While browsing intelligentdesign.org earlier today I came across an unexpected claim:
Below are about a dozen or so examples of areas where ID is helping science to generate new scientific knowledge and open up new avenues of research. [source]
I was surprised, because I wasn’t aware of any cases of science being based on ID ‘research’ other than work being done by ID advocates themselves.
The surprise didn’t last long though:
Each example includes citations to mainstream scientific articles and publications by ID proponents that discuss this research
But if ID is helping science, that would lead to mainstream scientific articles citing ID articles, not the other way around. ID proponents citing mainstream science would be science feeding in to ID.
A quick scan showed that all the examples provided were by the usual suspects: Axe, Meyer, Gauger, Gonzalez, Sternberg, Ewert, Durston, Wells, Luskin… even McIntosh[1], Sanford[2] and Abel[3].
Conclusion: ID is not helping science. ID is not generating new scientific knowledge. ID is not opening up new avenues of research.
ID is being ignored by science. Not even a single example has been provided of ID research being used or even cited by mainstream scientists. ID is useless, and IDers are forced to list their own work because nobody else finds ID useful.
A young earth creationist associated with AnswersinGenesis. ↩︎
That’s David Abel of the Spare Bedroom of ProtoBioCybernetics/ProtoBioSemiotics, The Gene Emergence Filing Cabinet of The Origin of Life Science Corner Of The Garage, Inc, ↩︎
Phillip E. Johnson’s wedge strategy was supposed to have ushered in ID as a mainstream science by now (or by 2027 if we take the outside bound of the prediction). In reality, it’s kinda gone ‘phfft’, having “peaked” in noise generation possibly around the time of the 2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover trial. There will always be ID proponents and religious affiliated organizations that ’support’ the idea, like there will always be YECists, OECists, flat earthers, HIV & germ theory deniers and alien abduction proponents. It’s just part of the background noise and PR attempts to be seen as still ‘relevant’ to funders.
I think teleology in nature is demonstrably a fact. I don’t think that is any basis for arguing for theism, that requires different approaches. So long as people peddle clever arguments for God belief they encourage a very shallow notion of belief which isn’t worth anyone’s time.
”Teleology should not be at all out of bounds for atheists. Teleologists do not need to posit that there is an intelligent goal-giver who gives natural beings purposes to fulfill, as many theists think…”
I am an atheistic virtue ethicist requiring no divine agency for the teleological dimensions of my ethics to make minimal sense and have minimal coherence. I am just describing purely naturalistically occurring patterns as universals or forms. I am saying that since humans’ very natures are constituted by a specific set of powers, fulfilling them is incumbent on humans as the beings that we are. It is irrational and a practical contradiction to destroy the very precondition of our own being (all things being equal). We have a rational imperative instead to flourish maximally powerfully according to the powers which constitute us ourselves.
Now there is some truth in what Fincke says, but it is not the whole truth and his account suffers from some systematic ambiguities. On the one hand, I would agree that the teleological properties of natural substances, including human beings, can in principle be known whether or not one believes in God, precisely because they are natural. That is what makes natural law possible. You can know just by studying trees that their roots have among their natural ends the taking in of water and nutrients, and that it is objectively good for a tree that its roots carry out this function and bad for it if for some reason the roots are unable to do so. You don’t need to make reference to God to see this. By the same token, you can know just by studying human beings that it is objectively good for them to pursue truth, to show courage and resolution in the face of difficulties, to exercise self control in the indulgence of their appetites, and so forth, since without such virtues they would be unable to fulfill the ends of their various natural capacities. No special reference to God is needed in order to see this either. Not only do I agree with Fincke about that much, but I have made a similar point at length in a post from almost a year ago. It is in my view a mistake for religious apologists to think they can go directly from the objectivity of morality to the existence of God.”
It seems to me that the exquisiteness of science in many cases suggests an Intelligent Designer. Can one prove it? No! But it does seem that there is design built in to a lot of scientific results.
So it does. But the abstract of that article includes:
This new model provides a gradual Darwinistic evolutionary model of the origins of the eukaryotic cell and suggests an inherent ability of an ancestral, primitive genome to induce its own inclusion in a membrane.
Unless the full text is very different, this is evolution, not Intelligent Design.[1]
Ok, most of ID is also about evolution. But ID articles typically say ‘this couldn’t evolve’, while this article says ‘this could evolve’. ↩︎
The professed raison d’etre of the Wedge strategy and the ‘Intelligent design movement’, as carried on by the Discovery Institute and fellow travelers, is the opposite… To prove it scientifically and make it a demonstrated mechanistic phenomenon in science. And let’s not be coy about what we’re talking about: ‘God’, not “an intelligent designer with unspecified capabilities and intent about which we won’t speculate”. Let’s not go the Of Pandas And People route where in the book, “creation” and “creationists” were replaced with “intelligent design” and “design proponents”.
If that particular article isn’t acceptable, it looks like the articles by Durston, Chiu and Axe (at least his 2000 article) also have multiple citations. I didn’t check all the references Luskin provided, but I think those examples would be sufficient to invalidate your claim that the work of ID researchers isn’t being cited by others.
Seven of those papers are by ID researchers, including Abel, Hossjer, Trevors and Durston himself. The eighth, by Aita and Husimi, cites Durston solely because it includes another measure of genome complexity - which Aita and Husimi don’t use.
The citations of the Chiu paper also seem to be mostly by ID writers: mainly Chiu himself, but also Durston, Dembski and Luskin.
Articles by IDers being cited by other IDers does not qualify as ID research being used by mainstream scientists.[1]
If you can produce examples of ID papers being cited non-trivially by scientists not associated with the ID movement, you will have shown that ID research is being cited by mainstream scientists. So far you have not.
Not that this is any surprise. If ID research was being used by mainstream scientists, Luskin would have been citing that work, not the articles by his ID colleagues.
P.S. You can do the legwork next time. Unless your next example includes full details of which scientists cited which ID research paper(s) for what purpose, it will be ignored on the grounds that the previous four examples provided proved on inspection be either not ID-related, or cited by other IDers.
Axe 2000 has collected many cites, but it is only vaguely related to ID. ↩︎
Indeed. I think there is plenty of teleology in evolution because it involves living organisms. Though I suppose you can call it an effective teleology rather than some implication of planning.
ID and all of its “cousins” and cohorts are headed for a big storm. As data gets larger and the ability to access the data gets easier and easier, the main pillar of support, the notion amongst Evangelicals and Pentecostals, not to question authority or what authority speaks on, erodes away from the bottom. like waves crashing against a lighthouse.
Unless you come up with something genuinely “new”, it’s only a matter of when, and not a matter of what. Keep on cycling through the same messages you have for several decades now…and you might as well ring up the “Fat Lady”, and tell her to warm up and take the stage.
Does the Aita and Husimi citation not count as a citation from a mainstream scientist?
Woycechowsky cites Axe’s paper. Would he not count?
My goal here is limited. You claimed that there was not a single example of the articles on Luskin’s list being cited by a “mainstream scientist”. I’m saying that is incorrect.
It doesn’t count as a citation provided by intelligentdesign.org though, because Luskin didn’t mention it.
I don’t know.
Who is Woycechowsky?
Is he an ID advocate?
Is he associated with the Discovery Institute?
Which Axe paper did he cite?
The 2000 paper, which is not particularly ID-relevant, or a later one?
Where did Woycechowsky cite it?
In a research paper?
Did Woycechowsky use the results of Axe’s work, or only refer to Axe’s paper in passing?
Do the legwork.
I did not claim that. I claimed that in the context of Luskin’s article, “Not even a single example has been provided of ID research being used or even cited by mainstream scientists.”
That is correct. Luskin didn’t mention Aita/Husumi, or Woycechowsky . Luskin didn’t mention any work which didn’t have an IDer as an author.
If ID was helping science, Luskin would have been able to list papers by scientists not associated with the ID movement that cited ID work. He didn’t. Nor have you.
So far, the only example of ID work being cited by mainstream scientists is Aita/Husumi mentioning (but not using the results from) a paper by Durston - and I provided that one.
But it does mean that there is at least one example of an ID paper being cited by mainstream scientists. So I’ll modify my original statement:
ID is being ignored by science. Not even a single example has been provided of ID research being used by mainstream scientists. It’s rare for ID research to be even mentioned. ID is useless, and IDers are forced to list their own work because nobody else finds ID useful.
Setting aside the interpretations ID proponents develop to support their desired outcomes, what would you ( @MarkD and @mitchellmckain ), or anyone else, identify as indications of teleology? What, if at all possible to identify, would you say is the telos?
I’m just thinking of how every living creature -plants included- do seem largely to act for a purpose, though some of us are blessed with the capacity to play when there is no over riding objective to address. The point of the article I shared was to say the fact that so often acts are purposeful does not imply there must have been a divine source to assign those purposes. I agree with him there though of course there is no way to rule that possibility out either..
How the cosmos coalesced into the forms we see and why they exhibit the properties we observe is still a mystery but I think there is room to wonder if any intentionality was involved. At every point in time it seems what we observe follows on prior conditions.
Rather than a divine micro manager, I imagine a God which has moved toward fecundity and endless forms most beautiful. I don’t imagine a God apart from creation, but rather one that is in everything by virtue of having become it.
I think the point is a rejection of a sharp line between teleological and non-teleological. But here is my example.
We have found that E-coli bacteria will protect UV radiation damage (selectively of course) to its DNA from its own DNA repair mechanism in order to support the introduction of variation into its own genome. Therefore, would you say this genome variation is random or intentional?
Compare this to a human learning process where we try all sorts of crazy things to solve problems and keep the ones that work. Is that random or intentional?
And evolution is basically the same pattern. Trying all sorts of variations and selecting those which work.
The common thread here is the preferred outcome. And these trial and error processes amount to a search for the preferred outcome. I am suggesting this is what most teleological behavior in our own experience ultimately boils down to – and what I am calling “effective teleology.” It is certainly not teleology in the sense of pre-planned design. And yet the intentional character of it is strong. It serves the purpose of the organism because it agrees with the basic nature of existence and development of living things in the selection of survival advantage.