Post Author: Bill Pratt
The pattern of censorship of the intelligent design movement continues with more disappointing news from California. Check out this summary of what’s going on with the California Science Center.
It would be so much easier to allow a real debate to go on and defeat the ID movement with scientific data and arguments, if you are opposed to it. Why play these dirty tricks on ID proponents? Ultimately these tactics just backfire.
What are they so afraid of?
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.
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.
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
Yes, that’s exactly what he said in the movie, “Expelled.” As long as the intelligent designer isn’t God, Dawkins is happy. Check out the movie clip at Wintery Knight. It’s well worth the visit.
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.
It was an exciting year for the theory of intelligent design. The Access Research Network has once again published its top ten stories of the year for 2008. It is well worth your time to scan these stories to see the progress the theory has made.
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.
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.
Theistic Science
The idea of theistic science, as proposed by Christian philosopher J. P. Moreland, is to expose scientific inquiry to the world of Christian revelation. As such, it does not actually posit a particular creation hypothesis, but instead draws out guidelines for Christians who wish to integrate theology with scientific research. Thus theistic science, as an umbrella framework, encompasses many kinds of theistic creation hypotheses, including young earth creation. J. P. Moreland describes theistic science as “rooted in the idea that Christians ought to consult all they know or have reason to believe in forming and testing hypotheses, in explaining things in science, and in evaluating the plausibility of various scientific hypotheses, and among the things they should consult are propositions of theology.”[1]
Moreland continues to explain that theistic science is a research program that relies on the truth of two propositions. The first proposition is that “God, conceived as a personal, transcendent agent of great power and intelligence, has through direct, primary agent causation and indirect, secondary causation created and designed the world for a purpose and has directly intervened in the course of its development at various times (including prehistory, history prior to the arrival of human beings).” [2] The second proposition is that the “commitment expressed in proposition 1 can appropriately enter into the very fabric of the practice of science and the utilization of scientific methodology.”[3] Moreland’s concept of theistic science leaves the mechanisms and details of God’s intervention undefined and open to debate, and so any number of creation hypotheses that invoke God as the purposeful creator of the world fit well within theistic science. Just as C. S. Lewis attempted to define mere Christianity, Moreland attempts to define mere creation. What theistic science rejects is any philosophy of science that disallows the activity of a purposeful creator. It also rejects any theology that denies the empirical detectability of God’s active intervention. Some Christians hold that God indeed created the universe and the life within it, but they deny that these creation events can in any way be detected from empirical evidence; in their view, God only operates through secondary causes, or natural law. Moreland allows for secondary causation, but he insists that one be open to primary agent causation as well.
Stay tuned for another post explaining how intelligent design relates to theistic science and young earth creation.
[1] Moreland, J. P, “Theistic Science and Methodological Naturalism,” in The Creation Hypothesis, ed. J. P. Moreland (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1994), 41.
[2] Ibid., 41-42.
[3] Ibid., 42.