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So, intelligent design is either science or its not, it’s either substantive or meaningless, and either you follow the argument and believe it or you don’t. The feedback from the “Hot Topics” session has been incredibly encouraging, with many people, both faculty and students, expressing that regardless of their viewpoint, they thoroughly enjoyed hearing both sides of the argument. For me, that is extremely rewarding and gratifying, because quite simply, I believe that anyone making a decision (and not necessarily in my favor) should do so with all the facts, with sufficient observation and research, and not just because it says so on page 1013 of some textbook.
Yesterday, I had the opportunity to share and reflect on my experiences as a Christian and God’s hand of provision and faithfulness. It was rewarding and fulfilling to look back on how faithful God has been in my life, whether it has been as provider, healer, rescuer or friend. He has been abundantly good in so many ways, and He has made Himself known to me through the ordinary and the miraculous things that I have seen and experienced. I say all this because it is quite important, even to the argument of intelligent design. This past Tuesday, as I was talking informally with a group of people after the “Hot Topics” session, I addressed what I believe to be the truth of science and faith. I love looking at intelligent design as a scientific insight into the mind of God. I love looking at the complexity and detail of life and the beauty and perfection that I see in all that surrounds me. I love looking at what we know about the universe, its vast expanse and perfect orientation. I love looking at the sub-microscopic world of biochemistry, seeing how our cells are like supercomputers with complexity that we could never come close to building in a factory or lab. However, if a scientist someday proves beyond doubt that evolution was fact, and everything assumed about the theory was correct, it would not change one thing about what I believe. Intelligent design is an exciting look inside the mind of the Creator. My life, my testimony and His faithfulness is a look inside the heart of the Creator. It is in experiencing the heart of God that I am assured that He is alive, real and madly in love with His creation. |
Comments
Hi Mike,
Just a few comments:
>>intelligent design is either science or its not>>
Can't there be borderline cases of science? Words like "science," "religion," "cult," "party," "bald," "game," seem to have fuzzy boundaries. For example, political science. Is that really a science? Or archeology. Or evolutionary psychology. These seem like borderline cases.
So it doesn't seem like, for any x, x is either science or it isn't. Maybe ID is the same way?
>>if a scientist someday proves beyond doubt that evolution was fact, and everything assumed about the theory was correct, it would not change one thing about what I believe.>>
Isn't Darwinian evolution consistent with intelligent design? Couldn't God have used Darwinian mechanisms to bring about his ends? I agree that unguided evolution is incompatible with ID, but the "unguided" part is no part of the science; it's a theological or philosophical add-on.
I'd be happy to accept theistic evolution, if that's the way the evidence points. I see no incompatibility there. Do you?
Great point! A colleague of mine says that a real rebuttal to this debate is that one can argue that evolution is in itself intelligent design at work. Ultimately, proof of evolution indicates nothing about the presence or absence of God even if found to be true. I concur that evolution, if the factual method of advancement of organisms, could just have been God's clever way of doing things. Francis Collins, a pioneer of the human genome project is a proponent of theistic evolution. I definitely recommend his book, "The Language Of God" as a great read on the subject. My viewpoint on ID comes not from needing that to prove God, but more because I believe that evolution just doesn't add up.
Another small question. You said:
>>I believe that anyone making a decision (and not necessarily in my favor) should do so with all the facts, with sufficient observation and research, and not just because it says so on page 1013 of some textbook.>>
Science would be very hard (if not impossible) to do if we didn't accept testimony (from scientists, textbooks, etc.) as a valid way to gain knowledge. For example, there are probably very many things about chemistry that you believe on the basis of testimony and not because you've done independent observation and research.
So given that it's reasonable to believe things about science on the basis of testimony, why is it that in the case of ID, we need to do independent observation and research? Why can't we just accept the judgment of the majority of the community, like we do in so many other cases?
Excellent point. In fact, most of chemistry is done and observed not from seeing what you're doing, but following a set of rules that have been laid down by others on the basis of experiments, data and consistencies among these behaviors. There is no way to see atoms, no way to see an electron, no way to determine what is inside an atomic nucleus, yet we make assumptions about what atoms can and can't do. One of the ways that we make the argument of whether things can or cannot chemically combine, or whether they behave a certain way, deals with predicting the probability of electrons on the basis of what we know about them. I agree that I fail to understand why probabilities can be used as predictive tools in the area of chemistry, but science is so unwilling to do the same in the area of biology and cosmology. The reason to do independent research and validation is what science, at its core, is all about. The goal is to utilize all the data you can gather to make assumptions about what you often cannot see. That's the reason for using experimental data and observation.
Woh, I think we just talked past each other there.
I took you to be saying this:
In the case of ID, it's important that each person independently evaluate the arguments, evidence, data, research, etc. before making up his or her mind. People ought not to just accept the testimony of the majority of scientists, or textbooks, etc.; that would violate some intellectual duty.
I'm wondering why we have to do that in the case of ID, but not in so many other cases in science. I read on page 436 of my textbook that the electronegativity value of flourine is 4.0. I accept that on the basis of the testimony of my textbook, and it's perfectly reasonable for me to do so.
I then turn to page 1013 of my textbook, and it tells me that ID is false. Why is it unreasonable in this case for me to accept that on the basis of the testimony of my textbook, as you say it is?
Granted it is absolutely true that we take things all the time at face value, there is a big difference between taking a fact such as the electronegativity of fluorine, based on an arbitrary scale and used to explain little more than the propensity of an atom to hold onto negative charge, versus taking at face value an entirely area of science which has little or no chemical evidence. If you were a student taking a lab course, and you said that you didn't need to carry out an experiment because you knew how it worked out, I'd have a big problem with that, simply because experimental data is the basis for every fact in every textbook. My point in saying that you need to not take things as published fact is to point out that science requires evidence, and a preponderance of it. You don't learn anything new by relying on textbook work. As a science professor, I tell students all the time that they learn general concepts from a textbook, but real science in the lab. In this case, the ID versus evolution argument requires that we look at and consider things from a biological, biochemical and physical standpoint in light of the data and the evidence from all sources, not just from a textbook. That's my point.