Clutch

Is ID science? This question is asked and answered repeatedly, in a pile of different ways on this board alone. But it's obvious that it can mean very different things – or at least that people can mean different things in uttering this question. Some of the debate over the proper answer is surely a result of this equivocation: people are talking past one another. So here’s an attempt to clear it up a bit.

I actually think that the answer to any one of the more carefully specified questions is pretty straightforward, so I’m hoping this may end or reduce the heavy weather that seems to accompany the discussion of ID.

Here's my take on some prime candidates for what this might be taken to mean, and the answers to those various questions:

1. Is ID science? That is, are the following theses and variants of them open to scientific evaluation?

i. The universe and its properties are best explained by postulating a causally efficacious designer.

ii. Life tout court is best explained by postulating a causally efficacious designer.

iii. Specific features of some species are best explained by postulating a causally efficacious designer.

Answer: Yes. All the variants of these claims so far suggested have been evaluated, to the extent their specificity permits, and been rejected as lacking genuine evidence.

2. Is ID science? That is, do the theses i-iii and variants have any predictive, explanatory or related virtues for which scientific theories or hypotheses are valued? Answer: In any of the forms so far suggested, no.

3. Is ID science? That is, are the theses i-iii and variants employed to any non-trivial degree in the actual practices of actual scientists? Answer: Not literally, no, and not at all for i and ii. (One might make a case for iii’s use as a metaphor or heuristic in adaptationist reasoning in biology, but even that would be a real stretch.)

4. Is ID science? That is, are the motivations for the presentation of the theses i-iii and variants as scientific actually motivations characteristic of the presentation of scientific theories? Answer: No. The motivations seem religious, cultural and political.

5. Is ID science? Is the presentation of the theses i-iii and variants constrained in any clear sense by the availability of supporting evidence, as the presentation of theories in science at its best is constrained? Answer: to all available evidence, no.

6. Is ID science? That is, are there identifiable methods and practices (widely used or not) that are recognized for their effectiveness in generating outcomes that would rationally raise or lower the probability of the theses i-iii and variants? Answer: No.


If there are other glosses, let’s add them. And then let’s try keep them straight.

Doubting Didymus

The point that seems most contentious among non-ID supporters appears to be your point 1. I agree with you that these questions are open to scientific evaluation, but for some reason, a lot of people would disagree. Personally I suspect this is largely motivated by an unwillingness to grant ID any point that might possibly be in its favour. It'd be like granting that the Nazis had some good ideas.

Oolon Colluphid

Thanks Clutch. That's gone straight into the 'useful posts' sticky. :notworthy

Clutch

I should modify (6) as follows:

6'. Is ID science? That is, do advocates of ID propose methods and practices (widely used or not) that are generally recognized in the field for their effectiveness in generating outcomes that would rationally raise or lower the probability of the theses i-iii and variants? Answer: No.

The modification is for clarity -- to remove any confusion about the answer to (6) being in tension with the answer to (1). (e.g., How did i-iii get rejected if there's no methods of probability-lowering?) The answer to (1) is simply based on the lack of positive evidence adduced for i-iii and variants. The idea behind (6) is one familiar from the examination of the gamut of faith-healing and parapsychology experiments: namely, that the complete lack of any normal or standard or received protocols for conducting the alleged science is (over time) a growing indication that there's no real phenomenon there to be measured.

epepke

Doubting Didymus got me thinking, so I'd like to add another.

7) Do the proponents of ID work to express their ideas in terms of falsifiable hypotheses amenable to scientific testing? Answer: there is no evidence that they do.

MrDarwin

One of the biggest problem with ID isn't whether or not is it science, but just what is meant by the phrase "intelligent design" in the first place. Some people mean that every species or "kind" was individually designed, much as we see it today; others think that a designer tinkered periodically over a period of years (either directly or indirectly, e.g., by directing an asteroid to slam into the earth and cause a mass extinction); some think that genes were designed, or biochemical systems, or the first cells; some think that the entire universe was intelligently designed. So "ID" can be shorthand to mean any or all of these. And some of these can be scientifically tested, and some cannot.

In fact we use hypotheses of "intelligent design" every day; when we find a cell phone on the sidewalk we assume somebody dropped it, and that it didn't fall out of the sky (maybe from an alien spaceship?). And "intelligent design" is precisely the assumption that police detectives test when examining a suspicious death: they may determine that a homicide took place, or a suicide, or an accident, or a natural death. But when the cause of death is by intent--by design, if you will--they do not assume that the cause of death was a god, or demons, or aliens, or some other agent, even if they cannot pin the death on a specific person. They assume that the cause of death was by human hands. If they find a body with a knife sticking out of its back, they assume that another person put it there, and not a poltergeist. Now I wonder why that is? Could it possibly be because we know that humans kill other humans, whereas we don't have evidence of other intelligent beings (things like chimpanzees aside) doing so?

Ultimately, I think any discussion of "intelligent design" needs to start by defining just what is meant by ID; otherwise the discussion will go nowhere because it means so many different things to so many different people.

Sensei Meela

I don't think that's quite right. It seems to me that there is no evidence that can corroborate or falsify the above. So a lack of evidence is neither here nor there.

Clutch

Of course there is. Making contact with advanced genetic-engineering aliens who produce seemingly reliable records of their intervening in the history of speciation, for example, would clearly go a long way towards supporting (iii). In general, independent evidence for the existence of a designer capable of doing whatever some variant of ID claims was done, is probability-raising for that claim. (i) might be subtly incoherent, though, depending on how we define "universe"! As I said from the outset, and as MrDarwin observes, any version of ID can only be taken as seriously as the level of detail it provides; when the details are fleshed out, (i) might turn to mush while the others are straightforwardly without any evidence.

Personally, if some ID hypothesis is neither better nor worse than the conjecture that there exist creatures otherwise just like African elephants, but with batlike wings and able to fly, then I have to say it doesn't threaten me in the slightest to say, "That's clearly scientific, in one sense."

"Oh, and there's zero reason to believe it. No controversy, no uncertainty... anyone who made such a claim would have some strange motivation indeed."

PoodleLovinPessimist

If you will allow me, I will play the Devil's Advocate.

Fair enough. On behalf of my clients, I'll accept these definitions.

The obvious questions here are: What constitutes "genuine evidence"? And who is doing the rejecting? We cannot count on atheist or crypto-atheist scientists to evaluate ID honestly, since Intelligent Design destroys their religious paradigm of "scientific" materialism a.k.a. religious atheism. No evidence for Intelligent Design will ever be "genuine" to them.

The evidence, of course, is all the life around us. All of it, its magnificent order, its cunning construction, is explained perfectly well by the intelligence, skill, thoughtfulness and planning of life's great designer. Design is such a powerful idea that it can explain anything; its rejection by so-called "scientists" is nothing but sheer perversity.

Can evolution "predict" anything? It predicts what? That we will see tomorrow pretty much what we'll see today. All of evolutions so-called predictions lie so far in the future that no one now could ever see them. Yes, evolution predicts some variation that we can see, but the designer has obviously designed in a degree of variability: This is a feature, and more evidence of the skill of the designer.

And, as noted before, Intelligent Design does have explanatory power: So much so that it can explain anything. How is this a "lack" of a virtue?

ID is indeed used in a non-trivial degree in the actual practices of actual scientists. Behe, Miller, and others are held out as examples. And of course ID is not used by the tendentious and biased majority of so-called scientists because it contradicts their religious adherence to "scientific" materialism.

The "motivation" characteristic of existing scientists is the promotion and indoctrination of the religious belief of "scientific" materialism. So, no, in that sense, its proponents lack the the "characteristic" motivation of traditional science.

But the motivation of ID is to provide, as in the definition, of an explanation of the universe, life and specific features of all species. If this is a characteristic motivation of science, then the presentation of ID has the exact same motivation.

The only important constraint in science is to the religion of "scientific" materialism: ID is rejected a priori. But it is precisely this constraint, this explicit or hidden ideology of radial atheism, that is at point.

Why should this be a criterion of science? Do scientists submit their ideology of "scientific" materialism to this test? And it is nothing but this adherence to an ideology entirely resistant to probabilistic analysis in this manner which excludes ID a priori.

Clutch

No clarification of the question "Is ID science?" will make it physically impossible for ID supporters, or anyone on Earth for that matter, to say stupid things. So I don't really see the point of the exercise. IDists might make some of those replies. They might also say, "Teaching evolution leads to school shootings and child neglect!" Presumably there's no truth one can utter that would prevent this.

The aim is just to clarify the question. The biggest payoff, I expect, will be that folks can express their recognition of ID's failings without thinking that doing so requires giving one and only one answer to the question "Is ID science?".