Intelligent Design

[Chris_Falter]

Hi Eddie -

It’s always good to converse with you. Sorry I’ve been absent from this discussion for a while; life is like that sometimes.

@Eddie

In other words, are you saying that Behe has not yet successfully made his case, because his inferences of design in particular instances are not sound, or are you saying that Behe should not even try to make such a case, because there never will be any way of detecting the injection? If your position is the first one, we are not in complete opposition, since I have no problem with anyone criticizing any particular ID claim of detecting design. But if your position is the second one, then we won’t be able to get any further, because that position strikes me as doctrinaire on both the metaphysical and epistemological level, and I don’t accept it.

I’m primarily saying the first (Behe has not yet successfully made his case). However, the second does not strike me as unreasonable. As Polkinghorne has noted, a scientist cannot ever declare that science has proven a miracle; the nature of the scientific method would always suggest that some as yet undiscovered law of nature might exist that would explain the purported miracle. If you’re interested in more details, I’ll provide a more exact citation to Polkinghorne. I’m quite sure it’s in The Polkinghorne Reader.

@Eddie

If you looked only at the biologists (or scientists generally) who self-identified as Christians or at least theists of some kind, the numbers wouldn’t be 90 to 8.

Actually, the Ph.D. Christian scientists I have known have believed that the evolution of life can be explained by natural mechanisms. They also believe that God designed the universe so that, according to its created order, it would bring forth life. They would probably vote with the 90 rather than the 8.

Of course, my experience is a tiny sample size. Do you have any data that would provide a more reliable basis for answering the question? I would be interested to see if there’s any evidence on the issue, so we don’t have to rely on speculation or highly limited personal experience.

@Eddie

Remember, we are in a world where climate scientists conspire behind the scenes to de-certify journals which don’t stick to their party line on global warming; academics try to strangle rival ideas in the crib, especially when those rival ideas threaten either a political/social worldview (e.g., the leftist, America-hating worldview of the AGW crowd) or a religious worldview (atheist secular humanism). If you think that the full and complete explanation of why ID is rejected by most biologists is due to technical scientific objections, I would say that you do not understand modern academic culture very well.

I haven’t done an anthropology of scientific culture, but your description of it does not align with the behavior and attitudes of the scientists I have known. I will readily concede that everyone, scientists included, is heavily influenced by his or her worldview. At the same time, one of the interesting and unique things about science is that both atheists and believers can collaborate productively in the scientific endeavor because discussions of purpose and first cause are set aside. This is manifestly not the case on the humanities side of the campus.

@Eddie

a good number of biologists, including some important evolutionary biologists, have said that some of the ID critiques of traditional evolutionary theory are good ones.

Yet these biologists are still arguing for natural evolutionary mechanisms, correct? I’m not arguing for neo-Darwinism and against the Third Way, neutral theory, etc. Thus I am puzzled why you are citing critiques of neo-Darwinism by proponents of the Third Way or neutral theory. They don’t pertain to the argument that I am making, which is that the community of biologists has overwhelmingly rejected intelligent agency as having any scientific value with respect to the evolution of life. That “good number of biologists” that you cite agree with me on this point, if I am not mistaken.

EDIT: May the peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus, Eddie!