So if it works to detect human genetic engineers, why can’t it detect non human genetic engineers?
Because there aren’t any. Not since the Panspermians…
Precisely.
I think Martin’s statement above is the most clear and honest articulation of methodological naturalism i’ve seen here, and so transparently demonstrates why i find the entire method to be nothing more than special pleading.
The method is valid, or not, depending purely and solely on what the researcher may or may not suspect about the identity of the intelligent agent at work. this simply can be nothing more than special pleading.
if one believes that a biological system was engineered by humans, one can detect intelligent agency. but then, for whatever reason, even midway through the research… if the researcher begins to suspect that it may have been of divine or other supernatural intelligence, * poof! * one’s ability to detect intelligent agency instantaneously and magically vanishes.
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Would you humour me a hypothetical scenario, @Daniel_Fisher? Taking it away from the controversy of human evolution for a moment. Let’s suppose a string of genetic mutations were discovered in polar bears which turned out to be irrefutable, smoking gun evidence of genetic engineering by outside intelligence.
What then? How exactly does one then scientifically detect that this work was done by a supernatural or divine being and not say advanced alien life? It is one thing to say, “This genetic code implies a designer” and “This genetic code implies a designer who can only be divine” or again, “This information implies a designer who can only be the Lord of Heaven and Earth who incarnated in the Lord Jesus Christ revealed once for all to the Apostles.”
You may disagree with methodological naturalism but at least it is consistent. MN never pretends to be anything other than seeking natural explanations for natural phenomena. On the other hand, even with smoking gun evidence, ID must do a switcheroo halfway in order to meet its goal. It might begin in the science department but eventually it has to sneak down the corridor to the Theology/Philosophy department and hope no one notices. As far as I can see, there is no other way to draw a line from genetics to Jesus (or even a hitherto unknown supernatural designer).
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Utter nonsense. If design is there, it will be detectable.
EXACTLY!!!
One absolutely does not, and cannot. anything further than arriving at the conclusion “intelligently or purposefully designed” would indeed be theological or metaphysical. this is the very point i have indeed pleaded to be recognized. Science by definition studies that which is natural, and it by definition, using the methods of science, could not ever reach a theological or metaphysical conclusion, as the tools of science has no power to
my plea, though, is that it would be recognized that the first half of your question is indeed legitimate science. it sounds, given your hypothetical scenario, that you would agree with me thus far… that it would be hypothetically possible, and legitimate science, to recognize “irrefutable, smoking gun evidence of genetic engineering by outside intelligence“?
Do we agree thus far, at least?
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Using the same criteria and methodologies, would you expect the differences within the cat “kind” or lemur “kind” to be less or greater than this 6% difference?
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Thank you! I wish more IDers were as intellectually honest about the limitations of ID science.
Sure. We can quibble over what ‘smoking gun evidence’ and what the proof threshold might look like, but ID begins with a perfectly reasonable hypothesis, IMV.
One thing confuses me though. You say:
But early you said,
Sorry, I think I’m missing something. On the one hand you say that a researcher using MN magically loses their ability to detect design once they begin to suspect divine/supernatural intervention, but then on the other hand agree that science cannot detect divine/supernatural intervention. But surely, even by your own reply to me, the researcher is doing the correct thing? As soon as they suspect divine/supernatural agency they have left science behind and entered into theology and philosophy, and so, should check their thinking and refocus on the natural world/data in front of them? Even if that simple leads to a conclusion of “this data implies an external intelligent designer.” Speculations as to the supernatural identity of the designer is beyond the scope of the scientist doing science to comment on. I thought we agreed on that? What I am missing?
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@LM77, I agree with your points, ID claims that design is detectible, but then claim without evidence that biologists deny it if they see it.
@Daniel_Fisher, I have a different point of view and that is design is evident not in Variation, where ID wants to find it, but in Natural Selection, which seems to interest no one at least in the discussions on this web page.
The problem would be that ID would have to say that God guides evolution through a an intelligent natural process, namely ecology,. and scientists would have to admit that evolution is a process guided by intelligent natural process…
Absolutely it does, and i think you may on the cusp of understanding my core difficulty and distinctions, and seeing just how far i agree with you… if i can beg your indulgence, let me give a stepwise reply in the hopes i can clarify exactly, and i’ll get to the core of your question in stages. i can’t tell you how much i appreciate your fair engagement and discussion here…
So firstly, similarly in the spirit of a hypothetical scenario taking it away from the controversy of evolution entirely for a moment - consider a hypothetical scenario i have utilized before…
imagine an archeologist in the middle east finds a fragment of an ancient stone tablet, finds barely legible marks on it, faint and almost erased by time and erosion. he takes it back to a lab, does various scans, but eventually identifies the markings unmistakably as five words of an archaic Hebrew script, that unquestionably form the unmistakable words we translate as, “…you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”
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Now, would he be in his rights, scientifically speaking, to recognize the words there as the result of intelligent agency? i would hope no one would dispute that. he would have every right, and would be expected, to recognize those markings as the result of intelligent agency, no? would anyone criticize him for invoking “intelligent agency”? would he be called unscientific by any standard whatsoever? i imagine you would see that his recognition of those words as the result of intelligent agency are quite natural, normal, obvious, expected, and of course, most “scientific.”
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Now, what if i complicate my hypothetical scenario by giving you the additional information (entirely unknown and unsuspected by the archaeologist) that the fragment of stone he discovered was actually a fragment of the original tablet of the law carved by God himself? the one described as having been written “by the finger of God,” where “the tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets.” … if so, does anything in #1 change? can the archaeologist no longer recognize intelligent agency in those hebrew words? are his conclusions all of a sudden illegitimate? has he ceased doing “science”?? has he crossed into the realm of theology?? i imagine you can see where i’m going, and i hope you could agree with me thus far… if, hypothetically, the tablet the archaeologist found was indeed the original one carved by the finger of God himself, nothing changes about his conclusions regarding intelligent agency as outlined in point 1 above. his methods, assumptions, and conclusions would be identical, and identically valid, regardless of whether this particular fragment was one carved by a man, or carved by the finger of God, no?
in other words, if God ever had intervened in the world in such (presumably) supernatural ways, and we examined the extant results of this intervention, we would not be “studying” something supernatural, only be studying the results of said supernatural intervention, and the results of said intervention are and remain entirely natural.
i have further to go into my hypothetical scenario to get to the core of your question, but i want to see if you are tracking with me thus far? any additional thoughts, questions, concerns or disagreements? or might we still essentially agree thus far?
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If God ever intervened in the natural, it would leave a trace; an unnatural leap. There is none. None in the fossil, geological, cosmological, DNA record. None. If He intervenes as if He didn’t, as in claims of healing, that takes His self denial to a bemusing level and questions His rationality.
If the naturally impossible polar bear mutations clearly predate human genetic engineering, which should be determinable by mutation of the mutations, then we’d have to spend a trillion dollars or ten proving that they truly are naturally impossible. Or just realise that we need to recalibrate what is naturally possible. The alternative - alien interference - is utterly impossible after all.
Or what if humans have a supernatural soul? Does that mean scientists can no longer read email??? What is to become of the Biologos forum??? And all the BL articles can only be read by non scientists, who once they become convinced of MN are no longer able to comprehend the BL material…
On second thought, this explains a lot of the interactions I’ve had with ID skeptics.
Any life scientists or other disinterested rational thinkers? Or just those who follow their thinking?
@Daniel_Fisher, @LM77 Liam, @Paradigm
The relevant question is not did God intervene in nature, but did God guide evolution so that human beings were created, instead of let’s say intelligent gorillas. If I understand it properly BioLogos says that God did guide evolution and Dawkins says no.
The question is how would God have guided evolution and the answer would have to be through Natural Selection, if Darwin’s understanding of Natural Selection means anything. Do you gave any opinion as to how God used Natural Selection to guide evolution, or why God could not use natural selection to guide evolution? .
Why would God need to intervene?
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Your view is the most logical conclusion given Darwinism. Natural selection is the only source of teleology, and natural selection is primarily a function of ecology. So, if we are stuck with Darwinian evolution, the only way God can possibly guide the process is via ecology.
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How? How does God do ecology? How is God intervening in ecology? Why? What’s the extrinsic purpose i.e. teleology?
I think you are reading a little too much into it, mate. The beauty of hypothetical scenarios is that it allows people to discuss a ‘for instance’ that does not necessarily have to be fully couched in reality. That’s what I was doing with Daniel 
.
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