Reclaiming Design | The BioLogos Forum

I just thought you should be aware of how your generalisations appear, especially when juxtaposed with your scolding of Prof Stump.

My comments are based on about 10 years of reading TE/EC books, blog posts, and emails, . . .

I have read the works of the DI branch of the “ID camp,” over a similar period of time. Prof Stump accurately characterized this oeuvre as “. . . conditioning that community to mistrust science. Its arguments depend on accepted, settled science getting things wrong.” I suggest you sample recent activity on Meyer’s Facebook page, or look at how Behe has interacted with subject-matter experts. I suggest you read Evolution News and Views, the official outlet of the DI, and look for examples of explicit contempt for the scientific community. One might support their efforts to undermine trust in science, but I simply cannot understand how one would deny that this is one of their major goals.

I will reiterate my basic point and then allow others to conclude the discussion. That point is this: there are interesting and important questions associated with what we are calling “intelligent design.” These questions occupy some of the leaders of the “movement,” some of the time. But the camp, and most notably the DI-led and dominant group in that camp, is unmistakably and most intentionally anti-science. Wise people, who care about the ideas that you so masterfully (and rightly) defend, must work to reclaim design as a separate and worthy area of discourse, freed from its current domination by anti-science religious movements.

There is great irony in one of the chief complaints of the DI camp, that being that their ideas are not engaged by scholars and are instead ignored in the midst of culture war. (This is my paraphrase.) The DI people are right about this much: there are some interesting ideas and questions that don’t seem to get the attention they deserve. I hope that Jantzen’s book, and further scholarly discussion outside the discredited DI, will someday change that. But there is no point in spilling further ink in defence of that camp. The verdict is in, the damage irreversible. Time to move on, Eddie.

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To kick in here, I’m not sure the issue is so much about trusting science, nor about how much one group wants to create a distrust, while others want to do the opposite. Rather it is about a matter of degree.

For example, we trust God, our parents, our children, the pastor, and our government, to different degrees. Hopefully our children trust us, but we don’t want them to trust us more than they trust God. In the same way, I doubt anyone of any camp is saying that we should never ever trust science. Such black and white terms are inappropriate, and lead to mischaracterization.

When ID or YEC say to take science with a grain of salt, they are paying attention to when certain data was wrong or incomplete, or misinterpreted. This is not unreasonable, nor does it imply that science can never be trusted. But Science is not God, is not perfect, and makes mistakes, just as true scientists often point out while they suggest that eventually these mistakes get corrected. Which may well be true, but it proves the point nevertheless. Even peer reviewed journals are not perfect. It is not wrong to examine conclusions, data, theory, interpretations of data. Doing so does not make anyone anti-science. Nor does limiting the scope of science make anyone anti-science, no more than limiting the authority of your children make one anti-children.

But blanket non-qualified generalizations once again make fools of us all.

If one is pretending to be a scientist but engaging only in rhetoric and not bothering to study nature oneself, one is indeed taking an anti-science position.

I don’t think that any would, unless said atheists don’t understand evolutionary theory.

If you really believe this, perhaps you should name several such atheists and provide quotes to that effect. Pretending that natural selection is merely an accident (even worse from a Christian perspective, not seeing God in it) is engaging in a straw man argument that is uncharitable and is clearly wrong.

John, if you’re pretending that science is just about rhetoric and not about generating and empirically testing hypotheses, you are opposed to the very essence of science. What could be more clearly anti-science than that?

No, that’s Behe’s hypothesis.

When I wrote this post, I had a feeling it would provoke a lot of conversation. I wasn’t disappointed! :smile:

Now that the conversation is winding down, I thought I would offer my two cents on the subject matter. It seems the main problem is a lack of clarity about what “design” means (which is the point of the post), as well as a similar lack of clarity about what the Intelligent Design movement is actually about. Since Stephen Meyer has become the de-facto leader of the movement, I think it’s prudent to use one of his quotes in offering my own definition:

If there is no evidence of design, and materialistic processes can account for everything we see, then the simplest metaphysical explanation of the reality around us, the scientific reality, is the materialistic worldview: Matter and energy are eternal, self-existent, self-creating, and perfectly capable of producing everything we see around us. (source)

Before I dive into my misgivings about this view, let me state emphatically from my own experience in the movement (in high school) that this is exactly how I understood the thrust of ID: to show scientifically how materialistic processes could not account for the “design” in the world, and therefore defeat materialism and demonstrate God’s existence. A personal conversation with Michael Behe while in high school only reinforced this view. In all the reading and researching I did during those years, never once did I encounter anyone who thought “design” could refer to natural processes. I had no idea Behe affirmed common descent, for instance (and if I had known, I would have found it confusing, at the least).

As a clear consequence of my time in the ID movement (as well as my generally Creationist childhood), my faith hinged on science failing. I didn’t think of it quite like that at the time, but in retrospect, this is exactly what I was conditioned to believe.

It wasn’t until I heard Francis Collins speak (while I was in college in NYC) that I suddenly realized that the dichotomy between natural processes and “design” was far more a function of the “culture wars” than theological or philosophical necessity. Dr. Collins talked about being drawn into deeper wonder and awe before God as he investigated the genetic evidence for human evolution. Needless to say, it was a category-shattering moment.

As I reflected upon what Dr. Collins had said, I remember having another epiphany: The dichotomy between design and nature, which I had been busy maintaining, plays directly into the hands of militant atheists. In fact, I encourage you to look again at the quote above. If I had told you that Richard Dawkins had said it, would you have believed me? I hope so, because I have no doubt Dawkins would heartily affirm it.

It was in this process of reflection that I also realized that evolutionary creationism is the only real and radical alternative to the scientific/modernistic worldview. ID seems to be an alternative, but when you drill down to the pre-suppositions undergirding the movement, it actually shares much more with Dawkins than it denies. Evolutionary creationists are the only ones in the entire origins debate that disagree with the statement by Meyer above.

Until I saw things from this new vantage point, I was blind to the damage that the ID/Creationist perspective was doing to my ability to see God’s action alongside nature, instead of at right angles to it. Evolutionary creationism gives me the resources to deconstruct the statement by Meyer. For instance, I now see that “materialistic processes” is begging the question. Is conception and fetal development a “materialistic process”? The writer of the Psalms sure doesn’t think so. How about birds finding food? Jesus thinks God the Father is involved in that. Is that a materialistic process too?

To Christians, the category of “materialistic processes” makes no sense, and it certainly has no bearing on God’s action or lack thereof. Using that phrase as carelessly as Meyer uses it plays directly in the hands of atheists. In fact, the whole quote from Meyer is utterly at odds with Scripture and Christian theology, as I understand them. Even if everything in the universe is the result of natural processes (biblical miracles aside), atheism is no more or less “plausible” or reasonable, and no more excusable. The “materialistic worldview” is a reductionistic sham, and that won’t change with the success of science. Meyer makes the Christian faith hinge on things that actually have no bearing on our faith, and that’s a tragedy.

We need to reject the dichotomizations given to us by modernity and its wars, and cultivate a more Christian imagination as it pertains to God’s relationship to his Creation. For further reference, read everything by McGrath.

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It is illogical to suggest that one is anti-science if one does not study nature. Like saying that one is anti-female if not dating.

Never pretended that natural selection is an accident. But natural selection is not evolution.

I doubt Behe owns the hypothesis. If the evolutionary pathway can be demonstrated, then clearly it is not irreducible.

It seems Brad, that you have conflated ID with many different things. Probably because it has been tied to different approaches. But a horse tied to a rail does not make the horse a rail. What Eddie said makes sense to me. You appear to be a bit taking Meyer out of context. Even a Prime Minister or a President does not equal a country.

I agree, but my point is that the leaders of the ID movement are not studying nature–they are merely studying texts.

For me, the most ridiculous part of Meyer’s more recent book is his story about hiking the Burgess shale with his son. If Meyer is interested in studying nature, why hike? Why not formulate and test an ID hypothesis by looking for fossils?

Your pretense is that “some atheists would argue that the design got there by accident.” Please provide examples to support your claim.

My comment was not about ownership. My point is that you are presenting a mere hypothesis (which Behe is not even willing to study nature to test) as a fact.

Why “postulate”? Why not hypothesize and empirically test hypotheses (science) instead of writing books aimed at laypeople?

I also find it amazing that you claim to know what Behe thinks!

hi joao. behe is a ctually right about the ic problem. we indeed find such systems in nature. for example: a whale sonar need at least 2-3 parts for a minimal function. therefore- a whale sonar is ic.

you said:

“Why not formulate and test an ID hypothesis by looking for fossils?”-

we actually can do this. id prpedict that some fossil will be out of place. and indeed, this is what we find.

The notion that IC structures cannot evolve is a hypothesis, dcscccc. Behe hasn’t tested it. Pointing out that something meets the definition of IC isn’t enough.

Who is “we” in this context and what did you actually find? I’m wondering why you haven’t explained why Meyer didn’t look for any fossils.

joao. we actually can test it. for example: a car is ic system. it need at least 3 parts for a mimimal function: wheels, a rotor and an engine. so car is ic. why do you think that systems in nature is different?

about the fossils. id predict that some fossils will be “out of place fossils” that evolution doesnt predict. do you agree with this prediction?

One note to follow-up on my agreement with the title ‘reclaiming design’; of course, it must first be accepted that ‘design’ has been actively ‘claimed’ to begin with by IDists and the Discovery Institute. Does anyone here disagree that the DI has made such a move to ‘claim’ the term ‘design’, i.e. AWAY from others, as its own? The many writings and events trying to monopolize or restrict ‘design’ by DI fellows confirm this quite clearly. And I’ve spoken with several theologians and scientists, at leading institutions around the world over the years, who simply don’t want any longer to touch or even discuss ‘design’ anymore because of the DI and its radical political-educational movement. Somewhere along the line, the term ‘design’ became stained by IDism.

The first way to ‘reclaim design,’ is to not let activist IDists get away with writing the unqualified term ‘design’ when they really mean ‘Intelligent Design.’ Behe, Meyer, Dembski, Nelson, and many others do this regularly. It’s time for them to stop this and for non-IDist proponents of “Intelligent Design Theory” (IDT) to finally come clean about it.

Repeat because it’s obvious: people who promote ‘intelligent design’ but don’t insist on its ‘scientificity’ are not actually defending the DI’s very specific definitions of IDT.

Thus, when Dembski writes books called “The Design Inference” and “The Design Revolution” with ‘answers to critics’, he could have instead named them properly “The Intelligent Design Inference” and “The Intelligent Design Revolution.” Why not? Because otherwise it raises the question inconvenient for the ‘neutral’ DI PR campaign: whence does this intelligence/Intelligence come from? Instead, this kind of terminological conflation is rampant amongst IDists. And one of the main problems is that the DI has articulated no clear or coherent notion of ‘intelligence.’

The philosopher/sociologist of science, Steve Fuller, who many consider an advocate of IDism, but only superficially so, points this out directly: “Until ID has a proper theory of intelligence on the table, there really isn’t an alternative [scientific theory] for people to get worked up about.” That IDists sometimes write ‘intelligent design,’ sometimes just ‘design’ and sometimes IDT while at other times just ‘design theory’, makes their views very hard to pin down. (And it cannot be attributed just to laziness or shortening of terms.) IDists, for their part, often seem proud in their ambiguity and caginess.

Likewise, there are thousands and thousands of ‘design theorists’ around the world who are well respected in their fields, who are not constantly doubted, reviled and marginalised and who are certainly in no danger whatsoever of being ‘expelled’ for their promotion of ‘design’, ‘designs’ or ‘designing.’ They simply design (active verb) without being seduced by any ideological ‘neo-creationism’ about ‘origins of life’ or ‘biological origins’ implied in their work.

So, why don’t IDists openly acknowledge them or at least make an effort to clarify that they really are not speaking for all ‘design theorists’ and all ‘design theories’? They are really just specifically and narrowly interested in biology with aims to be ‘revolutionary’ in that field. IDists, however, play on these kinds of equivocation, apparently to seek honour, pity and support from mainly evangelical Christians (the target audience as in Dembski 2003), many of whom are or previously were YECs. None of this is really debatable, just social facts inconvenient for those few who have claimed ‘design’ wholly for IDism. IDists thus unnecessarily malign themselves with their aggressive ideological posturing.

The real question then becomes: what to do with these kinds of people who are trying to radicalise primarily evangelical Protestant Christians against science and scholarship? Unfortunately, there doesn’t yet seem to be a clear answer or an exit strategy from the current situation for IDism.

“As a clear consequence of my time in the ID movement (as well as my generally Creationist childhood), my faith hinged on science failing.” – Brad Kramer

Thank you for this autobiography of your “time in the ID movement”, which shows the dilemma many young people are facing (I suspect a generation gap with your biggest critic here, Brad). I don’t understand the motivation of someone from ‘outside’ telling you that’s not a possible thing for you to have thought based on IDist teachings, when you experienced it from ‘inside’. Yes, it is undoubtedly true that many IDists are anti-science (and generally anti-intellectual); they are afraid that science might somehow destroy their Christian faith, that they might become atheists because of evolutionary theory and/or ‘Darwinism’. More and more regularly, they have likely seen this happen when children grow up and attend public universities, only to have their YECist and IDist myths busted by rigorous, careful thinking, even compassionate, not only atheist profs, but also religious professors and new friends who were not sheltered in ‘creationist’ churches.

On the pro-IDism side, sadly and conspicuously, the ‘news’ desk at Uncommon Descent (most popular IDist internet blog) has demonstrated more outrageous contempt for scientists and their ‘science’ and against peer review than just about anyone I’ve ever read in my life. And one of my professional fields as a scholar is the sociology of science, so that only emphasizes the point. Yet somehow stupendously, IDist proponents, even Canadian ones, won’t in any way call Denyse O’Leary out on this behaviour publically. As others have said, one would have to be amazingly and concertedly blind not to be willing to see and identify this kind of fear and bias among IDists: Should We Have Faith in Science? | Evolution News

Jim Stump and Brad Kramer are quite accurate sociologically speaking in their claim that IDists from the DI promote anti-science widely across their evangelical networks. That fact is not in doubt to any sociologist of the IDM (there are only a few of us). Philosophical opposition & wordsmithing doesn’t change this social reality.

Let us therefore clarify a few important things:
The ‘design argument’ is not the ‘same thing’ or even ‘one of the same things’ as IDT, as someone here has suggested. Dembski attempts to make this clear, but fails with his flip-flopping in several papers and books (e.g. he says there is a single ‘design argument’ and also multiple ‘design arguments’ - but wait for the exaggerated criticism of this point). Here’s what Dembski wrote:

“If intelligent design [theory; IDT] cannot be made into a fertile new point of view that inspires exciting new areas of scientific investigation, then (even if true) it will go nowhere. … The validity of THE design argument, on the other hand [i.e. to distinguish from IDT], depends not on the fruitfulness of design-theoretic ideas for science but on the metaphysical and theological mileage one can get out of design.” (2004: 65)

Yes, the DI is attempting ‘mileage’ out of ‘design.’ That is why it needs to be ‘reclaimed’ from the extremes. Jantzen’s book seems to make sense when the “on the other hand” Dembski mentions is allowed to be carefully considered.

> “The dichotomy between design and nature, which I had been busy maintaining, plays directly into the hands of militant atheists.” – Brad Kramer

Yes, I definitely agree. However, speaking to their consciences, I don’t think the DI’s IDist leaders even realise they are intentionally doing it. They still haven’t publically acknowledged the distinction between Uppercase Intelligent Design and lowercase intelligent design, but instead continue to cause untold damage to IDist followers, especially youth. Since even W.L. Craig has acknowledged this distinction, when will other IDists?

“Chance is, in fact, the hand of God.” – David Wilcox
“[I]t is accidental to us, not to God.” – John H. Newman
“Divine providence does not exclude fortune and chance.” – St. Thomas Aquinas

And the same goes with the dichotomy between chance and design. Rev. Michael Heller’s book “The Philosophy of Chance” deals with this in part. He is yet another theologian, this time also a physicist, who effectively denounces IDT. IDists, for their part, conveniently leave him out of their anti-TE/EC ‘promotional’ material, like they do with so many others.

“evolutionary creationism is the only real and radical alternative to the scientific/modernistic worldview” – Brad Kramer

Well, now on a slightly different tone, cautioning against a different non-IDist ideology; in case you hadn’t seen my attempts at clarity in the past, Brad, I have to disagree with you in the sense that accepting ‘evolutionary creation’ does not make one into an ideological ‘creationist’ automatically. Creationists are by definition (English language) ideologists, even ‘evolutionary’ ones. That said, I agree that ‘evolutionary creation’ or ‘creation using evolution’ or however one wants to call it, is the largely mainstream position of the Abrahamic faiths today.

Otoh, a small few Protestant IDists (even those who so badly want to be ‘revolutionaries’ ala Johnson & Dembski), even scholars, seem content to intentionally miss themselves out on the mainstream while shooting for the margins. The ‘militancy’ began with YECism and then later ‘cdesignproponents,’ i.e. IDism; it did not ‘begin’ among TE/EC folks. The record shows this quite clearly. Whereas another way seems possible with the notion of ‘reclaiming design’ suggested in this thread or looking for a third ‘change’ oriented option.

p.s. comparing Lutherans with ‘Meyerites’ was pure comedy, likely intended!

Yes, you can reclaim design. But, if you analize in more detail this reclaiming, it may not be as easy to adopt as a first look shows. Just to begin, a rewriting of The Biologos Core Commitments, will have to be done. The term design, as important and crucial as it is, does not appear there. Including design in such an important document may mean a “macromutation”. You would need to explain very well the change especially to your young followers, if you don’t want to convey the idea that your main opposing target group, the IDsts, are provoking a fundamental shift in you, in the new idsts.

idsts. How would you redefine yourselves? The IDsts already have the CAPS…!

If taken seriously, “reclaiming design” would not be that easy at all.

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I think BioLogos should come up with a new, more nerdy and high-brow sounding term of their own. (Because Intelligent Design^TM is for those poor schmoes who read Evolution News and Views, not the people who read Mind and Cosmos. We need at least a five syllable word in there to feel like it’s worth bringing up.)

Like “teleological intent.” Whenever you throw teleological around, people just assume you must be a serious thinker.

Maybe you (BioLogos) should run a term-naming contest in your newsletter. Free copy of BioLogos least design-phobic contributor’s book to the winner. :stuck_out_tongue:

I went over to Evolutions News and Views today. This was on their homepage: An article titled Should We Have Faith in Science?

Evidently we should not, because the author says, “As a scientist, I am increasingly appalled and even shocked at what passes for science. It has become a mix of good science, bad science, creative story-telling, science fiction, scientism (atheism dressed up as science), citation-bias, huge media announcements followed by quiet retractions, massaging the data, exaggeration for funding purposes, and outright fraud all rolled up together. In some disciplines, the problem has become so rampant that the “good science” part is drowning in a mess of everything else.”

@Eddie I have appreciated your informed and passionate defense of specific ID writers and it was informative to read your take on things. Thanks for taking the time to type everything out.

I was like Brad in that I grew up in a home that used creationist books alongside some materials that were labelled ID. My mom was really into that kind of thing. Growing up, I honestly thought “Intelligent Design” was just a covert operation to allow creationism to be taught in public schools, so the students would see how believing in something Satanic like evolution was not their only option. I mean, look at the picture on this book that still haunts me. How much more evidence does a poor kid need that evolution is evil.

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I didn’t think I was presenting a hypothesis, but rather, a definition. Something that is demonstrated, should not be called irreducible. The corollary… that something which cannot be demonstrated, is irreducible, is not necessarily true, since it may be demonstrated in the future, even if not now. But this is not a hypothesis, but a mere identification of meaning.

Whether a particular thing is therefore reducible into component parts or process, is a discussion that can only happen within these definitions. When someone states that something is irreducible, it remains to be shown how it is in fact reducible in its parts, and by what process. Without that, it is not unreasonable to understand that it is irreducible.

Whether the leaders of ID (or the followers) are studying nature in detail or not… does not make them anti-science. There is nothing at all ridiculous about hiking the Burgess shale; many people have never done it at all. It seems simplistic to suggest that an ID hypothesis can be tested by looking for fossils. Which fossils would you suggest, and why?

I also think that you have a misperception that ID people would rule out the evolution of IC structures. From what I gather, some of them might believe that, but others believe that if IC evolved, then it must have done so thru an intelligent design outside of the usual process.

I don’t see any actual test in there.

I don’t see how ID predicts something so simplistic and vague, and I don’t see why a real ID hypothesis would depend on your ideas of what evolutionary theory predicts. Please lay out the hypothesis in detail.

Do you not see that you are giving away the game by putting ID in complete opposition to evolution? How can that be the case, when Eddie is arguing so strenuously that some ID leaders are in full agreement with basic concepts like common descent?