Science, Intelligent Design Metaphysics, and Methodology

John Wickham

Earth & Environmental Science University of Texas at Arlington

Summary

Attacks on evolution are about metaphysics and religion, not science.

Scientists are partly responsible for the controversy because many have conflated methodology with metaphysics especially with respect to evolution.

Science needs to emphasize its methodology and remain neutral in the metaphysical debate.

Intelligent Design hypothesis is flawed.

Design Advocate?

“Quantum mechanics is certainly imposing. But an inner voice tells me that it is not yet the real thing. The theory says a lot, but does not really bring us closer to the secret of the 'Old One.' I, at any rate, am convinced that He is not playing at dice.”

A. Einstein, ~1929

Design Theorist?

“I am an empiricist. On religion, I lean toward deism but consider its proof largely a problem in astrophysics. The existence of a cosmological God who created the universe … is possible, and may eventually be settled, perhaps by forms of material evidence not yet imagined”

E.O. Wilson, 1998, p. 263

Evolution as metaphysics

“It is adaptation that gives an appearance of purpose-fullness in evolution…. It turns out to be basically materialistic with no sign of purpose as a working variable in life history….”

Teleological assertions by scientists have been repeated since the time of Darwin. G. Simpson (1951) is typical:

Evolution as Metaphysics

Cardinal Schönborn**

“Evolution in the sense of common ancestry might be true, but evolution in the neo-Darwinian sense – an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection – is not. Any system of thought that seeks to explain away the overwhelming evidence for design in biology is ideology, not science.”

** (NY Times July 7, 2005)

Evolution as metaphysics

“… The very persons who insist upon keeping science and religion separate are eager to use their science as a basis for pronouncements about religion. The literature of Darwinism is full of anti-theistic conclusions, such as that the universe was not designed and has no purpose, and that humans are the product of blind natural processes that care nothing about us.” (P. Johnson, 1993, p. 8).

Evolution as metaphysics

These attacks by the religious right claim that evolution is based on metaphysics, that there is no real distinction between metaphysics and methodology, and that scientists teach metaphysics as part of evolution.

They have already won the public relations fight, and 2/3 of the American public agrees that intelligent design should be taught along with evolution.

Evolution as metaphysics

Science as a method does not have to, and should not make metaphysical claims.

“Science excludes appeal to supernatural entities as a point of method, and thus it is improper to draw … the atheistic conclusion that God is … unreal from evolution or any other scientific conclusion. Such questions are not scientific and must be left to the theologian and the philosopher.”

Pennock (1999)

What is Intelligent Design?

Intelligent design is a hypothesis which claims that some biological features are complex, improbable and specified, and they therefore must be designed,

Intelligent Design claims it is based on probability theory, hypothesis testing, and information theory, but little use is actually made of these theories.

Intelligent Design

Intelligent Design could be considered science by Karl Popper’s definition**:

It proposes a model and method which can be analyzed for consistency.

It makes general claims which can be falsified.**Thornton, S., 2005

Intelligent Design Hypothesis

ID is based on “specification” and “irreducible complexity”

Specification is related to statistical hypothesis testing: defining a population, a sample and a rejection region to determine whether the sample is part of the population at some confidence level. (Dembski, 1998, p. 97)

Intelligent Design Hypothesis

The population consists of the characteristics of natural systems, and the sample is the characteristics of the proposed designed system. The characteristics of the proposed designed feature are called its specification and complexity.

If the sample is in the rejection region, then it is not part of natural systems and it has been therefore designed.

Intelligent Design

The “Explanatory Filter” (Dembski, 2004) summarizes these concepts.

Contingent means the feature is the result of a stochastic process (not deterministic)

Complex means it is improbable

Specified means that we know in advance what the improbable feature must be like.

Intelligent Design: Specification

ID proponents try to get around having to specify the characteristics of a designer’s product by claiming that “irreducible complexity” is specified and that nature could not generate it (i.e. it’s a miracle); it is therefore designed.

Intelligent Design: Irreducible Complexity

“Irreducible” refers to a system consisting of parts which have no function by themselves. If any of those parts are missing, the system cannot operate.

Complex means that it is improbable. The claim is made that irreducible complexity is specified in

the statistical sense, is outside the probability distribution of natural systems, and therefore it must be intelligently designed.

Intelligent Design Problems

There are at least three somewhat related problems with the model

Biologists claim that “irreducible complexity” is only apparent. Evolution can produce structures that have no apparent function or are used for some other function and then later incorporated into a new system.

Intelligent Design Problems

The second and third problems are similar:

The feature to be tested for design must come from a population whose characteristics are known (complex and specified). We cannot specify the design characteristics of a non-human intelligence, let alone a supernatural one, without first making empirical connections between objects and the designer.

Intelligent Design Problems

Any scientific causal agent needs to be defined and independently verified in some way, and the intelligent designer is not. For example did it have mass and evolve naturally (the UFO perpetrators perhaps?), or is it a force or energy field – perhaps dark energy or entropy.

If the intelligent designer and its products cannot be defined (specified) the hypothesis is useless. There is no reason to believe that irreducible complexity is specified in that sense.

Intelligent Design Problems

This point is actually made by Dembski (2004) when he criticizes bubble universes and the many world interpretation of quantum mechanics:

“What is important is that none of them [bubble universes] possesses independent evidence for the existence of the entity or process proposed. … The demand for independent evidence is a necessary constraint on theory construction in science, so that theory construction does not degenerate into total free play of the mind.”* * The design Revolution, 2004, p. 119

What is important is that none of them [Intelligent Designers] possesses independent evidence for the existence of the entity or process proposed. …

Conclusions

The methods of science can determine neither the presence nor absence of the supernatural, design, purpose or meaning in nature.

Scientists should remain neutral and agnostic in the metaphysical debates unless they make it clear they are speaking as philosophers.

Intelligent design theory is fatally flawed: There is no known way to discover design without empirically connecting objects with a designer that can be defined and identified in some way.

Science has lost the PR battle. The NAS should put together a curricula that can be used in public schools showing that ID is bad science.

References

Thornton, Stephen, "Karl Popper", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2005), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2005/entries/popper/.

Dawkins, R.., 1986, The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design, Norton, 322p.

Dembski, W.A., 1998, Redesigning Science, in Dembski, W.A. ed. Mere Creation, p. 93-122, InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, Ill.

Dembski, W.A., 2004, The Design Revolution, InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, Ill.Johnson, P., 1993, Darwin on Trial; InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, Ill.Pennock, R.T., 1999, Tower of Babel: the evidence against the new creationism;

Bradford/MIT Press, Cambridge MASimpson, G. G., 1951 The Meaning of Evolution; Yale Uni. Press, New HavenWilson, E.O., 1998, Consilience; Alfred S. Knopf, New York