Comment on Angry Scientists: Publishing on Intelligent Design by Sean Pitman.

@Academic:

Regarding Ecclesiastes 9:11

In other words, the teacher is saying that we are all victims of circumstance. I understand him and agree. How does that contradict the most inescapable deduction of philosophy? Nature is not self-acting; every particle of the universe moves as God dictates; and God’s sovereignty includes God’s passive consent to the purposes and actions of all created living things.

If every particle of the universe moved as God directly dictated there would be no freewill or possibility of rebellion against God’s will. There would also be no possibility of any kind of accident or evil outside of God’s direct action. This is contrary to the thinking of the biblical authors who seemed to understand the concept of natural law – that God put into place certain very consistent laws of nature that seem to function outside of any need for constant mindful manipulation. Does God really need to mindfully carve every snowflake that falls on this planet? – for example? Or, did He simply put in place a set of natural laws to govern such things outside of the need for direct intelligent manipulation? – as in the creation of some mechanical system that, after it is created, works pretty much on its own independent of the constant need of additional outside intelligent input…

This biblical concept of natural law is illustrated by such stories as one where the Philistines sent the Ark of God back to Israel after many catastrophes struck them when they took it from Israel. The author of this account writes:

If it [the cart with the Ark of God on it] goes up to its own territory, toward Beth Shemesh, then the LORD has brought this great disaster on us. But if it does not, then we will know that it was not his hand that struck us and that it happened to us by chance.” 1 Samuel 6:9 NIV

This passage is describing a kind of scientific test with the hypotheses being between a deliberate act of God vs. an unusual collection random natural catastrophes that just came along by “chance”. In author words, the biblical author here had the idea of natural law and apparently random or “chance” occurrences that took place outside of the direct will of God.

Beyond this, we are talking about the concept of apparent randomness or “chance” since true randomness cannot be absolutely proven. Apparent randomness is defined as a lack of predictability from a given perspective of limited knowledge. Someone else might know enough information to understand that the pattern that you think looks entirely random or chaotic and non-predictable is in fact non-random and entirely predictable.

So, how does one detect the need for deliberate design to explain a given phenomenon? How do forensic scientists or anthropologists do it? How do SETI scientists propose doing it? It would be impossible to detect design or use scientific reasoning at all if everything appeared random and non-predictable from the human perspective. It must mean then that we are able to detect predictable biases because science actually works. It may also be possible, therefore, to use these biases to detect the need to invoke ID in certain special cases.

For instance, if the phenomenon in question goes beyond what all known apparently non-deliberate mindless forces of nature are capable of achieving while being well within the creative potential of at least human-level intelligence, the ID hypothesis gains rational support and useful predictive value.

I reject your belief that random mindless processes control nature. Nature is under God’s sovereign control. It is clear that Ecclesiastes 9:11 presents the observation of a human teacher that everyone should find easy to believe. Certainly most humans recognize the truth of his words. The only thing that the teacher is saying is that there is disorder on the social level.

There is apparent randomness or non-predictability on both the social and natural levels. Time and chance occurrences include unexpected accidents or natural calamities that are simply not predictable from our perspective. You may argue that God is still in control, but this is not a directly testable hypothesis subject to scientific evaluation or potential falsification.

You must know that the Bible acknowledges the existence of an intelligent designer that creates disorder (Matthew 13:24-28). So when are you going to apply Intelligent Design theory to unmask the evil one scientifically?

You have to get to the point where you acknowledge the scientific basis of detecting the need for general intelligence first; before you start working on motive…

Your hasty rush to judgment is unwarranted. My point is that, in Christian philosophy, everything is by design and that it is impossible to prove the absence of design because the conclusions are virtually tautological.

I’m not trying to prove the absence of design. Such a hypothesis cannot be proven or disproven, as noted above. All that can be said when something seems apparently random or non-deliberate is that one cannot tell the difference from a truly random or non-deliberate process of nature.

Can intelligence mimic randomness or mindless natural production? Absolutely. However, can mindless natural processes produce all that deliberate intelligence can produce? No. Because of this differential, it is possible to gain a very high degree of scientific confidence in the theory that only deliberate intelligence can explain certain types of phenomena…

As far as I’m aware, there isn’t a single paper which produces either an example of such evolution in real time nor any kind of mathematical/statistical analysis as to the odds that such evolution could theoretically take place in a reasonable amount of time… – Sean Pitman

And I don’t believe that there’s a single paper that refutes the possibility.

Everything is “possible”, as you note, but not everything is likely. This is a key problem with your argument. Science doesn’t deal with what is merely possible, but with what is actually likely. Without predictive value, you don’t have a scientific theory. All you have are just-so stories without any predictive or scientific value.

In this line, there are a number of papers that demonstrate the extremely unlikely potential of RM/NS to produce higher level functional information this side of a practical eternity of time. Meyer’s paper and new book (Signature in the Cell) is just one person’s argument. I’ve have a bit of a different twist, but I present basically the same argument on my website and in my new book, “Turtles All the Way Down” as well. A number of others have presented similar arguments – to include Behe in his book, “The Edge of Evolution”.

What I posted is what the loyal opposition respects. And it is your failure to acknowledge and deal honestly with the mainstream countervailing view that is considered unconscionable.

What topic, in particular, have I not covered? Have you read anything from my website on this topic? What key opposing arguments have I overlooked? I haven’t seen you present a single counterargument yet…

There is no point in debating a particular style of grasping at straws. The arguments in Meyer’s paper are not scientific and it is clear to me that the reactions of the skeptics do not resemble the responses of intellectually defeated adversaries.

Upon what basis do you consider Meyer’s arguments unscientific? Have you read the paper? Do you understand his arguments about the rarity of potentially beneficial sequences in sequence space? Do you grasp the significance of this argument? Do you not understand the mathematical and statistical implications of what this means for the notion that RM/NS can produce anything at all beyond very low levels of functional complexity?

It is one thing to make blanket bald assertions like you’ve done here. It is quite another thing to back up your just-so statements and general bravado with some actual statistically-relevant arguments of your own – specifically regarding the likely creative potential of the mechanism of RM/NS beyond very low levels of functional complexity.

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com

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