Who’s Afraid of ID?

George Rebane

It is a puzzle to me why the secular humanists, who will accept nothing but evolution in its classical or neo-Darwinian sense, are so afraid of the Intelligent Design (ID) theory of the cosmos and especially life on earth.  In the latest issue of New Scientist (here) their fear manifests itself in the insistence that ID is nothing less than code for Creationism.  And that is clearly wrong as we’ll see below.

I don’t think that the evolutionists are stupid in that they can’t comprehend the difference between ID and the Creationists, those who advocate the long-bearded ‘spot creation’ of the universe in some sense of the Judeo-Christian Bible.  The evolutionists must harbor a real fear that if ID is taught in schools as a competing theory to evolution, then it will let the ‘god camel’ get its nose under society’s tent – and then the Bible thumpers will triumph and science will go to hell in a handcart.

Not to worry.  Let’s take a quick look at what separates evolution from ID.

Evolutionists believe that our universe began with the Big Bang and everything else after that happened with the probabilistic combinatorics that underpins the fundamentals of Darwin's theory of evolution through natural selection and mutation – survival of the fittest and all that.  The evolutionists are not clear on the causal basis for the Big Bang, and continue with attempts to explain away the necessity for cosmic intelligence through theories like the multiverse that again was most recently argued by physicists Hawking and Mlodinow (here).

Proponents of intelligent design accept the full power and glory of evolution but present arguments rooted in some pretty hard science that, what we see in the fundamental structure of our universe and, especially, in the basis for life on earth, cannot be supported by what they term as the available “probabilistic resources” that our 13.7 billion year-old universe has had to offer.  In other words, by about a hundred orders of magnitude there hasn’t been enough time available for matter and energy to clang together randomly so as to create the exquisitely complex structures and processes that reproductive life displays. 

The ID solution to this dearth of probabilistic resources is the involvement of an intelligent designer who has the power to selectively meddle with the probability distributions that mediate the productive combinatorics which have yielded what we see.  In other words the designer stepped in and helped the universe get over some difficult probabilistic speed bumps on the road to its present state.  Behe and Meyer have written very readable apologies for ID.

So ID answers the origin of the Big Bang (and/or the multiverse option), and goes on to give a satisfying ontology and teleology for how we got to this complex state of affairs that we witness daily.  But such a theory is highly unsatisfying for pure ideological reasons to the secular humanist evolutionists who cannot countenance a cosmic intelligence.  Such resistance is odd in the face of the current status of human knowledge.  As a species we can already conceive of the science needed to create a subordinate universe with sentient and sapient critters, a universe over which we would then be the cosmic intelligence and intelligent designer.

Therefore, if we can (now at least conceptually) create subordinate universes, why is not the straightforward answer to this universe's causal conundra the positing of a similar cosmic intelligence and creative designer to which we owe our existence?  Most certainly in its simplicity ID satisfies both Occam and falsifiability better than the alternatives evolutionists are continuing to cobble together year after year.  To get past the exquisitely tuned design of this universe, the multiverse theory is a Rube Goldberg approach that would spin Occam in his grave.  And since it cannot even make a claim to falsifiability, a multiverse has yet to climb onto the pedestal of accepted science.

Yet ID can be falsified by discovering a prime cause that answers physicist John Wheeler’s last question, “Why Existence?”

Comments

[RL Crabb]

Once again we are asked to answer a question that has no answer. As a species, we just don't have enough information to make a rational judgement as to whether the universe just happened or whether we are a smudge on some petri dish under a cosmic microscope.

One thing is for sure...Believers of ID may not be creationists, but they did evolve from them. I continue to keep an open mind on the subject.

[George Rebane]

Interesting points Bob. Apparently both scientists (of all stripes) and religionists feel that there is an accessible answer. Both spend tons of money in its search.

Re ID adherents having evolved from creationists; that’s an easy call since we all – even evolutionists – evolved from those who held spot creation to be the answer. However, the philosophical evolution of ID does not have such a simple pedigree. Many (most?) scientists, as they get closer to the very small or the very large, conclude independently that the cosmos has an intelligent basis. Homo sapiens seems to be a unique species in that it is not satisfied with just the ‘what’ and the ‘how’, but also demands the ‘why’. Maybe it’s got something to do with “… in His image” and all that.

Were I to design a universe with curious critters, I would surely put the ‘why’ burr under their blanket.

[John S]

I think I have the solution George.
If you want answers you can depened on, the believers in creationism should gather up as much money they can from all over the world and fund a bunch of scientists (maybe the global warming scientists) to generate proof there is a god. It takes money George, and maybe religious believers have not invested enough with scientists. It has to come in the form of a grant.
Grant funding is the answer.

[George Rebane]

You may have put your finger on it John. And we do know that the IPCC has just the scientists who are up for the job and looking for their next gig.

[D. King]

And we do know that the IPCC has just the scientists who are up for the job and looking for their next gig.

LOL!

Yes, the climate surfboard skeg is hitting the sand;
time to head back out to catch another wave.

Question: Why does man seem to evolve in step changes?
Is God a climate scientist?

[Michael Anderson]

George,

Have you read this book, cover to cover?
"The Ancestor's Tale" Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 2004. ISBN 0-618-00583-8.

Yup, I know, Richard Dawkins, not the greatest friend of ID. But I think he gave Occam a run for his money with this work (his other books maybe not so much).

I won't read his "God Delusion," having determined via reviews that it is overheated polemic.

Michael A.

[George Rebane]

I have not even read its cover, but will if you insist. I own most of his writings and have become disenchanted with his arguments because he seems to either side-step or dismiss the 'probabilistic resources' issue.