The Problem of Improvable Design
| September 30, 2005 | Posted by William Dembski under Intelligent Design |
Dave Jarvis offers an interesting variant of the suboptimality anti-design argument at http://joot.com/dave/writings/articles/design.shtml. His variant is based on the recent finding that mammals under certain conditions can regenerate organs previously thought unregenerable. I responded to this line of objection in The Design Revolution, chapter 6 (“Optimal Design”). Here is a relevant portion of that chapter:
Just because a design could be improved in the sense increasing the functionality of some aspect of an organism does not mean that such an improvement would be beneficial within the wider ecosystem within which the organism finds itself. A functionality belonging to a predator might be vastly improvable, but also might render the predator that much more dangerous to its prey and thereby drastically alter the balance of the ecosystem, conceivably to the detriment of the entire ecosystem. In criticizing design, biologists tend to place a premium on functionalities of individual organisms and see design as optimal to the degree that those individual functionalities are maximized. But higher order designs of entire ecosystems might require lower order designs of individual organisms to fall short of maximal function.
Our view of design is shaped too much by sports competitions. We always want to go faster, higher, longer, and stronger. But do we really want to go faster, higher, longer, and stronger without limit? Of course not. It is precisely the limits on functionalities that make the game of life interesting (that’s why many games employ handicaps). A five-hundred-pound seven-foot-six football player with the strength of a gorilla and the speed of a cheetah would instantly be banned from the sport, because just by playing the game to the best of one’s ability, such a player would maim or kill all normal players who got in the way.
Fans might show up for the novelty or out of bloodlust, but such a player would destroy the competitive drama of the game. Indeed, before long this super-player would destroy or run off anyone willing to play the game and there would cease to be a game. Likewise, such a predator in an ecosystem would wipe out all the prey, after which it would go extinct. Or if the super-creature was omnivorous, it would reproduce optimally (like rabbits? like bacteria?) until it wiped out all life, after which it would again go extinct (unless it became an autotroph and could manufacture its food from scratch as some single-celled organisms).
Biology is among other things a drama. For dramas to be interesting requires characters who are less than optimal in some respects. In fact, authors of human dramas often consciously design their characters with flaws and weaknesses. Would Hamlet be nearly as interesting a play if Shakespeare had not designed the play’s lead character to exhibit certain flaws and weaknesses, notably indecisiveness?
I’m not saying that weaknesses or flaws in the design characteristics of organisms or ecosystems can be the basis for a design inference. Design inferences are drawn by identifying features of systems that are uniquely diagnostic of intelligence. At the same time, weaknesses or flaws in the design characteristics of organisms or ecosystems could be compatible with evolutionary changes guided by an intelligence. Nor would such an evolutionary scenario, in which not every aspect of organisms taken in isolation is optimal, entail that any intelligence guiding evolutionary change would have to be flawed.
49 Responses to The Problem of Improvable Design
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Thanks Bill for the link to the eye article. I can no longer say I haven’t read a good reason why the vertebrate eye is wired from the front side.
Thanks everyone for your responses. I’m still a bit bamboozled. In theory it’s fine to keep the designer out of the ID research but at the end of the day the designer is God and there are implications from ID to theology. Accepting that everything was designed to die is a little hard to get to grips with. I get the point about not being able to assume what the design should be but I’m still stuck with the giraffe problem and I’m also in need of some examples of things which would disprove design. I’m quite new to ID but am being asked lots of questions by some evolutionists. Any help would be greatfully received.
I guess you’re right, Russ!
“at the end of the day the designer is God”
There’s no scientific evidence of that. It doesn’t appear to me that an omnipotent being is required to create the carbon based life on earth. Everything about that life appears to boil down to understandable, manipulable configurations of matter. The configurations are simply far too fit-to-function (specified) and improbable (complex) to have appeared without purposeful assembly. I could be wrong but I think if we give science & engineering another 100 years or 100,000 years it’ll get there. Keep in mind 100,000 years for science & engineering to progress is an eyeblink in geologic time. If we could seed another planet with life would that make *us* Gods? I don’t think so, but it might appear that way to the seeds…
It is my belief that when one combines the science with the history, namely, the immutable fact of Christ’s resurrection, the uncanny consistancy of the Biblical manuscript evidence (lack of textual variances), and the fulfilled O.T. prophecy regarding the person and work of Christ, one can build a cogent case for the identity of the designer being the God of the Bible.
Don’t yell at me, I know I’m supposed to keep things about I.D. here… but since the topic came up.
Dave -
You remind me of an old joke:
A bunch of scientists come before God, saying “See, we’ve figured out how you did the whole “life” thing, so we don’t really need you anymore.”
God says, “Really? Show me.”
The scientists say, “Ok, see – first we take some dirt, put it in this test tube…”
God says, “Wait a minute – get your own dirt.”
[God says, “Wait a minute - get your own dirt.â€Â]
That is it exactly. The designer(s) may indeed be aliens who seeded this planet, and in fact I’ve read quite a bit about that and do find some of the evidence compelling, but it only removes the ultimate question one notch — why does anything exist at all?
Bombadill – Like you said, it is off-topic, but I wonder how you can say that the resurrection is an immutable fact? I rather think it is completely unprovable at this point. My understanding is that even the existence of Jesus cannot be proven. He left no firm tracks. One or two mentions, such as Josephus, I have read, are not authentic.
Hey avocationist. That’s an excellent and valid question. What we have to keep in mind is that the N.T. manuscripts are extremely reliable historical documents with considerably more copies in existance than standard works of history that we take for granted as being factual. I’ve linked here a couple of primers on the resurrection:
http://www.leaderu.com/offices.....tomb2.html
http://www.equip.org/free/DJ923.htm
http://www.leaderu.com/offices.....fales.html
On the Manuscript reliability of the Bible:
http://home.earthlink.net/~ron.....cript.html
http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/pr.....-docu.html
Hey avocationist, that’s an excellent question. My personal research has brought me to the conclusion that it is indeed factual history. Keep in mind that the NT manuscripts are historically reliable and stand up under the scrutiny of Textual Criticism, more so than works of ancient history which we take for granted as indubitable fact. Here are a couple of links where you can do some research:
http://www.leaderu.com/offices.....tomb2.html
http://www.leaderu.com/offices.....over2.html
Hope these help!
Weird!!! My first post didn’t show up until just now, so posted a second time.
Strange things afoot in this thread.
avocationist-
no sane scholars today believe that jesus never lived. as for the historical mentions of him, there are many. tacitus mentions him, hes mentioned numerous times in jewish writings (not exactly a friendly source), and josephus mentions him as well. theres one section from josephus that some think was added (the part about jesus’ resurrection), but his writings about him in general are accepted as original and authentic. many scholars even think the phrase in question is authentic. there are a few other historians as well that mention him.
that and the NT is a book of history basically. it was written (the gospels in particular) as a book of history.
There are several other sources, but they are biased non-secular ones. Namely, the early church fathers of the 2nd – 4th century era. Check out the writings of Polycarp, Ignatius, Iraneas, and Justin Martyr.
No sane scholars – but some insane ones. Since the ID movement contains only nonreputable scientists, then I suppose those scholars who don’t say we can prove he lived – oh I’m lost – I mean I don’t care if they are called insane, I’d like to see what they say. I am not familiar with these Jewish sources, but aren’t they a bit later, when the myth/beliefs of the early church were under way and they are mostly negative? That is, they are reacting to a popular movement from their ranks, but are there any mentions of Jesus’ life that are contemporary with him? There is a difference between believing he never lived and believing that the facts of his life got distorted. You can’t just say the OT is a history book. Have you never read that history is a fiction, or that history gets written by the victors? Of course it is purported as history – but the councils selected from about 50 gospels. The early church fathers fought long and bitterly about every aspect of doctrine. We are left with their miserable legacy.
Sorry, I meant the NT.
if the NT isnt history, then we cant count any ancient text as history. we have tens of thousands of original texts to back up the NT, nowhere close to any other text in history. the process of which you speak of- i dont see how that has any bearing on historical accuracy.
and im not sure what you mean when you say that ID only contains nonreputable scientists. thats not true at all. if youre a scientist and you publish papers in journals and you have a Phd and such- that makes you fairly reputable in my book.
many of the jewish sources are contemporary sources. they battled the idea that jesus was the promised messiah. as for non-secular sources, that might make them biased, but i dont think it takes away from their historical value. early church fathers werent known for dishonest and deceit, so i think we can use those sources as well and see them as trustworthy in general.
Again, avocationist… this treatment should answer your questions: http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/pr.....-docu.html
http://www.tektonics.org/jesus.....sthub.html
There is a great deal of information about this and related subjects on the above web site.
“but the councils selected from about 50 gospels”
simply not true.
http://www.tektonics.org/lp/ntcanon.html
Creator, designer, is there a significant difference?
Is there any difference?
If it looks like a duck… it’s a duck.
I still have hopes for ID, however forlorn its defenders appear.
As long as this theory yoyo in and out of religion it will be beaten to death by the science it’s trying so desperately to seduce.
The obvious ‘threat’ it poses is its thinly veiled attempt to usurp the influential power of science, specifically evolutionary theory.
Personally, I’m not threatened by the research ID might present. I’m not threatened by religion or science, or for that matter, the absence of either or both. However many people do feel intimidated by suspicious strategies, whether disingenuous or not. ID must prove first that it isn’t ‘faith-based’ or it will be tagged an ideological subversion of the scientific ‘philosophy’ and continue to scare the shit out of all those non-believers.
ID needs to walk before it runs.
Right now, it doesn’t have a leg to stand on.
wmmalo
ID is at least as old as Paley’s watchmaker argument or about 200 years. It was made before Darwin’s Origin of Species. It had a leg to stand on then and it has far stronger legs today.
By the way, empirical evidence isn’t owned by any theory. ID is free to conscript anything, everything, or nothing that evolution uses as supportive evidence. Get used to it.