how to think like a Darwinist and thus win arguments
We in the Intelligence Design community spend a lot of time disabusing people of the notion that our scientific views (support for Intelligent Design) have anything to do with our religious views (mostly fundamentalist Christianity and Orthodox Judaism, or, in Turkey, fundamentalist Islam). It's important for us to personally decouple these ideas in addition to publicly proclaiming their irrevelance to each other. The reason for this is that otherwise we can quickly run aground into a mushy mess of illogic where we're forced to call in the airstrikes of miracles and the supernatural to win our arguments against Darwinists. Though this might make perfect sense to us, it's no way to win an argument with an unbeliever. Darwinists correctly point out that we can win ANY argument if we're willing to resort to the supernatural. Universe too big for starlight to get to our eyes in 6000 years? No problem, God MAKES the light between us and the stars when he makes the stars. That sort of thing.
To make sure we've fully decoupled our belief in God from our scientific faith in Intelligent Design, we must practice thinking without resort to our innate belief in God. One way to help with this is to imagine that Christianity is no more correct that the bogus religions of the ancient Greeks or of the American Indians prior to the arrival of Columbus, Cortez, and other carriers of European spiritual wisdom (as well as small pox). Mentally going to this place might be very hard for some in our movement; indeed, some may worry about potentially committing the sin of unbelief in the process. But it's important, because we need to clear our minds so we can better make our arguments.
Once thinking in this strategically-godless manner, we can open up to various possible explanations for the nature of the designer. Perhaps the designer was an advanced society of space aliens who actually evolved into existence under the influence of purely Darwinian forces. Or perhaps the designer was a time-traveling human being. Perhaps the designer was some other energy level in the vacuum of space. I recommend my fellow Intelligent Designtists take such thinking for a spin; it will firm up your powers of logic and help us win this battle for truth.
I don't quite know where to go with this, hblavatsky. Honestly, you seem bent on playing directly into the hands of those who you claim to want to defeat.
hblavatsky wrote:
"You can literally win every single argument by invoking non-materialistic causes."
We are accused of wanting to "cop out" of finding a "real" explanation for natural phenomena by invoking the supernatural… where virtually every time we encounter a question that's hard to answer, we simply throw our hands up and say "God did it." The other side just loves to weild this "God of the Gaps" argument against us.
Now, if you actually study the ID literature, you quickly find this is not the case. In fact, it becomes rather easy to see that it is the other side that uses this reasoning. (I don't see how this could have been designed, so it must have evolved) But guess what… for students who visit this site and read your post, they see confirmation of exactly the other side's accusations. This doesn't help our cause… you're shooting the ID movement in the foot, as it were.
I dunno… maybe that's why you're here. Maybe you're really a Darwinist who wants to affirm those false accusations. How are we to know?
Even from a Biblical standpoint, there's absolutely nothing wrong with scientific research in general which avoids supernatural causes. But answering origins question is a diferent ballgame because naturalistic science presupposes matter, energy and the laws of physics. Patrick has addressed this thoroughly with his explanations of "pragmatic naturalism."
hblavatsky wrote:
"That is why natural-materialism proponents are so against it. They do not like an idea that can so easily defeat their darwinist ideas."
You're not going to defeat any Darwinist ideas in this way. You're only going to further convince your opponents of the notion that ID is an argument from ignorance. That doesn't help us. That line of argument is extremely easy for the Darwinist to defeat, in fact. All they have to do is point to the fact that, by contributing to this blog, you are using a computer that would never have been produced if science didn't limit itself to natural causes. End of debate, they just won.
Since Darwinists think so highly of scientific pursuit, the strategy must be to demonstrate the validity and even superiority of origin-of-life science done under the ID paradigm. Even without bringing God into the picture.
Have you read any of the major ID literature? Dembski? Behe?
TRoutMac
Intelligent (Graphic) Designer
Ultimately, of course, we as Intelligent Designtists DO reach for something outside the realm of naturalism. We DO draw the cloak of the supernatural around such things as the flagellum, saying to all who propose and argue otherwise that actually, there MUST HAVE BEEN a force outside nature that made these things, and it would take a live demonstration of the Darwinian process to change our minds on the matter. Ultimately we have to hold our ground on this, much as the President does on the value of Alberto Gonzalez as Attorney General, because to cave on these points would be to concede ground to naturalism in precisely the way that undermines our powerful new science. I've read Behe and I'm alarmed to find that we in this movement don't yet have a vast arsenal of irreducibly complex cell components with which to advance our cause, so we must hold the ground on the ones he has discovered. And I think the key to this is to hold to the axiom that Darwinian evolution only makes advances by ADDING features to structures. Otherwise, Darwinists can, in some cases (AND THIS IS A MUCH BIGGER DANGER THAN MANY IN HERE THINK), make the case that certain of Behe's structures could have come about completely naturally by arguing that they've resulted from the LOSS of features.
Q said "I've read Behe and I'm alarmed to find that we in this movement don't yet have a vast arsenal of irreducibly complex cell components with which to advance our cause, so we must hold the ground on the ones he has discovered."
It's not only Behe who's investigating these matters, the Biologic research labs are also (I do not doubt) looking in to empirical evidence for ID, Dr Dembski also said A new ID friendly research center at a major university will be announced shortly 2007-buckle-your-seat-belts/. So there's plenty to look forwards to in the next 9 months.
quintilis wrote:
"Ultimately, of course, we as Intelligent Designtists DO reach for something outside the realm of naturalism."
This is not quite correct. Intelligent Design, as a theory, does not necessarily reach for the supernatural… it really makes no characterization at all about the nature of the designer. Certainly, some ID proponents do support the idea, as I do, that the designer is God and is therefore "supernatural." However, there are quite a few ID proponents who want to confine the designer to the natural realm. While I am a Christian, I recognize that ID's "tent" accommodates many who are not Christian.
I wouldn't worry too much about finding additional IC structures. That'll happen. As I said, if there's a way to shoot our movement in the foot, it is to say that we ought to invoke supernatural causes for anything and everything and by virtue of this we're "untouchable." Some questions in science, in fact many questions in science can be answered quite satisfactorily by invoking natural causes. And there's nothing wrong with that. But certainly we ought to recognize the limitations of naturalism at the same time.
You wanna turn the tables on the establishment? Show them how they fail to meet their own standard of science!
TRoutMac
Intelligent (Graphic) Designer
I think it odd that "finding IC" is even considered to be a goal of ID researchers. In emails that I receive from Behe he does sometimes mention in an offhand manner if the subject of discussion happens to be IC. But it's not like he's searching around for more as if that'll somehow help the ID Movement. Just throwing a list of examples at a Darwinist won't help the discussion. It's better to focus on just a few examples since that'd keep the scope of the discussion from going all over the place.
To whoever wrote this post: thanks for the suggestion you've expressed. It provides good fodder for discussion of an important issue.
In terms of religious views, I fall in to the "fundamentalist Christian" category. On the one hand, I fully appreciate the distinction between observable evidence for design and one's belief of the testimony provided by the Designer in the Bible; and, as these are two different sources, they are properly distinguished.
I do have a couple of objections.
"Once thinking in this strategically-godless manner, we can open up to various possible explanations for the nature of the designer."
OK, but as a Christian, I don't believe the "various possible explanations for the nature of the designer." Nor do I necessarily believe any such possibility would do more than merely push the question back a notch: until one reaches an "uncaused cause," the question "who designed the designer?" remains a valid, although not relevant, question. Therefore, to suggest such a possibility would seem disingenuous--and I would expect most people to see it as such.
"One way to help with this is to imagine that Christianity is no more correct than..."
Again, as a Christian, I don't really believe this--and anyone aware of my Christianity would certainly know this. Whom, exactly, would I imagine I'd be fooling? Or is the idea to keep one's Christianity a secret?
I have no objection to Christian ID proponents maintaining a clear distinction between biblical evidence and scientific evidence--after all, the two are distinct. At the same time, while this distinction is proper, if the Christian succeeds in advancing ID but fails in the process to bring people to recognize and worship the Creator, what has been gained?
"Intelligent Design, as a theory, does not necessarily reach for the supernatural."
Of course it doesn't. This should be a no-brainer. The recognition of necessary intelligent agency implies nothing about the nature of the agent--except that, well, it has/had intelligence.
I would, at the same time, agree that ID does seem to ultimately imply something beyond the natural realm. I say "ultimately," of course, because it is unnecessary to go there to recognize the intelligence required to code DNA.
What I mean is that, allowing that there was/is a designer, what are the possibilities of the designer's origin? For such it must have had unless it's the First Cause.
"You wanna turn the tables on the establishment? Show them how they fail to meet their own standard of science!"
Hmmmm.... Do you think so? Do you think the establishment is willing to see this? Maybe so, but I'd be mighty careful about wagering anything I valued on the possibility...
RickToews wrote:
"Do you think so? Do you think the establishment is willing to see this?"
Oh, I didn't say they were "willing" to see this. But using science against them definitely makes them squirm, and that's what I mean by "turn the tables" on them.
TRoutMac
Intelligent (Graphic) Designer
"Darwinists correctly point out that we can win ANY argument if we're willing to resort to the supernatural."
To an extent, and only if one simply professes to believe in an unspecified "god."
However, if one professes Christianity (the example I'll use, since I'm a Christian), consistency would imply an acceptance of the historical records regarding origins. If those records are true, then certain facts emerge. These are not scientific facts but historical facts. Science is good at helping us understand how the world works in day-to-day operation. History is good at telling us about past events.
It would be foolish to suggest that a Christian can simply fall back on "God did it" and thereby account for anything presently inexplicable in the natural world. We don't say "God did it" because we don't understand how else it might have come about; we say God did it when he himself claims to have done it.
Though this might make
Though this might make perfect sense to us, it's no way to win an argument with an unbeliever. Darwinists correctly point out that we can win ANY argument if we're willing to resort to the supernatural.
That is why non-materialistic science is SO POWERFUL. You can literally win every single argument by invoking non-materialistic causes. That is why natural-materialism proponents are so against it. They do not like an idea that can so easily defeat their darwinist ideas.
I confess that I do not enter into many debates with atheists - when I need to explain what happened at the begining of the univers I think there is no text more authoritative than Genisis 1:1.
Helena