Events, Causes, and Explanatory Sufficiency
| July 6, 2007 | Posted by crandaddy under Intelligent Design, Philosophy |
Thumbster PvM has posted a response to a statement Robert Crowther made the other day at ID the future regarding the “Who designed the designer?” criticism espoused by ID critics.
Crowther writes,
Critics of intelligent design theory often throw this question out thinking to highlight a weakness in ID. Richards shows that the theory’s inability to identify the designer is not a weakness, but a strength. ID does not identify the designer is because ID limits its claims to those which can be established by empirical evidence.
PvM begins his response with this:
This is yet another example of why ID is scientifically vacuous. Indeed, if the designer could be established by empirical evidence, it would immediately eliminate the ‘Intelligent Designer’ as proposed by ID, namely a supernatural designer called ‘God’. In fact, in order to establish a ‘designer’ and in fact ‘design’ science inevitably uses such concepts as means, motives, opportunity, capability and so on. In addition, science uses eye witness accounts, physical evidence and more to support its thesis.
Neither Pim nor any other ID critic I have encountered has ever given an adequate explanation of just what evidence for a designer would look like, or if they have, I have yet to see it. The best they seem to be able to do is refer to instances of design produced by humans and say that we understand the “means, motives, opportunity, capability and so on” of such beings the way Pim does. The problems with this approach, however, are severe and intractable, and it continues to baffle me how any intelligent person who devotes much thought to this position could continue to hold it.
Consider first that what ID proponents are trying to do is determine if design is a better explanation for an individual phenomenon under investigation than nondesign processes–these processes being, simply put, chance and necessity–identified as being not designed on epistemic rather than ontological grounds for the simple reason that “goddidit” is not a scientific explanation. It seems obvious that one cannot “see” designers or directly perceive via the external senses some intrinsic property of being designed any more than one can “see” the experiential substance of thought in another person’s head. In order for there to exist design, there must necessarily exist an intentional representation of the pattern to be designed in the designer’s mind, and intentional representations aren’t the sort of things that be experienced or “observed” from a third-person perspective and through the external senses. Physical bodies and events are worthless to a design inference because intentionality is to be found nowhere in the senseless movements, collisions, and interactions of spatiotemporal material bodies.
Human design is the wrong starting point for a design comparison. To say, for example, “observed biological phenomenon C appears designed because it looks like instances of known human design” is flawed because it presumes that instances of human design can be known. Human bodies can be directly observed. Events can be seen to occur such that a given event C would not have occured had event A involving a physical body B (All human bodies and their parts are physical bodies.) not occurred. We could say that the Sistine Chapel paintings would not have occurred without Michelangelo’s physical body and its various movements, but we can also say that a billiard ball would not have moved if another ball had not collided with it. Physical descriptions of cause and effect may be necessary to explain a given observed phenomenon, but for design inferences, they are not sufficient. When people have seizures, do their bodies not make movements which are not designed? If so, then we have cases of physical human bodies moving without the control of an agent. Isn’t it then possible that people might have seizures which could pass as designed or even be outright zombies? How could we tell?
He goes on to write this:
ID faces a real problem: Either it insists that it cannot determine much of anything about the Designer which makes the ID inference inherently unreliable and thus useless (Dembski) or it attempts to become scientifically relevant but then it can at best conclude ‘we don’t know’.
ID theorists don’t postulate a designer for their arguments. Any talk of “the designer” they do is based upon an ontological status of design which is assumed due to a (supposedly) valid design inference. That talk of “the designer” can be misleading and confusing is why I, personally, don’t like to use the term–at least not without making clear the context in which I use it. As I explained above, you don’t go about searching for design by looking for designers; you infer its presence from the explanatory inadequecy of epistemic nondesign processes (chance and necessity). This is the heuristic procedure for design inferences at all levels–animal, human, ET, God, or whatever. If naturalistic nondesign explanations are the only type allowed at the biological and cosmological levels, then why not impose the same restriction on scientific explanations at the human level? Are the drivers of the automobiles I pass on the road conscious agents who plan and execute the events necessary to control their vehicles? Might the doctor who is to perform your next surgical procedure have no conscious experience at all–his actions being caused by senseless physical cause and effect? Are what I take to be the letters, symbols, and spaces of PvM’s post actual conveyors of semantic content, or did he just have a seizure at his computer? I guess we just don’t know.
82 Responses to Events, Causes, and Explanatory Sufficiency
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Sorry, no. This is simply wrong. I don’t appreciate your accusations of bad faith – it would be nice if we could sort this out without being unpleasant towards each other.
We come back to the one question I’ve been trying to get an answer to: how can you make a decision to rule out a designer, if you don’t first postulate a designer?
I’m wondering if the problem here is over different understandings of what “to postulate” means.
It’s perhaps worth repeating the OED definition I posted earlier:
Now, in order to decide to rule out design, I think it’s clear that one has to postulate design first (in the sense of “to assume the possibility of”).
This discussion is replete with people talking about inferring design, but nobody has told me how they can do that without postulating a designer. My point is simple. My simplification of the design process would be this:
1. Observe that a system could have come about through
a. blind processes
b. design
2. Make observations and do some calculations. If these show that blind processes are unlikely to have created the system, then infer design.
Note that in step 1, one is postulating design. This is contrary to crandaddy’s statement that “ID theorists don’t postulate a designer for their arguments”.
If crandaddy’s statement is right, then I would like someone to explain to me how all this is possible.
My guess is that crandaddy didn’t mean quite what he wrote – perhaps he meant that ID theorists don’t postulate any properties of the designer. But I’m speculating about this: I’ve been trying to get a clear explanation of what he meant, but without success. I’m sure this is due to an inability on both of our sides to communicate effectively.
Bob
Bob:
First, Please note that I took pains to observe that “i disagree” is often the root of “I don’t understand,” especially in cases of those who are more sophisticated than a newbie.
Recall here, your “I do not understand[s],” including, from 43:
One who is sufficiently trained in phil to have published in phil of science, should be familiar with both the classic concept of knowledge as “justified, true belief,” and the latter-day adjustments in light of Gettier counter-examples, to warrant. Similarly, one should know that warrant comes in degrees and that scientific knowledge in particular is provisional. On that basis, an epistemologically sophisticated person should not have had serious difficulties with the above citation. (Hence the significance of my analysis in a nutshell in 58.
Now, this underlies the points:
1] how can you make a decision to rule out a designer, if you don’t first postulate a designer?
First, there IS a postulate at work, one that goes back to Plato, the Laws Book X, and was by his further statement there, ancient in his day:
Plato then of course goes on to make the oldest declaration of the design inference on the origins of the cosmos [and by implication of his context, of life too] that is on record.
In short, I am — by accepting the Platonic trichotomy on causal forces relevant to things that have a beginning thus are caused — refusing to beg the question by explicitly or implicitly ruling out the possibility of intelligent agency at cosmogenesis, or biogenesis. (Especially, on questionable grounds like asserting so-called methodological naturalism as a ground rule of science, or by confusing agency with human agency.)
Thus, there is all the material difference in the world between “postulating a designer” and postulating the possibility of agency as a cause alongside chance and/or necessity. For, the latter then opens up the comparative difficulties process across the live options, relative to factual adequacy, coherence and elegance vs ad hocn-ess or simplistic-ness.
Then, as 45 summarises, we bring to bear what we empirically know are reliable signs of agency, and we see that agency is the only factually adequate force that explains the observed FSCI, fine-tuning, and irreducible complexity in the relevant cases. [Cf always linked.]
2] This discussion is replete with people talking about inferring design, but nobody has told me how they can do that without postulating a designer
I again, just pointed out the actual Platonic causal force trichotomy postulate, which you keep rejecting in favour of your own as — again — just cited. (In short, you are evidently not seeing where we ARE — explicitly and repeatedly — coming from,and are instead seeing where you think we “must be” coming from.)
3] . . . in step 1, one is postulating design.
In step 1 you actually write, with my emphasis and augmentation: Observe that a system could have come about through a. blind processes [chance and/or necessity] b. design . . .
To postulate that something COULD have originated by chance and/or necessity and/or agency is not the same at all as to postulate — assert or assume as a start point for reasoning — agency.
Your step 2, to look at evidence potentially able to discriminate between the three forces with some degree of warrant, is a direct reflection of this difference. For, if one is looking at the possibility that one cannot tell that an agent was at work, and thus has as null hypothesis, that chance and/or necessity are causally adequate, one cannot at the same time be assuming the existence of such a designer as the relevant cause.
4] I’ve been trying to get a clear explanation . . . but without success. I’m sure this is due to an inability on both of our sides to communicate effectively.
If you keep making the substitution that we see just above, no explanation will be “successful” in you estimation. But, that’s because you have inadvertently assumed what was to be shown, and have then again and again read it into all presentations to the contrary.
Please, look at what we design thinkers ever since at least Plato — surely, no incompetent in philosophy — have been saying, not what you think we must be saying.
GEM of TKI
Bob O’H,
You said
“Sorry, no. This is simply wrong. I don’t appreciate your accusations of bad faith – it would be nice if we could sort this out without being unpleasant towards each other”
I think there is rampant bad faith going on here. How could one ever postulate (according to your definition) that design can not happen when design is rampant around us? That would be a silly, nonsense discussion.
What Crandaddy was saying is that ID does not presuppose that a certain phenomena assumes a designer, not that design can not possibly happen. So this whole discussion has been an absurdity. If you had introduced your definition of postulate at comment 12 this discussion of postulating a designer would have terminated long ago probably at a few comments after that.
Let me know what your definition of “bad faith” is.
H’mm: I think Bob would benefit from a re-reading of my 23, wherein I introduced the platonic trichotomy of causal forces in this thread. The lead-up discussion on abductive reasoning will also be helpful. (BTW, Bob introduced his dictionary def’n in no 18, and in part 23 was responsive to that.)
So I apologize to Bob because he did introduce his definition earlier but it was obvious the discussion was over irrelevant minutiae. By that the meaning of postulate was at the essence of the discussion and it seemed not to be clarified.
Let me show what an example of “good faith” would have been that would have short-circuited most if not all of the following the discussion about “postulate”.
If in comment 12 Bob O’H had said
“Crandaddy, I do not think you should use the word postulate because I do not believe you are using it correctly. The word ‘postulate’ implies the assumption of something so when you use it in the negative sense you are actually assuming it doesn’t exist or in this case that there is no possibility of a designer and thus when you infer design you will have a contradiction. How could you have design without the presence of a designer? Instead you a different phraseology such as ‘We do not assume that any particular event or phenomena is designed or has a designer but only infer it is designed from the evidence.’ ”
Maybe someone could provide a better way that Bob O’H could have phrased his comment in 12. But if he had said the previous, how much of the discussion after comment 12 would have taken place.
Jerry – I appreciate your effort. The reason I didn’t take the approach you suggest is that I wouldn’t want to make any presuppositions about why crandaddy wrote what he did. There are several possible reasons for why he could have written that, and I would prefer to start out by trying to find out what exactly crandaddy meant – if I interpret wrong, things just get even slower, as we have to sort out that confusion first.
The problem, of course, it that’s not what he wrote. I think if he had replied to say that, then this would have been sorted earlier.
Bob
Bob O’H,
It is extremely unlikely that anyone here advocating intelligent design would assume that a designer was not possible.
But from the discussion it seems that this is a postulate of the current science community. Is it a postulate of your science or philosophy of science and if so why?
And if it is not then then you should accept the possibility of a designer that is not human. Then the only quarrel you should have with the ID people is whether the evidence they present is supportive or not of a designer of biological organisms.
jerry – excuse me if I don’t answer your question. I’m still trying to get a straight answer to the question I’ve been asking about crandaddy’s post, so I don’t want to get sidetracked.
If someone wants to start another thread on your questions, that’s fine though.
Bob
Bob: …I don’t want to get sidetracked.
Sidetracked from what?!? Straining at gnats? Grasping at straws?
If you ever got sidetracked from the minutiae, you might have to address really substantive stuff, like, say, kairosfocus’ post at 62.
Good grief.
Phinehas – sidetracked from getting an answer to the question I’ve been asking. I didn’t think it was such a big deal, but I still haven’t been given an answer: I still don’t know if crandaddy actually meant what he did, or if he was trying to say something else. It really wouldn’t have been a big deal if I had received a direct answer the first time I had asked the question (or possibly the second, if some clarification had been required).
If I take what crandaddy wrote at face value, then everything kairosfocus wrote becomes nonsense, so this is a substansive.
Bob
Bob:
First, look carefully at Crandaddy’s post at 60:
In short, he has explicitly endorsed what I have said. He also did so in away that directly entails that if there is a difference between what he originally said and what I said, he prefers what I said. (In that context,to try to fixate on what he originally said — as you have interpreted it — would therefore be to tilt at a strawman.)
Moreover, in fact what C originally said and what I have said are actually compatible, indeed, I have simply expanded the context by bringing out the underlying Platonic trichotomy of causal forces and addressing a little more the question of warrant.
Indeed, going back to the original post, let us all observe again what Crandaddy said, in light of what has now passed under the bridge:
–> The highlighted sections make it crystal clear that C is looking at first the fact of observed agency in our world — a datum of our everyday and scientific behaviour.
–> He also draws out the point that we have no consistent naturalistic basis for confining inference to agency to inferring to HUMAN agency, raising the issue that since first person experience of design and agency is applied by inference to second and third person objects, i.e other human agents, we can reasonably extend that to other potential candidates to be agents, e.g. ET’s [cf here the widely approved research area known as SETI], or even God [cf. here the rich variety of reported second person -- i.e interpersonal -- experiences of God].
–> So, he explicitly denies that ID thinkers are begging the question; indeed to my mind this claim that we are arguing in a circle looks more and more like a turnabout accusation by those who wish to impose evolutionary materialist metaphysical assumptions under the label methodological naturalism!
–> Instead, he lays out the Platonic trichotomy of possible causes and highlights that it is after examining empirical evidence capable of testing the null hyp that chance and/or necessity [aka non-rational causes] are adequate to explain relevant phenomena, that on finding the null to fail, we conclude there is a credible warrant for inferring that say FSCI is the product of agency, e.g. in the cellular nanotechnology of life as observed.
–> He then concludes that discussion of the designer by ID thinkers is plainly after the fact of such an inference. (He also notes how the discussion of designers is apt to cloud the atmosphere for discussing the inferential chain just laid out yet again.)
Now, B, you ate by your own admission, a published author on phil of sci. One does not get to that level without being able to read and analyse methodological arguments such as C laid out originally and as he and I have amplified. So, there is a reasonable presumption of capacity to properly read and interpret such argument as as are cited and as have appeared over the life of this thread.
Yet, we see what looks a lot like either naive and confused misreadings, or else projection of an over-riding assumption of what we “must” be saying [backed up in cases by inferences that we cannot communicate clearly enough], or else some very familiar dishonest and disrespectful rhetorical stratagems commonly used by Darwinist advocates in addressing ID.
(In short, you owe us an explanation of the patent misreadings of what we have said, if only in defence of your reputation.)
But that would still not address the material issue. Let us focus that by suitably adapting your own summary of our case:
. . . .
Adapting you, at 61 above:
So, we lay out the Platonic hypothesis, PH, examine H0 and AH1, inferring to AH1 relative to empirical evidence on inference to best explanation across empirically anchored comparative difficulties [cf my always linked for a survey]. Since AH2 and/or 3 are often suggested at this stage, we address them as noted, in their proper domain, philosphy, not science. The conclusion remains that AH 1 is the most credible.
On the basis of all of the above, we conclude that it is credible that certain key entities/ phenomena in our observed universe are credibly artifacts of agency: [I] origin of the observed, for-life fine-tuned cosmos, [II] origin of cellular, FSCI based life, [III] origin of body-plan level biodiversity, [IV] origin of mind — what Ms O’Leary and others call the four big bangs.
When looked at at worldviews level,as a cluster, it is plain on the need to explain I to IV factually adequately, coherently and elegantly, that the basic worldview of theism is now back on the table of the great ongoing debate in Western culture. It is the implications of that renewed vigour as a live option that is fuelling the strong, hostile reaction from committed evolutionary materialists, who happen to be institutionally dominant.
Their consistent resort to misleading or outright deceptive rhetorical stratagems, is strong evidence that they have lost the worldviews level discussion and are resorting to the naked appeal to common vulnerabilities in how we think, and/or to outright intimidation or even in key cases, oppressive and unjust behaviour. In short, we are seeing a “long train of abuses and usurpations” pursuing an obvious end, and evincing a clear design. (Of course, many others are simply parrotting what they have been told by those they have unwisely trusted. But beyond a certain point, refusing to address the issue on the merits while insisting on patent misrepresentations brings an educated thinker into the sad province of complicity in the propaganda agenda against design thinking.)
So, B, the ball is in your court. You will understand why, beyonfd a certain point, we will be forced tot he reluctant conclusion that you are not being sincere with us. I have not reached that point yet [as, I can see how a strongly held presumption can distort one's ability to hear what another party is saying], but I want to hear from you good reason to stop short of it.
In so doing, you will need to address the points laid out just above, based on your own summary of our case, suitably amended and expanded to better reflect where we — including C and I — are coming from.
GEM of TKI
Still waiting . . .
pursuing an obvious end, and evincing a clear design.
Nice
Hi Trib:
I am simply alluding to the US DOI, 1776, 2nd para, which in part reads: when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design . . .
Cf 30 above. [And notice a certain peculiar absence in this thread, paralleled with a lot of activity elsewhere . . . ]
GEM of TKI
I have noticed.
Although, I confess that I didn’t pick up the DOI reference — on a tangent what scares me most about this debate is that those who wish to run society according to “scientific” principles can’t bring it upon themselves to concede that there are rights endowed by a Creator (I guess TJ was a creationist) which means they really don’t think there is such a thing as inalienable rights which means those who dissent from their belief system get the shaft if they should ever get the sword — I thought you were just making a point about the practical application of design inference.
Trib7
Actually, it is seriously arguable that not only Mr Jefferson but also his client were Creationists.
He wrote not as an author on his own hook but as an advocate for the Congress and people of the emerging United States, at that time overwhelmingly Protestant [well over 90% as I recall], with Catholics most of the remainder and Jews a good fraction of the what was left. For instance, think about a then common word for describing people, animals and plants: creatures, or in the colloquial form: critters. [Even the semi-Deists [Jefferson, Franklin come to mind) were biblically-influenced Creationists and the few atheists were simply not detectable within the statistics.]
Further to this, the Judaeo-Christian frame — on fairly easily accessible [but too often overlooked or improperly dismissed] evidence — decisively shaped the emergence of the the rise of modern liberty and democracy. This appears of course int he opening phrases of the famous 2nd paragraph of the 1776 DOI, which in turn strongly reflects the Calvinist Dutch DOI of 1581, and in fact may be partly dependent on it! (Cf the just linked.)
[Such is of course hotly denied and fallaciously dismissed by the same ones who are ever so quick to reel off a litany of the real and imagined sins of Christendom, in their eagerness to indict Christians as inherent enemies of liberty. Thus, yet again a propaganda agenda stands exposed, and those who don't fact-check before spouting it, show their want of carefulness on facts.]
You also observe that inalienability of rights is a specifically Creation-anchored concept.
This is correct, and more to the point, historically, modern liberty and democracy emerged form the Judaeo-Christian frame, once the Bible was put in the hands of the ordinary man, as well as the means and Bible-anchored framework to resist tyranny.
We must also note that of course such a framework can be abused and exploited to oppress by finite, fallible, fallen creatures such as we all are — as can any ideology [a point well-made by McGrath in rebuttal to Dawkins' latest fulminations against God]. But, historically, modern liberty by and large grew up in Biblical soil.
Further to this, there is a fairly serious argument that the loss of respect for an inalienability framework for rights led to the rise of the unprecedentedly murderous evolutionism-inspired tyrannies of the past century, and/or to the rise of naked individualism that disrespects that basic duty of reciprocal benevolence that underlies sustainable community.
In this context, it is noteworthy that it is not commonly known that Darwin was the FIRST Social Darwinist, and openly discussed genocide as reflecting his frame of thought. Not only in an infamous letter, but also in his The Descent of Man, as we discussed in a UD thread some months back now.
So, you are right to be concerned about the potential for tyranny in evolutionary materialism. The fate of Mr Sternberg and Mr Gonzalez, the disrespect for truth and fairness on public debate and judicial argument, and more all point to a long train of abuses and usurpations evincing a ruthless and dangerous design that we must resist while we yet have the strength to do so.
GEM of TKI
PS: Link on Darwin’s Social Darwinism and its historical consequences in a line of descent in one key country; sadly, Germany.
Great post KF. Wasn’t aware of the Dutch DOI but one would have to be pretty delusional to think the Founders weren’t.
BTW, a response from Bob is now being awaited on another thread.
Ah Trib:
Thanks for the kind words.
On Delusional: I once had an exchange of emails and posts with a professor that would make you shake your head. Sad.
Bob: No surprise . . . but maybe he has answered just now, at least on one thread I have seen? [I would certainly like to hear back from him on the above, and note that from other threads he seems to be some sort of evo pop geneticist or something, so maybe he was not deeply aware of the underlying epistemology issues, publication on Phil of Sci notwithstanding? Of course this is now off the top page . . .]
GEM of TKI
Bob has answered on that thread, so I’ll throw this to the top and see if he can come back to your question.
Trib:
He has in the other thread declared that since Crandaddy hasn’t answered his question [!!!], he has walked away. (Of course, Cran answered properly starting with the original post and has passed the ball to me.)
Also, on the Dutch DOI, here is an interesting point from the US founders:
Worth a thought or two, not only on what was going on back then, but on why this has been filtered out from what we have been taught . . . what design may this evince?
GEM of TKI