Design Part II (Week 26)

Intelligent Design is a fun one. If you're one who doesn't ordinarily read the Comments section, I would encourage you to do so over the next few weeks. Because ID generally is viewed as creationism or anti-evolutionary theory, it has been written about and discussed by some brilliant folks on both sides of the coin. I have already decided to break the Design posts into a minimum of three weeks; yet, I'll only be scratching the surface. I have little doubt that a multitude of arguments will be presented in the Comments section (probably more so next week than this), and I'm sure you won't be disappointed.

EVOLUTION

I suppose that I should have been a bit clearer when discussing evolution. As I have (hopefully) made clear, I am a theist. So, obviously I don’t believe that the universe has progressed solely by naturalistic means. Accordingly, the belief that life came into existence without God is one that I don’t share. That being said, I don’t think it is relevant to present arguments for or against descent with modification when discussing the idea of the first life, except perhaps to illustrate why evolutionary theorists tend to believe in the materialistic creation of first life. I’ll again recall a notion from Coyne here when he said, “…we have only a foggy window into the earliest and most interesting developments in evolution, and none at all into the origin of life.” So, I don’t wish for the discussion to focus on whether modern creatures descended from earlier creatures; rather, I wish to focus on whether first life could arise by event causation. You’re free to presume that once first life came into being, speciation followed. I may discuss descent with modification at a later date.

That Aint Science

I think too often that the scientific community tries to deflect arguments for intelligent design by defining science to be a study of event causation then dismissing ID as “not science.” As Greg Koukl put it, “…when somebody says, ‘that aint science,’ or ‘That’s not scientific,’ to the general population, it doesn’t mean Oh, I see… we are shifting now from one way of knowing about the world – the scientific method – to other ways of gaining legitimate knowledge about the world….” Rather, generally, this statement is tantamount to saying, “that’s not true.” ID, in essence, is a theory that posits an agent cause rather than an event cause. The facts are the same. The method is the same. It’s really the conclusions that differ.

To draw a parallel (again, I’ll borrow from Mr. Koukl here), “We realize that if you come upon a dead man who’s got 15 holes in his chest, his head has been lopped off, and he’s got a knife in his back, he probably did not die of natural causes.” His allusion, of course, is to the forensic sciences, where scientists look to physical evidence for clues and draw conclusions based solely on the evidence. If you presumed in the above example that the deceased became that way via event causation, you could certainly assume that he ducked under the circular saw to grab his shotgun…. Still, no reasonable forensic scientist would assume that no agent was involved. When we study ID, the concept is much the same. The evidence is there for anyone to study, and ID theorists believe that the evidence points to intelligence.

Science of the Gaps

There is an ideology that naturalists present which is utterly infuriating… regardless of who advocates the materialist position, it seems that each presumes that science will “figure it out” sometime in the future. For instance, paleontologists presumed that the fossil record should include a winged, feathered dinosaur-like creature somewhere between where dinosaurs are found and where birds first emerge. Scientists found such a creature. In fact, scientists are often vindicated with evidential support of their theories. So, the conclusion seems to be that, if a scientist assumes that life came about by natural processes, science will be right because science has been oh-so-right in the past. Of course, science has been incredibly wrong in the past as well (a point that is oft forgotten), but the tendency is to blame the religious folk for those errors.

The problem here is not that we haven’t “figured it out” yet; rather, it seems that we have figured it out… that we understand the random chemical bonding processes inherent in the materials of life. Yet, those processes lead to the conclusion that the likely way to naturalistically form life is by sheer chance. This notion of the chance formation of life is not just disconcerting to theists. Evolutionary theorists understand, too, that the odds against life forming by chance are problematic (again, using the well-founded interactions of the chemicals therein); as such, a number of materialists have posited theories to remove or reduce this chance element. I’ll focus more on this next week.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/01/0130_030130_originslife.html

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081016141405.htm

The Layman’s Argument for ID

One simple way of viewing ID theory is simply by asking what, in our own experience, via our own observations produces information? Information is needed to build proteins, to form into cells then tissues then organs. Information is the key to life. We do know of a cause that is capable of producing information: Intelligence. The standard method of reasoning used in evolution or any other scientific endeavor is to infer an explanation by identifying a cause that is uniquely known to produce the type of event in question. Likewise, ID theorists note that the only known source of information is indeed intelligence.

“DNA is like a computer program, but far, far more advanced than any software we've ever created.” -- Bill Gates

In 1953, Watson and Crick discovered the structure of the DNA molecule (A, C, G, T). The arrangement of the chemicals bears instructions on developing the organism. What we have since come to know since the human genome project and subsequent work in 2007 is that the living cell functions much in the same manner as a computer program. The information contained in DNA guides the development of the organism. As we continue to study DNA, more and more becomes apparent. Many books were published in the last decade that used the idea of “junk DNA” to argue against intelligent design. After all, if DNA was created by a mind, there would be no “junk” to deal with. Recent research, though, has shown that this so-called “junk” actually operates somewhat like an operating system… that DNA is infinitely more complex and information-rich than we once suspected. As Rick Weiss states:

“The first concerted effort to understand all the inner workings of the DNA molecule is overturning a host of long-held assumptions about the nature of genes and their role in human health and evolution. ... The findings, from a project involving hundreds of scientists in 11 countries and detailed in 29 papers being published today, confirm growing suspicions that the stretches of "junk DNA" flanking hardworking genes are not junk at all. But the study goes further, indicating for the first time that the vast majority of the 3 billion "letters" of the human genetic code are busily toiling at an array of previously invisible tasks.”

("Intricate Toiling Found In Nooks of DNA Once Believed to Stand Idle," Washington Post, June 14, 2007)

In any other realm of experience, we would immediately assume that we have an artifact of mind.

Information = Intelligence (Exemplified)

The idea behind the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) program, which uses the Allen Telescope Array to search and filter various radio signals, is to seek life by searching for signals that could not occur naturally (this concept was made popular by the movie Contact). Of course, the array picks up a constant barrage of signals, so how do SETI scientists propose to look for intelligence? They look for information. Information, to the SETI scientists, is sufficient grounds to suppose intelligence. SETI recognizes that certain patterns simply do not occur naturally.

Shaped tools and hieroglyphics point archeologists to man’s influence.

Cryptographers sort through randomness to find coherence, and, hence, intelligence.

The point here is not necessarily that ID is equivalent to these other sciences, but that our experience tells us information is a likely indication of intelligence. When one theorizes, then, that another information source should be investigated for an intelligent causer, is such a venture as outlandish as some might have you believe? Next week, I’ll explore some of the calculations previously referenced by Dembski and others to better explain why ID theorists (and many evolutionary theorists) view abiogenesis as something that many believe simply cannot be explained by chance.

(A Quick Note: The materialist readers shouldn’t salivate too terribly much at the idea of reviewing Dembski’s calculations. I don’t intend to simply retread his arguments.)