I believe that if Intelligent Design one day becomes a workable science, it has the potential of causing incredible harm to Christianity.
Think of the following scenario. I know it is somewhat far-fetched, but please bear with me:
It is the year 2020. Intelligent Design advocates have finally managed – after many years of work – to create a workable, scientific theory of Intelligent Design. Instead of trying to weasel Intelligent Design into schools, they have spent years collecting data, creating hypotheses, and testing predictions through various experiments. They have finally solved the initial problems with their theory and have managed to convince a large portion of the scientific community that there is some merit to the idea that the universe was created by a designer.
Will this be good for Christianity? Well, at first it might seem to be. Ardent critics of Intelligent Design, like Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, will appear on television talk shows, admitting that they were wrong. Pastors and evangelists will ecstatically preach from the pulpit that science has finally proven that God exists. Millions of Christians around the world will experience a renewal of faith; churches will be filled to overflowing with new converts. Apologists, the likes of William Lane Craig and Josh McDowell, will wink at the television cameras, and say something along the lines of: “I told you so.” All will be honky-dory in Christendom.
Then, something happens. Electrified by the newfound euphoria of proving the world wrong, Intelligent Design theorists work double-time to extend their theory. They have provided sufficient scientific evidence that a designer exists, but they have also found a way to obtain information on who the designer actually is. They spend weeks collating data that will provide them with an answer. After much analysis and modelling, the Intelligent Design theorists reach a conclusion. But when they see the answer, a slow, icy horror creeps through each one of them. . .
The intelligent designer of the cosmos is not the Christian God!
Think about this story: if Intelligent Design is simply debunked by the scientific community – if it follows Young Earth Creationism into the wastepaper basket of “outrageous ideas that didn’t make it into science” – Christianity will survive intact. After all, the simple debunking of Intelligent Design will not disprove the existence of the Christian God. However, if Intelligent Design one day reaches the level of being considered science, will it not hold the potential of destroying Christian belief if it reaches unexpected conclusions?
These are thoughts that I had while reading the discussion of Intelligent Design between Lui and R10B in one of my earlier posts.
Welcome! This blog covers my thoughts and struggles as an ex-Christian. If you like, read my introductory post. I've also written two "concluding" posts on why I no longer post here that often. Feel free to comment!
11 comments:
oh I think you have overly rosy notions of what intelligent design is. You're giving it too much credit. Every advocate of "intelligent design" is a fundamentalist christian in disguise. There is no such thing as non-christian intelligent design. They'll keep quiet about who the designer is, but the implications are obvious.
Of course, your hypothetical scenario will NEVER happen. There is no debate within the scientific community over the viability of the theory of evolution by natural selection. None. It's not a dispute at all. Science will never accept "intelligent design"
Kevin,
Very imaginative post. You forgot one minor detail: according to many in the scientific community, like Richard Dawkins, say that science has already clearly indicated to us that the Christian God, and any other God or gods, do not exist. Christianity has weathered the all out attack of modernism, materialism, post-modernism, skepticism, scientisticism, etc. I think there is good reason to think that it will certainly weather any hypothetical attack from ID.
Matt,
Try these on for size:
http://www.researchintelligentdesign.org/wiki/Intelligent_design_among_atheists_and_agnostics
Hi Kevin,
I think you might have too much faith in what science can actually do. Science depends upon several philosophical assumptions that science itself cannot prove/disprove. It is interesting to note that the mathematical equations we discover that describe the activity of entities in our universe do not actually explain what these entities are or why they behave the way the equations describe. And science in principle cannot answer these questions. Philosophy undergirds science, and that is just the way reality is. Questions about the fundamental nature of reality (e.g., questions about God) will always be on the philosophical level - informed by science yes, but not consisting of science alone.
Hi Lui,
So why is Flew still a theist/deist? If you read the correspondence with Carrier again, I don't see Flew actually retract his newfound "conversion" to deism, does he? He just says that he wasn't aware of some alternative "presentable" theories, and feels like a "fool" because he said there were none. He doesn't say he agrees with these other theories, as far as I know. I would be interested to know if he has. One of my former professors is a friend of Flew, so perhaps I will ask him.
And has anyone presented any actual experiment that demonstrates life from non-life, or just tales about what might have happened? If you could provide me with any links on this, I would appreciate it.
Hi again, the previous post is from me, Mike, I just posted it as anonymous accidentally. I have been busy, but I have decided to get back with you all again for a time.
Lui, (and Kevin and whoever else), after reading the discussion you and r10B had, you concluded with some musings about the origin of the Big Bang, and with Dawkins you believe that the "God hypothesis" would complicate the solution rather than provide explanatory power, because apparently God exhibits a greater complexity than the universe itself. I believe this line of thinking is mistaken because of the lack of reflection on what a mental cause is. A mental cause is not complex in the way that physical entities are complex. A mental cause is a single substance, a mind (or three minds if you are trinitarian, but that's a whole other can of worms). God does not have a body, no DNA, no complex arrangements of particles. He just has thoughts. Mind is the originator of complexity (okay, actually "design"), not complexity itself.
Now of course you still have the question, "Where did God come from?" Well, taking a step back, the real question becomes, "Is it more plausible to have mind as the ultimate, necessary reality at the foundation of everything, or non-mind, i.e., the physical universe?" Is it really more plausible to view physical stuff at the foundation of reality, or mental "stuff"? This is where the deep mysterious core of our intuitions must do some real wrestling.
Plus, if we really are able to find instances of design in the universe, it is not reasonable to set aside the explanation that there is a designer just because we don't have an explanation of the designer. Dawkins' argument here is really weak, because it would actually allow us to throw away all aternative hypotheses because we don't have explanations for their existence either. It just boils down to what makes the most sense to us, mind or matter at the foundation of reality. And neither side will be able to provide a knockdown proof of their conclusion, just a list of evidences that they believe support their inference to what they believe is the best explanation.
Matt said: "Every advocate of "intelligent design" is a fundamentalist christian in disguise. There is no such thing as non-christian intelligent design."
There were non=Christians in the past who are open to ID, there are non-Christians now considering ID, and there will be many non-Christians in the future who will be open to ID.
Consider:
"Why Muslims Should Support Intelligent Design" By Mustafa Akyol
http://www.islamonline.net/english/Contemporary/2004/09/Article02.shtml
http://www.mustafaakyol.org
English: http://www.thewhitepath.com
http://www.harunyahya.com
http://www.freewebtown.com/bhaktivedanta108
Matt, I would ask that you (and others similarly motivated) to continue to misrepresent, spin, and lie about ID, that way when someone goes and looks for the answers themselves, they will see how wrong you really are.
Ciao
Hi Lui,
About the Flew “conversion”, you said: “I don't know why he's a deist, but I think I read somewhere that it's because of philosophical reasons, not Intelligent Design reasons.” Well, I’d like to see where you read that, and I will do some detective work on my end.
About my question regarding experiments for life from non-life, you said, “So "therefore" God "must have" designed us. That's not how you do science. In fact, it's exactly how creation "scientists" do science. Real science is difficult and often frustrating.” I don’t think you appreciate how controversy sparks scientific work. This whole debate has actually fueled a slough of scientific investigation on both sides. Tell me, how much work was being done on bacterial flagellum before Behe? Honestly, this “Saying ‘God did it’ stifles all science” argument is empirically shown to be false by all the scientific experimentation that is being done on both sides. Before you assert it again you might want to see if it is actually true – are Christian scientists just sitting around doing nothing singing “God did it! God did it! … Koombaya my Lord, koombaya…” Plus, it is an inescapable fact that the vast majority of the founding fathers of science were theists, driven by a desire to think God’s thoughts after him.
About the nature of mental causes, you wrote, “Don't you see that this allows you to get away with so much? It's not an explanation for anything, it's a mere premise. There is no evidence that the mind is anything other than the manifestation of material interactions in the brain…” and then you went on to say how minds must exist in a medium, physical medium I assume. I think you would enjoy a philosophy of mind course, because there you might discover that, conceptually, mind does not need a physical medium to exist. Mind can be (and in my opinion, essentially is) spiritual in nature. Can you conceive of a being like a ghost, or an angel, or a demon? A being that does not have a physical body? Most people can, every 8 year old that I have asked can, tons of our movie producers and audiences can, and what this thought experiment shows is that immaterial minds are not metaphysically impossible, or else we would not be able to conceive of them. For example, we cannot conceive of a square circle, or that 1+1=3, which indicates to us that these states of affairs are impossible. Have you ever imagined yourself outside of your body? Perhaps looking down at yourself? That is an odd state isn’t it, to be able to see without eyes and to think without a brain, because you are looking down at your body where these physical organs are? And there are actually numerous accounts of people claiming to have actually experienced this on the operating table, often when there is no brain activity at all. My friend’s grandfather can recount to you the exact conversation that two doctors had regarding whether to attempt to revive him or not on the operating table, and there was no brain activity at all.
Continuing on, you said: “No one at all denies that consciousness is a deep mystery in biology. But the evidence that it is manifested by matter is overwhelming; a century of psychology and neuroscience has pretty conclusively shown that.” Well, not exactly, but materialists would like to think that.
What has been observed by scientists is a bunch of correlations between mental states and brain chemistry. A thought occurs, and a part of the brain lights up. This is what is known as correlation, not causation. Causation is a philosophical assumption/hypothesis given the data. But the empirical data is entirely compatible with the mind also being a cause of the physical phenomena, which we actually observe whenever we get stressed for example (stress has many effects on the brain and body), or elated, or sad, etc. The brain could be like a radio receiver, not necessarily a transmitter, of consciousness. The brain would act as an interface with the physical, which means that the mind would be subject to whatever limits are placed on it by the brain (i.e., the brain can affect the mind and vice versa).
The real issue is that the mind-body problem is an “in principle” problem. Simply put, mind looks nothing like matter. Mental states have properties that physical matter does not have and cannot have in principle. Here’s a question to ponder: How can your thought about a cat for example be identical to some neurons firing in your brain? When we reflect on the nature of physical particles and the nature of mental states they look nothing alike. Yes, consciousness is a real problem for naturalists, and believe it or not the best “solutions” available today from naturalists are: 1) Consciousness does not exist. It’s an illusion (Jaegwon Kim), 2) There is an unknowable mysterious mechanism in our brain that produces consciousness (Colin McGinn), and 3) Let’s just say that the brain produces consciousness and be done with it. Nothing more can be said (John Searle). Now I don’t know about you, but the belief that there is actually an immaterial soul is not that far-fetched compared to these other theories now is it? Especially when most people in the world have no problem believing it? If you don't believe me about this "in principle" problem, try reading a fellow naturalist, Colin Mcginn, "The Mysterious Flame."
You also wrote: “Dawkins himself conceded the possibility (albeit a very small one) of God in his book, if positive evidence in his favour were forthcoming. So far, ID and creation science have provided nothing substantial, only arguments from incredulity and gaps in evolutionary theory.”
Thankfully, ID and creation science do not have the sole responsibility of providing evidence for the existence of God. How about cosmological arguments, moral arguments, teleological arguments, experiential arguments, etc… I hope you read more than Dawkins when it comes to evidence for God’s existence. I read his chapter on the arguments for God’s existence in “The God Delusion”, and honestly it would be laughable if it were not about such a serious topic. He is really out of his league here, and it is actually irresponsible for someone with such a platform on such a serious topic to be that uninformed about philosophy of religion over the last 40 years. Here is a good critique of “The God Delusion” which addresses what I am talking about: http://www.arn.org/docs/williams/pw_goddelusionreview.htm
I close with a question: Do you think that it is more plausible that mind or matter is the foundation of ultimate reality? What do you think is “at the bottom” of ultimate reality? I am honestly curious to know what you think about this question.
I said, “Tell me, how much work was being done on bacterial flagellum before Behe?" And you said, “Quite a lot. In fact, during the court trial, Behe was embarrassed to find out that there had been a few dozen scientific journal papers on the evolution of the flagella.”
I’m sorry, but this doesn’t answer my question. How much work has been done since? Look at how much was done before, and how much has been done since. Is it that hard to admit that controversy sparks scientific work?
“ID doesn’t elevate the creator, it’s belittling of him… Evolution is far more parsimonious and elegant.”
Well, I see the comparison between a God who gives all the gifts to His creation right at the beginning, with none thereafter, kinda like the husband who says to his wife, “I said I loved you on our wedding day, and if I change my mind I’ll tell you.” The other conception would be of a God who continues to give gifts and interact with His prized creation, like a loving father who is actively involved with his children.
Honestly Lui I don’t know what happened over evolutionary history. All I am saying is that perhaps we should be open to ID theories because perhaps it will spur scientists to find answers quicker.
I said, "Plus, it is an inescapable fact that the vast majority of the founding fathers of science were theists, driven by a desire to think God’s thoughts after him." And you said, ”Absolutely irrelevant; not only do I not try to escape that fact, I also have no interest in doing so. It has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on the validity of the concept of God itself…”
I was just trying to argue that Christian belief is not a necessary hindrance to science, and perhaps even a motivator to scientific work.
“I can also conceive of fairies in the garden and other fictitious entities, but that doesn't make them any closer to being real. This has to be one of the weakest arguments I've ever seen.”
Perhaps because you do not understand the point of thought experiments like this, nor do I think you understand the actual argument you made. You were essentially arguing that mind MUST exist in a medium, but these thought experiments are intended to get us to see that this is not so. In other words, it is not an impossibility for mind to be non-material, or spirit. Now you did say that spirit is also a medium, because it is not “in a vacuum.” Well, you are right that it is not in a vacuum, because it is not in space at all! Spirit is by definition non-physical reality, but it seems you are ruling this type of reality out a priori. Do you believe that numbers exist? What about logic? Morals? Where are they located in the universe? Lui, all I am asking you to do is to at least consider a possibility, rather than hold on so tightly to the “who designed the designer” argument that you will not even consider the intuitions (i.e., deep inner apprehensions about what is real and true) that most of the world has in this particular area.
“I think you're over-mystified by mind. I am, too, but in a different way.”
Well, I am mystified by your view of mind coming from/being identical to matter.
“Dawkins goes through all these so-called arguments and disposes of them one by one throughout the book.”
Lui, is it intellectually responsible for you to cite a zoologist as the disposer of all the arguments for God’s existence? Is it intellectually responsible to pronounce judgments about logical arguments without adequate knowledge of the logical principles the arguments utilize? Does he dispose of them ALL? Does he even dispose the outdated ones he addresses? Enjoy the article, and please read with an open mind.
“Do you think that it is more plausible that mind or matter is the foundation of ultimate reality? " Matter. "What do you think is “at the bottom” of ultimate reality?" Simplicity.
Matter AND simplicity… Wow. Good luck trying to get those two to unite together in any meaningful way. BTW, why simplicity? What intuition of yours thinks that it must be simple? I agree with you, but I am just wondering why you believe this?
“Saying that it terminates with him is, to me, beyond ludicrous. An entity with so much power and intelligence isn't just a given; it's something that cries out for an explanation.” …But your theory does not? How about Dawkins “multiple universes”? That sounds simple to me.
Is saying that matter is at the bottom equally ludicrous, and even more so? Let’s think about this… Mindless, law-abiding (forget where these “laws” came from and why they are the mathematical constants they are) “stuff” infused with energy (forget what this “energy” is), produces purpose, beauty, mathematics, logic, minds, meaning, morals… Lui, matter is just “stuff”! It follows deterministic laws! *sigh* At least consider deism or pantheism…
It all boils down to which brute reality are we comfortable with not being able to explain? Mind or matter? Oh well, I guess there’s not much more we can say to each other.
Well, since the One True God designed everything, I would say it should definitely be called Intelligent Design. You can talk about evolution, big bangs, and swampy pools all you want, but God designed you and wants to have a relationship with you. Sound impossible? No more impossible than the earth and all beings on it being formed by accident. Even though you deny God, He loves you and will save you from hell if you ask. It isnt fiction, its Truth. Dont wait until its too late to figure it out -remember Darwin? Before he died, he understood that God made the world. He devoted his life to disproving God, but in the end he could not deny God's existence.
The scenario you describe is not so implausible. I have read the physicists, discussing the bubble universe hypothesis (a version of the multiverse idea) say that they consider it possible to generate a bubble universe in the laboratory---who knows, our own universe might be the result of such experiments.
A short article on the topic called THE BIG LAB EXPERIMENT: WAS OUR UNIVERSE CREATED BY DESIGN.
http://www.slate.com/id/2100715
Great thought...though of course I would say that it wouldn't happen :-) It is an interesting adventure into what if. I'm curious if your thought process took you into what things might be discovered to prove such a thing. Silly question I know but I followed your line of thinking and it brought me there.
For me of course, creation does reveal attributes about God. He revealed enough about Himself through Jesus Christ. Of course, again a subject for another post.
Man...first time I've read and commented on 3 posts on the same blog in the same reading. I'll move on for now!
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