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On Unbelief III. Deconstructing Arguments From Design
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On Unbelief III. Deconstructing Arguments From Design
“Assume the existence of God,---and then the harmony and fitness of the physical creation may be shown to correspond with and support such an assumption;---but to set about proving the existence of God by such means is a mere circle, a delusion” - Samuel Taylor Coleridge (emphasis in original). [1]

At the conclusion of my foregoing remarks I said that we would have to meet certain objections to a number of my statements up to this point. In his first reply, I can hear my critic declaring: “Ah-ha! I formerly asserted, 'none of those... states of being really exist... to me,' to which your response included the following: 'Real objects possess the ability to cause a practical change in the perceptive world, viz., the senses,' and, 'apart from the inefficiency of thoughts to produce change in objects, with the exception of whatever change is manifested in the thinking subject'; You see, you have only reaffirmed my original skepticism (to hell with solipsism), and rather have defined the difference between 'subjective,' 'objective,' 'the real and the apparently real,' according to your perception, attaching your personal evaluations to them. In fact, your conception of 'objectivity' sounds to my ears like 'consensus reality,' or worse: scientism. That is, you believe that only the 'scientific method' can discover true 'principles of order,' as you might like to call them, and only these can be said to describe nature 'objectively.' Well, in short, I wholly reject your appeal to 'clearer definitions'. You mean Pascal's 'dream a little less inconstant,' [2] reality as it evolved to appear in the brains of our species, while I assert that your esoteric principles of order might as well be the phenomenal effect of Kant's noumenon, [3] Schopenhauer's Will, Spinoza's Deus sive Natura, [4] Paley's Creator, the Atman of Vedantism, [5] or, in other words: you have a faith kept concealed. You have faith in your senses by way of reasoning that directly infers the truth of what some would call Deity.”

Those are quite the objections. We may be inclined to ask our critic if he has anything else he would like to add. “Yes, and one more thing. I accept Darwinian selection as an explanation for the apparent order in the Universe, particularly in terms of biological development, but you are mistaken to confuse mechanism with cause. Evolution may be the mechanism by which our reality came to be perceived by us, but it is not the vera causa. [6] It would be similar to explaining the toothed wheels and coiled elastic springs [7] of a watch and then paradoxically concluding that, regardless of its origin, it came to be constructed in such a way so as to measure time but not for any particular purpose. Indeed, the infinitely complex and unknown conditions, resulting from relatively simple yet intricately determined regularities forged in a gravitational singularity some 13.8 billion years ago, for which no explanation can be given, and all of this required for the two of us to ponder the possibility of Deity... that is a miracle, as Einstein declared! It's a sign!”

We see that by no means is our friend trying to humor us, and shall gladly oblige. 1st, on the charge that I have unjustly enunciated “objectivity” so as to ignore the “skeptic's” chief concerns, his criticism is easily refutable by way of a practical analogy. Imagine that your friend (the solipsist, in fact) calls you in a panic and proclaims to you that his arm is on fire (you told him matches can be dangerous). Not possessing any other details of his situation, you might tell him to run to a nearby water source or to “stop, drop, and roll” as children are often taught. Suppose, however, that your friend has taken an unknown substance and is merely hallucinating or having an adverse reaction. In one case, the matter involves what everybody understands to be a “real” fire; in the other instances, an imaginary fire, or perhaps but a burning sensation, all of which, I admit, would seem quite real to him, probably to varying degrees. The “scientific” approach is, roughly, to define the problem and discover a solution. The fact that we must attribute our friend's discomfort to either the object “fire,” the thought “fire!” or the mere sensation of being “on fire,” and that our response depends on the true cause, justifies the necessity of clearly defining what is meant by perceived subject-object distinctions. In regards to any alleged evaluation of “real and apparently real” or an arbitrary appeal to “consensus reality,” I rather adhere simply to Einstein's sensible rule of thumb that “in guiding us in the creation of such an order of sense experiences, success in the result is alone the determining factor.” [8] That is what is meant by the scientific, or empirical, method. To him who objects, I ask, on what possible grounds is your approach more credible? To borrow from the words of historian Richard Carrier: “Now suppose I told you 'I own an interstellar spacecraft.' That would be an... extraordinary claim---because there is no generalization supporting it at all. Not only do you have tons of very good evidence that 'people like him own interstellar spacecraft' is not true, you also have no evidence this has ever been true for anyone... Therefore, the burden of evidence I would have to bear here is truly enormous. Just think of what it would take for you to believe I really did have an interstellar spacecraft, and again you'll see what I mean.” [9] There can be no dispute, however, that the nature and the weight of the evidence Mr. Carrier would be obliged to provide would alter, and greatly diminish, if he later clarified that he had only been speaking in the context of a dream. Likewise, it's doubtful that anyone would believe even their best friend, though her character was otherwise entirely honest, if she claimed to be the child of a goddess (a poor example perhaps); on the other hand, if your friend had meant to say merely that she felt like the child of a goddess, possibly due to her good fortune, you would very much believe in the validity of her feelings, but not in the literal existence of divine offspring. If I have not made myself sufficiently clear by now, and one feels that I have not established the meaning of objectivity or the importance of distinguishing mental events from actual ones in a satisfactory manner, I am afraid we will simply have to differ on this point, and hope to resolve the issue later in our discussion.

2ndly, I cannot help but find the accusation of “scientism” curious and yet flattering. I propose that you really consider what such a “criticism” implies; it is as if our opponent finds it problematic that we investigate purported truth claims by applying not only a stricter method, but also the same demands and expectations we apply to virtually everything else for which we have good reasons to doubt. What is the spirit of science? For beginners, it is an “ideal of objectivity, an ideal that subjects all scientific statements to the test of independent and impartial criteria, recognizing no authority of persons in the realm of cognition.” [10] It can also be said to embody skepticism, doubt, inquisitiveness, a thirst for knowledge (details matter!), empiricism, collaboration, and criticism; most importantly, science works. It has repeatedly proven the statement by Francis Bacon correct: “Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion.” [11] It is as if in reply to Socrates's popular maxim, “follow the evidence, wherever it leads,” these gentlemen pronounce condemnations of impiety. Of course, by “scientism” they intend to insinuate that we have closed off our minds to other “truths” for which our senses are ill-equipped to discover. Our critic means that we have rejected his sophistry for reasons other than a distaste for shoddy logic, or that we have not “felt” the truth of his metaphysics because we have not yet received sufficient grace, or that he believes in a category of facts, which he might relate to mathematics and ethics, insisting that these are demonstrably true, or even self-evident, but cannot be established through the use of the senses as they instead rely only upon reason; they are a priori true, whereas the scientific method always operates a posteriori. Thus, he may place certain ideas within a category of “abstract truths,” feeling confident that he has rendered our attempts to establish a means of verification for his claims entirely vain.

Such tactics men will employ to justify any credulity! It seems obvious to me that their error lies in classifying definitions as real objects rather than real objects by definitions. For example, “the bachelor is unmarried” is true regardless of the question, “Do bachelors actually exist and in what manner?” because a bachelor is, by definition, an unmarried male; so it is with numerical values and ethical statements (the latter of which I shall return to discuss in greater length at a later point). It may be a strange occurrence that our brains evolved to quantify objects and processes by way of elaborate abstract computations symbolically expressed, but I can see no justification for inferring from this that abstractions precede percepts. That is to say, our abstractions indeed define reality intellectually, making it intelligible and meaningful, but they do not possess the ability to create reality. That mathematical or ethical statements truly imitate the conditions in which we find ourselves cannot be decided by ponderance alone, although certain concepts may be true in the context of their use (for example, twice two always makes four); such philosophical speculation, though sometimes valuable, has repeatedly proven itself either incorrect or insufficient from time immemorial. To inform ourselves about the nature of objective reality, we must, unless a more credible option is made available, employ the scientific method, and for that we are unabashedly guilty of scientism.

Our opponent's third and fourth objections, that a) we have faith in “principles of order” or “what some would call Deity,” but ignobly refuse to call it such, and that b) a Darwinian explanation accounts for the processes by which nature has evolved to appear designed but it cannot resolve the question as to what these apparent contrivances may be for, shall now be dealt with.

I have placed these arguments for God's existence, which is what they undoubtedly are, together, and a third may be added: some variety of argument from the existence of consciousness to a conscious designer or first cause. In common, apart from their flippant illogic, these three converging lines of ratiocination represent mankind's tendency to anthropomorphize the world, and therefore God, attempting to make a Creator in our image (or us in his), and hence, open the possibility that we might be especially special: everything exists with us as an essential part of a mysterious ultimate plan! All three seek to establish the existence of a superhuman intelligence by whom the Universe came into being, bearing a particular species of primate in mind. Although we will later have to confront the superstitious beliefs allied to theism when we address the question of purpose, presently it will suffice to understand 'God' in the deistic sense; it's entirely possible that a superhuman intelligence created the world for reasons unrelated to our existence, and thus, for no purpose unique to mankind.

“Physicists---and most everyone else as well---rely crucially upon the stability of the universe,” writes the theoretical physicist Brian Greene. “The laws that are true today were true yesterday and will still be true tomorrow (even if we have not been clever enough to have figured them all out). After all, what meaning can we give to the term 'law' if it can abruptly change? This does not mean that universe is static; the universe certainly changes in innumerable ways from each moment to the next. Rather, it means that the laws governing such evolution are fixed and unchanging. You might ask whether we really know this to be true. In fact, we don't. But our success in describing numerous features of the universe, from a brief moment after the big bang right through to the present, assures us that if the laws are changing they must be doing so very slowly. The simplest assumption that is consistent with all that we know is that the laws are fixed.” He goes on to add: “Thankfully, everything we know points towards the laws of physics being the same everywhere. All experiments the world over converge on the same set of underlying physical explanations. Moreover, our ability to explain a vast number of astrophysical observations of far-flung regions of the cosmos using one, fixed set of physical principles leads us to believe that the same laws do hold true everywhere” (emphasis in original). [12] Everybody informed enough to make a relevant judgment recognizes that our current understanding of physical laws---from quantum mechanics on the smallest scale to Einstein's theory of relativity on the largest---is not in any sense complete (for both cannot ultimately be correct and hence, the search for a “theory of everything” rages on). We shall here only concern ourselves with the Universe as it has existed since the first moments proceeding the beginning of time; I will also exclude any debate concerning the universality of physical laws and take Mr. Greene to be correct that the fundamental forces hold true in all places and at all times.

As you might already have considered, this is an astonishing discovery. It would appear as though, owing to the scrupulous endeavors of scientific exploration, human beings have gradually evolved from extremely low forms of life that were originally produced by forces permeating the entire Universe, but more incredibly, our nerve cells have managed to create an abstract model of this process using rational principles, such as mathematics, and the empirical method. Is this not an indication that intelligence and rationality are deeply embedded in the very fabric of nature? Are these not indications of an “order” that certain gentlemen call God? The theologian William Paley rightly asked: “How are things, including so many adjustments, to be made; or, when made, how are they to be put together, without intelligence?” [13] Also pertinent to our discussion is Paley's objection that one cannot “form to himself an idea of what is meant by a principle of order, distinct from the intelligence of the watch-maker,” [14] and his remark that “our business lies rather with the origin of the principle, than with the effects and expressions of it.” [15] With regards to the latter statement, I am in complete agreement; with Paley's other presumptions, however, a few problems emerge, as I will soon discuss.

Although my hypothetical critic readily admitted the truth of Darwinian selection, I must make a necessary digression. An updated version of Paley's argument is to be found in the so-called “Intelligent Design” movement. One of its founding fathers is Michael Behe, whose background lies in biochemistry. Whereas Paley, writing at the dawn of the 19th century (nearly six decades before the Darwinian revolution), could only appeal to anatomical contrivances (apart from astronomy)---bones, muscles, blood vessels, etc.---Behe argues that molecular biology poses similar insurmountable obstacles to the theory of evolution, which, by the way, existed in Paley's time but was misunderstood in a wholly dissatisfactory manner. Behe insists that as technology has allowed scientists to probe deeper into the structures of living bodies, history has repeatedly revealed “a chain of black boxes; as one is opened, another is revealed,” [16] and that an “irreducible complexity” rests at the heart of the matter (quite literally). In Behe's view, biochemistry demonstrates a requirement of “minimal function” in life's most basic components such that it renders Darwin's theory astronomically improbable, if not utterly fantastic; natural selection “only works if there is something to select---something that is useful right now, not in the future.” (emphasis in original). [17] This has created gaps so enormous that even Darwin, who plainly recognized that “if it could be demonstrated true that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down,” [18] would be forced to concede: Darwinism is a failed explanation. On the one hand, Behe succeeds in offering numerous examples of molecular “factories,” the remarkable mechanisms underlying biological processes that, due to sheer complexity, astonish the human mind. On the other hand, what does he offer to support his thesis that such minute intricacy, which can do so much, is irreducible and cannot have evolved by the principles of “multiple, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die,” at least not by physical laws alone? How does he demonstrate the necessity of his “just-so story,” and does it prove more plausible than “stepping stones” which “existed in the past but have disappeared”? [19]

Behe offers us (hypothetical) man-made examples of irreducible complexity like “mousetraps, Rube Goldberg machines, and the intracellular transport system.” [20] He enlists many Darwinists to make his case, quoting those who have expressed doubts about the precise role of natural selection in designing certain features, others whom, according to Behe, have failed to satisfactorily explain particular historical details, and still others who have suggested alternatives to one aspect of evolutionary theory or another. He gives a number of lurid accounts of such wonders as the bacterial flagellum and the formation of blood clots, and concludes, naturally: “All of the reasons for such complexity are not yet clear and await further experimental investigation... Darwinian theory has given no explanation for the cilium or flagellum. The overwhelming complexity of the swimming systems push us to think it may never given an explanation” (emphasis mine). [21] Well, I guess that's that. On second thought, I expect a good scientist might reply, “Speak for yourself!” Behe's argument succeeds only in highlighting the fact that we remain ignorant with regards to exactly how specific molecular structures evolved to function as they do, and, his personal incredulity. Actually, many of his examples, such as the flagella of certain bacteria, have been shown to be reducible and perfectly functional, but for a different purpose. [22] His solution for these apparent enigmas is, obviously, something no less than God himself. Behe even has the tenacity to write that “a rigorous theory of intelligent design will be a useful tool for the advancement of science in an area that has been moribund for decades.” [23] Moribund for decades? Keep in mind, he's talking about molecular evolution here; this was written in 1996(!) At any rate, in consideration of Paley's aphorisms that “the consciousness of knowing, need not beget a distrust of that which he does know,” [24] and that “the uncertainty of one thing, does not necessarily affect the certainty of another thing,” for “our ignorance of many points need not suspend our assurance of a few,” [25] are we obliged to conclude, as Behe does, that an intelligent designer must be, or is even likely to be, responsible for life?

The short answer is no. The first problem that arises from all physico-theological arguments is equivocation. Take the word “design” for example. According to Behe, “our ability to be confident of the design of the cilium or intracellular transport rests on the same principles as our ability to be confident of the design of anything: the ordering of separate components to achieve an identifiable function that depends sharply on the components.” [26] Perhaps the problem is that many are not so confident. Even Behe himself later concludes, “from our modern vantage, it's hard to realize what an assault on the senses was perpetrated by Copernicus and Galileo; they said in effect that people could no longer rely on even the evidence of their eye...” (before adding without a hint of irony, “...Now it's the turn of the fundamental science of life, modern biochemistry, to disturb.”) [27] Hard, indeed. I rather think “the mere word 'design',” as wrote the pragmatist William James “by itself, we see, has no consequences and explains nothing. It is the barrenest of principles. The old question of whether there is design is idle. The real question is what is the world, whether or not it have a designer---and that can be revealed only by the study of all nature's particulars” (emphasis in original). [28] As I have repeatedly stressed, definitions matter. A century later, with multiple revolutions in physics, biology, chemistry---across all of their sub-branches---both atheists and theists (I am here including all varieties) claim vindication for their side. Yet only one is correct. There seems to be two important, distinct questions that the opposing perspectives answer quite differently: Can Darwinian principles sufficiently account for the “appearance” of design without appealing to a god-like consciousness or intelligent designer? (Not to exclude the possibility of a “team” of intelligent “minds” or “designers”). And 2ndly, why does Nature have the appearance of design that it does? It is the position of this author (probably quite obvious by now) that in response to the first question, quite affirmatively, yes, and to the second, we don't know, ultimately. We do, however, have a good idea up to a point---a very, very early point---a point beyond which I'm not convinced our language can even proceed and remain coherent. In regards to the first question, about the power of Darwinism, and more explicitly, if I may be permitted to state, reductionism, I believe the record, contrary to some puzzles that Behe rightly illuminates, speaks for itself. We have a long ways to go, nobody would dispute that, but it should never be underestimated how far our species has come. Let's see if we can understand what is actually meant by “intelligence” and “design”; if these concepts do not hold good when applied to the Universe, we will have to surrender our usage of them in that context. I already briefly submitted my stance on consciousness as it relates to the objective world in the foregoing essay, so here I will only make an additional comment or two.

In The Blind Watchmaker, Dawkins, before giving a memorable account of echolocation in bats, coincides with Behe on one point: “When it comes to complexity and beauty of design, Paley hardly even began to state the case. We may say that a living body or organ is well designed if it has attributes that an intelligent and knowledgeable engineer might have built into it in order to achieve some sensible purpose, such as flying, swimming, seeing, eating, reproducing, or more generally promoting the survival and replication of the organism's genes.” [29] Dawkins’ argument, naturally, and the one I'm inclined to agree with, is that “given infinite time, or infinite opportunities, anything is possible. The large numbers proverbially furnished by astronomy, and the large time spans characteristic of geology, combine to turn topsy-turvy our everyday estimates of what is expected and what is miraculous.” [30] All that is to say is, given the immensity of time and space, and the overwhelming evidence that life, planets, stars, galaxies, and possibly universes have evolved in one way or another (through physical laws, and natural selection once varying self-replicators came into play), we should not conclude that, however astonishing we perceive the results to be, the events are necessarily improbable, on account of... what exactly? Necessity and chance? To be sure, nobody knows. To reiterate, I quite sympathize with the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer that “every genuine, and thus actually original, force of nature, however, and this also includes every fundamental chemical property, is essentially a qualitas occulta, that is to say, it is no longer capable of a physical, but only of a metaphysical, explanation, in other words, of one that transcends the phenomenon” (emphasis in original). [31] I might also add his observation that, equally transcendent, but more in the sense that it completely defies comprehension, “is the point where space has an end” or “the moment when time had a beginning.” [32] To be fair though, Schopenhauer wrote during a period when it was immensely popular among philosophers and scientists to believe that the Universe was eternal, and, at least as our Universe is concerned, many would argue that big bang cosmology strongly discredits that position; it is now widely believed that there was, in fact, a beginning of time and space. Could the laws of nature have evolved in the “initial moments of time,” as a consequence of chance and necessity, to bring about complex life that would gradually acquire god-like intelligence? Once again, nobody knows, but there are a few arguments that I will put forth to persuade you, the reader, that such ignorance is not strictly confined to a scientific worldview, and that in actuality, it is the scientific method, striving for objectivity in our observations of the physical world---informing our metaphysics and not the other way around---which serves as the only possible antidote.

If not properly understood, the following point I would like to make is quite useless as an argument; I wholeheartedly agree with the late Australian philosopher J.L. Mackie that, as it is often applied in some contexts, it “is not a good reply.” [33] That said, I believe it is an important principle to bear in mind, and one that is often ignored. I speak, of course, of the anthropic principle. It applies to us in two contexts: 1st, is there unique significance in the Universe possessing the properties that it does? 2ndly, is our home, abundant with life, highly privileged among planets, and if so, why? We must momentarily set aside that tenacious question “Why?” The anthropic principle basically states that the structure of the cosmos, and the evolution of intelligent beings, is significant if only because we are alive to recognize it as such. That is to say, while nobody ultimately knows why existence is this way and not that, it appears finely tuned for life because you are here to perceive it, and that the same would be true no matter what configuration the Universe took, so long as it was conducive to the emergence of beings sufficiently competent to ponder their surroundings. Obviously, nobody would be around to wonder about a Universe that wasn't suitable for life.

This may seem lazily redundant so I'll elaborate a bit more as to why I think it matters. The anthropic principle can be applied in two ways: to the origin of life and to the origin of the Universe. In regards to the former, I think it is more effective. We know the Universe to be vast in its size and age. Actually, merely the word “vast” is a vast understatement. Some estimates place the number of Earth-like planets in the Milky Way Galaxy at around 40 billion, to say nothing of the total number of planets that might be able to contain life in one form or another. Even if the odds against life developing on any single Earth-like planet (assuming the right conditions are present, whatever those may be) are high, say, one in a billion, that would still mean that at least forty planets certainly bear life in our galaxy. Astronomers believe there to be, based on the data retrieved by the Hubble telescope, about 100 billion galaxies. We can safely declare the origin of life to be an extraordinarily rare event and yet even so, “given infinite time, or infinite opportunities, anything is possible.” In fact, extraordinarily rare events are observed in space all the time.

With regards to the cosmological application of the anthropic principle, since nobody knows what, or if, anything existed prior to the big bang (before the beginning of our space-time dimensions), it can only be applied on those theories which make probable the existence of other universes. Much if not all of physics about that point (in time?) is terribly speculative, though I don't say that as a criticism. After all, physics works, and at least the equations used to arrive at such theories occasionally result in “theorists... 'kicking down a theoretical stone' from the ultra-high-energy mountaintop to experimentalists working at a lower base camp” (emphasis in original). [34] We must confess that if the picture of reality depicted on the scientific worldview is roughly correct, and we are able to give a plausible (though often patchy) explanation for how everything that exists does so in the manner which we perceive, and our limits are most pronounced only when we arrive at the singularity---that moment when quantum mechanics and general relativity break down---then, “on the one hand... the burden of explanation has grown lighter: there is literally less to explain. And, on the other hand... if you explain the order in the natural world by a divine plan, you still have to explain the order in the divine mind.” [35] David Hume makes the same point through the character Philo in his literary masterpiece Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. We shall return to the questions posed by the Universe's origins in the following essay when the “cosmological argument” is addressed. In this context I only speak on the matter of design. Thus, for now, we arrive to what seem to be the real questions posed by arguments from design: Does the infinite complexity that pervades our world suggest a higher intelligence that is fundamental in nature? What is meant by “higher intelligence”? And finally, in surveying all of this, what could any of it be for? Does belief in a god satisfy our innate desire to understand why?

It's not my intent here to explore the various hypotheses put forth with regards to the spontaneous generation of organic life on this planet, primarily because it does not pertain to the main point that I will be arguing. In passing, I will simply remark that a Darwinian approach, given the astonishing clue that all life is composed of chemicals found in abundance (carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, etc.), both on Earth and elsewhere, including the knowledge that these fundamental elements are forged in stars, serves as our best guide to understanding how life originally got started. The evidence currently available places the formation of Earth at about 4.5 billion years ago. The oldest fossilized life, cyanobacteria, is found in the geological record approximately a billion years later. The first complex multicellular organisms are found in rocks dating to around 575 million years ago, or about 3 billion years after cyanobacteria. Shortly after, or rather 40 million years, we find the appearance of basic body forms that are traceable to modern groups. I sympathize with Behe to the extent that natural selection doesn't directly resolve many of the difficult questions posed by the study of organic life, but that it has proven to be the only sensible approach, and an effective one in so many ways, would be an understatement. There are many puzzling features in the animal kingdom today that we can, at best, only speculate upon, and Behe is talking about events that happened billions of years ago. That amount of time is far beyond our decades-conscious comprehension. When speaking about the machinery of molecular biology, we are talking about processes that occur in the span of picoseconds. A picosecond is one millionth of one millionth of a second. The simple cells of modern cyanobacteria are known to replicate as often as every thirty minutes. Evolution would clearly favor any organic arrangement that acquired the property of replication, that could do so more quickly than its competition, perhaps ushering an “arms-race,” as well as those which, beginning very simply, found means to cooperate for the mutual assurance of future progeny. Given these rates and timescales (not to mention the possibility of life forming elsewhere in space and then arriving to Earth, say, via a comet), can we really be so presumptuous as to declare Darwinism dead at the first sign of difficulty in understanding how molecular biology evolved over the Earth's first billion years? Rightly, I think, the consensus amongst the scientific community, given the evidence, is: absolutely not.

Darwin's theory does explain a lot [36], but more to the point, it offers us something no rival theory can: a framework that renders the problems and their solutions intelligible. Even if many of the historical details remain unknown, Darwin's account has opened up innumerable pathways by which the life sciences have flourished, and it continues to shed light on old problems. “The uncertainty of one thing, does not necessarily affect the certainty of another thing.” We must, at the very least, agree with the tenor of the following sentiment Darwin so often expressed: “Under a scientific point of view, and as leading to further investigation, but little advantage is gained by believing that new forms are suddenly developed in an inexplicable manner from old and widely different forms, over the old belief in the creation of species from the dust of the earth.” [37]

Above I spoke about the importance of definitions. I must now drive that point home. By a “useful” definition I mean one that illuminates the processes of nature, one derived from the context of our experiences. “Intelligent design” and “irreducible complexity,” at best, beg the question. To say that natural processes display the marks of higher intelligence is the very thing to be established; to argue that there was not enough time, in the context of a billion or more years, and to say that something could not have gradually assembled, either through descent by modification or environmental pressures, or more likely, both, contradicts the evidence of everything else we observe in the world. At worst, it is a redundancy, though it is stated backwards, for a very simple reason: It is us who confer intelligence upon nature. In a relatively short period, a single cell develops into a complex biological machine consisting of many parts and processes, from which “mind,” and therefore all concepts, including the very concept of intelligence, originates. Intelligence is a value-laden abstraction that properly denotes a definite capability, viz., apprehension, foresight, intention, an inherited propensity to “cut out and divide,” imitating nature by establishing ideals that serve as “merely a repetition and echo.” Design, complexity, and intelligence are ideas, formed by rules made possible and developed by brains in response to the natural surroundings of which they are a part. They are not arbitrarily defined. Many complex machines are designed by intelligent minds: automobiles, airplanes, computers, and even, owing to recent discoveries in molecular biology, genomes. They may appear complex to us; they may require much ingenuity on our part; but this is in no way a verdict on nature “herself,” through which our intelligence gradually evolved to abstract and mimic, poorly, “her” laws. Of course, it is common for us to speak of intelligence in nature, for example, when speaking of “lower” life forms such as plants, but we often do so not because we believe there is a sort of metaphysical principle of intelligence involved, but rather because it is convenient to do so, not unlike when a person scolds their iPhone for “acting stupid.” It is, however, as scientifically illiterate to speak of chemical processes, such as the development of a fertilized egg into a zygote and later a human being, or the reaction of a plant to its immediate environment, as intelligent in the sense of thoughtful action, as it is to speak of gravity as an “intelligent force” or an “intentional pull.” I do not object to the usage where it may prove helpful, and certainly it may be so with living organisms, but in no way is “higher” intention, purpose, and planning established on the newly repackaged theory of creation, which is precisely what Intelligent Design is.

I anticipate my critic will charge me with special pleading. “Why,” he may ask, “do you speak of intelligence in living organisms but not processes of nature? Is not a living organism also a process?” Indeed it is, but there are distinguishable orders of description that we are dealing with here. It is the same confusion that arises when discussing consciousness and mind as features of matter, regardless of specific structures that display any sign of those features at all. Example: A particular wavelength of light reflects off an object and strikes my retina and “a photon interacts with a molecule called 11-cis-retinal, which rearranges within picoseconds to trans-retinal... The change in the shape of the retinal molecule forces a change in the shape of the protein rhodopsin... The protein's metamorphosis alters its behavior... Now called metarhodopsin II, the protein sticks to another protein, called transducin...”; a number of complex steps later, a current is “transmitted down the optic nerve to the brain” and “the result, when interpreted by the brain, is vision.” [38] Given the surface properties of the object in my perception, perhaps I experience the color I identify as red. Would I now be entitled to assert that “the Universe is red” because I have a particular sensation? [39] Yet, how is it that we should disregard the fact that 1) intelligence is a concept and 2) concepts are thoughts; that 3) the evidence highly suggests that thoughts are inextricably connected to brains, which 4) have evolved over time to grant both the perceptual and conceptual powers they possess; all to assert that because 5) I am intelligent, bestowing value upon terms like “design” (or “purpose”), in the context of my experiences with other intelligent beings, that therefore, the Universe, or all of the biological life it contains, is intelligently designed! We may admit that the world is intelligible, and that this is something of a mystery, but this is a very different notion (as we will later see) than the suggestion that the Universe is intelligent, or worse, that it is the creation of an intelligent mind! We may say, as Dawkins did, “that a living body or organ is well designed if it has attributes... built into it in order to achieve some sensible purpose,” but neither design nor purpose spells particular trouble for Darwinism. The designer is, on one level, the brain, on another, natural selection, on another, fundamental interactive forces---gravity, electromagnetism, the strong and weak nuclear forces---and perhaps on yet another, simpler laws, until we arrive at, who knows? Maybe nothing at all, or something very close to nothing, like an ultimate, primeval “principle of order”; the physicist’s dream, a “theory of everything.”

It makes no sense for our explanations to become more infinitely complex; “intelligent design” and “irreducible complexity” are the very things that we want to understand. Behe and his ilk give up before they have barely started. Unlike theology, physics and evolutionary biology have immense explanatory power not only to elucidate why our world appears as it does, but also to make predictions, test hypotheses, and produce results. That’s why Darwinism succeeds while creation theories do not. They cannot. I will say more on this further down, but in short, they involve nothing but metaphysical conjecture, and worse, conjecture that is valueless, especially considering our aim---to be objective, and not to anthropomorphize the world---nor is such fanciful projection remotely collaborated by other known processes.

I would not belabor this point, because I do not believe there to be anything inherently wrong with informed and imaginative speculation, if it were not the case that most people who argue for intelligent design are not simply concerned with a metaphysical principle. For, if that was all that was at stake, one might feel inclined to nod along with Philo in Hume's Dialogues when he suggests that, as “the Brahmins assert... the world arose from an infinite spider, who spun the this whole complicated mass from his bowels, and annihilates afterwards the whole or any part of it,” [40] and call it a day. As my purpose for writing these essays is to dispel the respectability of credulous beliefs, I would not concern myself with deism if it were not for the delusions it superficially encourages. I readily concur with the physicist Lawrence Krauss that “one cannot rule out such a deistic view of nature. But even in this case it is vital to realize that this deity bears no logical connection to the personal deities of the world's great religions, in spite of the fact that it is often used to justify them.” [41] My rejection of deism is twofold: 1st, I find it unimaginative, and therefore, unstimulating, and therefore, uninteresting. 2ndly, we are obliged to agree with Schopenhauer when he wrote, “for the word God, honestly used, expresses such a cause of the world with the addition of personality. On the other hand, an impersonal God is a contradictio in adjectio.” [42]

We have seen that appeals to complexity are nothing but arguments from personal incredulity, and have briefly outlined a case that “intelligence” and “design,” when misapplied to the physical processes themselves, rather than to the productions that result---such as thoughtful beings who contemplate their existence---are unhelpful, question-begging, and ultimately stand as “the barrenest” of notions. Now we arrive at the most devastating remarks against arguments from design. These were offered by the great German philosopher Immanuel Kant and I believe they deserve to be stated at length:

“According to the physico-theological argument, the connection and harmony existing in the world evidence the contingency of the form merely, but not of the matter, that is, of the substance of the world. To establish the truth of the latter opinion, it would be necessary to prove that all things would be in themselves incapable of this harmony and order, unless they were, even as regards their substance, the product of a supreme wisdom. But this would require very different grounds of proof from those presented by the analogy with human art. This proof can at most, therefore, demonstrate the existence of an architect of the world, whose efforts are limited by the capabilities of the material with which he works, but not of a creator of the world, to whom all things are subject. Thus this argument is utterly insufficient for the task before us---a demonstration of the existence of an all-sufficient being…

“...For the predicates of very great, astonishing, or immeasurable power and excellence, give us no determinate conception of the thing, nor do they inform us what the thing may be in itself. They merely indicate the relation existing between the magnitude of the object and the observer, who compares it with himself and with his own power of comprehension, and are mere expressions of praise and reverence, by which the object is either magnified, or the observing subject depreciated in relation to the object….

“Now it cannot be expected that any one will be bold enough to declare that he has a perfect insight into the relation which the magnitude of the world he contemplates bears (in its extent as well as in its content) to omnipotence, into that of the order and design in the world to the highest wisdom, and that of the unity of the world to the absolute unity of a Supreme Being. Physico-theology is therefore incapable of presenting a determinate conception of a supreme cause of the world, and is therefore insufficient as a principle of theology...

“...Thus the physico-theological, failing in its undertaking, recurs in its embarrassment to the cosmological argument; and, as this is merely the ontological argument in disguise, it executes its design solely by the aid of pure reason, although it at first professed to have no connection with this faculty and to base its entire procedure upon experience alone.

“The physico-theologians… if they reflect upon and examine their own arguments, they will find that, after following for some time the path of nature and experience, and discovering themselves no nearer their object, they suddenly leave this path and pass into the region of pure possibility, where they hope to reach upon the wings of ideas what had eluded all their empirical investigations. Gaining, as they think, a firm footing after this immense leap, they extend their determinate conception---into the possession of which they have come, they know not how---over the whole sphere of creation, and explain their ideal, which is entirely a product of pure reason, by illustrations drawn from experience---though in a degree miserably unworthy of the grandeur of the object, while they refuse to acknowledge that they have arrived at this cognition or hypothesis by a very different road from that of experience” (emphasis in original) [43]

To reiterate, “we can never argue back to any further conclusions about the ordinary world or our future experience which go beyond the data from which our inference began,” [44] for “our ideas reach no farther than our experience.” [45] In all fairness, Kant does argue for a “Transcendental Unity of Apprehension,” or what Paley may have derided as indistinguishable from his watch-maker, a “principle of order,” but in truth such a concept is useless for establishing a “higher intelligence” as in a deity. For “why go so far? Why not stop at the material world?” [46] After all, to return to perhaps the most obvious problem with design arguments, “an ideal system, arranged of itself, without a precedent design, is not a whit more explicable than a material one which attains its order in a like manner.” [47] Dawkins expresses a similar attitude: “To explain the origin of the DNA/protein machine by invoking a supernatural Designer is to explain precisely nothing, for it leaves unexplained the origin of the Designer. You have to say something like ‘God was always there,’ and if you allow yourself that kind of lazy way out, you might as well just say, ‘DNA was always there,’ or ‘Life was always there,’ and be done with it.” [48] Not to beat a dead horse, but really, “there is no reason why mental order as such should be any less in need of further explanation than material order, and the claim that mental order in a god is self-explanatory is just the thesis.” [49]

Where does this leave us? We return to the question everybody wants to know: Why? By itself, this is not a useful question, and in truth, no objective answer can be given. Why not? Because whether you believe in a God who creates, an “infinite spider” that spins, or a Universe that simply sprung into being from an eternal void---due to fundamental principles of order or due to underlying chaos for which there is no rhyme or reason---the question “Why” can always be asked... ad infinitum. Nobody, not even the most devout religious adherent, can supply an answer that proves satisfactory. Both atheists and believers agree that there must be explanations for how things came to be as they are, even if our species has not stumbled upon their solutions yet; however, while believers have nothing to add in way of explanations, they insist on the addition of mysterious purposes. Here they also can provide nothing.

In Summary---1st, an intelligent designer cannot logically be inferred from nature, and as an explanation for the apparent order in the world, it is entirely pointless. 2ndly, it does not suffice to argue that Darwinism is wrong because there are still things left to be explained. No rival framework currently exists, and more importantly, Darwinian evolution has proven itself an abundantly fruitful theory in countless regards. 3rdly, in every instance that science has successfully opened a “black box,” it has silenced those who rushed beforehand to proclaim insolvability. Intelligent design is essentially a “God-of-the-gaps” argument, and like its predecessors, rests upon human ignorance and credulity. In time, such gaps are known to disappear. 4thly, a “principle of order” may be nothing more than a dumb, blind, mechanistic, primeval force, like gravity, but the verdict is still out. It may also simply be the way our minds perceive the world and in actually bear little relation to nature at its most fundamental level. Whatever the case, it cannot be demonstrated to be a personality, which God is generally taken to mean. 5thly, design arguments are essentially ontological, made to appear as though they rely solely on empirical inferences. As we will see in the following essay, where other justifications commonly offered for religious belief are examined, this is also problematic. Conclusion: There are many questions for which we do not possess answers. Therefore, we must reject faith, for in doing so, we may remain open to any and all possibilities, following the evidence, wherever it leads. In terms of the argument from design, it leads nowhere, and cannot provide valid reasons for belief in a deity.

1. Cited in Paley, William, Matthew Eddy, and David M. Knight. Natural Theology: Or, Evidence of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, Collected from the Appearances of Nature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Print. (p. xxix)
2. Pascal, Blaise, W F. Trotter, and Thomas M'Crie. Pensées: The Provincial Letters. New York: Modern library, 1941. Print. (Section 386, p. 125).
3. Noumenon: a thing in itself; distinct from phenomenal attributes which are known by the senses.
4. Latin for “God, or Nature”; In Darwin's Dangerous Idea, philosopher Daniel Dennett asks, “In proposing his scientific simplification, was [Spinoza] personifying Nature or depersonalizing God?” Dennett, Daniel C. Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996. Print. (p. 185)
5. Atman: the “first principle”; the true essence of the self beyond an entity's phenomenal or materialistic attributes.
6. Latin for “true cause.”
7. Paley, William, Matthew Eddy, and David M. Knight. 2006. (See Ch. 1, “State of the Argument”).
8. Quote originally found in the article “Physics and Reality” as featured in the Journal of the Franklin Institute (Mar. 1936), which can be read in full at the following web address: Einstein, Albert, Jean Piccard. “Physics and Reality.” Professor Milivoje M. Kostic, 1936. Web. <http://www.kostic.niu.edu/physics_and_reality-albert_einste…>.
9. Loftus, John W. The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2010. Print. Richard Carrier writes two of the book's fifteen chapters; quote taken from Ch. 11, “Why the Resurrection Is Unbelievable” (p. 298).
10. Scheffler, Israel. Science and Subjectivity. Indianapolis, Ind: Hackett Pub. Co, 1982. Print. (p. 1)
11. Cited in Kuhn, Thomas. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970. Print. (p. 18)
12. Greene, Brian. The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory. New York: W.W. Norton, 1999. Print. (p. 168)
13. Paley, William, Matthew Eddy, and David M. Knight. 2006. (p. 80)
14. Ibid. (p. 9) On the same page, Paley also writes: “It is a perversion of language to assign any law, as the efficient, operative, cause of any thing. A law presupposes an agent; for it is only the mode, according to which an agent proceeds: it implies a power; for it is the order, according to which that power acts.” Compare this to Arthur Schopenhauer's comments, written about fifteen years later in The World As Will and Representation: Vol 1. (Schopenhauer, Arthur, and E F. J. Payne. 1958.): “The most universal forces of nature... can never be called either effect or cause, but are the prior and presupposed conditions of all causes and effects through which their own inner being is unfolded and revealed. It is therefore foolish to ask for a cause of gravity or of electricity; they are original forces, whose manifestations certainly take place according to cause and effect, so that each of their particular phenomena has a cause... But the force itself is by no means effect of a cause, or cause of an effect. It is therefore wrong to say that gravity is the cause of a stone's falling. (pp, 130-131).
15. Ibid. (p. 168)
16. Behe, Michael J. Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution. New York: Free Press, 1996. Print. (p. 6). Behe’s book is well-written, and I recommend it to anyone interested in understanding what the current “creation science” literature is about.
17. Ibid. (p. 95)
18. Darwin, Charles. The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: Or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life[,] and the Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex. New York: Modern library, 1936. Print. (p. 135)
19. Behe, Michael J. 1996. (p. 14)
20. Ibid. (p. 110)
21. Ibid. (p. 72-73)
22. Pathogenic germs such as Salmonella and Yersinia pestis contain a version lacking certain “irreducible” parts, using it to inject poison.
23. Ibid. (p. 231). I cannot resist sharing the quote in full: “Undoubtedly, more and better-formed questions will be generated as more and more scientists grow curious about design. The theory of intelligent design promises to reinvigorate a field of science grown stale from a lack of viable solutions to dead-end problems. The intellectual competition created by the discovery of design will bring sharper analysis to the professional scientific literature and will require that assertions be backed by hard data. The theory will spark experimental approaches and new hypotheses that would be a useful tool for the advancement of science in an area that has been moribund for decades.”
24. Paley, William, Matthew Eddy, and David M. Knight. 2006. (p. 10)
25. Ibid. (p. 44).
26. Behe, Michael J. 1996. (p. 204)
27. Ibid. (p. 252)
28 Quote taken from Pragmatism, included in James, William. William James: Writings 1902–1910. New York: Library of America, 1987. Print. (pp. 535-536)
29. Dawkins, Richard. The Blind Watchmaker. New York: Norton, 1986. Print. (p. 21)
30. Ibid. (p. 139)
31. Schopenhauer, Arthur, and E F. J. Payne. On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason. LaSalle: Open Court Press, 1997. (p. 69)
32. Ibid. (p. 58)
33. Mackie, J L. The Miracle of Theism: Arguments for and against the Existence of God. Oxford [Oxfordshire]: Clarendon Press, 1982. Print. (p. 141). I highly recommend this excellent title; Mackie gives a concise account of the most popular arguments for God's existence and thoroughly demonstrates why each cannot succeed.
34. Greene, Brian. 1999. (p. 215). In context Greene is specifically referring to string theorists.
35. Mackie, J L. 1982. (p. 142)
36. As Dennett writes, “the evidence for evolution pours in, not only from geology, paleontology, biogeography, and anatomy (Darwin's chief sources), but of course from molecular biology and every other branch of the life sciences. To put it bluntly but fairly, anyone today who doubts that the variety of life on this planet was produced by a process of evolution is simply ignorant—inexcusably ignorant, in a world where three out of four people have learned to read and write. Doubts about the power of Darwin's idea of natural selection to explain this evolutionary process are still intellectually respectable, however, although the burden of proof for such skepticism has become immense...” Dennett, Daniel C. 1996. Print. (p. 46).
37. Darwin, Charles. 1936. (from The Origin of Species, p. 369).
38. Behe, Michael J. 1996. (pp. 18-21)
39. “What peculiar privilege has this little agitation of the brain which we call ‘thought’, that we must thus make it the model of the whole universe? Our partiality in our own favor does indeed present it on all occasions, but sound philosophy ought carefully to guard against so natural an illusion.” Hume, David, and Richard H. Popkin. Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, the Posthumous Essays, of the Immortality of the Soul, and of Suicide, from an Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding of Miracles. Indianapolis: Hackett Pub, 1998. Print. (p. 19)
40. Ibid. (p. 48)
41. Krauss, Lawrence Maxwell. A Universe From Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing. New York: Free Press, 2012. Print. (p. 173)
42. Schopenhauer, Arthur, and E F. J. Payne. 1997. (p. 17). In the “Footnotes” at the end of Ch. 2, contradictio in adjectio is defined as “a logical inconsistency between a noun and its modifying adjective.” (p. 35)
43. Kant, Immanuel, and Meiklejohn, J. M. D. Meiklejohn. Critique of Pure Reason. New York: Barnes and Noble, Inc., 2004. Print. (pp. 310-312)
44. Mackie, J L. 1982. (p. 136)
45. Hume, David, and Richard H. Popkin. 1998. (p. 31)
46. Ibid. (p. 15)
46. William James, in The Varieties of Religious Experience, notes: “The basis of modern idealism is Kant's doctrine of the Transcendental Ego of Apperception. By this formidable term Kant merely meant the fact that the consciousness ‘I think them’ must (potentially or actually) accompany all our objects. Former skeptics had said as much, but the ‘I’ in question had remained for them identified with the personal individual. Kant abstracted and depersonalized it, and made it the most universal of all his categories, although for Kant himself the Transcendental Ego had no theological implications.” James, William. 1987. (pp. 402-403)
47. Dawkins, Richard. 1986. (p. 141). In The God Delusion, Dawkins calls “the designer” “the Ultimate Boeing 747.”
48. Mackie, J L. 1982. (p. 144)
He who loves God cannot endeavour that God should love him in return - Baruch Spinoza
Reply
#2
RE: On Unbelief III. Deconstructing Arguments From Design
I really need to read those texts in one go some time, never the time...
The fool hath said in his heart, There is a God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
Psalm 14, KJV revised edition

Reply
#3
RE: On Unbelief III. Deconstructing Arguments From Design
Yeah, sorry it's so long. Lol.
He who loves God cannot endeavour that God should love him in return - Baruch Spinoza
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#4
RE: On Unbelief III. Deconstructing Arguments From Design
i want to read it but... i can listen to it text to speech is a wonderful thing.
Atheism is a non-prophet organization join today. 


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#5
RE: On Unbelief III. Deconstructing Arguments From Design
(December 24, 2014 at 10:59 am)dyresand Wrote: i want to read it but... i can listen to it text to speech is a wonderful thing.

Yeah, just download the Richard Dawkins voice font and let's go Big Grin
The fool hath said in his heart, There is a God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
Psalm 14, KJV revised edition

Reply
#6
RE: On Unbelief III. Deconstructing Arguments From Design
(December 24, 2014 at 10:41 am)Pickup_shonuff Wrote: Yeah, sorry it's so long. Lol.

A good read regardless.
I reject your reality and substitute my own!
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#7
RE: On Unbelief III. Deconstructing Arguments From Design
(December 24, 2014 at 11:01 am)Alex K Wrote:
(December 24, 2014 at 10:59 am)dyresand Wrote: i want to read it but... i can listen to it text to speech is a wonderful thing.

Yeah, just download the Richard Dawkins voice font and let's go Big Grin

Big Grin yep lets go
Atheism is a non-prophet organization join today. 


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#8
RE: On Unbelief III. Deconstructing Arguments From Design
(December 24, 2014 at 11:04 am)Spooky Wrote:
(December 24, 2014 at 10:41 am)Pickup_shonuff Wrote: Yeah, sorry it's so long. Lol.

A good read regardless.

Thanks! Big Grin
He who loves God cannot endeavour that God should love him in return - Baruch Spinoza
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#9
RE: On Unbelief III. Deconstructing Arguments From Design
Lets take the intelligence out of intelligent design because god clearly doesn't have any because the human body is flawed.
Atheism is a non-prophet organization join today. 


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#10
RE: On Unbelief III. Deconstructing Arguments From Design
Well, I wouldn't necessarily argue that what we perceive as flaws would completely rule out the possibility that some intelligent agent had purposes for including them, or that the design is simply imperfect, though in many ways exceedingly complex and "brilliant."

My argument grants that there are signs of design and order, but not such that we can justly infer agency.
He who loves God cannot endeavour that God should love him in return - Baruch Spinoza
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