Intelligent Design is not science

Matt Y writes:

This Seattle Times editorial against Intelligent Design makes me uncomfortable:

This is particularly true of science. A scientific hypothesis must be falsifiable to fail. The theory of evolution, for example, postulates complex life arising from simple life. If the geological record showed otherwise — that the further one went back, the more complex life was, or that unrelated species repeatedly appeared as if from nowhere — that would falsify the theory.

Intelligent design implies that God did it. That may be true. Certainly, millions of Americans believe so. But intelligent design is not a scientific theory because there is no set of facts that would disprove it. No matter what science says tomorrow, a believer in intelligent design could say, "Yes, that's the way God did it."

The editorial makes me uncomfortable, too. Primarily because the bolded text reads like a typo. Matt worries that simplistic Popperian pop philosophy will end up helping the Creationists and the proponents of intelligent design. Frankly, I'm not too worried about that. The editorial is getting towards a good point. Intelligent Design is parasitic upon science. ID is a modern version of the argument from design: Fins look as if they were designed for swimming, hands for grasping, teeth for chewing, mitochondria for generating energy, and so on. The next question is whether this apparent design could have arisen without the intent of a designer. ID-ers say no. Their arguments about why this apparent design can't be explained by natural processes sometimes touch on modern science (typically cosmology, cellular biology, or probability theory). But simply pointing out that our best science doesn't currently have an answer to a particular question is a far cry from arguing that it is impossible in principle for science to explain a particular phenomenon. When you get into arguments about what a future science could do in principle, or why an appeal to design is necessarily more parsimonious than any possible scientific explanation, you've left the realm of high school biology.

Scientists just assume that events have naturalistic explanations. They proceed as if phenomena can be explained in terms of general principles. Call these principles "laws" or "regularities" or "observation prediction technologies" or whatever you like. For example, we know something about how organic chemicals react under various conditions. If we want a scientific explanation for the orgins of life,we assume that what we know about organic chemicals today was applicable back then. Likewise for geology, genetics, probability theory, and so on. We ask what scenarios make sense, given what we know so far.

Ultimately, ID-ers are arguing that the structure of science should change to include both natural and supernatural explanations. That's the controversy. Their worldview is incompatible with science as it is currently practiced, and they are appealing to scientists to rethink the basic assumptions of their disciplines. This is not a controversy that should be argued in high school biology classrooms. Students signed on to learn science as it is practiced by the scientific community of our day.

Once you accept the ID argument, our knowledge of chemistry, physics, and biology become irrelevant to the origins of life. If you think that God must have suspended the laws of nature in order to create life, then scientists are wasting their time trying to work their way back using general principles. ID short circuits science.

The modern ID movement is deliberately cagey about the empirical details. They can afford to be because their argument doesn't commit them to any empirical claims. The most "reasonable" IDers could believe everything that modern biology has to say about the development of life on earth, except for the crucial Divine insertion of an irreducibly complex single cell. ID is also compatible with the most recondite Biblical literalism. So, what are the ID textbook writers telling the children of Kansas? Do they believe that the first cell magically occured several billion years ago? Do they think that all species are descended from the original magic cell? If not, how many times has God suspended the laws of nature to dump new kinds of animals, fully formed, into the world?

Some scientists believe in a creator who set up the rules of the universe. Maybe the first cell did arise because god wanted it to and because she set up the natural laws in just the right way so that the first single-celled organism would develop just as it did. The difference between scientists who believe in design and ID-ers is that the ID-ers explicitly argue that science should be reformed to include magic.

Comments

[Njorl]

"The difference between scientists who believe in design and ID-ers is that the ID-ers explicitly argue that science should be reformed to include magic. "

The next step, after you accept that magic can supercede science, is to fund research into utilizing magic. If a divine being interfered to create life, then a divine being can interfere for other reasons. Which methods of petitioning for divine interference work best? Well, Christians are in a dominant position in the world, so obviously practising Christianity is the best method of obtaining good divine favor.

[C.JoDI]

Not to mention the obvious, which is that science tries to explain the world based on observable phenomena and by definition changes its hypotheses based on new evidence. Science is understood to be largely provisional and adaptive. IDers want to make the data fit with a preconceived conclusion. As Sam Harris says in his book, The End of Faith, if there is no fact about the world that could possibly change the minds of religious people about God, then their beliefs literally have no connection with the world.

[bob mcmanus]

"If not, how many times has God suspended the laws of nature..."

Give me a minute to check Matthew, Mark, Luke, & John.
Creation is not the only magic in question, nor perhaps the most important. The question as to what kind of event causes are plausible or above contempt is the heart of the matter. You probably don't openly laugh at "water-into-wine" on some sort of respect for belief courtesy but evolution puts the grounds for that belief directly into jeopardy.

You might say well nobody is asking to teach the gospel in grade school. But with evolution you are teaching an epistemology that directly challenges the gospel.

Hey, I am an atheist, mostly. But I realize what is at stake.

[carla]

I'm one of those that grew up in religion that embraced their own version of literal Bible translation: man is literally made in the image of God.

I think the greater issue with IDers is the notion that if evolution is correct...God bears a disturbing resemblence to Cornelius from Planet of the Apes.

It's Scopes all over again.

Science is meaningless if it means that their vision of God as a kindly old Dumbledore in white robes doesn't line up. If that's so...then the streets of gold and jeweled crowns that await those good Christians who follow the teaching of the Reverend Dobson/Falwell/Robertson might not pan out, either.

Their whole belief system then dominoes into the abyss.

That's a pretty bitter pill.

[Kenneth Fair]

This editorial makes me uncomfortable as well, but for a different reason: It is not a postulate of evolutionary theory that "complex life aris[es] from simple life."

Let's leave aside for a moment the question of what complexity really means and how one would measure it in an organism; we'll assume for the moment we can answer these questions. Even so, natural selection pushes populations of organisms not to be more complex, but to be better adapted to their environment. As the environment changes, so does the population; this may result in the organisms becoming "more" or "less" complex as the environment demands.

Furthermore, evolution proceeds by a number of mechanisms, only one of which is natural selection. Other mechanisms, such as genetic drift, have little directionality to them. They don't lead necessarily to complexity, at least in the sense this editorial implies.

Don't get me wrong - I'm glad to see reputable news sources taking a stand against pseudoscience. I just wish they'd get their science right as well.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

This editorial makes me uncomfortable as well, but for a different reason: It is not a postulate of evolutionary theory that "complex life aris[es] from simple life."

Another excellent reason to be uncomfortable with the editorial.

[Joel]

Actually, what natural selection requires is simply for an organism to be able to live long enough to breed. Therefore complex organisms can happen by accident or random chance. If they cannot reproduce themselves, then they do not continue to exist.

There are plenty of syndromes which do not kill and yet can be called "maladaptive" or harmful to the organism. Many people suffer from childhood asthma, for example. It gets carried on to a new generation nevertheless because enough sufferers and carriers of the illness live to have children. The same thing can be said of cystic fibrosis, mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. They may cause the early decease of an individual but if they are recessive traits or do not appear until early adulthood, they permit their own repetition.

The Fact of Evolution is that Life changes over time. The theory is how it does that. Many who defend the theory don't seem to get these basic points. I stand for the fact of evolution just as I stand for the fact of gravity. What is the exact mechanism for each of these still-to-be-understood phenomena? That is where the theories come in. And theories are what we test and test again to bring us a grain of sand closer to the truth in the great salt domes of truth.

[mudkitty]

People confuse evolution theory with Darwinism. Darwin's theory's are almost a century old, and science, like time, keeps marching on. Much of Darwinism is outdated.

Complexity to the RR means "something I don't understand."

[Gordo]

Why do editorial writers insist on covering topics that they don't know much about? If they want to write an editorial supporting the idea that our science classes ought to teach the consensus opinion of scientists, fine. If they want to get into the nuts and bolts of the Natural Selection v. Intelligent Design debate, allow an evolutionary biologist to write it. If a biologist wants to give the empirical evidence for ID theory, let him write a collumn. Heh.

[Chris Clarke]

Gordo, you don't have to be a scientist to get the basics of evolutionary theory right enough to compose an intelligent editorial. It's really not that hard to get it right: you just have to want to.

[Kevin]

Scientists just assume that events have naturalistic explanations.

No, that's incorrect. Scientists have no choice but to assume that events have naturalistic explanations. The reason for that is quite simply because science can't quantify anything but purely naturalistic explanations.

Ironically, it is because science can't quantify the supernatural that both drives Creationist's opposition to evolutionary theory and prevents any theistic counter-hypothesis from being science. It's a classic catch-22 for Creationists. But, it's one that cuts both ways.

If science can't quantify the supernatural then science can never rule out the supernatural as a causitive agent. Which, I believe, is at the root of why evolutionary theory is doubted by so many Americans.

[Kevin]

Only that first line is supposed to be in italics.

[John Needham]

Not to be unkind about it, but.....

As John Scalzi points out, teaching ID to tens of thousands of America's school children does have some benefit, at least to other parents.

Yes, it has a definitely deleterious effect on the poor children being taught ID, but it also (from an elightened self-interest perspective) means that my own children (aged 4 and three at the moment) will have that many fewer children to compete with, intellectually speaking, when the competition for higher education heats up, down the road.

Bad for the poor schoolchildren in Kansas, yes, but ultimately good for my kids.

If the parents in Kansas can live with that.....hey, so can me and my wife.

[gordo]

John Needham--

That's not necessarily true. The better-educated people in Iran did pretty well, until 1979. Also, everyone who benefits from advanced computer technology is better off because California saw fit to support a first-class public education system up until 1978. Steve Jobs sped way ahead of me in the great economic race, and as a result of his efforts, I'm a wealthier person than I would otherwise be.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

Scientists just assume that events have naturalistic explanations.

No, that's incorrect. Scientists have no choice but to assume that events have naturalistic explanations. The reason for that is quite simply because science can't quantify anything but purely naturalistic explanations.

I think we're in precise agreement. Insofar as scientists are approaching a phenomenon scientifically, they have no choice but to assume that the phenomenon in question has a natural explanation.

[Ryan]

I think the reason that science presumes naturalism is because to not do so would obviate the need for scientific inquiry--or any inquiry for that matter. IDers posit a supernatural being, what Descartes further posited could be an evil deceiver. Once anything omnipotent is assumed, then our entire experience of space and time is nullified. True, the IDgod might have put things in motion 12 billion years ago at the big bang, but it might have done so yesterday as well. So long as everything that we discover, think or feel can be attributed in one way or another to IDgod, then we are but facsimilies of Descartes' meditator, stuck in the second meditation indefinitely. In this case, the surest path to nihilism is through fishy theism.

[Jimboman]

Once again, Ms Beyerstein, uncommonly well presented and flawlessy supported presentation of the case against ID. That clumsy newspaper editorial, carefully parsed and criticized, is a lesson to all of us who struggle to truly understand exactly what the ID crowd are doing. They are hard at work rolling back the enlightenment and reintroducing the world as a marionette stage with all the strings pulled by by the God-up-in-the-sky.

[Tony Shifflett]

I didn't know God was a she. Isn't it always he with the creationists? If God is a she, then has she had little Gods yet?

It gets confusing after awhile.

[Eli Stephens]

A long post on the subject at Left I on the News is here

[R. Mildred]

ID breaks down into polytheism as soon as you ask: Did the intelligence that designed us arise spontaneously?

If it did then other less complex thigns cna spontaneously create, if it didn't hten htere is an infinte number of Gods forever building smaller and smaller godlings until we were created.

That's not reconcilable with christianity, and that's the best way to swat it down as ID is designed to appeal to religious ignoramuses, we structure the argument as "can you prove there is only one god and not an infinite number of gods?" and thus start pushing ID into a position where it has to advocate polytheism or it goes away.

[VICTOR]

UNLIKE RELIGION,
SCIENCE DOES NOT SEEK TO ANSWER ULTIMATE QUESTIONS--LIKE THE ULTIMATE "WHY", AS IN "WHY ANYTHING AT ALL?", AND IT DOES NOT ASK "WHAT IS THE FIRST UNCAUSED CAUSE WHENCE ALL DESCENDS?" ( THE BIG BANG IS NOT CONCEIVED AS A FINAL CAUSE BUT SIMPLY AS THE BIRTH OF OUR PRESENT PHYSICAL COSMOS).
SCIENCE HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH SUCH QUESTIONS, AND SO, UNLIKE RELIGION, IT HAS NO REASON TO POSIT AN
ENTITY ---SOME GOD OR OTHER---TO EMBODY THE ANSWER.

SCIENCE ASKS INSTEAD, WHAT IS PHYSICALLY HAPPENING
AND HOW DOES IT WORK? IT POSITS A PHYSICAL MECHANISM
TO EXPLAIN A PHYSICAL PHENOMENON AND THEN PHYSICALLY
TESTS TO DETERMINE THE VERITY OF THE POSITED MECHANISM.
WHETHER THERE IS OR IS NOT SOME SUPREME ENTITY BEHIND IT ALL IS IRRELEVANT; EVEN A SCIENTIST SUBSCRIBING TO "GOD DID IT"--MUST STILL CARRY OUT THE PHYSICAL INQUIRY, MUST PERFORM THE EXPERIMENTS MEANT TO DISCOVER IF THE POSITED MECHANISM TRULY APPLIES, AND THIS, IN THE MAIN, IS WHAT MAKE SCIENCE, SCIENCE.
JUST SUCH A SCIENTIFICALLY MINDED REFUSAL TO
ACCEPT "GOD DID IT" AS FULL EXPLANATION FOR PHYSICAL
PHENOMENA, MARKS EUROPE'S AWAKENING FROM THE
DOGMATIC SLUMBER OF THE DARK AGES.
INTELLIGENT DESIGN IS AN ARCHAISM INTRODUCED TOWARD
A RETURN TO SOMNAMBULISM-- LIGHTS OUT EVERYONE.
PHYSICAL LIFE IS CHARACTERIZED SCIENTIFICALLY
AS A COMPLEX INTERACTIVE NETWORK OF PHYSICAL
ELEMENTS. ITS APPEARANCE ON EARTH, ONE COULD SAY,
INDICATES THAT THE UNIVERSE DOES HAVE A TENDENCY
OR PROCLIVITY TO PRODUCE LIFE UNDER CERTAIN
CIRCUMSTANCES, BUT FROM THIS OR ANY OTHER ASPECT
OF THE UNIVERSE IT DOES NOT FOLLOW, AS FUNDAMENTALISTS VAINLY PRAY IT MIGHT, THAT THEREFORE SOME SORT OF ANTHROPOMORPHIC ENTITY WITH A HOPE AND A PLAN IS NECESSARILY NEEDED TO EXPLAIN IT.
SUCH AN ENTITY, AS THAT GOD SO THINLY VEILED IN FUNDAMENTALIST INTELLIGENT DESIGN, IS OF NO USE TO THE SCIENTIFIC ENTERPRIZE; MAINTAINING "GOD DID IT" ADDS NOTHING TO, NOR IS A SUBSTITUTE FOR ANY SCIENTIFIC THEORY OR ACTIVITY; IT IS COMPLETELY
DIVORCED FROM AND FOUNDATIONALLY AT ODDS WITH THAT WHICH MAKES SCIENCE, SCIENCE-- AND SO HAS NO PLACE IN
SCIENCE TEACHING.
ULTIMATELY, NO AMOUNT OF SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE WILL UNSEAT THE FUNDAMENTALIST GOD AS ORIGIN OF ALL, INCLUDING ALL THE RULES-- WHICH THE ENTITY MAY CONTRAVENE AT WILL. NOR WILL ANY AMOUNT OF EVIDENCE DISLODGE THE SCIENTIST'S SUBSCRIPTION TO A SCHEME OF RULES GROUNDED UNDERSTANDING. THUS, THESE TWO ARE, IN EFFECT, BASED UPON TWO DIFFERENT AND IRRECONCILABLE FUNDAMENTAL ARTICLES OF FAITH. THEY ARE OIL AND WATER.
LET EACH PARTY OCCUPY ITS CORNER-- AND GLARE ACROSS THE DIVIDE----AND LEAVE THE OTHER BE.
TO THE RABID FUNDAMENTALIST I SAY THIS:
YOUR EFFORTS BETRAY YOU AS A BIGOTED AND IGNORANT
HYPOCRITE WHO WOULD BENEFIT FROM SCIENTIFIC ADVANCES WHILE ATTEMPTING TO UNDERMINE THE FOUNDATION OF THOUGHT WHICH MAKES THOSE ADVANCES POSSIBLE.

[Squashed Lemon]

ID == total waste of time.

Here are some sample recen development that we all should use.

1. Combinatorial biology. It's basically let the machine randomly juggle sequence of genes to create new simple bacterias. So instead of inserting/designing insert manually, let the machine brute force it. Try all permutation and see what works.

http://www.geneart.com/gene_technologies/InfosheetCombinatorialBiology.php

2. Synthetic Biology.

Essentially try to create your own 'toy' bacteria doing something that doesn't exist in nature (eg. blinking bacterias)

http://web.mit.edu/synbio/release/conference/

3. new mutation of virus/bacterias that causes new diseases. (AIDS would be one famous one. new straing of influenzas that keeps popping up would be another)

4. on top of that, the usual good ol' Darwin argument. How new breed of farm animals are breed to have new characteristics. (No God needed there)

5. and of course the old standard line. If God is so inteligence how come there are so many pain and suffering? Is he goofing up or just being a cruel maker?

[Squashed Lemon]

Bad for the poor schoolchildren in Kansas, yes, but ultimately good for my kids.

If the parents in Kansas can live with that.....hey, so can me and my wife.

Posted by: John Needham | August 12, 2005 07:48 AM

wait until those stupid bastards become a senator and YOUR kids have to live with the consequences of their stupidities.

(ie. imagine future senate full of Santorums and inhofe making decission about science funding and national healthcare policy)

[Squashed Lemon]

Once anything omnipotent is assumed, then our entire experience of space and time is nullified.

Posted by: Ryan | August 12, 2005 11:59 AM

huh?

even if you believe God exists, you can't suddenly simply ignore space and time. You still have to pay mortgage and you have to stop your car right at the edge of cliff if you don't want to die. You still become older and entropy eat you alive.

God is no excuse of being delusional and won't protect you from the affect of natural forces.

[Squashed Lemon]

Some more reading suggestion:

Genetic Programming and Evolvable Machines

(eg. machien can design rudimentary circuitry which matches human patent from 50 years ago. ie. machines are replicating human discovery in some area.)

Is the machine intelligent?