Earlier in the week a discussion of intelligent design arose in one of the threads. I was interested by the large number of really bad arguments that were produced and so I’ve decided to include them in this post along with the responses that David and I provided. What you see among the skeptics of ID are sound bites and bald assertions as well as a contentious, ad hoc and ill-defined set of assumptions about what “true science” consists of. At the end of the day however, all of the objectors to ID regularly make inferences to intelligent design in their daily lives (as my balloon example shows) and they have done nothing to argue the case that such inferences are inadmissible in scientific investigation.
Unintelligent Argument #1: “GODDIDIT is not an explanation.”
The Atheist Missionary: “GODDIDIT is not an explanation. It’s a cop out.”
Randal’s Reply: “Intelligence is a common explanation that we invoke all the time, especially when intelligence is the only known cause for the kind of effect we’re trying to explain. So on what basis do you categorically deny the appropriateness of invoking intelligence in this case (apart from your dogmatic irreligious commitments)?”
Unintelligent Argument #2: Complexity doesn’t require design
The Atheist Missionary: “You demand that complexity have an intelligent designer, even though you understand how biological evolution works – you just plug in the designer at the very beginning.”
Randal’s Reply: “I didn’t demand that complexity requires an intelligent designer. A rock slide is complex but requires no designer. So is a snowflake. But if you came home on your birthday and fifty balloons spelled out “Happy birthday O Godless Missionary” on the side of your house, you’d conclude that design was the cause of the balloons being there. Now imagine if I then said “If you think a mind caused those balloons to be there then what caused the mind? Huh?”
Unintelligent Argument #3: Intelligent Design is special pleading
The Atheist Missionary: “OK, so what’s the cause of the intelligent cause of the highly complex specified information we find in DNA? Why do you get to special plead when it comes to your god?”
Randal’s reply: “Is it “special pleading” when you infer an intelligent cause for the balloons being arranged in such a way so as to wish you a happy birthday?”
Unintelligent Argument #4: Intelligent designers won’t “give up” their commitment to intelligent design even if the evidence doesn’t support it
Beetle: “would you give up on intelligent design if you had a sufficiently compelling explanation of how DNA molecule arose through undirected natural processes?”
Randal’s reply: “The notion that intelligence is a legitimate causal explanation does not depend on our ability to identify any specific instance of intelligent design. We’re dealing here with the philosophy of science. Bradley Monton points this out as he is an atheist and believes that all putative cases of ID have failed. But nonetheless he rightly recognizes that appeal to intelligence is a legitimate type of explanation.”
Unintelligent Argument #5: Intelligent design is not “rigorous science”
Stoo: “That sounds more like an appeal to concepts you’re personally familiar with (intelligent beings making complex stuff) than rigorous science.” “It’s the same thing as ancient people saying lightning was thrown by Thor – sticking a human face on the unknown.”
Randal’s reply: “Are you saying that “rigorous science” excludes appeal to intelligent causes? Isn’t SETI a form of rigorous science? Who defines what “rigorous science” is anyways?”
Unintelligent Argument #6: We can’t infer that any intelligent designer is an uncaused first cause of everything.
The Atheist Missionary: “It is if you are suggesting that the balloon arranger is an uncaused first cause.”
Randal’s reply: “No ID theorist argues based on ID that the intelligent cause of DNA is an uncaused first cause. Nor did I ever argue such a thing. So please don’t invent straw men.”
Unintelligent Argument #7: Intelligent design is an argument from ignorance
The Atheist Missionary: “it appears to be nothing more than an argument from ignorance.”
Randal’s reply: “If you conclude that the balloons were placed there by an intelligent agent that isn’t ignorance. It tells you more than you knew before. So I really have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Unintelligent Argument #8: Judge Jones explained at the Dover Trial that Intelligent Design is absurd
The Atheist Missionary: “Jones explains how the premise of ID is absurd…”
Randal’s reply: “the Dover case is a mishmash of politics, public education policy, young earth creationist Christian conservatives on a school board, the US Constitution, and a few other things besides. As such, it has nothing to do with the philosophical question of whether intelligence is a legitimate causal explanation.”
Unintelligent Argument #9: Intelligent Design cannot be falsified.
Stoo: “The ID movement currently lacks some decent falsifiable hypotheses and evidence to back them up.”
Randal’s reply: “First, are you saying falsification is a necessary criterion for science? That Popperian view is not widely accepted today among philosophers of science. Second, regardless of your answer to the first question, specific ID claims are falsifiable. Was the bacterial flagellum the result of design? The hypothesis of cooption leaves open the possibility of falsifying that hypothesis. Critics of ID want it both ways. One moment they say ID hypotheses are not falsifiable. The next minute they claim ID hypotheses have been shown to be false!”
Unintelligent Argument #10: Intelligent design is a “god-of-the-gaps”
Stoo: “The problem is the designer tends not to be an explanation but rather a god-in-the-gaps.”
Randal’s reply: “Insofar as you accept the legitimacy of intelligence as a causal explanation and believe that intelligence is in principle detectable you are an intelligent design theorist. If you have some argument as to why science cannot consider intelligence as a type of explanation I’d be interested in hearing it.”
Unintelligent Argument #11: There is no predictive power
Beetle: “With ID, one assumes an intelligent agent, and then one looks for examples that support ID. There is no predictive power.”
Randal’s reply: “Sure there is predictive power in intelligent causal explanations. For example, Steve Meyer points out that assuming DNA was designed would suggest that so-called “junk DNA” in fact had a purpose. That’s a prediction. Anyway, why think an explanation must have predictive power to be scientific?”
Unintelligent Argument #12: Intelligent Design has no experimental value
Beetle: “ID has no predictive experimental value. That is, no one has crafted experiments where ID can be used to predict outcomes.
Davidstarlingm’s reply: “ID makes a variety of predictions. For example: *Mutations that confer new abilities will usually be nonrandom stress-induced frameshift mutations (such as here) that are repeatable. *Random mutagenesis will change variable parameters, but will not produce new protocols or mechanisms. *Creatures without a recent common ancestor on the evolutionary tree will nonetheless possess the same genetic tool kits for similar design implementations (see here and here). *Organs or functions presumed to be inherited and without function will be found to have a recent or ongoing function for the species that has them.”
Unintelligent Argument #13: Most Intelligent Design theorists are theists
Stoo: “They mostly believe it [God] is tho, I imagine. (apart from the odd directed panspermia fan who could be positing aliens seeding the earth). That’s their motivation for trying to tear down our current theories in the first place – they want a place in the theories for their God.”
Randal’s reply: “Actually, we should always be aware of the presuppositions of scientists, be they theistic or atheistic or agnostic or whatever. But as you say, having presuppositions doesn’t invalidate one’s position, for if it did everything would be invalid.”
