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Author
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Topic: Design-centric vs. Designer-centric ID Theory
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Micah Sparacio
Member
Member # 6
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posted 29. September 2002 13:48
Mike Gene raised this strong distinction which I think is worthy of its own topic.
quote:
I'm afraid the MDT looks to be simply Designer-Centric Extremism (DCE) - a bad recipe for a real research program. Some of us derive fascination from an attempt to detect and understand design. Others obsess on the "designer" aspect. Consider a sloppy analogy. Traditional IDists would consider a scientists experiment and marvel over the elegance of the experiment and how it could be expanded. MDTers wouldn't really care about the experiment (yawn - another example of survivor bias) but instead would want a "People" magazine profile of the scientist's life.
The debate is often framed around designer-centeric conceptions of what ID should look like. My sense is that, barring any history shaking scientific discoveries, the ambiguous nature of the biotic world lends itself strongly to the design-centric version of ID and, as far as I can tell, not the designer-centric version.
[ 29. September 2002, 13:49: Message edited by: Micah Sparacio ]
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Evan
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Member # 164
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posted 29. September 2002 13:57
I have responded to this in the MDT thread, but I want to say here that I think the following is true: if a design inference can be made based on empirical data, and design theories says that it can, then inferences about some aspects of the nature of the designers are equally valid.
For instance, and I am repeating myself here but this is a different thread, evidence for completely front-loaded design versus evidence for design interventions at every speciation would also be evidence for different hypotheses about the nature of the designer. I don't see how evidence about design can avoid being also evidence about the designers.
(Added later) I'm not sure why the "centric" part is a necessary distinction. As I said in the other thread, it is reasonable for different people with different interests to pursue investigating different parts of the theory. It is true that detection of design is the current focus, mostly because detection of design has not been accepted by mainstream science and hasn't produced empirically verifiable methods of detecting precisely where and when design has occured. Therefore, this has to be done first.
But that doesn’t mean that no one should be considering further aspects of the theory.
Here is an analogy. On another forum at which I lurk, someone posted an exchange that Behe had during a Q&A at a conference. Someone asked him whether he thought enough data would ever be available to decide whether design was involved in speciation. Here was Behe’s answer:
quote:
Behe: It might be possible.
Let me just give you an analogy. I ask your patience here - you might not see the connection right away.
In the early part of the 20th century, when the big bang theory was being kind of floated around for the first time, no one had the foggiest idea about many questions - how could a big bang happen? This act had religious overtones. Did it require that God be the initiator of the big bang? Could we tell from the big bang theory anything about nature? At first, nobody had answers to those questions.
Over time, the answers to some of those questions have come about.
So you can’t predict, when you first start a theory, where it’s going to end up.
It seems the same thing applies here. We might not be able to see right now where design theory will end up because we don’t have enough data. But over time, as data comes in, people ask questions that become answerable even though at the beginning the questions themselves might have been unimaginable. So, as Behe says, “You can’t predict, when you first start a theory, where it’s going to end up.”
Discussion about the designers right now are mostly speculative hypotheses (which is very similar to much of what has gone on in cosmology) because not much actual data about design exists. But as the data comes in, the picture should focus - questions will be asked, more data will be gathered, and hypotheses will strengthen or weaken. That is the way science works. There is no reason to exclude inferences about the nature of the designers, in as much as they manifest themselves in empirically detectable phenomena, from our consideration.
[ 29. September 2002, 15:11: Message edited by: Evan ]
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brauer
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Member # 398
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posted 29. September 2002 18:59
Wow. I must say, this dismissal of an ID hypothesis as "designer-centered extremism" brings into high relief the scientific poverty of ID generally. Allow me to elaborate.
This weekend I attended the IDEA symposium at USF. This was a conference ostensibly about ID. However, every single talk that discussed any biology began and ended with the point that "there are aspects of life that cannot be explained by naturalistic mechanisms, particularly by natural selection."
A frequently used diagram comprised an arrow connecting (say) organic molecules to living organisms, or one connecting single cells to metazoans. The point was made repeatedely that there was not only no naturalistic explanation known, but that no naturalistic explanation was possible to connect these phenomena causally. In the middle of each of the causal arrows, then, was placed a big question mark.
At the end of the conference I brought this up to Michael Behe, and asked: "if naturalistic phenomena cannot explain this gap, how ever can ID explain it?" I made the point that not once during the conference had an ID "explanation" been offered for any biological phenomenon.
His response was similar to that discussed above by Evan. He said that ID, as such, does not provide explanations. He implied that the world would have to wait for a science, based upon ID, that could infer something about the designer(s), and use that to construct explanations. "Design-centered ID" is a necessary precursor to "designer-centered ID", I suppose was his point.
And he's correct: ID, per se provides nothing in the way of explanation. It is simply the negation of naturalistic mechanisms.
My question then becomes: "so what good is ID as a scientific endeavor?" It cannot provide explanations for anything. This might be ok as a philosophical or esthetic position, in which one simply wants to "marvel over the elegance" of that huge question mark. But it's baffling to me that a scientist would want to head off the development of further insight that might provide more explanation. By dismissing MDT as "designer-centered extremism" (note the disparaging tone of the "-ism" label!) Mike Gene is doing just that.
Sorry Mike. You can't expand the boundaries of science to include ID and then slam the gate shut when a discomforting implication arises. ID will have to deal with the possibilities raised by RBH, if it's to claim any scientific credibility.
Which shouldn't be that hard to do, it seems to me. If the tent of ID is big enough to include people who estimate the age of the universe as 6000 years along with those who estimate it to be 5 billion years, then why can't it accept those who postulate more than one designer?
[ 29. September 2002, 19:13: Message edited by: brauer ]
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Mike Gene
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Member # 149
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posted 29. September 2002 21:52
Hi Matt,
You write: But it's baffling to me that a scientist would want to head off the development of further insight that might provide more explanation.
I am not trying to head-off any such development. I am drawing attention to the difference in focus. Those who are more interested in a designer-centric approach should feel free to explore away. As you mention, they might turn up more explanations that I may find interesting or useful.
By dismissing MDT as "designer-centered extremism" (note the disparaging tone of the "-ism" label!) Mike Gene is doing just that.
I admit to having been put off by RBH's original claim that MDT is "superior" to any "current ID thinking" and I could have possibly reflected the disparaging tone of RBH's original claims. Nevertheless, the 'extremism' charge comes from my perception that the version of MDT RBH was promoting (necessarily entailing disembodied designers as explained by charlie) seems to stem from the black-and-white approach where either Everything comes from Design or Everything comes from a cause other than Design. That's extremism.
Sorry Mike. You can't expand the boundaries of science to include ID and then slam the gate shut when a discomforting implication arises.
I have not done this. What "discomforting" suggestions did you have in mind? Do you really think I would not be comfortable with the idea that multiple intelligent designers are behind life?
ID will have to deal with the possibilities raised by RBH, if it's to claim any scientific credibility.
Individuals can choose for themselves: A) Credibility by using ID to truly illuminate biotic reality or B) credibility by using ID to speculate about the temperament of the designer #42.
Which shouldn't be that hard to do, it seems to me. If the tent of ID is big enough to include people who estimate the age of the universe as 6000 years along with those who estimate it to be 5 billion years, then why can't it accept those who postulate more than one designer?
MDTs are welcome in the tent, as far as I am concerned. One of the complaints from the ID critics is that ID proponents don't argue among themselves. Now the complaint is that I do argue with other ID proponents? Every way I turn, there is some critic to complain. Which means you can't make 'em all happy. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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Evan
Member
Member # 164
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posted 29. September 2002 22:28
In the MDT thread, Mike Gene wrote,
quote:
Can it be that the MDT is the direct offshoot of that black-and-white extremist thinking that scores Everything either as Design or Non-design (RM&NS)? If so, MDT suffers the problem of ignoring a vast and rich middle ground.
The need for unembodiment exists only in the most Extreme version of MDT.
I am responding here because this thread is about the more general issue of designer theory, irrespective of whether it is multiple or singular designer theory.
I don’t understand why Mike thinks any of the posts on MDT incorporated a black-and-white, all design or all RM&NS approach. I think a central feature of design theory as outlined by virtually all the public and published ID advocates is the idea that only some things are designed, and that much of what science describes as happening via naturalistic causes is quite valid. Dembski and Behe both give considerable credit to the power of RM, NS, and other evolutionary mechanisms.
A central question of design theory is more precisely what, when, and where did design happen. What things are designed? and how can we tell? This is not a black-and-white, all-or-nothing question, but rather a balanced question about how design interacts with natural evolutionary processes, and when are natural processes insufficient to account for what appears to have happened.
Of course, ID critics who do not believe that design of the sort under discussion exists have a black-and-white view: all natural causes and no design. But that is the issue of design detection. This discussion is rather, given the assumption (even if merely for the sake of discussion) that design detection is valid, what can we then infer about the designer? And no one that I know of has even remotely suggested that scientifically we could show that everything was designed.
So I don’t understand Mike’s point.
I also do not see why Mike says that the “need for unembodiment exists only in the most Extreme version” of design theory. Dembski certainly seems to think that unembodied designers (singular for him) are by far the most likely. There are theories of directed panspermia, and theories of alien designers (some of which are pretty flaky), but, again, the major ID advocates appear to imply unembodied designers.
So even though possible hypotheses for embodied designers exist, I don’t think it’s reasonable to label hypotheses about unembodied designers “extreme.” RBH chose to address unembodied designers in his post, and that seems like a reasonable choice to make. You can’t discuss everything all at once, and it seems clear to me that it was his purpose to focus on a particular aspect of design theory.
In summary, I don’t think there is anything black-or-white or extreme and the discussions going on.
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brauer
Member
Member # 398
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posted 29. September 2002 22:46
Hi Mike,
Thanks for the clarification. I hope the tone of my message didn't come across as too strident.
I think that you may be placing too much importance on RBH's use of the word "superior" to describe MDT's vs. SDT's. Superior could be taken to mean above or over in the sense of being a superset. Poor word choice though, I agree.
But I'm curious: do you agree with Behe that "design-centered ID" (i.e., ID that assigns a probability that an event was designed, but does not continue to infer anything about the designer) cannot offer any explanations for natural phenomena? Do you agree with Behe that ID must progress into the "designer-centered ID" before it can offer any such explanations?
If you don't agree, could you please speculate about how knowing (with arbitrarily high confidence) that a designer was involved in a process could in any way contribute to an explanation of that process, especially given a lack of all knowledge about the nature of that designer?
If "design-centered ID" (let's call it "ID1") can't offer any such explanations, then the complaints I heard this weekend about the limitations of naturalistic models are just plain irrelevant: ID does no better at providing an explanation than does RM&NS, and in fact does worse in many cases (in that it can provide no explanation of any kind).
This leads me to wonder if you think that explanation is a requirement for a scientific theory. That is, would you deny that a scientific theory's value should be based at all on how well it provides explanations for natural phenomena? If so, how would you evaluate the validity of a theory that explains nothing?
[Personally, I would contend that the nature of the designer is critical to the kind of philisophico-aesthetic goals that you discuss. To illustrate: I would say that the Raelian ID hypothesis shares much more with RM&NS than either does with an extreme "disembodied designer" account such as is found in the literal interpretation of Genesis. In both the Raelian and RM&NS accounts, the universe is 1,000,000 times older more or less than in the Genesis account. That's quite significant, and would have important ramifications even for the simple appreciation of the true nature of the universe.]
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brauer
Member
Member # 398
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posted 02. October 2002 13:05
It occurs to me that "Design-centric ID" (henceforth referred to as "ID1") by itself guarantees that no meaningful predictions can be made.
As an analogy, consider string theory. It might be enough, one might say, to establish whether or not the universe is in fact composed of tiny multidimensional strings. But string theory by itself has a vast number of parameters. Until these parameters are nailed down, no experiment could ever have anything to say about the validity of the theory as a whole. Focussing on the question "is string theory true?" is a philosophical endeavor. Only by asking "which string theory might be true, and what does that particular theory predict?" can one begin to study the topic scientifically.
"ID2" ("designer-centered" ID) could in principle begin to make predictions that might be testable. ID1 cannot, which is why the IDEA conference I attended last weekend was simply an exercise in trying to demonsrate the falsity of natural selection.
(But note: there are non-ID alternatives to natural selection, so negating RM&NS is not sufficient to establish ID.)
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Mike Gene
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Member # 149
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posted 02. October 2002 19:17
Hi Matt,
You write: do you agree with Behe that "design-centered ID" (i.e., ID that assigns a probability that an event was designed, but does not continue to infer anything about the designer) cannot offer any explanations for natural phenomena?
You need to clarify what you mean by "explanation" before I can answer. For example, do you mean explaining how something came to be?
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Don Brancato
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Member # 417
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posted 03. October 2002 03:52
My essay entitled "Truth in Science" posted on 19 September, 2002 attempts to address two fundamental issues. The first is that only where concepts or theories, if you will, provide a foundation or insight into time validated occurences in the natural order should they be espoused by "true" scientists. Secondly, any proposed pronouncement speculating on some natural order or law must open or reveal new or deeper insights or truths.
Simply, any correct assumption regarding the natural order or law must expose more information. Truth yields truth - from alpha to omega.
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brauer
Member
Member # 398
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posted 03. October 2002 11:22
Mike,
Imagine that you have some process: biogenesis, phylogenesis, origin of multicellularity, whatever, that is not understood in detail. There is a black box labelled with a question mark that contains at least some of the unknown steps of that process.
My question is this: how can ID1 ("design-centered" ID) resolve the contents of such a black box, other than to replace the question mark with the label "Design"?
Alternatively: think of the explanations that ID advocates demand of NS in explaining, say, the origin of "the" bacterial flagellum. Now apply that same demand to ID1, to the same level of detail asked of NS.
I think Behe's right: ID1 by itself contributes nothing to this program.
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Paul A. Nelson
Member
Member # 26
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posted 03. October 2002 12:36
Hi Matt,
You wrote:
quote:
there are non-ID alternatives to natural selection
Could you spell out what some of these are? No one raised them in reply to my IDEA talk on the origin of the animals. (I was disappointed that Alan Gishlick, who clearly has opinions about the topic, said nothing.)
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Frances
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Member # 169
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posted 03. October 2002 13:15
Paul:
For instance genetic drift would make for a non-ID alternative. Furtermore, how can we be sure that we understand yet all natural processes? We may see some 'chicken and egg' problems like the bind/release system for copper but such 'problems' are not unique to evolution. What is the ID hypothesis for such problems? I would be interested in hearing more about hypotheses which help us understand the world around us and if Paul thinks that designer centric/design centric hypotheses will be helpful then by all means. I am listening.
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brauer
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Member # 398
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posted 03. October 2002 13:44
Hi Paul,
Self-organization and Lamarckian evolution spring to mind as non-ID alternatives to natural selection. No doubt there are many others.
As long as these possible alternatives exist (each, I might add, having at least as much explanatory power as the generic "a designer was was responsible" hypothesis), ID cannot simply rest on the claim: ~NS -> ID.
Note that my complaint is with the generic ID hypothesis. This is vague enough to be untestable, and is essentially a model with an infinite number of parameters. Modern evolutionary biology has a finite set of parameters, each committed to a definite domain of allowable values. My criticism would be substantially different (and a lot more difficult!) if a specific ID model were ever offered.
My take from Michael Behe's remarks is that the specific models ("designer-centered" ID) will have to wait until it's been nailed down that the designer exists (which is the job of "design-centered" ID). Unfortunately, the proof of ID is in the pudding of its predictions. My guess is that most of the scientific world will remain unconvinced of the need to invoke a designer until doing so gives us something that we didn't have before. This will require a specific ID hypothesis.
BTW, I was sorry to have missed your talk, but I just couldn't duck out of that much child-care.
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Mike Gene
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Member # 149
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posted 04. October 2002 08:04
Hi Matt,
Imagine that you have some process: biogenesis, phylogenesis, origin of multicellularity, whatever, that is not understood in detail. There is a black box labelled with a question mark that contains at least some of the unknown steps of that process.
My question is this: how can ID1 ("design-centered" ID) resolve the contents of such a black box, other than to replace the question mark with the label "Design"?
Good question. I suppose it turns on how we think of design. Does something come to be because some external intelligence directly brings it into existence? If so, we'd need to recover the recipes, protocols, blueprints, technology, etc. But that's a real problem, as the actual mechanisms of design cannot be recovered by studying nature. [1] However, I think ID1 can learn from the way scientists have approached abiogenesis. That too is a field where we cannot hope to recover the exact mechanisms. The most scientists expect here is the ability to come up with a rather robust explanation about how life could have arose from non-life, with experimental support for the major transition steps. ID theorists should begin to ponder how life could have been designed. The problem here is that this is a much more difficult problem because our only guide is our experience with design. And the things we design are little more than toys when compared things like the cell. It's like asking a medieval scholar to explain the design mechanisms of the space shuttle.
Nevertheless, what ID1 can do is begin thinking about designing cells and then trying to design a simple cell that is able to persist and adapt [2]. The information and experience that would come from such a lofty objective would probably prove quite helpful in filling in the black box of "Design." That is, ID theorists would have their own "could have been" story with experimental support along the way. Janitor has long advised us to consider "the science of design." Of course, "designing a cell" will probably depend on advances in different fields of engineering, computer technology, biotechnology, nanotechnology, and AI/robotics. Thus, ID theorists would have to both deepen and broaden their pool of players.
More if I get the time....
1. http://idthink.net/back/mech/index.html
2. See "What is an Explanation?" in Science 297, 1813.
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Paul A. Nelson
Member
Member # 26
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posted 04. October 2002 12:19
Matt wrote:
quote:
Self-organization and Lamarckian evolution spring to mind as non-ID alternatives to natural selection.
I guess so, viewed as abstract possibilities.
But think of this on the model of a boxing match. Ali and Frazier have a fight scheduled. Frazier bows out (he has the flu). Now who is going to go up against Ali?
"Well, we've got this grandmother here, and an 8 year old kid."
Do you take Lamarckian or self-organizational theories seriously yourself, Matt?
BTW: I agree with your main point. There is something deeply dissatisfying about establishing the bona fides of one theory by debunking another. Design simply must put novel predictions of its own on the blackboard.
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