Tag Archives: Intelligent Design

Must Science Exclude Intelligence as a Cause?

Post Author: Bill Pratt

According to John Heininger, the answer is “no.”  What follows is an extended quotation from John, who submitted this as a comment to our blog.  His comment makes some great points in a succinct fashion about the nature of science, especially with respect to the ruling of the Dover trial in 2005.

Methodological Naturalism: The Severing of Science.

In recent decades there have been ideologically driven efforts by versed interests to sever science and remove it from its complete and proper context; on the mistaken notion that science must be solely about naturalistic material processes, to the exclusion of all else. This assertion is neither scientific nor realistic – and is unsustainable.

Firstly, naturalistic science falls well short of ever answering ultimate questions of origins and existence. A reality acknowledged even by hard core atheists, who, none-the-less, operate on the blind faith notion that naturalism and raw materialism will increasingly explain all of reality, to the point where nothing beyond the material world is ever necessary, including God.

The noted atheistic philosopher Jean Paul Sarte however highlighted the absurdity of this aspiration, and finally conceded that this hope could never be achieved. Said Sarte, “A finite point without an infinite reference point is meaningless and absurd.” He realized that because human knowledge would forever be finite and limited humanity would never ever be in a position to have the ultimate big picture. And science has discovered that the further we push back the frontiers of scientific knowledge the more unanswered questions we have.

This is not to say that we should not continue with increased effort to discover all we can about the natural world, and always seek “firstly” to explain the mysteries of nature and the universe in purely naturalistic terms, as the empirical and scientific science method does, and does well.

Science is about the facts. It’s about discovering truths about the natural world, entirely by natural laws and processes alone (Dover). However, this is only the “initial” part of what constitutes science and the scientific method, and utterly ignores the foundational realities on which all of science ultimately rests and operates.

The foundational truth about science and the natural world is that it cannot be ultimately explained by naturalistic laws or material processes alone. Every scientist knows that all of science ultimately rests entirely on phenomena that have absolutely no naturalistic explanation.

The Dover ID trial severed science, and turned science on its head. It was decreed at Dover that natural law and material processes alone must define what is science. This turned out to be ultimately loopy logic, as the gatekeeper itself, natural law, has no naturalistic explanation, and there is nothing to suggest this will ever change (Sarte). This is rather like appointing an unidentified alien to guard planet earth from all other unidentified aliens, particularly God.

None-the-less, this loopy logic was made both the measure, and the means of defining science. It was both inadequate and defective. While matter, energy and other natural phenomena are the principle focus of science, the scientific community has absolutely no idea of what matter and energy ultimately is, or how it came into existence. This is particularly true in regard to the origin and nature of the dependent universe itself.

A contingent dying universe that is running down towards head death and maximum entropy cannot explain itself. And there is absolutely no verifiable naturalistic explanation as to how our dependent cosmos came into being, or how a dead universe devoid of energy would ever wind itself up again to the initial state of minimum entropy, a state of maximum usable energy, information, and order.

Moreover, all of science is based on material and mathematical relationships. But no scientist has even the foggiest notion of how these material and mathematical relationships came into existence. Nor is there the foggiest notion of where the cosmological constants came from, naturalistically.

Secondly, central to science is the foundational acceptance that we live in a universe that clearly manifests regularity, predictability and mathematical order. A reality every scientist in every field automatically assumes in order to be able to do science. All scientists assume we live in a universe where reason and intelligence can be applied to science, and such a universe must of necessity clearly manifest intelligence, at every level.

Therefore, to argue that the ID concept – of the universe being intelligently designed by an intelligent cause – has no place in science or science education, is to deny the foundational reality on which every field of science and western technology ultimately operates, every day, and in every way.

Methodological naturalism severs science. It’s insistence that all of science and science education must be restricted exclusively to purely naturalistic explanations is to split science in two. And specifically excludes the principle phenomena and foundational principles on which all of science is founded. And this is exactly what happened at Dover – no intelligence allowed.

The unsustainable methodological naturalism now being imposed on science and science education must be challenged. It is nothing less than indoctrinating students on philosophical naturalism and atheism, which the highest court in the United States, the U.S. Supreme Court, has ruled to be a religion, in the full sense of the word.

Does the Appearance of Design Prove God's Existence?

Post Author: Bill Pratt

Certainly the appearance of design in the natural world makes a strong case for the existence of a super-intelligent being, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Many people look at the world around them and marvel at its functionality and complexity.  A common reaction to the functionality and complexity of the world is to wonder who or what made it that way.

Based on that intuition about the world, theists, those who believe in a single creator God, have made an argument about the existence of God in the following way.

  1. Every design has a designer.
  2. The universe exhibits complex design.
  3. Therefore the universe has a designer.

Premise 1 is fairly straightforward.  If something can be shown to be designed, it must have had a designer.

Premise 2, however, requires evidence.  Below is an extended quotation from William Lane Craig, one of the foremost Christian scholars of our day.

During the last thirty years or so, scientists have discovered that the existence of intelligent life depends on a complex and delicate balance of initial conditions given in the big bang itself.  Scientists once believed that whatever the initial conditions of the universe, eventually intelligent life might evolve.  But we now know that our existence is balanced on a knife’s edge.  It seems vastly more probable that a life-prohibiting universe rather than a life-permitting universe such as ours should exist.  The existence of intelligent life depends on a conspiracy of initial conditions that must be fine-tuned to a degree that is literally incomprehensible and incalculable.  For example, Stephen Hawking has estimated that if the rate of the universe’s expansion one second after the big bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million million, the universe would have re-collapsed into a hot fireball.  British physicist P. C. W. Davies has calculated that the odds against the initial conditions being suitable for later star formation (without which planets could not exist) is one followed by a thousand billion billion zeroes, at least.  He also estimates that a change in the strength of gravity or of the weak force by only one part in 10,100 would have prevented a life-permitting universe. Roger Penrose of Oxford University has calculated that the odds of the big bang’s low entropy condition existing by chance are on the order of one out of 10 to the 123rd power.  There are [many] such quantities and constants present in the big bang that must be fine-tuned in this way if the universe is to permit life. And it’s not just each quantity that must be finely tuned; their ratios to one another must be also finely tuned. Therefore, improbability is added to improbability to improbability until our minds are reeling in incomprehensible numbers.

It is not just the physical conditions that must be present in the universe for life to exist that exhibit complex design.  There is also the issue of life itself.

Living cells are composed of DNA.  DNA consists of nitrogen bases called adenine, thymine, cytosine, and guanine which are commonly represented by the letters A, T, C and G.  These letters form genetic codes which provide the instructions for the building and replicating of all living things.  The four letter genetic code is identical to any other written language.  The sequences of genetic letters spell out exact instructions just like a sentence in English would.

To give you an idea of how complex life is, a single-celled amoeba contains the equivalent of 1,000 sets of an encyclopedia in its DNA.  The human genome is composed of about three billion nucleotide base pairs.  Years ago, Carl Sagan estimated that there is the equivalent of 20 million books of information stored in the human brain.  This number is considered to be conservative now.  The amount of information contained in living cells and the human brain is truly staggering, and thus the conclusion of complex design seems easily warranted.

Before we move on, I need to quickly add that the evidence presented above of design in the fine tuning of the universe to support life and of the composition of life itself is merely scratching the surface.  Many fantastic books have been written in the past 20 years detailing far more evidence of design in the natural world than what was mentioned above, so hopefully I have just whet your appetite to read more!

But now, if we have shown that the universe is indeed characterized by complex design, then who or what is the designer?

I think we can make the following conclusions about the designer.  The designer is super-intelligent and purposeful.  The intelligence of the designer far surpasses any kind of human intelligence ever seen.  The designer is purposeful because all designs have purposes behind them.  We are not dealing with a being who is randomly creating with no purpose.

Have we arrived at the God of the Bible?  No, we haven’t, but we have certainly made a strong case for the existence of a designer who has at least a couple of the attributes of the God of the Bible, and we have eliminated the possibility that no such designer exists.  We haved ruled out the possibility that the universe is caused by some irrational or purely non-intelligent source.

Theistic arguments for the existence of a Designer confirm the intuition that many people have had since the dawn of man.  To say that everything we see in the world around us just happened by chance is simply unbelievable.

Americans are Skeptical of Darwinian Evolution

Post Author: Bill Pratt

Poll results like these demonstrate the failure of proponents of Darwinian evolution to provide persuasive scientific evidence for their viewpoint.  Worse than that, the attempt to squash the intelligent design movement is seemingly back-firing.  Americans overwhelmingly support academic freedom on the issue of the origins and development of life.

It is time for Darwinists to quit saying “Evolution is a fact” and actually provide some compelling scientific evidence that supports the position that random mutations and natural selection are the engines that drove the development of all life on earth.

zogby graph 6-30-09

Interesting Comment This Morning

I attend a Referral Network group every Tuesday morning and this morning a local Chiropractor gave a short presentation on her business.  This wonderful lady (who is a great Chiropractor by the way!!) made a few comments which amused me – in a good way. When talking about the human body she kept referring to “it’s design”.  In speaking about the kidneys, she said they are “designed” to rid the body of toxins.  She also referred to the marvel of how the body is “designed” to heal itself and warn us when something is wrong.

I always find it interesting how even in the most secular of business settings people can, perhaps unknowingly, marvel at the greatness of our Creator.  For referring to the body as something “designed” rather than “evolved” implies a Creator – if it is designed, who designed it? 

I had a huge smile on my face realizing that even without knowing it we praise our great God and Designer, Jesus Christ!!  It was a wonderful way to start off the day.

Darrell

Do We Need Darwinism To Advance the Biological Sciences?

Post Author: Bill Pratt 

Dr. Philip Skell (now deceased), in an article posted on Forbes.com, says “no.”  Skell correctly separates the study of origin science from experimental sciences in the world of biology.  These are two distinct realms which Darwinists have become completely blind to.

Skell writes that Darwinists “overstate both the evidence for Darwin’s theory of historical biology and the benefits of Darwin’s theory to the actual practice of experimental science.”

Experimental science, in biology, has “dramatically increased our understanding of the intricate workings within living organisms that account for their survival, showing how they continue to function despite the myriad assaults on them from their environments.”

These advances, however, have little or nothing to do with explanations of Darwinian origins.  They “are not due to studies of an organism’s ancestors that are recovered from fossil deposits.”  The study of fossils “cannot reveal the details that made these amazing living organisms function.”  Skell summarizes the point:

Examining the major advances in biological knowledge, one fails to find any real connection between biological history and the experimental designs that have produced today’s cornucopia of knowledge of how the great variety of living organisms perform their functions. It is our knowledge of how these organisms actually operate, not speculations about how they may have arisen millions of years ago, that is essential to doctors, veterinarians, farmers and other practitioners of biological science.

Darwinian evolution, as a study of the origins of species, cannot make specific predictions about the future of any species.  The theory can only tell us that species will pass on helpful genetic traits which further survival.  Ask a Darwinist to tell you in which direction an animal or plant will evolve, and they are rendered speechless.

No matter how a plant or animal changes in the future, a Darwinist will always claim that it is evidence for Darwinian evolution.  There is no change in biological organisms that could ever falsify Darwinism, because the claim will always be made that whatever change occurs must have furthered survival fitness.  But the truth is that the theory cannot make useful predictions.  Skell notes this failure of Darwinism:

For instance, we cannot rely upon ruminations about the fossil record to lead us to a prediction of the evolution of the ambient flu virus so that we can prepare the vaccine today for next year’s more virulent strain. That would be like depending upon our knowledge of ancient Hittite economics to understand 21st-century economics.

Skell argues that the fantastic findings of the 20th century owe nothing to Darwinism: discovery of penicillin, discovery of the structure of the double helix, the characterization of the ribosome, and the mapping of genomes, to name a few.  Skell goes so far as to say that “studying biohistory is, at best, an entertaining distraction from the goals of a working biologist.”  He cites examples from his own professional career where he has discussed these very issues with experimental biologists, who agree.

One must be careful in taking Skell’s point too far, however.  It is true that in the field of biology, the importance of the Darwinian theory has been vastly oversold to the public, who are told that all of biology will collapse if we fail to accept Darwinism.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

The study of origins, though, is important in determining the way a biologist approaches an experimental study.  If he believed that an organism is undesigned and produced through chance and selection, he may make assumptions that significant portions of the organism may be “junk” or useless.

This is exactly what happened when biologists labeled portions of DNA, “junk” DNA.  They could not initally find a function for it, so they figured it must be a useless pile of genetic material left over from long years of evolution.  Today, we know that “junk” DNA is not junk at all, and it does have purposes (e.g., genetic switching).  The acceptance of the “truths” of Darwinism delayed these findings because scientists, for the most part, weren’t interested in studying something their colleagues relegated to evolutionary garbage.

On the other hand, if the biologist believed that DNA is designed, he would be far less inclined to draw such a conclusion, and, in fact, proceed with great effort to discover the designed function of all DNA.  In this sense, biologists’ beliefs about origins do matter.

Even though the debates over the origins of biological life will not ultimately derail the methods of experimental biology, they are still important.  After all, we would all like to know the truth about what happened millions years ago in the earth’s history.  Unfortunately, we may never know for sure, and as Dr. Skell correctly argues, the march of experimental biology will continue.

How Are Human Beings Different From Other Animals?

I can remember having this debate with my friend, Mike, when I was in college.  He argued that humans are no different from other animals except for our larger brains.  There is nothing we can do that animals can’t do.  Animals just do things in a more primitive and basic fashion.

This always struck me as ridiculous, and I just ran across a quote from Professor Bruce Thornton at Fresno State University which explains the difference well:

 What makes us recognizably human, then, is not what is natural about us but what is unnatural: reason and its projections in language, culture, ritual, and technology, self-awareness, conscious memory, imagination, and the higher emotions; and, most important, values, ethics, morals, and the freedom from nature’s determinism that allows us to choose, whether for good or ill.  Nothing else in nature possesses any of these attributes, despite the wishful thinking of those who believe they are teaching chimps to “talk,” or who consider a monkey digging up termites with a stick to be “using tools,” or who label baboon rump-submission a “social practice,” or who subjectively interpret the behavior of animals to indicate the presence of “self-awareness” ore higher human emotions such as love, grief, regret, guilt, shame, or loyalty.  For every dog that howls over the body of its dead master there is another that, if necessary, will happily eat his corpse.

Well said, professor.

Do Intelligent Design Theorists Really Use the Scientific Method?

A common criticism of ID is that its proponents are not interested in the scientific method and, in fact, are setting out to hinder science and the scientific method by answering “God” whenever a tough scientific problem surfaces.

This criticism, however, is false. Read this  brief article written by an ID proponent to see that they do indeed use the scientific method, just like any other scientist would.

How Do We Distinguish Between Young Earth Creation, Theistic Science, and Intelligent Design? – Part 3

Intelligent Design

Theistic science calls for Christians to search for signs of God’s intervention in the history of the cosmos, but how?  The scientific program of intelligent design (ID) answers this question.  In reality, ID is not a creation hypothesis, but a scientific method used to discover signs of intelligence in the natural world.  According to William Dembski, an ID theorist, “Intelligent Design is the science that studies signs of intelligence.”[1]  ID is not about studying the source of intelligence, the creator behind the design.  It is about studying the signs or the effects of intelligence.  Dembski explains that “as a theory of biological origins and development, intelligent design’s central claim is that only intelligent causes adequately explain the complex, information-rich structures of biology and that these causes are empirically detectable.   To say intelligent causes are empirically detectable is to say there exist well-defined methods that, based on observable features of the world, can reliably distinguish intelligent causes from undirected natural causes.”[2]  One sign of intelligence that ID attempts to detect is called specified complexity.  An event exhibits “specified complexity if it is contingent and therefore not necessary; if it is complex and therefore not readily repeatable by chance; and if it is specified in the sense of exhibiting an independently given pattern.”[3]

ID differs from young earth creation in that it does not presuppose biblical accounts of creation and it is not a creation hypothesis as such.  ID provides a scientific toolset to creation theorists who want to detect signs of intelligence in nature, but as a scientific tool ID cannot be used to draw conclusions about the source of any intelligence it might discover.  Those conclusions must be left to theology and philosophy.

Conclusion

Theistic science is a philosophy of science that integrates Christian theology and primary agent causation with the modern scientific method.  A person practicing theistic science is free to draw upon all that they know, including propositions of theology, to conduct their investigations into the natural world.  Intelligent design provides mathematical and scientific tools for the theistic scientist to detect signs of intelligent agent causation in the natural world.  ID, as such, cannot identify that agent, nor does it try.  Young earth creation is a creation hypothesis which fits comfortably under the theistic science umbrella, but does not exhaust all possible creation hypotheses that a theistic scientist may want to explore.

[1] William A. Dembski, The Design Revolution (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004), 33.

[2] Ibid., 34.

[3] Ibid., 35.