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.
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. 
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. 
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?
That’s precisely what Behe does. He wrote a whole book about it.
I’m still waiting for you to support your claim about what some atheists would say, John…
Christy - “Teleology” has always been a perfectly respectable and common term, of course, covering both internal “directedness” and external “design” (however instantiated). In traditional Christian metaphysics a la Aquinas, it covers both, the internal teleology of (say) life being traceable to the creation and providence of God.
The fact is that your wry “new and nerdy” has some truth about it, for that basic concept of teleology doesn’t seem central in TE/EC thinking, as it ought to be. That may be because it’s been cornered by the Thomists in the same way that “design” is said to have been cornered by ID, necessitating an even newer and higher-brow term to maintain the TE brand as unique.
Or it could be because Neodarwinism, notwithstanding Darwin’s replies to Asa Gray, was designed with the very purpose of removing teleology from the concept of evolution. Undirectedness has become so much a part of the paradigm of evolution that to embrace teleology would be to turn against the “scientific consensus” - which takes us back to anti-science.
I’ve only been studying this stuff in depth (meaning full-time) for five years after a career in medicine, half the time Eddie’s been at it. From the start I have self-identified as a theistic evolutionist, which has been my broad position for fifty years or more. But to my eyes modern TE has usually engaged in a convoluted attempt to, somehow, square Christian creation (which is teleology, no more, no less) with an atelological version of evolution.
So teleological thinkers in evolutionary science (such as Jim Shapiro or Denis Noble) have had minimal coverage here, whereas attempts to frame the doctrine of creation ateologically via novel theologies have been explored in great depth. Why? Because it might resolve the teleology/ateology square/circle. But it can’t be done: one of them has to go or your scheme is inherently incoherent. You must either own up to teleological evolution (against the scientific consensus), or abandon theism for something else (teleology being one theism’s core features). It’s no accident that theistic evolution has often been accused of “semi-deism” (Wilcox) or “statistical deism” (Russell).
Reclaiming design, then, for BioLogos, doesn’t mean winning some squabble with other Christians over the ownership of words, but being clear on orthodox creation doctrine as the determinant of scientific philosophy, rather than its handmaiden.
Incidentally, I must just reiterate how different the situation is outside the US, albeit your cultural issues tend to send ripples round the Christian world. I have never, from Sunday School, through Evangelical Bible Class, Cambridge University Christian Union and a variety of Anglican, Baptist and Independent churches, to doing theology with an Evangelical College, been presented with the dichotomy between science and faith that is so often bemoaned over there.
You guys need to guard against anything that smacks of a psychological reaction against doctrinaire Creationism, as it makes for bad theology.
“it may not be as easy to adopt as a first look shows.” - piopio
All BioLogos would need to do is acknowledge the distinction between ‘design argument’ and ‘Intelligent Design Theory’. That could be added here on BioLogos’ webpage. Simple, easy, no problems. Dembski himself consents to distinguishing them; so why would IDists disagree?
BioLogos already includes this:
“At BioLogos, we believe that our intelligent God designed the universe, but we do not see scientific or biblical reasons to give up on pursuing natural explanations for how God governs natural phenomena. We believe that scientific explanations complement a robust theological understanding of God’s role as designer, creator, and sustainer of the universe.”
And president Haarsma has already stated this (Aug. 25, 2014):
“At BioLogos, we believe that God is the living and active Creator of the whole universe, from initiating the Big Bang to providentially sustaining his creation today. When capitalized, however, ‘Intelligent Design’ refers to a more particular set of views…”
BioLogos would not need to incorporate the term ‘design’ broadly into its mission as a kind of neo-IDism. The term ‘BioLogos’ itself is a neologism. Why would BioLogos want to become ‘design-centric’ or ‘design-obsessive’ like the IDM with their ‘tinkering engineer’s God’?
I don’t think it would be that difficult (or merely a “squabble with other Christians”) to show that BioLogos (and anyone else who would take up the gauntlet) is actually justified in taking a stand against the gross abuse of the term ‘design’ by the Discovery Institute and its IDM. BioLogos could request directly to DI leaders with whom they are already in contact, that they publically answer to the specific question raised above re: capitalisation. Why do they continue to equivocate between 2 (or more) different meanings of ‘design’?
The second point is crucial and a precedent is already in place to guide the way, as I mentioned above. But the DI leadership likely knows that their political-educational movement would be in a heap of trouble if they swallowed their torch-bearing pride and publically distinguished their supposedly ‘strictly scientific’ theory from natural theology. This is because they indeed bank via their funding channels on equivocation between terms.
And it’s worth repeating again: people who promote ‘intelligent design’ but don’t insist on its ‘scientificity’ are not actually defending the DI’s very specific definitions of IDT.
My suggestion is basic and unambiguous: IDists should no longer be permitted to equivocate between varieties of design (e.g. mousetraps & origins of life) without being exposed for their dubious intentions for doing so. Otherwise, their ideology forces all Christians to be pro-Intelligent Design Theory, when really they are only pro-design arguments as natural theology (see Craig’s quotes above).
We are not atheists making this request. And it is a reasonable and polite request to improve communicative clarity and show respect between dialogue partners. Right now, the DI actively disrespects others (who simply disagree with them) via their attempt to monopolise ‘design’ and ‘design theory’. ‘Reclaiming design’ from IDist radicalisation and calls for a ‘design revolution!’ thus goes beyond just BioLogos; it belongs to all Abrahamic theists, including Christians. This is a responsibility suitable for the BioLogos Foundation to express.
Would anyone here argue that the DI has not ‘claimed’ the term ‘design’ for the IDM? Would anyone here contend the DI & IDM have not sadly damaged (even if unintentionally) that term in many, many peoples’ eyes, intertwined and associated as it has become in their political-educational movement?
The claim that ‘teleology’ has “been cornered by the Thomists in the same way that ‘design’ is said to have been cornered by ID”, could also do with some elaboration. It is doubtful. But then again, Jon and I have quite a different view of what ‘theistic evolution’ means (not only in English language) through contact with different TEs and their writings. I’ve already offered a solution to his challenge of ‘teleological evolution,’ but he doesn’t seem to want to escape the clutches of IDists dubiously commandeering ‘design’ for themselves above others.
joao. its a test because we know that ic is real and we can detect such systems. do you agree that if car need to evolve step wise it will be an ic system?
about the fossils- if animals doesnt evolved from each other then we should find no hierarchy in the fossils\phylogeny. and this is indeed what we find.
Here is a different analogy: I could make the statement, “The Republican party encourages people to fear immigrants. They are routinely saying things that are anti-immigrant.” I could say this even though know many Republicans personally who are actively involved in welcoming immigrants, and even some who have married immigrants or adopted immigrants into their families. So why would I say such a thing?
Suppose I find a quote from a Republican leader that says something to the effect of, “We really need to do something about all these diseased, free-loading, potential terrorists and criminals that are streaming into our country.” You could argue that the statement wasn’t really anti-immigrant, just anti-bad immigrant. Well, okay, but the perception most people are going to be left with, is that it is anti-immigrant. Because most people are going to assume that only a person with a very low view of most immigrants would have phrased it that way in the first place. They aren’t going to go back and “read it carefully.”
If a Republican leader says, “I am very pro-immigrant. I love immigrants! As long as those immigrants fit my idea of what good immigrants should be; rich, well-educated, and English-speaking.” Someone would be right to point out that even though some immigrants might fit that narrow description, a huge percentage of the category that gets labelled “immigrant” by most people is excluded, so you can’t really call yourself pro-immigrant.
I appreciate your defense of individual ID leaders attitude toward science. I accept that you are telling the truth and that they are personally very committed to the advancement and integrity of science. But, I really don’t see how you can look at the rhetoric that gets thrown around on the ID websites and not see why they are perceived as anti-science. I don’t really think my reaction to the paragraph I quoted was based in childhood trauma that predisposed me to negative associations with ID (I never even had a big faith crisis brought on by YEC, mostly I think of what I learned as a child as amusing.); I think it was based in my native-speaker familiarity with how English is used to create implicatures. The author wants me to distrust science in general. They only science that can be trusted is the science produced or approved by the small group of scientists who are not corrupt, i.e. ID scientists.
As a non-specialist lay person reading BioLogos articles, I share your mystification over why ID has been attacked with such fervor. I chalked it up to some kind of philosophy of science shop talk that only really matters to professionals. I don’t understand how on the one hand we are supposed to affirm that God is Creator (not just Set-In-Motion-er) and that God is intimately active in Creation on an on-going basis, but on the other hand we must avoid actually talking about guided evolution and defend randomness and natural material processes as the probable explanation for everything or we have succumbed to dreaded “God of the gaps” thinking. That I don’t get. It seems like there should be a difference between what is acceptable in a journal article and what is acceptable in a discussion about science and the natural world among Christians.
Yes, why is that? If we don’t have a purpose and an end and an eschatological goal, what is the point of distinguishing evolutionary creationism from material naturalism. It has to be more than just “God started it” or it is not compatible at all with Christian theology. Christian theology has an eschatological aim for creation. Someone can go on and on about how teleology is not scientifically demonstrable, but does that mean it shouldn’t be part of our theologically informed fundamental understanding of and approach to nature?
Jackpot Christy. The central question to keep asking. I’ve yet to get an answer, though, after asking it for several years now.
Thanks for your questions, Joao. I would say that in order to formulate a hypothesis, some definitions would first need to be agreed upon. Therefore, to me the basic assumption would be that if an evolutionary pathway can be demonstrated for an organ, then that organ could not be called “irreducible”. If that is not agreed upon, then any hypothesis related to this issue would be useless and misunderstood. The corollary would be that if an evolutionary pathway cannot be shown, then it is possible that such an organ might be irreducibly complex. If it can be shown that the undirected evolution of an organ is most unprobable in a stepwise process, then it would be reasonable to term that organ as irreducible. l
However, I do agree that just because an organ is irreducible, or useless when missing one or a small percentage of parts, does not by itself mean that it could not have evolved. But the probability for evolvement certainly gets smaller and smaller, the more complexity is required, if the intermediate steps have no mechanism for preferential selection.
These above statements are not hypotheses, but merely an introduction for developing a hypothesis, which would have to be more specific and related to an individual organ such as the eye, or sexual reproduction, or whatever is claimed to be irreducible.
I think the irreducibility is often debatable. For example, even in dcscccc example, obviously a motor can serve other functions than in a car, such as a generator, pump, sawmill. Wheels exist on bicycles, wheelbarrows and carts. Yet, if any of these is missing from a car, then a car is not a car. In nature, if things are missing from the eye, such as a lense, or the optic nerve, then the eye does not function, but most of the individual parts often/mostly have no use outside of the eye function. There would be no reason nor benefit to select for the individual components. So nature is more complex than the auto example.
I do not have a huge disagreement with dcsccc, but only a small difference. I think YEC will predict that some fossils will be out of place. I don’t think placement of fossils is directly related to ID. But, if some fossils do not fit the order of complexity, then they will indicate different timeframes for statistical probabilities of mutation and selection. In that case, some but not all out of place fossils could indeed create problems for undirected evolution of complex organs. This would depend on the specific type of fossil.
Apparently, Dembski sometimes disagrees with Behe on parts of the complexity issue. Certainly Eddie is much more expert on this than I am.
Hi Christy,
It doesn’t seem we’ve spoken before. Nice to meet you. 
Let me provide a small background. I attended the Discovery Institute’s Summer Program for “Intelligent Design in the Social Sciences and Humanities”, before that program was discontinued. Previously, I wrote a masters thesis partly on the “Intelligent Design Movement” (IDM), but was not and am not an IDist.
“I really don’t see how you can look at the rhetoric that gets thrown around on the ID websites and not see why they are perceived as anti-science.” - Christy
One reason is because your dialogue partner is not actually supporting the Discovery Institute’s official version of “Intelligent Design”, which necessitates the ‘scientificity’ of IDism. Thus there is a kind of willful blindness involved. Yet you are entirely correct in your observation about “ID websites” and their anti-science rhetoric. I agree with you as do many others.
“Many ID advocates defy scientific consensus, maintaining that evolution is a fraud.” - Perry Marshall
Hardcore IDist ‘revolutionaries’ avoid recognising this, for a variety of strange personal reasons and self-expelled situations. That is not your responsibility or mine to sort out. We just witness it quite clearly.
It can be made understandable, though, why ID is challenged (you say ‘attacked’) by BioLogos. This is mainly because of the ‘strictly scientific’ claims of the DI, which they’ve never actually backed up with empirical answers to the ‘when, where and how’ questions of intelligent agency working in biology. Flipping coins and calling something a ‘design inference’ based on probability is hardly a credible ‘natural science’. If they can’t come up with ‘scientific’ answers, then at some point they should stop calling it ‘strictly scientific’.
If the DI would come clean and announce that more than one ‘design theory’ is currently available, that would be a start. They have yet to face the capitalisation (2 types of ‘design/Design’) argument put forward by significant Protestants and Catholics, most recently W.L. Craig, one of their own (!). That ID primarily engages a “science and faith” conversation, that it is not ‘strictly scientific’; no doubt this would gain some BioLogos respect. But the DI hasn’t done this yet and likely won’t out of fear that their ‘movement’ would collapse.
BioLogos believes the Creator is involved in the Creation. But it doesn’t think one can ‘scientifically’ prove that or that it is even a ‘scientific’ question. Faith is still required for religious belief, which the DI thus far refuses to accept, except for privately in “individual ID leaders attitude toward science”, which don’t count towards their revolutionary promoting of ‘scientification’ of ‘Design’.
The Discovery Institute is asking BioLogos to provide ‘scientific’ evidence that it has not provided itself. This is a desperate strategy, especially as it blames BioLogos (when it is not even trying to provide evidence) for failing at what it has failed at already.
“Yes, why is that?” - Christy
Do you mean teleology as ‘the argument from design’ (i.e. not IDT) or ‘the argument from perfection’ or something else?
In short, the answer to your question is that TE/EC is not trying to find a ‘strictly scientific’ proof of evolutionary creation like IDists are trying to do with Intelligent Design Theory.
As an academic in the social sciences, we deal with ‘teleology’ on a daily basis. It’s in natural-physical sciences where teleology is problematic and debated. IDism sadly hasn’t provided any evidence of ‘guidance’ at all, which is because it outright refuses to discuss the ‘designing process’ that necessarily involves the ‘when, where and how’ of ‘design.’
Teleology, nevertheless, is already part of (pre-modern & modern) TE/EC thinking. Haven’t you seen it prolifically, Christy? Pierre Teilhard de Chardin is a good place to start, in case you missed it. He certainly speaks of “eschatological goal”. Jon is largely skeptical of Teilhard de Chardin, who isn’t featured here amongst BioLogos TE/EC inspirations. But teleology can be more safely faced among TE/EC (immanently, but not ‘strictly scientifically’) than among IDists who go quiet about ‘intentionality’ and ‘identity’ when it comes to evolutionary creation.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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