If they are insufficient, and if adding intelligent design to natural forces is sufficient, then it is the better explanation.

If one attempts to insert an unknown natural force there is no evidence for as an explanation, ID + NF is the better explanation, because there is evidence that ID exists and can do certain things in concert with NF that NF by itself cannot (humans and human artifacts).

Of course, ID + NF is only the better explanation if NF is insufficient and ID is known to produce similar phenomena.

Unless the naturalists wishes to win by fiat (asserting a win by default), then in order to show that NF is the better theory when it comes to explaining a phenomena, they must show that NF is a sufficient explanation for the phenomena.

Note that any sufficient NF description must utilize reasonable descriptions of any chance that is involved based on the laws governing the explanation of the phenomena.

If NF is not a reasonably sufficient explanation for the phenomena, and ID + NF is, then ID + NF is the better theory.

Rabbits are alive. Therefore they evolve and are products of evolution. Evolution is known to make CSI.

It’s so much easier to hold onto hopes and assumptions when we wrap them in circular arguments.

Exactly! Specifically, they don’t reproduce, thus they don’t evolve. We know of only two ways to manufacture CSI – evolution and intelligence.

The logic goes something like this:
1) Mount Rushmore is not alive, therefore it did not evolve.

2) Intelligent humans are known to make things like Mt. Rushmore and they are known to have been operating in the area during the time Mt. Rushmore was being created.

3) Conclusion: The odds strongly favor intelligent design for Mt. Rushmore.

Ditto for watches found on heaths.

The logic for a rabbit on a heath goes something like this:

1) Rabbits are alive. Therefore they evolve and are products of evolution. Evolution is known to make CSI.

2) Intelligent humans have never been known to manufacture rabbits, nor have any other intelligent entities been observed making bunnies.

3) The odds are overwhelming that rabbits are made by evolution and not by intelligent designers.

I am not sure the distinction you describe plays out the way you have said.  Over on the Barbara Forrest thread there has been a discussion about methodological naturalism which I guess is probably a repeat of the one about 5-6 weeks ago.  I have not read all of both the current one or the previous one so do not know what is new but assume there is only a couple key points in the whole discussion that keeps getting repeated.

One of them which I hold is what one of the commenters brought up, namely the difference between naturalists, or what ever you want to call them, and ID supporters is the range of conclusions one considers.  ID can consider the complete range of conclusions that a naturalist would accept but accept additional ones.

So the distinction you paint of ID and not ID is not accurate.  An ID physicist could be employed in every areas of physics and there would be no constraint on anything he or she did.  It is just the ID physicist may come to some different conclusions or even propose some studies that a naturalist might not consider.  Similarly an ID evolutionary biologists could examine everything a naturalist evolutionary biologists did but may come to some very different conclusions on some data findings. So the distinction you portray is fictitious.

If there were some evidence that some intelligent entities roamed the universe 4 billion years ago, I doubt that one person in evolutionary biology would dismiss the design hypothesis out of hand and I bet it would be the number one hypothesis even if we knew very little about these intelligences other than they existed. They would be remarking on the amazing design these creatures imparted to life and the system they set up. They would be saying that these “ancients” must have designed life because there is no way that chance and natural laws could result in such amazing interacting complexity.

So I have to disagree with you. ID subsumes naturalism in all its forms except the limitations of the conclusions it can make. As the commenter on the Barbara Forrest thread said,

“Barbara thinks science must find physical causes and as well as effects. Science must only observe physical EFFECTS and can infer any CAUSE.”

First, thank you for a well-argued response, and especially for your suggestion that there are three distinct explanations for the existence of “design”.

Before going further, I believe that it is necessary to distinguish between two very different senses of “design”:

1) the “design” (or “plan” or “program”) that specifies the construction and operation of a complex object/process (call this Type 1 design), and

2) the “design” (if any such exists) according to which the “plan” or “program” of a Type I designed object/process came into being.

I have absolutely no objection to the assertion that Type I design explains the construction and operation of complex entities, such as living organisms. That is, living organisms are complex entities that are constructed and operated according to a “design” that is encoded into their genome and expressed in their phenome (as s result of the interactions between the genome and its environment). This is the sense in which both Orgel and Davies use the term “specified complexity”.

The genome of an organism (and the environment in which that genome is expressed) do indeed “specify” the construction and operation of complex, homeotelic entities, and so such genomes/environments constitute the Type I design for complex functional entities, including living organisms.

We can infer the existence of (and study the operation of) Type 1 designs using empirical methods. We can, for example, identify the information encoded into the genome of a living organism and investigate how this information is expressed in the structure and function of such organisms. In so doing, we may derive an “operational rule” about the origin of Type 1 design:

• Type I designs apparently only derive from previously existing Type 1 designs (this is merely Schleiden & Schwann updated).

The controversy between evolutionary biology (EB) and intelligent design (ID) is therefore not about the existence of “design in nature” per se, but rather about the origin of such design. EBers assert that Type 1 design is an emergent property of phenotypic variation, heredity, fecundity, and differential reproductive success. IDers assert that these “natural” processes are insufficient to produce Type 1 design, and that therefore another kind of design – Type 2 design – must be invoked to explain the origin of Type 1 design.

Type 2 design is fundamentally different from Type 1 design insofar as Type 2 design does not arise as an emergent property of purely natural objects and processes (“natural” being defined as “amenable to empirical analysis”). Instead, Type 2 design must derive from a non-natural source of information (i.e. not the information encoded into either genomes or environments). As most IDers repeatedly assert, the characteristics and properties of this non-natural source of information are inaccessible to empirical investigation (indeed, they cannot be named nor even described).

Ergo, two fundamentally different research programs are pursued by EBers and IDers. The former use widely accepted principles of empirical investigation and logical inference to analyze the complex structures and functions of living systems and to infer the kinds of emergent properties these systems would have to have to come into being without an “external” source of Type 2 design. The latter do little or no empirical research at all, as the focus of their explanatory system is, by their own admission, beyond the scope of empirical investigation.

The first – evolutionary biology – is therefore (despite all its faults and inadequacies, of which there are many) a science. The second – intelligent design – is, by the same logic, a form of metaphysical speculation without any program for empirical verification whatsoever. That is, it is not a science, by any generally accepted definition of that term).

So I am going to concentrate on this bit of your comment:

I wrote:

“Inferring design is no different from inferring any other type of cause. There are two parts – how plausible is it that the cause exists in the first place? And how plausible is it that the cause brought about the outcome?”

And you responded:

“How on earth am I supposed to estimate the plausibility of the following: aliens; aliens visiting the Earth in a UFO in 50 million B.C.; aliens from another universe; angels; demons; God? If you could give me a numeric estimate for any of the above, I’d be impressed.”

It is quite possible that it may be almost impossible to make the estimate. But that just means you don’t know the answer. The logic is still there. X causing Y depends on both X existing and X being able to cause Y. If you happen to be unable to estimate the plausability of either part of this then it follows you cannot estimate the plausability of X causing Y.

Now ID requires a designer with some pretty amazing abilities. So if you have no idea of the plausability of that designer existing then you have no idea of the plausability of a designer being the cause.

All I am asking is that the hypothesis that include design be subject to the same scrutiny as hypotheses that do not include design.

Try reversing the ID argument. Suppose I say to you “it is absurdly unlikely that a designer exists with the power to create life. Therefore the solution is not design. Therefore, it an unspecified natural process.” I think you would find this a most unsatisfactory argument. You would want me to desribe this unspecified process – show that it exists and how it could cause life. But that is exactly the trick the ID people are playing.

Thank you both for your posts. I’d like to address the key issues. Mark Frank wrote:

What do you mean by “complex”. If you are using the word in its non-technical sense which is something like “lots of different parts linked together in some way” then there are many natural phenomena that are extraordinarily complex – e.g. almost any weather system, or the earth’s water cycle.

Of course maybe you define “complex” as in “complex specified information” – but then “complex” means “very unlikely to have been created through natural causes”. So that doesn’t help answer the question as it is circular.

I am well aware that weather systems are extremely complex, if we define complexity in terms of incompressibility of information. Defined in this way, anything random is complex.

You seem to think that “specified complexity” is a question-begging term, where the improbability of a natural origin is built into the definition. Not so. The following quotes by two respected scientists (both evolutionists) bear me out.

In brief, living organisms are distinguished by their specified complexity. Crystals are usually taken as the prototypes of simple well-specified structures, because they consist of a very large number of identical molecules packed together in a uniform way. Lumps of granite or random mixtures of polymers are examples of structures that are complex but not specified. The crystals fail to qualify as living because they lack complexity; the mixtures of polymers fail to qualify because they lack specificity (Leslie Orgel, The Origins of Life, John Wiley & Sons, 1973, p. 189).

Living organisms are mysterious not for their complexity per se, but for their tightly specified complexity (Paul Davies, The Fifth Miracle, Simon and Schuster, 1999, p. 112).

Both of these authors affirm a natural origin for life; yet both of them invoke the term “specified complexity.” The term clearly has a non-question-begging meaning.

I am also well aware that Orgel and Davies used the term “specified complexity” in a purely qualitative sense. That’s fine by me.

I wanted to keep my discussion of complexity as non-technical as possible, as I am not a mathematician, and make no claim to being well-read on the subject of complexity. That was why, in my original post (#81) I used a concrete illustration that everyone could grasp: a self-replicating machine (a.k.a. a von Neumann machine). I then followed up with another example: a self-replicating space probe. You can read about them here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.....ng_machine

Both of these machines have features which differ significantly from the examples Mark Frank cites.

First, they actually do something. They make copies of themselves. A von Neumann probe can also travel through space. Neither of the examples of complexity which Mark Frank cited (arrowheads and letters on the rocks on an alien planet) can do anything. They just sit there.

The same goes for the Mt. Rushmore example cited by Allen MacNeill. The faces don’t perform any function.

Second, the machines I described have parts which: (a) co-ordinate to perform the function; and (b) contain smaller sub-parts (nested hierarchy of function). Notice that I haven’t invoked any notion of “irreducible complexity” here; all I’m saying is that a von Neumann machine would have to be a pretty intricate device, while Mt. Rushmore, the letters in stone and the arrowheads are not.

Third, a von Neumann machine would have to use a program of some sort to make copies of itself. The program would of course be written in some sort of code.

So there we have it: complexity; specificity; functionality; nested, co-ordinated parts; a program; and a code. These are the key features of my examples, which I use to argue for intelligent design. Here’s my argument.

There are three mutually exclusive and exhaustive possibilities.

1. By definition of the word “intelligent,” only an intelligent designer can generate an entity exhibiting the following traits: complexity; specificity; functionality; nested, co-ordinated parts; a program; and a code. In that case, it follows that life (which exhibits all these traits) was intelligently designed. QED.

Actually, I think there’s a lot to be said for possibility 1. How else would you define “intelligent,” if not in terms of what it can do? And aren’t tools, machines and codes normally considered signs of intelligence? Wouldn’t an entity instantiating all of the above listed traits, then, be a pretty good candidate for an intelligently designed entity?

But if that inference strikes you as too fast, then possibility 2 might appeal to you.

2. By definition of the word “intelligent,” only an intelligent designer can generate an entity exhibiting the above traits rapidly. Blind, undirected processes can also generate an entity exhibiting the above traits, but they take a longer time to do so. In that case, for a given entity E exhibiting the above traits, there should be some cutoff time T such that no blind, undirected process should be capable of generating E in less time than T. It then follows that if we can prove E was generated in less time than T, then E was intelligently designed.

That leaves possibility 2. All right then. Please stipulate your cutoff time T for the creation of a von Neumann machine, a von Neumann probe and a simple cell. Earlier, djmullen suggested one or two million years. Does that sound reasonable to you?

3. Both intelligent designers and undirected processes are capable of generating an entity with the above combination of traits rapidly. In that case, they are functionally equivalent, and the distinction between intelligent and blind processes is meaningless. For what else could the term “intelligent” mean, if it does not mean: able to make a device with a specific function, or able to create a code – or at the very least, able to do these things more quickly than a blind process could? If the term “intelligent” does not mean that, then I know not what it means.

Possibility 3 also implies that the special respect which we accord to beings whom we designate as “intelligent” (humans, and possibly chimps, dolphins and New Caledonian crows) is chauvinistic and arbitrary. We might as well respect a rock – or at the very least, any undirected natural process capable of duplicating the feats of intelligent designers.

Personally I find possibility 3 absurd. I also think it’s empirically false. I say to the skeptics: show me an undirected process that can do what intelligent designers can do, in the same amount of time. I’d really like to see it.

Allen MacNeill wrote:

In science, arguments are not verified or falsified on the basis of analogy alone. Rather, they are verified or falsified on the basis of induction (and, sometimes, abduction and consilience)…

Ergo, if one wishes ID to be considered to qualify as science, it will be necessary to ground it in induction/abduction/consilience using empirical methods.

Who said I was using an analogy? If I said, “Gee, the cell looks like my watch, so it must be designed like my watch,” that would be an analogy. But I haven’t argued that, anywhere. I have argued that the cell has a number of traits, which as far as we know, are only found in devices that are intelligently designed (inductive inference). I have also argued that these traits define what we mean by the word “intelligent.” So either our definition of “intelligent” is wrong, or the cell is indeed designed.

(I should add that the traits which I suggested could be used to define “intelligence” can be applied literally to living cells, not analogically. For instance, DNA isn’t something “like” a code. It is a code. I can produce plenty of scientific citations to back that up, if you wish.)

I then explored a fallback option: maybe undirected processes can produce these traits, but slowly. Note: this is a very generous inductive hypothesis, as we have no evidence that undirected processes can produce this combination of traits at all. We can then modify our original definition of “intelligent” to include a speed requirement.

Then I argued as follows: if scientists can show that the first cells arose very quickly, then we can infer that they must have been designed.

(By the way, if you want to exclude the possibility that the first cells arrived from Mars or some other planet, where they arose naturally, you could always look at the isotopic composition of the rocks in which they were found. Anyway, Mars is the same age as Earth, so if life on Earth turns out to be 4.4 billion years old, a “Martian origin” hypothesis won’t help you.)

However, if you reject both of these inductive hypotheses, and the accompanying definitions of “intelligent” that I have proposed, then I think you owe us an account of what you mean by “intelligent.”

Mark Frank also wrote:

Inferring design is no different from inferring any other type of cause. There are two parts – how plausible is it that the cause exists in the first place? And how plausible is it that the cause brought about the outcome?

With respect, I disagree. I just don’t see how human beings could possibly estimate the plausibility of a non-human designer’s existence, let alone try to guess what it would bring about. That kind of inference strikes me as too a priori. It’s pure guesswork.

How on earth am I supposed to estimate the plausibility of the following: aliens; aliens visiting the Earth in a UFO in 50 million B.C.; aliens from another universe; angels; demons; God? If you could give me a numeric estimate for any of the above, I’d be impressed.

Allen MacNeill:

You argued that it is only because we know from experience that watches are designed and built by people that we can infer that any given watch (say, one we find on the ground) was designed. Strictly speaking, you should have added the qualification: watches are designed and built by people, and as far as we know do not arise by any other process.

To sum up, I would contend that if it’s OK to make an inductive inference about all entities that we would call “watches”, (As far as I know, all watches are designed; this is a watch; therefore this was probably designed), then it is equally legitimate to make an inductive inference about entities instantiating some property P (As far as I know, all entities with property P are products of design; I have just discovered from looking down my microscope that this cell is an entity with property P; therefore this cell is probably a product of design).

I would also argue that the properties I have listed above look like being the kind of properties that would define what we mean by “intelligence.” You might call that a suasive definition of the term. And if you like, you might want to add a speed requirement.

But if I am completely wrong here, then nothing short of a metaphysical and moral revolution follows: animism would then be the new game in town.

Did you read my comment #131?

I thought for sure it would indicate that you didn’t really mean what I thought you meant. But it doesn’t, and you did.
All of your illustrations boil down to the same thing. If we find Mt. Rushmore on Mars, design is not only uncertain but unlikely.
I’ll accept the absurd when there’s evidence. But this is poor logic anchored only by your personal ideas about what is or isn’t plausible, and it leads you to reject the obvious and cling to the nonsensical.