parts", and apparently can't see that this is begging the question. By describing something as "purposeful" he's assuming that it's designed, in a kind of teleological tautology. Once again Behe's "design-detection" is no more than it's designed if it looks designed.
Along with repeating his "purposeful arrangement" mantra, Behe consistently labelled Darwinian evolution as "chance" and "accident" when he clearly knows that these words inaccurately characterise the process. He must be aware that the only accidental or chance aspect of evolutionary theory is random genetic mutation. The component of evolution that causes the actual evolving — natural selection — is far from chance or accident.
After fourteen years of comprehensive refutation, Michael Behe is still flogging the flagellum. Indeed, during the Q&A he was challenged that his examples of irreducible complexity, including the bacterial flagellum, have all been refuted. His response? "They're wrong!"
At one point in the lecture he asserted that the evidence for design is strong, while there is little evidence for Darwinism, going on to describe Darwinism's attempt to explain complexity as "wishful speculation". But intelligent design is itself the ultimate wishful speculation: "it's so complicated it must have been designed."
SETI, the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence, was raised in the Q&A. SETI is often cited by ID enthusiasts as an example of design-detection, as if to give ID legitimacy by comparison. SETI scientists, however, are not looking for an intelligent signal from space, but for a narrow-band signal. Any modulation of that signal is expected to have been lost (smeared out), so it's unlikely to carry any intelligent content. Comparisons with the efforts of ID proponents are unwarranted.
When challenged by Keith Fox, Behe stated that if ID is correct, evolutionary biologists are wasting their time looking for evolutionary pathways to explain complexity. And yet he insists ID is not a science-stopper. Behe has claimed elsewhere that mainstream science ignores ID for "philosophical reasons", but there's a good reason for that — it's because ID is a philosophical idea, not a scientific one.
Behe claims that complex biological systems are "best explained by intelligent design" — this is a very peculiar use of the word "explained". One might reasonably ask for some — indeed any — details of this explanation. But ID proponents never provide any. Behe's response elsewhere to this criticism, and in the light of apparent flaws in the "design" of nature, is that "we can't know the mind of the designer." This is what I find so profoundly frustrating about ID. In what way can any of this be even remotely described as science?
ID has no evidence of its own. ID proponents carry out no research, restricting themselves to pointing out gaps in evolutionary theory. If something can't currently be explained by evolution, they claim that somebody (the "intelligent designer") must have done it instead. They contend that science is itself unnecessarily restricted in its scope by a priori ruling out supernatural explanations. But science must, if it is to be at all useful to us, restrict itself to methodological naturalism. If science were to accept non-natural explanations for observed phenomena, the scientific method would be irretrievably broken and useless, and scientific progress would grind to a halt.
It was an interesting but frustrating evening. Given the hype surrounding Behe's week-long whistle-stop UK lecture tour I had expected something new. But it was the same old nonsense — indeed the same old non-science. UPDATE 2010-12-02:
Here's a short, useful video on Behe's irreducible complexity. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W96AJ0ChboU
Early in his presentation Behe showed this Far Side cartoon, and went on to say that anyone will recognise that the skewering device was designed for a purpose — to which I would ask, has he never seen a Venus Flytrap? The way Gary Larson has drawn the device indicates to me that it could well be a rare jungle plant that has evolved to capture large animals. The ankle suspension is obviously a plant. So I think Behe clearly missed his point here, exposing his ID presuppositions.
(Go to the presentation PDF for the cartoon caption, though it's not part of Behe's thesis.)
Both ID and evolutionary theory attempt to explain how life came to be as it is today. Each side appears to be driven by its own motives, but those motives are largely irrelevant to the scientific debate.
On the one hand we have evolutionary theory, which says that random mutation plus natural selection produces gradual change in populations of living organisms such that subsequent generations become progressively more suited to prevailing conditions, and these small changes accumulate to the big changes we see over geological time. Though the theory seems sound (and immensely elegant), I understand there are some stages in the process that science has yet to explain adequately.
And on the other hand we have intelligent design theory, which says that unexplained stages in evolution can be explained by positing an intelligent designer. To me this is no more than an "intelligent-designer-of-the-gaps". My main objection to the ID argument is that it isn't an explanation. Hypothesizing an intelligent designer isn't testable by science, so ID can't legitimately be described as science. If I suggest that the gaps in evolutionary theory can be explained as the intervention of magic pixies I don't expect anyone to accept this as a scientific explanation — but as explanations go, it has as much science in it as ID.
Behe's tour is in conjunction with the newly announced Centre for Intelligent Design based in Scotland (where apparently school curricula have no prohibition on teaching ID or creationism in school science lessons).
Paul Sims at the New Humanist blog suggests that journalists should ignore Behe's lectures, starving him and the C4ID of the oxygen of publicity. This is tempting but in my opinion misguided. Anyone who cares about science education in the UK should be prepared to challenge those who aim to corrupt it. Intelligent design as a concept may be a fit subject for a philosophy class, but it has no place in science teaching.
UPDATE 2010-10-30:
Some useful resources related to ID:
A remarkably civil discussion about SETI and its implications. Paul Davies isn't one of those nasty New Atheists™ — rather, he could be classed as an accommodationist, and was indeed a recipient, in 1995, of the Templeton Prize.
Wearing his "philosopher's hat" Paul Davies thinks that the human ability to unravel and understand the workings of the universe is of fundamental cosmic significance. This to me seems like a version of the anthropic principle: we can understand the universe — therefore it was made to be understood (tacit subtext: "…by us"). He said you have to ask, "What is this big universe for?" No, you don't have to ask this. It's begging the question to assume the universe has a purpose before asking what that purpose is. The correct, prior, question is "Does the universe have a purpose?" Davies is imputing teleology without establishing that such teleology exists. We can understand the universe (to a degree) because we are intelligent products of the universe. It is an obvious fact that the universe is susceptible to rational analysis.
John Lennox asked why we might consider a stream of recognisable DNA sequences originating from space to have an intelligent source, yet the same sequences present in DNA itself are not thought to be from an intelligent source (except by intelligent design proponents). But the probability of random chance replicating a specific sequence is extremely low, and if we recognised such a sequence from a source other than DNA we would have to conclude that the source was likely to be intelligent. If you produce a genuinely random number of many digits' length, the chance of replicating that number by chance is practically zero. DNA sequences, however, are not produced by chance. I find it astonishing that a professor of mathematics seems not to appreciate this.
John Lennox presupposes mind/body dualism in order to argue that supernatural power can affect the natural world. (This isn't surprising — I'd hardly expect him to accept that he doesn't have a transcendent soul, but it's a bit cheeky of him to use such a presumption in his argument. Davies didn't pick him up on this — I wonder where Davies stands on the existence of souls.)
Davies asked Lennox, "What's God doing now?" Lennox replied, "God is upholding the universe." This is the height of meaningless obfuscation. Earlier Lennox objected to Davies' distaste for a god that "manipulates molecules", and yet "upholding the universe" isn't a comprehensible description of any kind of activity. (I'm assuming here that Lennox doesn't have in his mind's eye an image of Atlas supporting the celestial spheres on his shoulders.)
This article by Alastair Noble in the Guardian's Comment is free section was flagged at RD.net. No doubt it will be kicked to death — deservedly so — but I did find some particular dumbosities that made me wonder whether the Guardian is being deliberately provocative having it appear on their site:
As a former science teacher and schools inspector, I am disturbed that proposals for science education are based on near-complete ignorance of intelligent design. I also think the views of most British people in this matter should not be so readily set aside.
I am disturbed that a former science teacher and schools inspector should propose the teaching of non-science in a science class. "Near-complete ignorance" is pretty much the most anyone can know about intelligent design, because there's nothing there. And scientific truth is not a matter of public popularity — even if every last British citizen thought creationism was true, that would not make it so.
It is an all too common error to confuse intelligent design with religious belief. While creationism draws its conclusions primarily from religious sources, intelligent design argues from observations of the natural world. And it has a good pedigree. A universe intelligible by design principles was the conclusion of many of the great pioneers of modern science.
Intelligent design is a religious belief (and was declared so by Judge Jones in the famous Dover trial in America). If you look at the natural world and conclude that it was intelligently designed, you must take the next step and ask who designed it. Aliens? God? You choose, but you must base your choice on scientific evidence. If you have no evidence, then why are you proposing this as science? Intelligent design does not have "a good pedigree". It's true that great pioneers of modern science were creationists, but they were pre-Darwin. They were also religious, along with the majority of the population at the time.
It is easily overlooked that the origin of life, the integrated complexity of biological systems and the vast information content of DNA have not been adequately explained by purely materialistic or neo-Darwinian processes. Indeed it is hard to see how they ever will.
Actually the integrated complexity of biological systems has been largely explained by evolution and natural selection. The information content of DNA will probably be explained too. It may be hard for you to see how, Mr. Noble, but just because you can't imagine it, that's no excuse for throwing your hands in the air and proclaiming it must have been done by aliens or God. There's progress on the abiogenesis front too — I understand it's been suggested in some quarters that the production of life in the laboratory may be achieved within a few years.
In an area such as this, where we cannot observe what happened directly, a legitimate scientific approach is to make an inference to the best explanation. In the case of the huge bank of functional information embedded in biological systems, the best explanation – based on the observation everywhere else that such information only arises from intelligence – is that it too has an intelligent source.
The "observation everywhere else" is that information is created by human intelligence. That's a sample of one, from which you cannot extrapolate anything because it's statistically unsound. Much of biology that was once thought to be irreducibly complex has now been shown to have evolved, or to have plausible evolutionary pathways to its present form. There's no reason to suppose that the presence of information in DNA will not be similarly explained.
There is a tendency in school science to present the evidence for evolution as uniformly convincing and all-encompassing, failing to distinguish between what is directly observable – such as change and adaptation over time through natural selection – and the more hypothetical elements, like the descent of all living things from a common ancestor. The evidence for these various strands is not of equal strength.
The research accruing from the complete sequencing of both the human genome and the genomes of other animals makes it far more likely that all living things have a single common ancestor, now that we understand so much more about how DNA works. Evolution by random mutation and natural selection is a scientific theory that's been consistently hammered for 150 years. Every scrap of new evidence uncovered has had the potential to falsify the theory, but instead has reinforced it, to the extent that evolution can be considered as much a scientific fact as the "theory" of gravity.
If you insist that intelligent causation is to be excluded in the study of origins then you are teaching materialist philosophy, not science.
I'm at a loss to know how intelligent causation could actually be taught in a science class. What do you tell the students? What demonstrations do you devise? Let's say, for instance, you're looking at the structure of primitive, single-celled organisms and you want the students to understand how they might have come into existence. You might talk about amino acids and self-replicating molecules — or you might simply close the textbook and say, "An intelligent causative agent caused the first cells to come into existence." That's not science, that's an intellectual cop-out.
I believe current government guidance is wrong in denying intelligent design the status of science. However, it does encourage teachers to handle it "positively and educationally". That's a small step in the right direction.
"Teleology" is the study of purpose. In its basic form the teleological argument (the "argument from design") goes thus: with its complex physical laws and underlying structure the universe looks as if it was designed. If it was designed, there must be a purpose behind the design, and therefore there must have been a designer who had an intention - a purpose - when he, she or it designed the universe.
Appearances, however, can be deceptive. Just because the universe looks designed doesn't necessarily mean it was designed by a designer. Charles Darwin showed how the so-called design of life is explained by natural processes. But what about DNA, the digital genetic code that we now know lies at the heart of living cells, orchestrating these natural processes? That code must have come from somewhere. Computer code (whether down-and-dirty machine code, or its more abstract source-code variant) is produced by software developers. But just because computer code is written by computer programmers, we cannot legitimately infer that this is the only process that can produce complex information, digital or otherwise. Look at the Mandelbrot set, for example, which appears to be infinitely complex, yet is generated by a very simple equation.
In logical terms the problem with the design argument is that all conclusive evidence of design we have so far come across is evidence of design by humans. We have no conclusive evidence of design by any other entities, so we cannot extrapolate from what is essentially a sample of one. If the only example of design - where we know beyond doubt who the designer was - is design that we must classify as "human design", we are unable to say which characteristics of human design must necessarily apply to all examples of design.
Creationists and Intelligent Design proponents don't make this distinction; they simply say that if something looks designed, it must have been designed. This is a blinkered, parochial view that owes more to fear of the unknown than to logical consistency.
We don't know where DNA originally came from. We don't know a lot of things, but scientists are working on them, and will continue to do so while there remain things that we don't know. That's what science is about. If science knew everything, there would be no point to scientific inquiry. To quote the late, great Carl Sagan: "Really, it's okay to reserve judgment until the evidence is in."
The reason why concerned scientists get so irate when discussing the ideas of "intelligent design creationists" is that ID proponents glibly claim they have an alternative to the Theory of Evolution, and when challenged they steadfastly refuse to produce it. Claiming that because evolution does not (yet) explain in complete detail how life came to be the way it is today, their alternative must by default be true, is not only presenting a classic false dichotomy, it is also welching on a promise: what, then, is the alternative theory - the one that does explain life in complete detail?
The ID proponents' response to this question is "God". But where's the explanation, the theory? Oh, it's not God? It's instead "an intelligent designer"? Well, whatever, but what's the theory, the explanation?
This lack of explanation is far worse than the scientists' answer, which is: we don't know. Scientists take this lack of knowledge as inspiration for further research; the ID answer stops research in its tracks. What's the point of pursuing the question if the answer is "Goddidit"?
ID, along with other spin-doctoring of the Discovery Institute and its ilk, comes down to one thing: science contradicts scripture, and therefore must be wrong. But science, as everyone knows, actually works, and people won't easily be persuaded that it's mistaken. So the Discovery Institute's job is to come up with science that supports scripture. To date they've been unsuccessful in this quest, and it seems likely that they will remain so. It's a hiding to nothing, because this isn't how science is done. Science follows the scientific method: investigation, hypothesis, attempts to falsify, followed by more investigation, hypotheses, repeat as necessary, until the revised hypothesis resists falsification, at which point you have a theory.
ID proponents, however, continue to lobby for so-called "academic freedom", attempting to challenge science with non-science. They will continue to lose this battle, but only if concerned individuals remain vigilant, and continue to point out what is and isn't science, to those responsible for making decisions in education.
"Cern is being sued in the US over the possible dangers of turning on the LHC, such as creating a mini black hole that might swallow the planet. Could it be the end of everything?"
Brian Cox:
"The nonsense you find on the web about 'doomsday scenarios' is conspiracy theory rubbish generated by a small group of nutters, primarily on the other side of the Atlantic. These people also think that the Theory of Relativity is a Jewish conspiracy and that America didn't land on the Moon. Both are more likely, by the way, than the LHC destroying the world. I'm slightly irritated, because this non-story is symptomatic of a larger mistrust in science, particularly in the US, which includes things like intelligent design."
Radio Times:
"One final question: how can you be certain? We've heard of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle - does it mean you can't be sure of anything?"
Brian Cox:
"The Uncertainty Principle is part of quantum mechanics, and the whole subject is based on that. So it affects every result at LHC, but it doesn't affect the conclusion that anyone who thinks the LHC will destroy the world is a t**t."
"Everything we know about coded information leads us to believe that it requires a designer. DNA is coded information, therefore DNA requires a designer."
I've heard statements similar to the above put forward as scientific evidence for an intelligent designer. Rephrased as a formal syllogism it becomes:
Coded information requires a designer; DNA is coded information; therefore DNA requires a designer.
But the first premise only tells part of the story. Coded information has been produced in vast quantities, by humans. Every instance of coded information, other than DNA, has been produced by humans. Are we to infer that the information in DNA was produced by humans?
The problem with the argument as initially phrased is that everything we know about coded information is probably not everything there is to know about it. Until Darwin, the same logic was used to show that the complexity of life requires a designer. It doesn't. There may well be something fundamentally simple and elegant - the equivalent of Darwinian natural selection - that will explain how coded information can arise naturally. Just because we don't yet know what it is, doesn't make positing a designer (intelligent or otherwise) at all valid.
Sally Magnusson talked with Gordon Graham, Alister McGrath and Alistair Noble about Intelligent Design. Unfortunately the audio clip is no longer available (the BBC's 'listen again' service is only for seven days, though there are exceptions), but I was able to listen because I had streamed the audio to my hard disk.
While many of us in Britain have looked on in horrified fascination at the Intelligent Design debate currently in full swing in America, we may have become a little complacent that something like it is unlikely to happen here. But slowly, insidiously, it is happening here. Supporters of Intelligent Design are attempting to have Intelligent Design taught in UK school science classes. Search around a bit and you'll find plenty of evidence for this (though none for the theory itself).
I maintain that Intelligent Design -- as promulgated by such organisations as the dishonestly-named Truth in Science -- isn't actually a theory. Any argument that attempts to 'explain' observed phenomena by invoking a supernatural entity, about which we can know nothing, isn't explaining anything.
The ID-ists' arguments, when challenged by those who back evolution as a science-based or evidence-based theory, seem to be a combination of the following:
"You say ID is based on faith, but so is evolution. Evolution is based on assumptions about 'the unobservable past', and is therefore not scientific -- not susceptible to observation and experiment."
"You say that ID cannot admit of evidence because a theory that is faith-based springs from the pre-supposition that there is a creator/designer. But evolution is based on the pre-supposition that there isn't a designer."
These arguments appear to be attempts to place ID on an equal footing with evolutionary theory. But is seems to me that in order to assess the equality of these views one must look at the reasons for the respective pre-suppositions (if you accept that they are pre-suppositions).
On what basis can one 'pre-suppose' that
there is a creator, or
there is no creator?
(Note that these are mutually exclusive.)
Even if you find no evidence for a creator, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. But as Richard Dawkins lucidly demonstrates in The God Delusion, the existence of a creator is extremely improbable.
The ID-ists' tactics more often than not are to try to turn the evolutionist argument back on the evolutionists, without actually answering any of the evolutionists' criticisms. It's a tactic that can be effective -- until recognised, when it becomes obviously transparent.
This table-turning is likely to happen to the argument about 'Middle World' perceptions, which explains why so much of modern scientific thinking seems to go against common sense. An ID-ist's attempt at refutation might go something like this: "Just as our middle world perception cannot comprehend the very large or the very small, it also cannot comprehend the very transcendence of the other-worldly -- such as God. A rational approach to theism, therefore, is simply not valid."
The very large and the very small, however, are susceptible to rational analysis, whatever our common-sense perceptions tell us, whereas the transcendence of a creator is not, remaining an assertion of faith, without evidence.
Intelligent Design isn't a theory -- it's an intellectual cop-out.
