| CONFRONTING INTELLIGENT DESIGN: A REPORT FROM THE STUDIO DAVID ELLER I recently had the opportunity to argue intelligent design with one of the major proponents of the "theory," a Senior Fellow of the Discovery Institute, Dr. Stephen Meyer. Meyer is also the Director of the Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture, which has subsequently been renamed to the less informative -- and less honest -- Center for Science and Culture. The occasion of the encounter was the taping of an episode of "Faith under Fire," a new television talk show hosted by Lee Strobel, the self-professed "ex-atheist" and author of such books as The Case for Christ. The entire session constituted only one-third of an hour-long program, broken into two seven-minute segments, so that Meyer and I each had only about five minutes of total speaking time -- hardly enough to get into real substantive issues. Also, naturally but interestingly, as the representative for the questionable "theory" Meyer chose to emphasize certain aspects of ID and to de-emphasize others, in such a way that I think it would be informative and useful for other right-minded scientists to know the current tactics of the ID movement. Therefore, in this short article I introduce the points that were stressed by Meyer, the points that I stressed, and the further points that one could and should make in similar confrontations. The Discussion The topic for the segment was ostensibly "Did Life Evolve or Was It Designed?" which was predictably not discussed at all. Strobel appropriately allowed Meyers to speak first, who made the case for intelligent design as a form of scientific inquiry. He pointed to a couple of specific examples very well known in the ID literature, such as the flagellum of certain single-celled organisms and the "fine-tuning of the universe" for life. He argued that ID advocates like Behe, Dembski, and Johnson had developed tools (one known as the "explanatory filter," which we will return to below) to identify design in certain cases. Strobel then asked me what I thought of ID, and I responded that when I had first learned about it I regarded it as bad science and empty religion but that on further study I had concluded that it was anti-science and bad religion. Intelligent-design theory is not merely an attempt to replace evolutionary theory with a different scientific theory but to replace science itself with non-science or anti-science -- naturalism with supernaturalism. I maintained that science has three key properties or else it is nothing: (1) falsifiability -- that is, its claims can at least in principle be tested and verified or rejected, (2) productivity -- that is, it is useful in some way to make specific predictions about the world and to generate specific technical applications, and (3) explanatory power -- that is, it offers an account of how its proposed processes work. Intelligent design has none of these. By "bad religion" I meant that it does not support the case for any particular supernatural forces or beings but is so general as to allow anything -- from extra-terrestrial aliens to Jesus to Vishnu -- to serve as the designer. Since my characterization of science disqualified ID as science, Meyer dismissed my three properties and posited, familiarly, that evolution did not meet all of those standards either. He owned up to the fact that ID wants to replace scientific naturalism with at least the possibility or alternative of extra-natural intelligence (he did not go so far as to say "supernaturalism"), and he and Strobel turned that issue into the argument for "presenting alternatives" to school children. Therefore, not surprisingly to me, within the first two or three minutes the discussion had jumped from scientific to social matters. Strobel asked me what was my objection to teaching ID in schools as an alternative to evolution: why not present "the whole story" and "let students choose"? My first response was that there are a lot of "alternative claims" out there, some of them demonstrably wacky, and we were under no obligation to let every crank with a theory teach it in our schools. Schools, I said, were for teaching scientific methods and critical thinking and then the best knowledge and understanding that we have accumulated by such methods and thinking. If ID, then why not astrology or ufology or flat earthism or witchcraft in the schools? But my main point -- and the one that I hammered throughout the show -- was that ID has nothing to offer us scientifically. If we are going to evaluate the project sheerly on its scientific merits, then we must accept that, to put it kindly, ID is not "ready for prime-time." What exactly would I say to students about ID? "There are some things that some people think are just awfully complex, but they don't know how they got that way or why"? Intelligent-design theory is not an answer, in fact it is a non-answer, and it does not help us to understand the world one little bit better. If someday it has something substantive to offer, then maybe we can talk. Right now, it is nothing. Indeed, if Darwin had written a book that claimed there was such a thing as evolution but offered no processes or mechanisms for it whatsoever and only a scattering of flimsy examples, we would -- quite rightly -- have ignored it and disallowed it from the academic dialog. The fact that evolution offers specific and testable explanations and endless examples makes it a viable scientific subject and distinguishes it from something as half-baked as ID. Strobel started the second segment with the question to me, "What is the evidence for evolution?" I had been forewarned of this question, which I consider silly and disrespectful, since there is so much evidence that one cannot possibly describe it all in a few seconds (it is an instance of the "fallacy of the complex question"). My response was that science is like puzzle-solving. You collect as many discrete puzzle bits as you can and begin to piece them together, comprehensively and honestly, into a consistent picture. If you only have a few pieces, the picture will be incomplete and your conclusions about it tentative, but the more pieces you get, the better and more certain your conclusions can be. Evolution, I added, has millions of pieces of evidence, from single-celled organisms in ancient rocks to fossils of every conceivable animal and plant species and ancient humans and near-humans. Strobel turned to Meyer and said that millions of pieces of evidence sounded pretty good, and the latter made some weak attempt to discredit the facts with some references to scientific errors, misinterpretations, and frauds. He further claimed that naturalistic science willfully ignored the evidence of intelligence in the world. I interjected that the very success of naturalistic science was evidence of its adequacy and that it had no need for intelligence explanations. In fact, when "intelligence" had been the main explanation of the world, we called that period the Dark Ages because few if any discoveries, technologies, ideas, or theories originated from that time. Naturalistic science has arisen because of the poverty of supernaturalism. Even more, if we were to allow supernatural explanations of things to return to the academy, then what would stop us from some day teaching that diseases are caused by demons or that the sun is a god that rides across the sky in a chariot -- both things that were in fact believed by people in earlier and more superstitious times? Meyer objected to this line of argument and accused me of not understanding ID very well. He reiterated that ID was making scientific, not religious, claims. Having reached the end of our time, Meyer made his last statement, repeating his main position, and I was given the final word. I closed by saying that ID had nothing to offer the informed scientific community and that until it could give three answers clearly and decisively -- what is this intelligent designer, how does it accomplish its designs, and where did it come from, i.e. who designed the designer -- it was empty and futile. The encounter ended there. The Issues Fourteen minutes is way too short a time to characterize or criticize adequately any position, let alone one as complex and slippery as intelligent design or as evolution. Plus, in this kind of format, one must choose a few points to make and must also flow with the discussion, setting aside certain issues that might be in the foreground on another day. However, with the luxury of some additional uninterrupted time in this article, I would like to address some additional issues that are immanent or implicit in the encounter described above. (a) Fallacies One of my pastimes is logic, as it should be for anyone who deems himself or herself a rationalist. Science is, after all, nothing more or less than the systematic and sustained application of reason to our questions, and reason involves comprehensive and honest observation of the facts and valid logical processing of those facts into sound and reliable conclusions. Fallacies -- errors of evidence or logic -- render our conclusions uncertain and quite possibly false; fallacies do not make our conclusions necessarily false, but they do make them not necessarily true. Meyer committed, and ID theory in general commits, a variety of fallacies. For instance, the "explanatory filter" to which he referred early in his presentation is a good example. This filter, as described by William Dembski, is a test or standard that supposedly allows us to distinguish between "intelligent and unintelligent causes." It sets up a three-tiered system of causes, from regularity/natural law to chance to design, and submits that if a phenomenon cannot be explained by the first two then it is explainable by the third. However, two fallacies are immanent already. The first is the fallacy of the "leading question," which asks a question in such a way as to control the possible answers; in the present case, "How do you distinguish intelligent from unintelligent causes?" presupposes that there is even any such thing as an intelligent cause. In other words, it tries to guide the analysis into a conclusion that is itself the very question at hand: are there in fact intelligent causes, and if so how do we know that? The second fallacy is known as the "false dilemma" or "false dichotomy" or "excluded middle." It proffers that there is a limited set of options, and if all the other options can be eliminated, then the remaining option must be the case. But why should we accept that regularity/law, chance, and design are the only options? Is ID not leaving out another -- and in the case of evolution, the correct -- option, that is, non-random unintelligent processes, such as natural selection, gene flow, genetic drift, etc.? If we can explain some particular manifestation of life through natural selection or some such natural process, there is no need to proceed on to intelligent design. This gives us an important characterization of ID theory: it is at best a theory of remainders, of the left-overs that evolution cannot -- supposedly -- explain. Furthermore, Meyer and ID committed such fallacies as (1) choosing only confirming examples of their opinions and rejecting disconfirming ones, (2) shifting definitions, such that at one moment they are claiming to be doing science but at another moment they are redefining science into something that it is not, (3) tu quoque, or the "well, so are you" fallacy, as when he argued that ID is as legitimate as naturalistic science since naturalistic science has mistakes and frauds and biases too, (4) "decomposition," such that because some ID advocates are not religious, therefore ID is not a religious theory, and fundamentally (5) circular reasoning and "affirming the consequent," which takes the form, "An intelligently-designed phenomenon would show this-or-that trait, X shows this-or-that trait, therefore X is intelligently designed." (b) Scope In the time at hand, I was not able to press Meyer, and he did not volunteer, to discuss one key issue in ID theory: what exactly is its scope? Does it claim to be a theory of everything, i.e. does it claim that all of life and its processes are designed, or only some? Does it claim that there is no such thing as evolution at all, or only that certain phenomena cannot be explained by it? This is a very serious question. One of the most important features of evolutionary theory is that it is a comprehensive and self-sufficient theory. It is complete. It suggests that all manifestations of nature can be explained by natural processes with no exceptions and no left-overs. It does not absolutely forbid "other," including supernatural, explanations, but neither does it need them; as Laplace famously stated, it has no need of such hypotheses. In fact, as I indicated in my comments on the show, once we open the door to spiritual processes, how can we keep any, no matter how wild or unlikely, from entering? Intelligent-design theory has at least so far not claimed that every single chemical reaction, organ, and species in the world is the result of design, but there are only three analytical possibilities: all are, some are, or none are. Evolutionary theory says that none are, or at least that none are inexplicable without it. ID theory either claims that all natural phenomena are designed or some are. If some are, then some aren't, and they must accept natural processes as productive of some or most of the diversity of nature that we observe. Then they must explain why only the specifically-designed things are designed and why a designer would bother to design a flagellum or a Krebs cycle or an eye and nothing else. The theory becomes trivial at worst and incomplete at best. It would amount to saying that intelligence designed the spark plugs and evolution produced the rest of the car, which is incoherent. The only other choice is that intelligence designed everything -- for example, the chemical processes in my cells, the cells themselves, the organs that contain those cells, my species that contains those organs, and me personally as David Eller. But that has intelligence working on every aspect of every dimension of physical reality. Is that what they really want or say? So in the final analysis, design is either an incomprehensibly and monstrously complete theory or it is a hopelessly and uselessly incomplete theory -- a theory of gaps, of remainders, of left-overs. Quite frankly, neither interpretation makes any sense. (c) Religion One of the most interesting aspects of the entire ID project is its religious implications. Meyer stated unequivocally that it is a scientific initiative, not a religious one. There is no doubt that there is some science being done, or perhaps more accurately being discussed, but that does not mean there is no religion involved. In fact, if one looks at the information disseminated by the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture, which lists Meyers� name on it, one sees a different picture. I draw the readers' attention to the document describing the Center's "Wedge Strategy," well known among friends and foes of ID alike. The Wedge Strategy is an overt plan and effort to undo materialistic science and replace it with something else. Meyer admitted as much as that. However, what is this something else? In the Introduction of the document, the "proposition that human beings are created in the image of God" is part of the opening sentence. The same Introduction ends with a self-congratulation on how the Center has "re-opened the case for a broadly theistic understanding of nature." However, even that is not enough: as part of the "Strategic Plan" the paper states its aim to "reverse the stifling dominance of the materialistic worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions." The renamed "Center for Science and Culture" has more recently reformed its language to be both more covert and more confusing. On their website from mid-September of 2002, they testify to being committed to "recognizing mind, as well as matter, as a causal influence in the world." It is curious that Meyer disavowed this position in his remarks. Does he not actually write (or perhaps even read) the literature of his Center, or has he changed his mind on the subject, or was he being less than forthcoming? And after all, if ID is not religion, what were we doing on a "Faith under Fire" program? Or perhaps Meyer and the ID crowd have realized something that should give rational people heart and religious people heartburn -- that ID is not a good foundation for popular American Christianity. Even if ID theory can establish that there is an intelligence behind some or all of nature, that does not establish that this intelligence is the Jehovah/Jesus that most Americans believe in. It could just as easily be Allah, Vishnu, Odin, Zeus, Osiris, or any (and all) of the gods that humans have conceived throughout history. Even worse, it may not be a "god" as such at all. It could be some other type of spiritual being or force, like a ghost, genie, nymph, fairy, elf, or leprechaun. Worst of all, if we are to take this new reference to "mind" seriously, it might not even be a supernatural being but merely a super-intelligent race of aliens or beings from another dimension or just some creatures with highly-developed ESP. Conclusion Intelligent-design theory may or may not be religion in any meaningful sense, but one thing is certain -- it is not science. Science does not make unsubstantiated claims. Science does not introduce ideas without some explanatory mechanism behind them. And science does not try to bully its way into the public square and play on people's preconceptions to get itself heard. Ultimately, science does not talk nonsense: "intelligence" is not a thing that floats in space having adventures and creating material objects. Intelligence is a property of beings, and "intelligent design" talk is "intelligent being" talk. Whether they admit it or not, if ID theory has any value at all, ID theorists mean that intelligent beings are responsible for some or all of the order we observe, and they have not demonstrated -- and I think they in principle cannot demonstrate -- that this is so. Perhaps Meyer's backtracking on the matter of ID and religion should be a caution to religionists that ID is not their foundation or even their stalwart friend, that it is disingenuous and untrustworthy, and that it is already in a state of retreat and disarray, soon to be consigned to the scientific scrap heap along with phlogiston and the ether. |