A More Reasonable Discussion on Intelligent Design

Compared to the three-ring circus of Uncommon Descent (complete with clowns as moderators), there is another blog on intelligent design that is much more reasonable to read. It’s called Telic Thoughts (telic meaning purposeful) and the authors largely describe themselves as intelligent design evolutionists. (Apologies if I’ve misrepresented anyone’s positions, as I know people’s positions can be nuanced.) Now, my readers know I’m not big on intelligent design. And while I find Telic Thoughts to be a much more reasonable discussion on the issue, I still have failed to see anything, from them or elsewhere, that would make intelligent design useful to science.

Krauze at Telic Thoughts has written this post aimed directly at me and my objections. (Well, I certainly wasn’t the reason he wrote it. I’m sure he’s never heard of me. But it was aimed at someone like me.) Drawing a parallel from a book by Michael Ruse describing how it took some time for Darwin’s ideas to gain momentum within the scientific community at large, Kauze writes:

In Ruse’s terminology, evolution only gradually arose from pseudoscience, through popular science, before finally becoming a professional science in the 1930’s. You could say that evolution evolved. Similarly, intelligent design has passed from being expressed in creationist pamphlets as a flimsy support for apologetics, to being expressed in popular science books. ID critcs often inquire as to why intelligent design still isn’t doing any research, “10 years after Behe published Darwin’s Black Box“. However, they should remember the lesson taught to us by Darwin’s followers: Big ideas take time.

So there we have it. Big ideas take time.

Is this a good comparison? Is this all that intelligent design needs? More time?

I think the answer is no, and I think there are notable differences between Darwin’s theory and intelligent design.

First of all, when Darwin’s idea of evolution was proposed, I think people could anticipate it being falsified. Darwin surely could. In order for his theory to have been correct, at least three things would have to be true.

1. Inheritance or heredity — species passing on their characteristics to successive generations.
2. Variety or mutations — new features or characteristics arising.
3. Natural selection — differing rates of reproductive success for organisms better suited for their environment.

So right off the bat, if these things fall apart and we can’t see them happening in nature, evolutionary theory isn’t going to win the minds of scientists. So I ask, what is it about intelligent design, what is it that we can pin our hopes to and look for, to see it happening? To put it another way, these examples that I listed above can be thought of as predictions in a loose sense.

Take the idea of inheritance. Mendel showed that this was certainly happening, and we’ve advanced our knowledge of how this works tremendously today, but in Darwin’s time, this was very much an open question. In fact, after Mendel’s work sat in obscurity for 40 or 50 years before being rediscovered, my understanding is that many scientists thought it disproved evolutionary theory. It wasn’t until we really realized that genetics was the medium through which evolution was happening that we became comfortable with the two theories. As a teacher of mine once said, “your understanding of one is greatly diminished without the other.” So in this context, I think it’s understandable why evolutionary theory took time. One of it’s biggest pieces had yet to be really discovered, understood, and appreciated. And if it took time for that to come about, I can see why it was at least reasonable that some scientists might hold their breath and hope that the day would come.

Same thing with mutations and natural selection. We can watch them happen. Mendel’s wrinkled or round peas are the result of a mutation that effects the branching of starch molecules. My Scottish Fold’s ears are the result of a mutation from the 1960s. Same with sickle-cell anemia, and I could go on. As far as natural selection, there are a ton of studies where we’ve watched it happen. Perhaps my favorite is the Grant’s study of Galapagos finches, in the easily accessible book Beak of the Finch. And as for sickle cell anemia, natural selection beautifully explains why it doesn’t go away.

So, what is it that we’re supposed to wait for with intelligent design? Where are you guys headed and what’s your goal? To put it more bluntly, Darwin proposed a theory. It’s stood up well over 150 years. Despite looking high and low, all I’ve ever seen from intelligent design is some metaphysical naval gazing.

The comments on this Telic Thoughts post have been very interesting too.

MikeGene, one of the blog’s other authors, gets straight to the point:

Ask a critic was they want from a “testable theory of intelligent design,” and the majority will come back with a) demonstrate that evolution is impossible or b) show me the designer. Anything less than this will not count as “a testable theory of intelligent design.”

I don’t like that statement at all, especially the first part of it. If new evidence came to light and scientists realized that evolutionary theory was untenable, in no way does intelligent design then become the golden standard of biology. As for the second part, I put the ball in your court on coming up with ways that science should deal with a designer.

Here’s what I want. Falsifiability and predictive powers. Have a way to rule out a designer and make predictions about the world around you that come from a design perspective. These predictions need to be novel. They need to be something new that science has previously been unable to do or explain. In this way, they would speak volumes for intelligent design and it’s ability to bring something to the table of scientific enterprise.

And then MikeGene really hits the nail on the head with this comment:

The problem is twofold. Many in the ID community are more interested in beginning with some end and finding ways to help school children reach it. And among the “enlightened” critics, running an investigation makes you part of an Evil Plot.

I told you Telic Thoughts was a better blog than Uncommon Descent. Yes, that’s a problem MikeGene. It truly is many in the ID community that are completely disinterested in the scientific process of forming a theory and instead are skipping straight to the conclusion, complete with the pestilence of political and religious grandstanding.

This “Evil Plot” that MikeGene speaks of is a result of scientists being infuriated by the disingenuous tactics used by so many in the intelligent design community. If people think there’s something to intelligent design as a scientific theory (and I certainly don’t), then the work necessary to make that happen needs to be done. Until it’s done, ID should be some basement project that most lay people have never heard of. But instead, it’s become a political and religious war. As Dembski recently said of the issue, “The culture war demands it!” I (humble grad student that I am) and other scientists wouldn’t have a problem ignoring ID until such time that you guys win our hearts and minds with the usefulness of your theory, provided that we didn’t keep reading about this theory in the local papers as politicians and school boards decided to “teach the controversy” with the encouragement of vile groups like the Discovery Institute.

What I and so many others have wondered though is if there’s really a theory of design at all? What’s to test? What are the predictions? Why is design helpful?

I’ll leave it at this. When I want to have telic thoughts myself and am in search of purpose — the who and the why questions — I’ll go to church. When I want to learn more about the natural world around me — the how and the when questions — I’ll turn to science. Until such time that someone can give me a convincing argument on how design improves my understanding of the natural world around me, I fail to recognize it’s contribution to science.