Intelligent design

“Intelligent Design” theory and mechanism

Feser


Intelligent design is not science

Denis Alexander


There's more but that seems like a good enough starting point.

Philosophical ideas and concepts notwithstanding, the mechanistic conception of the design of living organisms has been an immensely fruitful paradigm for humanity since it has led to insights into the design of the complex biological mechanisms that research has revealed to in fact underlie the operation of the many critical organ systems of the body, to say nothing of the structure and functioning of many molecular machine organelles making up the component individual eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells.

This research derived knowledge has enabled the creation of a whole new structure of medicine, with all its immense practical health benefits given to mankind. Judging this biological mechanistic paradigm tree by its fruits, it must be a large part of the essence of nature. Not the whole story by any means, but a large part of it. 

So, the ID movement and its research using this paradigm for its conception of the nature of intelligent design (as being the past engineering design of new and vastly complicated biological mechanisms by some sort of supremely intelligent agent(s)) must be on the right track, since an immensely successful and beneficial enterprise in the expansion of human knowledge is based on this mechanistic paradigm.

Philosophical ideas and concepts notwithstanding, the mechanistic conception of the design of living organisms has been an immensely fruitful paradigm for humanity since it has led to insights into the design of the complex biological mechanisms that research has revealed to in fact underlie the operation of the many critical organ systems of the body, to say nothing of the structure and functioning of many molecular machine organelles making up the component individual eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells.

This research derived knowledge has enabled the creation of a whole new structure of medicine, with all its immense practical health benefits given to mankind. Judging this biological mechanistic paradigm tree by its fruits, it must be a large part of the essence of nature. Not the whole story by any means, but a large part of it. 

So, the ID movement and its research using this paradigm for its conception of the nature of intelligent design (as being the past engineering design of new and vastly complicated biological mechanisms by some sort of supremely intelligent agent(s)) must be on the right track, since this mechanistic paradigm is based on an immensely successful and beneficial enterprise in the expansion of human knowledge.

The success of biology, especially in medical applications, does nothing to make ID convincing since ID  is - as has usually been communicated - a probabilistic argument...Admittedly there are arguments like the one @sbu mentioned that can count as "ID" that don't make reference to probabilities such as the nature of Information and what it means for DNA to carry it but the major part of ID as presented on this forum seems to turn on questions of complexity and supposed improbability of RM+ NS to achieve said complexity.

As for supremely intelligent beings, my cousin is a doctor for pediatric oncology and I'm sure he, his patients, and their parents would question the intellect of these entities...

The success of biology, especially in medical applications, does nothing to make ID convincing since ID  is - as has usually been communicated - a probabilistic argument...Admittedly there are arguments like the one @sbu mentioned that can count as "ID" that don't make reference to probabilities such as the nature of Information and what it means for DNA to carry it but the major part of ID as presented on this forum seems to turn on questions of complexity and supposed improbability of RM+ NS to achieve said complexity.

As for supremely intelligent beings, my cousin is a doctor for pediatric oncology and I'm sure he, his patients, and their parents would question the intellect of these entities...

My criticism was of your argument using Feser's philosophical position against the mechanistic conception of nature, that you quoted. The fact is that ID theorists have assumed that whatever the agent(s) were who were responsible for macroevolution, they operated on, and created new, complex biological mechanisms in an essential process of intelligent engineering design. I agree that ID theorists' further arguments as to the impossibility of RM + NS being the mechanism of evolution have been probabilistic.

My criticism was of your argument using Feser's philosophical position against the mechanistic conception of nature, that you quoted. The fact is that ID theorists have assumed that whatever the agent(s) were who were responsible for macroevolution, they operated on, and created new, complex biological mechanisms in an essential process of intelligent engineering design. I agree that ID theorists' further arguments as to the impossibility of RM + NS being the mechanism of evolution have been probabilistic.

If the bold is true I'd expect there'd be little evidence of evolution at all and much fewer flaws like pediatric cancer.

It seems at best what is happening [regarding] spirit influence on evolution is akin to the training of the "monkey mind" - there's no absolute control being exerted but more a "steering" of [the] causal chain toward the best achievable outcome.

To be clear I believe there are Universals that the mind grasps, specifically/especially Mathematical Truths. As such even before considering Psi + Survival I reject that RM + NS can produce entities that can utilize those Universals to produce the proofs that underlie the computer science that allows this forum to exist. So I am by no means claiming RM + NS is the whole story.

What I have trouble with is the probabilistic arguments of ID, but I'm also not rejecting the possible place of God or some other spirit entities completely given the above. To quote Feser from that same article:

Remember too that none of this has anything to do with Darwinism, the debate over which is a separate matter. Perhaps the biological world God creates works according to Darwinian principles; and perhaps not. Either way, the question will not be resolved by weighing against Darwinian naturalism a “design inference” to some artificer who adds some extra “information” to the natural world in the way a shipbuilder gives structure to wood in order to make a ship.

... It is worth adding, though, that the ambiguity in question here – denying mechanism in some places while affirming it in others – has parallels elsewhere in Dembski’s work. For example, he uses the term “information” (in The Design Revolution and elsewhere) in several different senses and freely slides from one to another without always making it clear which one is supposed to be doing the work in a given argument. In some places he insists that the “designer” that ID posits could in theory itself be something in the natural order, such as an extraterrestrial, so that there is no truth to the charge that ID has an essentially theological agenda. But elsewhere he insists that “specified complexity” cannot be given a naturalistic explanation, and even allows that positing a designer who is part of the natural order would only initiate an explanatory regress – which would imply that a genuine explanation would require an appeal to the supernatural. His main arguments all evince an unmistakable realist thrust, and yet in response to a particular objection he suggests that ID theory is perfectly compatible with a non-realist philosophy of science (though it does not seem to occur to him that his Darwinian opponents could make exactly the same move in response to some of his criticisms of them). And so forth.

In short, Dembski seems intent on sidestepping potential objections by making ID as flexible as possible, so long as the word “design” is preserved.

I love this Monty Python inspired critique of intelligent design.



Basically, if ID is in play, the designers are woefully incompetent and should be fired.

The probabilistic arguments for ID are the fundamental background of the abject failure of Darwinism as a theory, starting with the "wait time" calculations for how long it must take for the right combination of random mutations to accumulate for a complex new structure, given the population and generation time, and then considering how long the fossil record indicates it actually took for major creative new designs such as almost all the animal body plans which originated in a mere 10-15 million years at the beginning of the Cambrian.

Leading evolutionary biologists have openly admitted the bankruptcy of Darwinism. This was shown at a 3-day Royal Society meeting held in November 2016 in London, entitled "New trends in evolutionary biology: biological, philosophical and social science perspectives".

From my post at https://psiencequest.net/forums/thread-d...e#pid10972 :

"The opening presentation was by world-class biologist Austrian evolutionary theorist Gerd Müller. Dr. Müller opened the meeting by discussing several of the fundamental explanatory deficits of the "modern synthesis”, that is, textbook neo-Darwinian theory. Müller said that the as yet unsolved problems include those of explaining:

- Phenotypic complexity (the origin of eyes, ears, body plans, i.e., the anatomical and structural features of living creatures);
- Phenotypic novelty, i.e., the origin of new forms throughout the history of life (for example, the mammalian radiation some 66 million years ago, in which the major orders of mammals, such as cetaceans, bats, carnivores, enter the fossil record, or even more dramatically, the Cambrian explosion, with most animal body plans appearing more or less without antecedents); and finally
- Non-gradual forms or modes of transition, where you see abrupt discontinuities in the fossil record between different types.

Since these are some of the most important features of life and the fossil record, the theory just doesn't work."

Needless to say, the meeting offered little, if anything, by way of new solutions to those longstanding fundamental problems. That situation has little changed today, 7 years later.

Concerning your attack on ID based on the existence of tragic diseases like pediatric cancer, that is a straw man. The probabilistic arguments stand on their own for good or ill independent of such observations. 

Also, such diseases could well be due to the inevitable genetic deterioration by Darwinistic RM + NS processes of original complex genetic designs, as explicated by Behe. And there is the observation that the whole system if designed would necessarily entail a long series of tradeoffs since no complex design can perfectly meet all of a long list of idealistic design requirements. Such problems do not necessarily indicate incompetence by the designers, just that no exceedingly complex design process can avoid tradeoffs.

Concerning your attack on ID based on the existence of tragic diseases like pediatric cancer, that is a straw man. The probabilistic arguments stand on their own for good or ill independent of such observations. 

Also, such diseases could well be due to the inevitable genetic deterioration by Darwinistic RM + NS processes of original complex genetic designs, as explicated by Behe. And there is the observation that the whole system if designed would necessarily entail a long series of tradeoffs since no complex design can perfectly meet all of a long list of idealistic design requirements. Such problems do not necessarily indicate incompetence by the designers, just that no exceedingly complex design process can avoid tradeoffs.

Not really a strawman at all, because you mentioned supremely intelligent agent(s)). Unless these agents derive a special pleasure from watching children fade away as cancer wracks their bodies...

As for deterioration of designed beings by evolution being the origin of cancer...possible but it seems like excuse making. Tradeoffs for who exactly? Different entities than the ones that managed the Cosmic Fine Tuning of the universe?

But yes if there is some serious argument in ID probabilistic claims it could be possible that the IDers managed to design something while working with constraints put upon by other entities. But then it seems to me ID points to extraterrestrial aliens who then have to deal with the limits of the Universe that were put there by other entities who finely tuned the cosmos.

The issue with all this is the stories seem to pile on, when the more obvious conclusion is that at best spiritual influence can load the dice of RM and influence the environment for NS but they can't actually implement designs at will. Even this has the scent of being a "just so" story that I wouldn't necessarily put much credence in save for the fact evolution contradicts materialism.

I mean something is obviously wrong with the materialist account, and it isn't clear some kind of Panpsychic or Idealist metaphysics can be wed in a satisfactory way to RM + NS without adding some kind of supernatural aspect to the ideal full explanation. There's a mystery here but I remain unconvinced that ID probabilistic arguments are good enough to serve as a solution or that they, on their own, are a real challenge to the materialist-naturalist account.

Not really a strawman at all, because you mentioned supremely intelligent agent(s)). Unless these agents derive a special pleasure from watching children fade away as cancer wracks their bodies...
As for deterioration of designed beings by evolution being the origin of cancer...possible but it seems like excuse making. Tradeoffs for who exactly? Different entities than the ones that managed the Cosmic Fine Tuning of the universe?
But yes if there is some serious argument in ID probabilistic claims it could be possible that the IDers managed to design something while working with constraints put upon by other entities. But then it seems to me ID points to extraterrestrial aliens who then have to deal with the limits of the Universe that were put there by other entities who finely tuned the cosmos.
The issue with all this is the stories seem to pile on, when the more obvious conclusion is that at best spiritual influence can load the dice of RM and influence the environment for NS but they can't actually implement designs at will. Even this has the scent of being a "just so" story that I wouldn't necessarily put much credence in save for the fact evolution contradicts materialism.
I mean something is obviously wrong with the materialist account, and it isn't clear some kind of Panpsychic or Idealist metaphysics can be wed in a satisfactory way to RM + NS without adding some kind of supernatural aspect to the ideal full explanation. There's a mystery here but I remain unconvinced that ID probabilistic arguments are good enough to serve as a solution or that they, on their own, are a real challenge to the materialist-naturalist account.

"ID probabilistic claims" are merely mainly statistical/mathematical arguments intended to establish that some sort of intelligent design process must have occurred as the only known alternative to some undirected goalless purposeless driven-by-random-processes system like Darwinism. ID is a process where some sort of outside intelligent agent(s) apparently periodically or intermittently intervened in evolution to create needed major new and innovative complex biological structures and systems that RM + NS is incapable of creating.

These probabilistic arguments make no attempt to establish a solution for the question of who or what these agent(s) were or how they did it or what their constraints and overall goals were, just that they must have existed. Developing arguments and evidence for the necessity that some such agents and their designing activities must have existed form the core of ID research, not trying to answer all these subsidiary questions as to their ultimate nature that you focus on. 

Some musings on the nature of the designer(s), and limitations in abilities. Many leading ID theorists and researchers are Christians and think they know Who the Designer was, but it is apparent to me that the agent(s) of the ID process were not omnipotent and omniscient. I think they were powerful spiritual beings something like the order of archangels in Catholicism. Such beings presumably would have to have some sort of constraints - for instance they would have to make a lot of hard design choices, of which of the many goals of their designs to make paramount over others and when and where to do this, in some sort of engineering tradeoff process. For instance an initial goal of building living intelligent beings achieving an absolute minimum of suffering might have been outprioritized by these basically dispassionate powerful spiritual beings under some circumstances by the goal of enabling the most opportunities for different experiences.

And the vast complexity of the multiple interlocking biological systems necessary to achieve this may have made the existence of design problems - disease processes - inevitable. In any complex machine, making a change anywhere in the design has multiple repercussions in its operation, then in turn requiring multiple additional changes in design, which in turn then change performance again, and the design process gets harder and harder the more complex the system. Presumably the ID beings could have reached some sort of limit in even their abilities, resulting in design problems and disease processes. 

“Intelligent Design” theory and mechanism

I had hoped that this would be a an argument in favour of Darwin's theory or something similar.

My point is that because the ID community have separated their detailed scientific attack on RM+NS from their religious beliefs, their work is extremely valuable and seems to have had no serious scientific rebuttal - just an effort to misrepresent the problem.

As I have said before, it is valid to demonstrate that a theory is wrong without supplying a plausible alternative.

Michael Behe's seems to have taken the argument against RM+NS the furthest. He points out that a random mutation is far more likely to damage some delicate genetic mechanism than it is likely to improve anything, or contribute to building a new gene or whatever.

This means that if a cosmic ray(say) hits the DNA of a cell, one of the following will occur in diminishing order of probability:

1) The Damage will be done in some non-critical part of the DNA, and nothing will happen.

2) The damage will destroy an existing piece of genetic machinery. This may, perversely, make an organism more fit in its given environment. This is what is believed to have happened in the case of the sickle-cell anaemia mutation. This damages the haemoglobin but provides some protection against malaria.

3) The damage might contribute to some new capability that will enhance the organism or its future generations. Note that this typically involves multiple mutational steps, and so is extremely improbable.

One of Behe's arguments is that if a type-2 mutation is useful enough (e.g. if malaria were common everywhere on the Earth) it might spread and outcompete the original DNA. So in the case of the above example, there would come a point where everyone would carry the sickle cell gene. At that point there is no going back, the probability of another mutation reversing the damage is minute. Thus for example, humans are very unlikely to mutate to reverse the damage that caused us to lose the ability to manufacture vitamin C.

Each time a type-2 mutation occurs and seems to confer a temporary advantage on a species, the species permanently loses a piece of its genetic machinery.

Far from improving a species, RM+NS would appear to successively degrade its stock of genes. It would seem that somebody/something has to continually repair the damage that RM+NS does.

Remember, this argument (for which he thinks there is some experimental evidence) reinforces the basic probabilistic argument that RM+NS does not work. Obviously, these arguments need to be worked out carefully because there are some huge numbers involved - the number of copies of microorganisms multiplied by the number of generations that must have existed over geological time - but even those numbers are defeated by the relentless consequences of combinatorial maths.

David

@nbtruthman 

Some musings on the nature of the designer(s), and limitations in abilities. Many leading ID theorists and researchers are Christians and think they know Who the Designer was, but it is apparent to me that the agent(s) of the ID process were not omnipotent and omniscient. I think they were powerful spiritual beings something like the order of archangels in Catholicism. Such beings presumably would have to have some sort of constraints - for instance they would have to make a lot of hard design choices, of which of the many goals of their designs to make paramount over others and when and where to do this, in some sort of engineering tradeoff process. For instance an initial goal of building living intelligent beings achieving an absolute minimum of suffering might have been outprioritized by these basically dispassionate powerful spiritual beings under some circumstances by the goal of enabling the most opportunities for different experiences.

This is good speculation, though as I've noted before we can look to Dembski to read that ID maybe doesn't require designers of any kind:

" ID’s metaphysical openness about the nature of nature entails a parallel openness about the nature of the designer. Is the designer an intelligent alien, a computional [sic] simulator (a la THE MATRIX), a Platonic demiurge, a Stoic seminal reason, an impersonal telic process, …, or the infinite personal transcendent creator God of Christianity? The empirical data of nature simply can’t decide. "

The bold are options where AFAICTell no designer is present, just a different set of rules to be added to the laws of physics.