It seems to me that if there were an intelligent agent guiding evolution, it would be one whose activity was less predictable and less tractable to science than the other kinds of forces that science is pretty good at predicting and explaining. So, it seems to me to be sensible for science to go as far as it can analyzing and predicting discoveries without taking design into consideration. Only when these sorts of explanations run into trouble should science look for something else.
If I understand a particle, I know what the particle is going to do, always and everywhere. If I am dealing with an agent, there is some predictability, but such an agent is less predictable than a particle. It's not as if I can't make any predictions for form any expectations, I can. If I am playing chess with a world title contender, I have some idea of what they will do, but surely not a perfect idea, otherwise I would be as good as my opponent. So, if there is a God, I think we should expect science not to be able to bring it in until we had everything else understood. And, I suspect, that will be be awhile.
10 comments:
Hi Vic,
Even though most ID proponents believe that God is the designer, they're not suggesting that science could somehow show that God is the designer. But they do think there is sufficient empirical evidence to show that someone designed at least some biological features.
If we deny that science could ever be capable of showing that, then I think we would have to rule out SETI (the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) as a scientific endeavor, as well. But if SETI ever found their much sought-after radio signal, I would expect most of the scientific community would accept it as good scientfic evidence for ET.
I think it follows that the scientific community can rule out ID as not being a potential scientific explanation only by being inconsistent.
But Mike Gene ,whom I greatly respect, would disagree with me and say that ID cannot be part of science.
But philosopher of physics, Bradley Monton, would say that ID can be part of science
If I understand a particle, I know what the particle is going to do, always and everywhere.
My amateur understanding of physics is that no, you actually don't. You, at best, understand the spread of possibilities regarding that particle. Maybe you can tell what the particle is likely to do. But what it will do in a rapt, deterministic sense? That's a problem.
I'd second Mike Gene's site and book, by the way. He has a pretty interesting take from a less heard ID perspective. In some ways he doesn't go far enough, in other ways I think he goes too far, but he's very worth a read.
It seems science just can't find out who invented the HIV virus.
And God has taken care not to leave any fingerprints on the rabies virus.
But Christians can see the Hand of God in the Ebola virus.
Who else would be clever enough to design that?
"Who else would be clever enough to design that?"
Good question. Who would be? Do you have any idea how complex a virus is? As science writer Arthur C. Clarke wrote, a single microscopic organism is not only more complex than an automobile - it's more complex than the entire automobile industry.
Hi Steven,
I consider the Argument from Evil Design to have considerable strength, at least as an argument that God was not the designer. I think it has some, but less, strength against the idea that there was any designer.
"If there is intelligent design, ['Science!' fetishists are determined to] be the last to know "
Indeed.
"It seems to me that if there were an intelligent agent guiding evolution, it would be one whose activity was less predictable and less tractable to science than the other kinds of forces that science is pretty good at predicting and explaining."
This is the big fundamental flaw in the religious argument. The notions of gods and the supernatural are simply 'ideas', nothing more nothing less. Science does not presuppose naturalism. Naturalism is a conclusion from doing science. That is, we learn about the natural world without recourse to divine intervention or influence, and that the “laws” of nature are all that exists. We learn nothing about the universe by adding the presumption of a god to the mix. In other words, naturalism wins because it works. It is this redundancy, this surplus to requirement aspect of supernaturalism, that ‘supernatural’ defines itself out of existence. There is the physical world and the world of ideas.
By all means use the idea of 'supernatural' if you will for ideas about gods, fairies and such, but do not confuse it for any registrable phenomena. The supernatural is an idea not a phenomenon. Ideas are limitless, but, If there is a ‘ghost’ it must interact with the physical world, if there is a god and it intercedes or intervenes, as the religious claim that it does, then it can only do so by interaction with the physical world and therefore be a function of the natural world.
As previously noted, there is a direct and inverse interaction between the natural and the supernatural. In every instance since the dawn of time, once inexplicable phenomena [lightning, thunder, germ theory] are exposed to rational natural explanation there is a concomitant reduction in the supernatural. Not on any occasion has there been a documented case of a natural claim being placed into the 'supernatural' category of our knowledge and understanding. Not one.
And so, the last comments of the OP, "So, if there is a God, I think we should expect science not to be able to bring it in until we had everything else understood. And, I suspect, that will be be awhile", is just another case of deferred wishlisting, pretty much in the exact same basket as the eschaton of John.
"just another case of deferred wishlisting"
Perhaps akin to your continual predictions of the always soon-to-be demise of Christianity? Remember that said demise was confidently predicted by Nero, Diocletian, Julian, Arius, Mohammed, followers of the French "Cult of Reason", Voltaire, Nietzsche, Karl Marx, Alfred Rosenberg, Lenin, Stalin, etc., etc..... and we're still here!
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