Intelligent Design: Creationism or a Third Way?

1. Introduction
   • ID has opened a door to the popular mind.
   • A family tree for the genus homo from National Geographic, August 2002
     • homo habilis, 2.5mya to 1.7mya
     • homo ergaster, 1.85mya to 1.4mya
     • homo erectus, 1.8mya to 100kya
     • homo heidelbergensis, 700kya to 300kya
     • homo neanderthalensis, 350kya to 20kya
     • homo sapiens, 300kya to present
   • argument: ID + evolution work hand in hand, if we look at each from the proper perspective
   • conclusion: we are part of -- co-creating -- both perspectives
   • Questions for discussion
     1. where is the hand of God in the orgins of humans?
     2. where is the hand of God in the orgins of creation in general?
     3. what is our role in the process?
2. What is Intelligent Design?
   • contends (neo-) Darwinism, i.e., naturalistic evolution, cannot explain all of the evidence; such evidence is explained, therefore, by the agency of an intelligent designer.
   • either Darwinism or ID -- no third way
   • Behe: irreducible complexity
     Molecular Machines: Experimental Support for the Design Inference
     1. If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.
        -- Charles Darwin in The Origin of Species [p. 247]
     2. a system meeting Darwin's criterion exhibits irreducible complexity
     3. irreducible complexity: a single system which is composed of serveral interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, and where the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning. [p. 247]
     4. such a system cannot be produced by "slight, successive modifications" as required by natural selection
     5. irreducible complexity is incompatible with the gradualism implied by natural selection
     6. are there any irreducibly complex objects in nature?
     7. Behe claims that cilia (hairlike organelles on the surfaces of many animal and lower plant cells); the signal recognition particle in proteins; aspects of protein transport, blood clotting, closed circular DN, electron transport, the bacterial flagellum, telomeres, photosynthesis, transcription regulation, etc.
     8. Behe claims that irreducible complexity is a mark of intelligent design:
        the purposeful arrangement of parts
   • ID does not try to explain everything in nature (from Behe in chp 10)
     • evolution considers a number of factors in the development of life:
       common descent, natural selection, migration, population size, founder effects, genetic drift, gene flow, linkage, etc.
     • ID should be added to this list
   • Dembski: complex specified information (CSI)
     [chp 25, Intelligent Design as a Theory of Information, p.553]
     1. ID: a theory for detecting and measuring information, explaining its origin, and tracing its flow.
     2. information: the actualization of one possibility to the exclusion of others.
     3. the complexity of information increases as the probability of occurance decreases
     4. specified information: information which exhibits a pattern before it is actualized, or ...
        the actualization of a possibility is specified if the possibility's actualization is independenently identifiable by means of a a pattern.
     5. Now, the origin of CSI => intelligent design
     6. intelligent causation => directed contingency, choosing from a range of competing possibilities.
     7. how do we then recognize intelligent causation in biology?
     8. by locating CSI:
        1. establish that one of a multitude of possibilities might occur
        2. establish that the possibility that was actualization (and the others excluded) was specified
        3. ascertain that the information is complex (this is "implicit" -- actually subjective)
     9. chance and necessity cannot generate CSI
     10. Law of Conservation of Information: natural causes are incapable of generating CSI
     11. corollaries:
         1. CSI in a closed system of natural causes remains constant or decreases
         2. CSI cannot be generate spontaneously, originate endogenously, or organize itself
         3. The CSI in a closed system ofnatural causes either has been in thesystm eternally or was at some point added exogenously
         4. any closed system of natural causes that is also of finite duration received whatever CSI it contains before it became a closed system
   • subtext -- Darwinism is atheistic admitting of NO supernatural agency
3. Critique of naturalistic evolution
   [chp 2; Evolution as Dogma: The Establishment of Naturalism; p. 59]
   • Philip Johnson: Darwin On Trial
   • does not refute evolution within a species (microevolution)
     • natural selection effects the distribution of characteristics within a population
     • re. English peppered-moth species
   • refutes evolution resulting in new species (macroevolution)
     • small random genetic changes over time result in large changes
     • microscopic creatures evolve into trees and people!
   • claims that the fossil record is "hostile" to macroevolution
     • if new forms developed from pre-existing forms, where are the transitional forms?
     • N.B. paleontologists have found what they believe are transitional forms
   • notes the sudden appearance of forms, such as in the Cambian explosion, where the oldest found are already in an advanced state of evolution
   • criticises scienctists for not admitting there are mysteries beyond their comprehension
     • N.B. if scientists did this, there would be little progress
     • N.B. the scientific method requires a belief that anything is discoverable
   • objects to the absence of the supernatural in naturalistic evolution
   • observes this has become a philosophy (scientism rather than a method
4. Critique of Intelligent Design
   • Murphy
     [chp 18; Phillip Johnson on Trial: A Critique of His Critique of Darwin; p. 451]
     • Johnson is looking for direct observation of macroevolution
     • scientists do not expect this to happen
     • modern scientific reasoning is based on "hypothetico-deductive" reasoning
       • frees science from the need for direct observation re. evolution, cosmology, nuclear physics
         1. we observe O₁
         2. we formulate a hypothesis (H), which, if true, would explain O₁
         3. then we ask, if H is true, what additional observations (O₂, ..., O_n) can we make?
         4. finally, if O₂ through O_n are observed, H is confirmed
       • this is how the theory of evolution is developed
       • it is the best hypothesis so far
       • always contingent
     • genetic theory supports evolution
       • provides an "auxiliary hypothesis"
       • "The conflict between Christianity and evolutionary thought only arises when scientists conclude that if the only scientific explanation that can be given is a chance happening, then there is no other explanation at all [p. 464]."
   • against irreducible complexity (Philip Kitcher)
     [chp 11; Born-Again Creationism; p.262]
     • notes that there are unanswered questions in science; however, you don't throw the methods out
     • constituents of a cell, a tissue, or an organism are put to new uses
     • think emergence!
     • so the required immediate forms for complex results evolved for other purposes
   • against CSI (Peter Godfrey-Smith)
     [chp 26;Information and the Argument from Design; p. 575]
     • CSI is really just "improbability"
     • a lot of improbable occurrances are possible!
     • CSI has little to do with complexity as generally used by biologists
     • CSI => slight increases in complexity or adaptedness cannot be produced by natural evolution
     • mutation and selection are causal processes that enable populations to discover and accumulate useful new traits, gradually leading to large-scale changes
     • observes that Darwinian processes are critical to us:
       1. the evolution of bacterial resistence to antibodies
5. The Third Way
   • Peacocke
     [from chp 18; Phillip Johnson on Trial: A Critique of His Critique of Darwin; p. 466]
     • sciences can be organized in a hierarchy, with highter sciences studying more complex levels of organization in reality (e.g., chemistry studies more complex levels than physics).
     • each science conditioned by the levels above and below it
     • lower levels set limits on higher levels
     • but lower levels cannot explain all the behavior of higher levels (hence emergence)
     • thus, any scientific domain is limited in its view of reality
     • what of the highest? this is theology: the "science" that studies the interaction of God and the whole of creation.
     • it is at this highest level that we can address the Divine
     • program: what questions in science cannot be answered except by this highest level?
     • how do we avoid the "god of the gaps" in answering this?
   • Peacocke
     [chp 19, Welcoming the "Disguised Friend" -- Darwinism and Divinity, p. 471]
     • Continuity and Emergence
       1. "the seamless character of the web that has been spun on the loom of time; the process appears as continuous from its cosmic 'beginning,' in the 'hot big band,' to the present and at no point do modern natural scientists have to invoke any non-natural causes to explain their observations and inferences about the past."
       2. these processes result in new levels of reality emerging, such as new forms of living matter -- this is evolution
       3. the living world is in continuous process -- dynamic
       4. this leads us to understand that God is continuously creating
       5. "God is creating at every moment of the world's existence in and through the perpetually-endowed creativity of the very stuff of the world. [p. 473]"
       6. evolution => God as Immanent Creator creating in and through the processes of the natural order.
     • The Mechanism of Biological Evolution
       1. "There is a creative interplay of 'chance' and law apparent in the evolution of living matter by natural selection. [p. 475]"
       2. 'chance' allows exploration of possibilities
       3. 'law' provides the framework of organization
       4. the 'law' (necessity) provides the potential being and 'chance' the becoming of the actual
     • Trends in Evolution?
       1. "the evolutionary process is characterized by propensities towards increase in complexity, information-processing and -storage, consciousness, sensitivity to pain, and even self-consciounsness ... [p. 477-478]"
       2. the actual forms may vary, but the propensities prevail
       3. these propensities, and the interplay of law and chance, are signs of God's intent without the need for a pre-determined Divine plan
     • The Diversity of Life
       1. the diversity of life => the oneness of God and God's unfathomable richness
       2. God delights in the divesity of creation
       3. NO "Fall"!!!
       4. rather an "ascent"!!!
       5. not a return, but a becoming
   • The necessity of the hiddeness of God
     1. The Logic of Love
     2. Free Will
     3. Hence naturalistic evolution (necessity and chance) at the material level is God's way
     4. By faith, the transcendent level (propensities) points to God's lure
6. The future of Evolution
   1. Logic of Love: we co-create with God
   2. Humans are driving evolution too!
   3. Our techno-electronic-optical civilization is part of the evolution process
   4. Home sapiens sapiens neo --> cyborg = homo sapien machina
   5. results
      1. by recognizing civilization as integral/intrinsic to evolution, we no longer see it as alien to God and God's creation
         • not Social Darwinism!
         • but theistic evolution => process reality
      2. we will not abuse or be abused by it
      3. we will shape it towards the Basilea of God

References

2. Miller, Rev. James B.; MISLABELING, MISCALCULATING, AND MISUNDERSTANDING: THE SCIENTIFI COMMUNITY AND THE CHALLENGE OF INTELLIGENT DESIGN; Washington Academy of Sciences; Winter 2004.
3. Pennock, Robert T., ed.; Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics: Philosophical, Theological, and Scientific Perspectives; ©2001 Massachusetts Insitute of Technology.