Intelligent Design: a Catechism

[Ginkgo]

Suppose facts A, B, and C are said to be evidence for claim P. If I understand you, you're claiming that in order for A, B, and C to count as scientific evidence, there must be some independent way of testing P. Is that correct?

I am saying that A,B,C are evidence for P. Later on D,E, and F might end up being supporting evidence for P. On the other hand D, E, and F, might contradict P. All we can say as far as science is concerned is that the evidence at the moment support a theory.

So, for example, if we find pyramids constructed of rectangular blocks on Mars, this would only count as scientific evidence for design if we can somehow test the hypothesis in some other way. Similarly, a sophisticated SETI signal would only count as scientific evidence for intelligence if we could encounter the author of the signal in some other way.

Not some other way, but similar ways.

I don't see any reason to accept this as a boundary of what counts as science. It seems to me that what makes the pyramid and SETI cases examples of scientific inference is the fact that there is a principled way of defeating those inferences. If it can be shown that unguided natural causes could have produced either phenomenon, all warrant for a design inference is removed.

Science accepts these boundaries because science deals with the physical world. We have no other way over overcoming these boundaries if we are doing science. Naturally, there are way of overcoming these boundaries that are not scientific. And yes, I agree there are principled ways of overcoming these boundaries. The one you are using is a universal principle of design in order to defeat the inferences. I don't have a problem with this, but in doing so I don't believe you are doing science. You are trying to defeat the inference with a non-empirical.

There are many theories in the historical sciences that may never be susceptible to independent testing. For example, did the Neanderthal have language? We may find evidence that they did. Some have argued that the fact that they ritualistically buried their dead is such evidence. Nevertheless, there may never be any independent way to test the hypothesis. I don't see why that makes the initial hypothesis unscientific.

I don't think I said such a hypothesis was unscientific. I don't believe that I have been arguing for an independent way of testing a hypothesis other than the physical evidence.

[Ginkgo]

Ginkgo wrote:
I venture to say that another way of saying the above is that ID theorists want a partial science. In other words, they have the hypothesis based on induction and inference, but unfortunately they have no way of testing the hypothesis according to the scientific method. An intelligent designer in relation to living organisms is a a reasonable hypothesis, but again, it is not provable in any scientific way. There is no experiment we can conduct on living organisms to prove the hypothesis

My input:
Since there have definitely been well recorded medical miracles in modern times (i.e., instantaneous healings beyond our current medical abilities) would you consider those to contribute towards increasing the probability that an ID could be plausible? Clearly there can not be 100% certainty.

An interesting question. I would say that such occurrences do happen and there are times when science cannot provide the explanation. When this type of thing happens I see it as arguments for physicalism being false. I also see such scientifically unexplainable occurrences as being of the same category as quantum mechanics also providing evidence for physicalism is false.

If it is the case we are saying that we have provided evidence that someones position is false. Miracle cures have happened and science cannot explain how this has comes about. Unfortunately, we cannot claim that our alternative position (ID theory) therefore must be true, or evidence towards our theory being true. The reality is that both theories could be wrong.

[tmoody]

We do, in fact, have various criteria for detecting ID, which is precisely why SETI and archeology are scientific enterprises.

As you are using induction to argue evidence of design, the only thing you can assign intelligent design to is things that you have built you inductive reasoning from. To my understanding, that currently, incontrovertibly, means biological brains.

It's true that the only intelligent designers we know about are beings with biological brains, so that indeed forms our inductive base. It doesn't follow, however, that we can only make an inductive inference to biological brains unless we add the premise that designing intelligence only belongs to them.

The argument might look like this:

1. Structure X has properties, such as irreducible complexity, that we only find in intelligently designed things.
2. We have no plausible account of how unguided natural forces could produce X.
3. Therefore X is intelligently designed.

4. All known designing intelligences are beings with biological brains.
5. Therefore....what? I think you're saying that at most we are warranted in inferring that X was designed by a being with a biological brain. But,
6. No being with a biological brain could have designed X.
7. Therefore X wasn't designed. Or maybe,
7. If X was designed, this fact is necessarily invisible to science.

But my position is that the fact that science can't make an inference to a disembodied designer isn't an obstacle to making an inference to design, even if it appears that no embodied designer is available to fill the job.

It's not denying the antecedent. If you accept that fairy rings are evidence of fairies, then yes, there is physical evidence for fairies. However, if you argue that fairies are invisible and, in fact, can avoid detection by any physical means, there is no direct physical evidence for fairies, even in principle.

If fairy rings are evidence of fairies then it's false that fairies can avoid detection by any physical means. The rings themselves are a way of detecting them. Of course, if the rings are the only physical way of detecting them, then we might well wonder what fairies are, other than that putative cause of the rings. If that's all we know about them, and all we can know about them, it's not much. And one could make the same point about the inferred intelligent designer of structure X.

But as I see it, that's okay. I'm perfectly happy to say that the evidence points to design but it doesn't give us any handle on the identity or nature of the designer

I see no reason why a non-physical designer can't leave physical evidence, as long as the non-physical designer is capable of causally interacting with physical things.

But without offering an explanation for how non-physical interacts with physical, you are relying on magic.[/quote]

Physical causes are themselves ultimately inexplicable. We have no explanation for why physical things have the basic causal powers they have. We can only explain how these basic causal powers produce the non-basic causal powers of things. If there are non-physical substances, then they, like physical substances, have their own basic causal powers.

IC is evidence of design because of the very low probability of unguided natural forces putting the parts together in the "right" way, i.e., a way that results in function.
NeoDarwinism has an explanation for how complex functional systems can come to be assembled without design, but that explanation depends upon incremental steps, each of which is subject to selection pressures. That's fine, but in an IC system, there are no incremental prior stages that do anything, so no selection pressure.

One response is that the parts were previously doing other things, thus subject to other selection pressures, but available for "convergence" in a new functional system.

That's fine, but you have to show a plausible causal pathway for the convergence. That is, for this to count as a successful theory, it should be possible to specify a sequence of events of reasonable probability that would eventuate in the seemingly IC structure. If that can be done, then the claim that the structure was IC is falsified, since that claim is that there is no such pathway.

That's essentially the same argument that creationists use against evolution. The fact that there isn't a complete 'fossil record' doesn't falsify the theory. If you are referring to bacterial flagellum; at the microscopic level biological entities are dividing, mutating, invading and devouring on a breathtaking scale. That something remarkable happens in such an arena, isn't so remarkable given the numbers. There is no reason to eliminate chance from any such development, to do so is a personal rather than scientific judgement.[/quote]

It comes down to the numbers. Opponents of ID complain that "it was designed" isn't a true explanation. But "the staggeringly improbable happened" isn't an explanation either, and it is even more impervious to confirmation and disconfirmation than the design hypothesis. At least the design hypothesis can be undermined by the discovery of a probable causal pathway.

But you're saying that given the large numbers of interactions, the spontaneous convergence of factors to produce irreducibly complex systems isn't so improbable. This is itself an empirical claim, and I'm not convinced of its truth yet. Behe has quite a bit to say about this in his second book, The Edge of Evolution, which doesn't get nearly as much discussion as DBB. He has a very interesting discussion of malaria, which have existed in vast numbers for a very long time, and which have a fairly short generation rate. He considers the kinds of mutations that might enable Plasmodium to survive in temperate climates, instead of being limited to tropical climates. He suggests a pathway that might make this possible, but points out that despite the staggeringly huge breeding population, it still hasn't happened.

He may be right or he may be wrong, but I think his approach is sound.

Let me ask this, in the spirit of bridging the gap in this discussion. Suppose the empirical trail ends at a fork. Either there was design or the staggeringly improbable happened. In my view, it's good science to state the dilemma clearly and say "That's as far as science takes us." Do you agree, or do you think science requires us to say the staggeringly improbable happened?

[Ginkgo]

How about this:
A skeleton is found and is attributed to ... what ... an intelligent .......?
A pyramid is found and attributed to … what … an intelligent ........?
An eagle's nest is found and is attributed to … what?...an intelligent eagle?
A ground hog burrow is found and is attributed to … what?...an intelligent ground hog?
A termite mound is found and is attributed to … what?...an intelligent termite colony?
A snail's track is found and is attributed to … what? … an intelligent snail?
A mushroom is found and is attributed to … what?...an intelligent fungus?
An amoeba is found and is attributed to … what? … an intelligent protozoa?
A mold is found and is attributed to … what? … an intelligent bacteria?
A bacteria and virus is found and is attributed to … what … intelligent protein?
And so on …
Conclusion:
There's got to be an intelligent designer someplace?

I just found this in the discussions posts. I like it very much because it is an interesting way of stating the problem of a designer.

So yes, snails are intelligent, bacteria are intelligent and fungus are intelligent. Well, almost but not quite. Replace intelligence with information and knowledge and you have living organisms that have information and knowledge but minus the intelligence.

I think I read a post somewhere, some time back that suggested information, knowledge and intelligence don't necessarily have to be bound together. But it was related to some other topic.

[QMan]

Ginkgo wrote:
I venture to say that another way of saying the above is that ID theorists want a partial science. In other words, they have the hypothesis based on induction and inference, but unfortunately they have no way of testing the hypothesis according to the scientific method. An intelligent designer in relation to living organisms is a a reasonable hypothesis, but again, it is not provable in any scientific way. There is no experiment we can conduct on living organisms to prove the hypothesis

My input:
Since there have definitely been well recorded medical miracles in modern times (i.e., instantaneous healings beyond our current medical abilities) would you consider those to contribute towards increasing the probability that an ID could be plausible? Clearly there can not be 100% certainty.

An interesting question. I would say that such occurrences do happen and there are times when science cannot provide the explanation. When this type of thing happens I see it as arguments for physicalism being false. I also see such scientifically unexplainable occurrences as being of the same category as quantum mechanics also providing evidence for physicalism is false.

If it is the case we are saying that we have provided evidence that someones position is false. Miracle cures have happened and science cannot explain how this has comes about. Unfortunately, we cannot claim that our alternative position (ID theory) therefore must be true, or evidence towards out theory being true. The reality is that both theories could be wrong.

Actually these incidence can be explained scientifically, just not the way you assume, namely, that a science investigation must always be based on a physical material effect. By your reasoning, the miracle could occur in a scientific manner that would satisfy you if, e.g., it was produced by a Star Trek type tricorder effect without direct physical contact with the patient. Remember Dr. McCoy holding the tricorder over the injured person's chest while it's going bzz, bzz, bzz, and the patient is instantaneously, nearly miraculously cured? Apparently, you are assuming that something like that must be the most likely explanation because it is scientific as you define it. Trouble is, of course, that such a tricorder is in the future (possibly), and there are probably no invisible time travelers around to use it at the time the miracle occurs. So that the alternative is that nature is able to produce tricorder type effects on its own, without needing an ID to manufacture one first, that we simply have not discovered yet, never mind the nearly impossible coincidence in time and space with the location of the ill person and the diseased parts. Also, we, of course, must assume that the tricorder can ever be built to start with which is probably nil.

And btw there is another problem with this that involves entropy. The healing meant that entropy decreased (greater organization and order was restored to the diseased parts), which is impossible for a closed system represented by the patient and which we can never hope to achieve with a tricorder type method involving no physical manipulation of any type (and that includes chemical and biological reactions). Now, your opinion, that miracles are simply a so far unknown aspect of natural law, is of course similar to what St. Augustine and Spinoza believed in the middle ages, but they did not know much about tricorders and entropy. Thus, the probability that a healing incidence like this occurs is pretty much zero and to suggest that a supernatural ID type of intervention took place is practically the only alternative.

Now, please note that the Catholic church basically agrees with your Augustine/Spinoza explanation that things happening in nature, even when miraculous are still within nature, not necessarily against it. They break miracles down into different types and only one of those involves breaking natural law. But all of the types involve supernatural ID intervention. Of course, we do not know which type was used here.

Let me buttress my argument a little more by proposing a hypothetical situation. Assume that there are continually miracles and miraculous events happening apparently through the agency of a number of people (seers, who were preselected) in the same locale over a period of 30 years. There are thousands to tens of thousands of witnesses (not all given to mass hallucinations) who have witnessed these miracles, which are not only medical in nature but involve near levitation, etc.. The miracles are produced by a representative of the ID (intelligent designer) often through the agency of the seers (let's call the representative the blessed Virgin Mary, who appears to the seers as an apparition only they can see). The Blessed mother will appear on a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly basis depending on the seer and the elapsed number of years since the apparitions began. She will provide consistent messages to the world, and private ones for the seers, that have been recorded for 30 years, thoroughly analyzed for content and published in books and on the internet web site. One hallmark is, that each appearance of the Blessed Mother to the seers is always preceded by a rapid succession of three bright flashes of light visible to all people assembled (to all thousands if outdoors).

Now, you must agree that, for this hypothetical situation going on for so long, there is lots of hay to be made by scientists of all stripes (atheist, agnostic, religious) and of all physical, medical, psychological, social branches and disciplines (let's exclude philosophy for the moment . This is a perfect situation, a perfect storm, to spend a nearly infinite amount of time investigating these phenomena and persona with all the most sophisticated methods, materials, instruments, that science can muster by multidisciplinary teams from major universities, hospitals, private practices and businesses from around the globe. In other words, scientists are having a field day with this.

The testing is conducted so that some seers are subjected to 148 experiments and repeat experiments until they finally said enough is enough. They are so wired up with electrodes to their entire head and body to different instruments that they look like astronauts going through launch tests. After a while even the Blessed Mother, who had given permission for the testing, provided the seers agreed (and they agreed when they got the permission) smiles, shakes her head and says this is really unnecessary. After that, the testing slowed down and eventually stopped.

All results were analyzed by the different groups, scientific teams, and individual experts, and SCIENTIFIC conclusions were presented, documented, and published. The testing revealed that impossible physical events were occurring with the seers during their ecstasy when conversing with the Blessed Mother. Hallucination, mental, emotional, personality disorder, and developmental illnesses were ruled out. In addition, special attention was paid and special methods applied to rule out any form of deception. The final overall consensus and conclusion was that there is no natural scientific explanation that can be made and that a supernatural event was taking place as the only other alternative explanation.

Now, this hypothetical event almost sounds like science fiction doesn't it? Hypothetically, what would the response of the people in the Philosophy Now forums be to something that meets every criterion for advanced scientific data gathering, methodology, and analysis? I wager that we would see a preponderance of what the Blessed Mother called the Judas effect. This effect consists of an individual having acquired preconceived notions and biases to suit their personal preferences and agenda. In other words, the people on this forum who profess science and the scientific method as their God will now do a 180 since they won't like the conclusions science is presenting here. In other words, truth is really what you want it to be based on your personal agenda and you can rub somebodies nose in the truth and they'll simply ignore and deny it, like Judas did, I guess. Or would I be wrong with that?

Of course, by now you already know what the clincher is with this whole story. It is not hypothetical, it is actually really happening and has happened for 30 years. Here is the web site. Pull up the section on the scientific studies.
Actually, there is much more of much greater significance that I am not covering now or the append would get too long. Maybe some other time.

http://www.medjugorje.com/

[Ginkgo]

Ginkgo wrote:
I venture to say that another way of saying the above is that ID theorists want a partial science. In other words, they have the hypothesis based on induction and inference, but unfortunately they have no way of testing the hypothesis according to the scientific method. An intelligent designer in relation to living organisms is a a reasonable hypothesis, but again, it is not provable in any scientific way. There is no experiment we can conduct on living organisms to prove the hypothesis

My input:
Since there have definitely been well recorded medical miracles in modern times (i.e., instantaneous healings beyond our current medical abilities) would you consider those to contribute towards increasing the probability that an ID could be plausible? Clearly there can not be 100% certainty.

An interesting question. I would say that such occurrences do happen and there are times when science cannot provide the explanation. When this type of thing happens I see it as arguments for physicalism being false. I also see such scientifically unexplainable occurrences as being of the same category as quantum mechanics also providing evidence for physicalism is false.

If it is the case we are saying that we have provided evidence that someones position is false. Miracle cures have happened and science cannot explain how this has comes about. Unfortunately, we cannot claim that our alternative position (ID theory) therefore must be true, or evidence towards out theory being true. The reality is that both theories could be wrong.

Actually these incidence can be explained scientifically, just not the way you assume, namely, that a science investigation must always be based on a physical material effect. By your reasoning, the miracle could occur in a scientific manner that would satisfy you if, e.g., it was produced by a Star Trek type tricorder effect without direct physical contact with the patient. Remember Dr. McCoy holding the tricorder over the injured person's chest while it's going bzz, bzz, bzz, and the patient is instantaneously, nearly miraculously cured? Apparently, you are assuming that something like that must be the most likely explanation because it is scientific as you define it. Trouble is, of course, that such a tricorder is in the future (possibly), and there are probably no invisible time travelers around to use it at the time the miracle occurs. So that the alternative is that nature is able to produce tricorder type effects on its own, without needing an ID to manufacture one first, that we simply have not discovered yet, never mind the nearly impossible coincidence in time and space with the location of the ill person and the diseased parts. Also, we, of course, must assume that the tricorder can ever be built to start with which is probably nil.

And btw there is another problem with this that involves entropy. The healing meant that entropy decreased (greater organization and order was restored to the diseased parts), which is impossible for a closed system represented by the patient and which we can never hope to achieve with a tricorder type method involving no physical manipulation of any type (and that includes chemical and biological reactions). Now, your opinion, that miracles are simply a so far unknown aspect of natural law, is of course similar to what St. Augustine and Spinoza believed in the middle ages, but they did not know much about tricorders and entropy. Thus, the probability that a healing incidence like this occurs is pretty much zero and to suggest that a supernatural ID type of intervention took place is practically the only alternative.

Now, please note that the Catholic church basically agrees with your Augustine/Spinoza explanation that things happening in nature, even when miraculous are still within nature, not necessarily against it. They break miracles down into different types and only one of those involves breaking natural law. But all of the types involve supernatural ID intervention. Of course, we do not know which type was used here.

Let me buttress my argument a little more by proposing a hypothetical situation. Assume that there are continually miracles and miraculous events happening apparently through the agency of a number of people (seers, who were preselected) in the same locale over a period of 30 years. There are thousands to tens of thousands of witnesses (not all given to mass hallucinations) who have witnessed these miracles, which are not only medical in nature but involve near levitation, etc.. The miracles are produced by a representative of the ID (intelligent designer) often through the agency of the seers (let's call the representative the blessed Virgin Mary, who appears to the seers as an apparition only they can see). The Blessed mother will appear on a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly basis depending on the seer and the elapsed number of years since the apparitions began. She will provide consistent messages to the world, and private ones for the seers, that have been recorded for 30 years, thoroughly analyzed for content and published in books and on the internet web site. One hallmark is, that each appearance of the Blessed Mother to the seers is always preceded by a rapid succession of three bright flashes of light visible to all people assembled (to all thousands if outdoors).

Now, you must agree that, for this hypothetical situation going on for so long, there is lots of hay to be made by scientists of all stripes (atheist, agnostic, religious) and of all physical, medical, psychological, social branches and disciplines (let's exclude philosophy for the moment . This is a perfect situation, a perfect storm, to spend a nearly infinite amount of time investigating these phenomena and persona with all the most sophisticated methods, materials, instruments, that science can muster by multidisciplinary teams from major universities, hospitals, private practices and businesses from around the globe. In other words, scientists are having a field day with this.

The testing is conducted so that some seers are subjected to 148 experiments and repeat experiments until they finally said enough is enough. They are so wired up with electrodes to their entire head and body to different instruments that they look like astronauts going through launch tests. After a while even the Blessed Mother, who had given permission for the testing, provided the seers agreed (and they agreed when they got the permission) smiles, shakes her head and says this is really unnecessary. After that, the testing slowed down and eventually stopped.

All results were analyzed by the different groups, scientific teams, and individual experts, and SCIENTIFIC conclusions were presented, documented, and published. The testing revealed that impossible physical events were occurring with the seers during their ecstasy when conversing with the Blessed Mother. Hallucination, mental, emotional, personality disorder, and developmental illnesses were ruled out. In addition, special attention was paid and special methods applied to rule out any form of deception. The final overall consensus and conclusion was that there is no natural scientific explanation that can be made and that a supernatural event was taking place as the only other alternative explanation.

Now, this hypothetical event almost sounds like science fiction doesn't it? Hypothetically, what would the response of the people in the Philosophy Now forums be to something that meets every criterion for advanced scientific data gathering, methodology, and analysis? I wager that we would see a preponderance of what the Blessed Mother called the Judas effect. This effect consists of an individual having acquired preconceived notions and biases to suit their personal preferences and agenda. In other words, the people on this forum who profess science and the scientific method as their God will now do a 180 since they won't like the conclusions science is presenting here. In other words, truth is really what you want it to be based on your personal agenda and you can rub somebodies nose in the truth and they'll simply ignore and deny it, like Judas did, I guess. Or would I be wrong with that?

Of course, by now you already know what the clincher is with this whole story. It is not hypothetical, it is actually really happening and has happened for 30 years. Here is the web site. Pull up the section on the scientific studies.
Actually, there is much more of much greater significance that I am not covering now or the append would get too long. Maybe some other time.

http://www.medjugorje.com/

I apologize for what is becoming increasingly obvious to me. My way of expressing my ideas is becoming increasingly poor. I put it down to old age.

Perhaps I can try again. There is very little in you post that I would disagree with in terms of your choice of epistemological explanation. I don't look for a scientific explanation.If a specialist in a particular field of medicine says that this person has amaizingly overcome an impossible cancer then I would agree with him/her. What they are saying is they cannot explain the cure in any scientific terms. If the patient says they cured themselves through meditation or prayer, then as far as I am concerned they did. Why do I accept their claim? Basically, it is because I think there is more to explain than the physicalist would lead us to believe.

Having said all of this, I still firmly maintain that science,right or wrong, able to explain or unable to explain has a job to do. We cannot compromise science by introducing non-scientific or metaphysical explanations simply because science is inadequate in certain respects. This why I argue against Professor Todd, and want to draw a clear line between what is science and what is non-science. The implications of this are very important in the long term. So again, Why do I want to do this? Well, I would have thought the answer was obvious. Almost two thousand years of metaphysics and theology have not give rise to one steam train, one computer or one aircraft. Just three hundred years of science have given rise to the situation whereby I can communicate with you through the internet.

My plea to people such as professor Todd and others involved in the attempt to reduce science to an Aristotelian enterprise. Please,
don't take us back to the Middle Ages.

[Ginkgo]

But my position is that the fact that science can't make an inference to a disembodied designer isn't an obstacle to making an inference to design, even if it appears that no embodied designer is available to fill the job.

I would suggest that not only is it an obstacle, but it is a very big obstacle.

The ontology you are proposing is not like the specialized sciences. The science that we know study only one part of intelligent designer question. It studies those designers that actually exist. If it is impossible to trace their actual existence in physical evidence and physical explanations then this it where it ends. Science does not go on to address the possiblity that this intelligence is some how explained in terms of a unchangeable intelligent designer. From the point of view of science if there is no physical explanation then there is no explanation for the time being.

The scientific explanation deals with intelligent designers that are changeable, or explainable in terms of change. They don't deal with intelligent designers that have some type of universal existence. In other words the intelligent designer has some type of universal and rational explanation when we can't come up with a changeable and physical explanation for intelligent design.

One of the key components of science was to split Aristotelian ontology down the middle. Science deals only with the ontological question in terms of those beings, things or intelligent designers that actually exist. Why don't we let ontology deals with the other part of the equation and let science deal with the bit that is actually scientific?

[tmoody]

But my position is that the fact that science can't make an inference to a disembodied designer isn't an obstacle to making an inference to design, even if it appears that no embodied designer is available to fill the job.

I would suggest that not only is it an obstacle, but it is a very big obstacle.

The ontology you are proposing is not like the specialized sciences. The science that we know study only one part of intelligent designer question. It studies those designers that actually exist. If it is impossible to trace their actual existence in physical evidence and physical explanations then this it where it ends. Science does not go on to address the possiblity that this intelligence is some how explained in terms of a unchangeable intelligent designer. From the point of view of science if there is no physical explanation then there is no explanation for the time being.

The scientific explanation deals with intelligent designers that are changeable, or explainable in terms of change. They don't deal with intelligent designers that have some type of universal existence. In other words the intelligent designer has some type of universal and rational explanation when we can't come up with a changeable and physical explanation for intelligent design.

One of the key components of science was to split Aristotelian ontology down the middle. Science deals only with the ontological question in terms of those beings, things or intelligent designers that actually exist. Why don't we let ontology deals with the other part of the equation and let science deal with the bit that is actually scientific?

I agree with most of what you've said here, but not all. I'm not sure what you mean by "physical explanation." Taking SETI again as an example, the signal itself is a physical phenomenon that can be explained in terms of a radio source, or whatever, but what's interesting about it, surely, is that it is also susceptible to a mental explanation. That is, it is a signal that has semantic content, i.e., meaning. You may disagree, but I think science has something to say about that, too, but I don't think it counts as a physical explanation.

I agree that science can only study the activity of designers that actually exist, but of course we don't have advance notice of who or what all the existing designers are. In the event of a positive SETI signal, scientists would, and should, assume it comes from some sort of embodied intelligent being, simply as a matter of ontological parsimony. But that assumption could turn out to be wrong, without invalidating the design inference.

I'd also like to address the somewhat alarmist point in your previous post. I fail to see how anything in ID threatens to unravel science. ID is not a "metaphysical explanation", unless you regard all science that deals with the actions of intelligent agents as metaphysical--which would be a pretty idiosyncratic use of the term.

The Aristotelian enterprise involved explaining natural phenomena in terms of purposes rather than purposeless laws. As far as I know, no one is suggesting a return to that. The word "natural" has more than one "opposite." One is, of course, "supernatural." The other is "personal." When the medical examiner says a person didn't die of natural causes, he's not saying the victim was smitten by God. Of course, if supernatural persons exist, a personal cause might also be supernatural, but that possibility really is beyond the reach of science.

There are phenomena for which there is no scientific explanation. Some, but not all, of them have features indicative of intelligent design. On your view, the correct scientific response to these is simply: There is no known explanation (I think. If your view is that the correct scientific respons is "It's not design" then my argument has to be different). On my view, a better response is: There is evidence of design, but no explanation of who the designer was. That is, we plant the flag of scientific agnosticism in slightly different places. Yes, the theologian or metaphysician can and should make what they want of the phenomenon, since that's their job. The Big Bang theory is no less a scientific theory because some theologians want to use it in support of cosmological arguments. QM is no less scientific because some metaphysicians want to use it in support of arguments about determinism and free will.

[QMan]

I apologize for what is becoming increasingly obvious to me. My way of expressing my ideas is becoming increasingly poor. I put it down to old age.

Perhaps I can try again. There is very little in you post that I would disagree with in terms of your choice of epistemological explanation. I don't look for a scientific explanation.If a specialist in a particular field of medicine says that this person has amaizingly overcome an impossible cancer then I would agree with him/her. What they are saying is they cannot explain the cure in any scientific terms. If the patient says they cured themselves through meditation or prayer, then as far as I am concerned they did. Why do I accept their claim? Basically, it is because I think there is more to explain than the physicalist would lead us to believe.

Having said all of this, I still firmly maintain that science,right or wrong, able to explain or unable to explain has a job to do. We cannot compromise science by introducing non-scientific or

metaphysical explanations simply because science is inadequate in certain respects. This why I argue against Professor Todd, and want to draw a clear line between what is science and what is non-science. The implications of this are very important in the long term. So again, Why do I want to do this? Well, I would have thought the answer was obvious. Almost two thousand years of metaphysics and theology have not give rise to one steam train, one computer or one aircraft. Just three hundred years of science have given rise to the situation whereby I can communicate with you through the internet

My plea to people such as professor Todd and others involved in the attempt to reduce science to an Aristotelian enterprise. Please,
don't take us back to the Middle Ages.

Not being a philosopher, I don't know what you mean by an Aristotelian enterprise but I assume you mean "don't take us back to the pre-Middle Ages." That leaves me really perplexed and I believe leaves us at an impasse. As I had explained, science, being confronted with an unknown, did exactly what science does and is intended to do, namely, investigate the unknown by all means possible using modern day methodology. There is no way science ever could or would go back to pre-Middle Age thinking or methodology, that is simply illogical.

Further, I do not understand why you want to delink scientific enquiry from a topic in need of enquiry just because there may be the possibility that a non-material result could be obtained. That line of reasoning would tell us to stop efforts in string theory and in numerous other areas of investigation in the hard and soft sciences. Thus, any scientific enquiry and conclusion pertaining to peoples perception, reactions, behaviors, opinion, shades of meaning, etc. would be useless endeavors.

Of course, I don't believe that's the case. My conclusions, based on a lifetime (also getting old ☹) of observation is that there may be only a single methodology available to establish the reality of an ID, amenable to statistical proof only by the soft sciences. And the reason for that is the existence of free will and the need of an ID to be sought out by an individual on a voluntary basis in an effort to establish a personal relationship with the ID. The hypothesis that an ID could be needy is based on assigning some probability other than zero to the themes and sentiments expressed in the bible.

To test this hypothesis by experimentation would then require to try to establish a solely personal relationship with an ID that potentially is only a figment of imagination. That's a risk that should not deter the scientist. It would only be the prolonged effort and required lifestyle change for the experiment that would deter the scientist. I could define the experimental procedure, duration, tool set, lab environment, ground rules, data collection and analytical methods and procedures precisely for the experiment, but won't do it now. But apparently, a lot of people have run this experiment very successfully allowing them to conclude that an ID interested in a personal relationship with them exists with high enough probability.

Another reason, besides free will, why an ID may not be amenable to material proof is the potential disruption of the order of this physical reality if it were certain that another ( a supernatural reality) exists potentially free of the crosses of this reality. Again, a reasonable hypothesis based on themes in the bible.

Now all the above is a totally legitimate avenue of enquiry for any of the sciences and there is nothing that should deter us to use our ingenuity and determination to arrive at more insight into these matters

[uwot]

It's true that the only intelligent designers we know about are beings with biological brains, so that indeed forms our inductive base. It doesn't follow, however, that we can only make an inductive inference to biological brains unless we add the premise that designing intelligence only belongs to them.

It's not a case of adding a clause, it is a fact that every instance of intelligent design we have unambiguously identified is associated with a biological brain, current or no longer with us. Given that your entire sample is biological brains, by what inductive process are you inferring there might be any other source?

The argument might look like this:

1. Structure X has properties, such as irreducible complexity, that we only find in intelligently designed things.

For the purposes of this argument, you are taking irreducible complexity for granted. You might be able to show that it is formally valid, but it isn't therefore necessarily sound. By assuming IC and attributing it to structure X, this clause becomes an argument in itself: X has IC. IC is only found in ID. The only thing missing is the conclusion.

2. We have no plausible account of how unguided natural forces could produce X.

The fact that we don't have one doesn't mean there isn't one. Besides, what one person finds plausible doesn't have to agree with someone else's view; there is no objective measure of plausibility. I was told off by Ginkgo for making what could be construed as ad hominem arguments, but the credulity of the individuals making an assessment of plausibility is an issue. It is not scientific to say 'I think such and such.' without offering the means by which people who disagree with you are compelled to take you seriously; generally an observation that rival theories fail to predict. In other words, science is about the stuff that makes a difference to what we see actually happening. On that account ID is not science, because it doesn't make any phenomenal claim that natural selection fails to account for, it is simply an assessment of plausibility.

3. Therefore X is intelligently designed.

Ah, there it is.

4. All known designing intelligences are beings with biological brains.
5. Therefore....what? I think you're saying that at most we are warranted in inferring that X was designed by a being with a biological brain.

Not having conceded IC, I wouldn't even go that far.

But,
6. No being with a biological brain could have designed X.

Where does that come from? I cannot conceive of any possible grounds for making such a claim. Again you are assuming that IC has been conceded.

7. Therefore X wasn't designed. Or maybe,
7. If X was designed, this fact is necessarily invisible to science.

No comment.

But my position is that the fact that science can't make an inference to a disembodied designer isn't an obstacle to making an inference to design, even if it appears that no embodied designer is available to fill the job.

Isn't your argument that ID is scientific? If you accept "that science can't make an inference to a disembodied designer", don't you have to concede that doing so isn't science? It is simply your judgement that it is designed; looking at bacterial flagella over and over and reaching the same conclusion on each occasion, doesn't make it science.

It's not denying the antecedent. If you accept that fairy rings are evidence of fairies, then yes, there is physical evidence for fairies. However, if you argue that fairies are invisible and, in fact, can avoid detection by any physical means, there is no direct physical evidence for fairies, even in principle.

If fairy rings are evidence of fairies then it's false that fairies can avoid detection by any physical means. The rings themselves are a way of detecting them.

You are confusing evidence with proof. Fairy rings might be used as evidence by people hoping to establish the existence of fairies. Fairies remain undetected.

Of course, if the rings are the only physical way of detecting them, then we might well wonder what fairies are, other than that putative cause of the rings. If that's all we know about them, and all we can know about them, it's not much. And one could make the same point about the inferred intelligent designer of structure X.

Yes, one could.

But as I see it, that's okay. I'm perfectly happy to say that the evidence points to design but it doesn't give us any handle on the identity or nature of the designer

The evidence does not point to design; you happen to think you see it.

Physical causes are themselves ultimately inexplicable. We have no explanation for why physical things have the basic causal powers they have. We can only explain how these basic causal powers produce the non-basic causal powers of things.

Yes, Hume made the point very well. Crucially though, when making a supposition of a causal interaction, science is looking at two, or more, events, for example; a billiards ball apparently striking another which then rolls off in a direction the player, if they are any good, has seen happen many times before and therefore has reason to believe the same will happen on this occasion. What you are asking is akin to demanding an explanation for billiards balls that move for no apparent reason. When they do, I'll give it a go.

If there are non-physical substances, then they, like physical substances, have their own basic causal powers.

Postulating non-physical substances is ontology, demonstrating the causal powers is science.

It comes down to the numbers. Opponents of ID complain that "it was designed" isn't a true explanation. But "the staggeringly improbable happened" isn't an explanation either, and it is even more impervious to confirmation and disconfirmation than the design hypothesis. At least the design hypothesis can be undermined by the discovery of a probable causal pathway.

That "the staggeringly improbable happened" isn't offered as a scientific explanation. The scientific explanation is the 'probable causal pathway' scientists are still looking for.

But you're saying that given the large numbers of interactions, the spontaneous convergence of factors to produce irreducibly complex systems isn't so improbable.

You are assuming I accept IC again.

This is itself an empirical claim, and I'm not convinced of its truth yet.

It's statistics, I think rather than empiricism. If a single person enters the UK national lottery, the chance of them winning is vanishingly small. If there are 20 or so million entries, there's a good chance that somebody will win.

Behe has quite a bit to say about this in his second book, The Edge of Evolution, which doesn't get nearly as much discussion as DBB. He has a very interesting discussion of malaria, which have existed in vast numbers for a very long time, and which have a fairly short generation rate. He considers the kinds of mutations that might enable Plasmodium to survive in temperate climates, instead of being limited to tropical climates. He suggests a pathway that might make this possible, but points out that despite the staggeringly huge breeding population, it still hasn't happened.

He may be right or he may be wrong, but I think his approach is sound.

I don't see that postulating something that could happen, but hasn't, adds anything to our understanding of chance. I'm intrigued by the thesis of this book; is it that there is a designer who puts spinning tails on bacteria and created a disease that kills lots and lots of people, but only in the tropics?

Let me ask this, in the spirit of bridging the gap in this discussion. Suppose the empirical trail ends at a fork. Either there was design or the staggeringly improbable happened. In my view, it's good science to state the dilemma clearly and say "That's as far as science takes us." Do you agree, or do you think science requires us to say the staggeringly improbable happened?

No. I don' think such a fork exists. Pragmatism might suggest you give it up, but as I've said on several occasions, science requires that you keep looking for demonstrable explanations.

[Ginkgo]

I agree with most of what you've said here, but not all. I'm not sure what you mean by "physical explanation." Taking SETI again as an example, the signal itself is a physical phenomenon that can be explained in terms of a radio source, or whatever, but what's interesting about it, surely, is that it is also susceptible to a mental explanation. That is, it is a signal that has semantic content, i.e., meaning. You may disagree, but I think science has something to say about that, too, but I don't think it counts as a physical explanation.

Now I come to think of it I don't really know. It definitely counts as philosophy.

I agree that science can only study the activity of designers that actually exist, but of course we don't have advance notice of who or what all the existing designers are. In the event of a positive SETI signal, scientists would, and should, assume it comes from some sort of embodied intelligent being, simply as a matter of ontological parsimony. But that assumption could turn out to be wrong, without invalidating the design inference.

If you are doing ontological parsimony then I think you are doing metaphysics, not science. We end up with things like, "God created the best of all possible worlds" It leads to apriori assumptions about how the natural world was designed.

[Ginkgo]

I would like to further add to my above explanation because it think it is important to further highlight the distinction between science and metaphysics.

If you want to provide an ontological parsimony explanation to describe intelligent being then you are using a method of reasoning that is not based in experience. I am not saying you don't begin with examples intelligent designers that are of this category. But then you move from what experience tells us about intelligent designers to what ontological parsimony tells us about intelligent designers. This is an apriori assumption that tells us about intelligent designers in a universal way.

[QMan]

Uwot wrote:
It's not a case of adding a clause, it is a fact that every instance of intelligent design we have unambiguously identified is associated with a biological brain, current or no longer with us. Given that your entire sample is biological brains, by what inductive process are you inferring there might be any other source?

Qman:
Did not know that proteins, DNA, amoebas etc. have brains like when this all started?

[uwot]

Uwot wrote:
It's not a case of adding a clause, it is a fact that every instance of intelligent design we have unambiguously identified is associated with a biological brain, current or no longer with us. Given that your entire sample is biological brains, by what inductive process are you inferring there might be any other source?

Qman:
Did not know that proteins, DNA, amoebas etc. have brains like when this all started?

If I understand you correctly, they didn't, but I don't think that Professor Moody is claiming that the things you mention are suggestive of intelligent design or are irreducibly complex.

[QMan]

If I draw a stick figure, isn't that intelligent design, or even a single line? And that's all that was designed at the start.