The Intelligent Design Network Talks Sense - Pt 4

My final post on the Intelligent Design Network Statement of Objectives concerns the role one’s view of origins plays in shaping values. 

The statement says:

E. A society’s view of its origins will ultimately impact its social behavior and the values it places upon certain behaviors. Institutional establishment of only one of two possible biases or assumptions with respect to origins can be expected to promote logically-consistent views regarding Religion, ethics, morality, government and politics. The implicit or explicit imposition of such views will offend many and restrict the freedom to embrace and promote alternative viewpoints.

That this is a reasonable truth is clear from the similar statements from those on the other side of the issue.  Again quoting Humanist Manifesto I:

Humanism asserts that the nature of the universe depicted by modern science makes unacceptable any supernatural or cosmic guarantees of human values.

I am repeating myself perhaps, but this is true and chilling.  Nevermind that many object to this by saying lots of people who do not believe in God have moral standards.  That begs the question.  The question is where do moral standards that individuals hold come from?  Is there a moral law that is part of the fabric of the universe in the same way that there are physical laws like gravity or inertia.  Clearly, the writers of Humanist Manifesto I say there are no such universal values and their basis for making that claim is grounded in the “scientific” view of “nature” proposed in the modern era – undeniably Darwinian.

 Humanist Manifesto 2 continues:  Traditional moral codes and newer irrational cults both fail to meet the pressing needs of today and tomorrow…Clearly implying that moral codes must change to fit differing times and cultures.

 …Ethics is autonomous and situational needing no theological or ideological sanction.  

Ethics that are “autonomous” and “situational” have no basis in anything firm and lasting.  Such ethics can be changed from right to left, from black to white, from east to west at any time and changed back again.  What is right today may be wrong tomorrow and what is wrong today can be right tomorrow.  This is another way of saying that moral values are arbitrary.  As such, values are never final and are always imposed by someone on someone else.

…We reject all religious, ideological, or moral codes that denigrate the individual, suppress freedom, dull intellect, dehumanize personality. We believe in maximum individual autonomy consonant with social responsibility.

One has to read between the  lines a bit to fully translate those two lines.  But given the above statements, it is a fair question to ask how “individual autonomy” can be consonant with “social responsibility” when the stated assertion that there are no “guaranteed” values makes the word “responsibility” meaningless.  “Social responsibility” means nothing more than what the current social norms happen to be, which essentially puts “individual autonomy” in the position of being potentially completely at odds with the current arbitrary values of society.  Oddly, if the values society chooses are not grounded in a higher law, then imposing those values arbitrarily is almost certain to do the things the manifesto decries by denigrating the individual and suppressing freedom.  This is the usual effect of atheistic totalitarian regimes.

The issue of sexuality has to come into play:

In the area of sexuality, we believe that intolerant attitudes, often cultivated by orthodox religions and puritanical cultures, unduly repress sexual conduct. The right to birth control, abortion, and divorce should be recognized. While we do not approve of exploitive, denigrating forms of sexual expression, neither do we wish to prohibit, by law or social sanction, sexual behavior between consenting adults. The many varieties of sexual exploration should not in themselves be considered "evil." Without countenancing mindless permissiveness or unbridled promiscuity, a civilized society should be a tolerant one. Short of harming others or compelling them to do likewise, individuals should be permitted to express their sexual proclivities and pursue their lifestyles as they desire. We wish to cultivate the development of a responsible attitude toward sexuality, in which humans are not exploited as sexual objects, and in which intimacy, sensitivity, respect, and honesty in interpersonal relations are encouraged. Moral education for children and adults is an important way of developing awareness and sexual maturity.

How is “moral education” possible if there are no cosmic guarantees of moral values?  How is moral education possible if ethics are autonomous and situational?  If moral values are autonomous, isn’t “moral education” merely a process of telling children and adults “choose your own morality?”  What’s the point?

My point is simply this.  

If one accepts the notion that “the cosmos is all there ever was and all there ever will be”, an idea implicit in the assumptions of naturalism, then assertions similar to those stated in Humanist Manifestos I and II naturally follow.  It is impossible to assert a purely naturalistic universe without also altering moral viewpoints.  Those who believe the universe was designed with a purpose generally tend to believe that purpose includes some moral laws alongside the physical laws.  Those who believe the universe developed by natural cause and effect alone downplay purpose and in doing so, downplay the believe that values are lasting and part of the fabric of the universe.  Teaching evolution through natural causes has clear and real implications for moral behavior.  So it is not true to say that teaching evolution as “science” is neutral toward other aspects of education, particularly moral education. 

 

 

The Intelligent Design Network Talks Sense - Pt 4

The fourth point of the Intelligent Design Network statement of principles says:

D. Institutional insistence for either a non-refutable materialistic or a Teleological assumption compromises the integrity of good Origins Science. Non-refutable assumptions are counter to the inherent skepticism of Science. They frustrate a search for an inference to the best of multiple competing explanations. These assumptions convert the protected explanation into an explanation designed to fit a preconception. The Institutionally protected explanation then becomes the prevailing orthodoxy or dogma rather than a scientific explanation open to question.

The key words here are rather straightforward.  “Insistence”, “Assumption” and “non-refutable”. 

This gets to the heart of the Overton definition of science in McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education.  Phrases like “in reference to natural law”, “explainable by natural law” suggest the assumption that all things can be explained by natural law.  Where is the empirical proof that there is nothing in the universe that cannot be explained purely in reference to natural law?  This position assumes the conclusion to its implied question. 

How does one refute this assumption?  Whenever ID or Creation proponents suggest that certain things cannot be explained by natural processes alone, the common response is that such a suggestion circumvents science by implying that a natural explanation will never be found.  So as long as the mere possibility exists, no matter how remote, that some mechanism can be discovered to explain a particular problem, naturalists argue that such a mechanism inevitably WILL be found.  Given enough time, the most remote improbability has to be possible. 

ID suggests that in certain cases, the probabilities of natural processes alone producing complex structures are essentially zero.  Chances are one to infinity.  Naturalists respond in a number of ways, but always tend to insist that given enough time, natural process can explain most anything.

They are insistent that natural processes alone can be the only explanatory causes for what we currently see.

They assume this with no way of offering any empirical proof for this assumption.

There is no ultimate way to refute this claim, because it is not based on observation of events in the past.

Note that the IDNet proposal does not deny that some aspects of teleological assumptions are equally non-refutable.  That is the whole point.  Certain assumptions have to be made by both sides for the simple reason that human beings are not omniscient. 

What is wrong with the current state of affairs is that the naturalists do not admit that 1.  they operate from assumptions and 2. those assumptions cannot be proven nor refuted.  So to insist on one set of assumptions and exclude others is simply unjustifiable.

The end result is that reasonable explanations of how certain pieces of the origins puzzle are excluded, harming the real purpose of origins science, which should be to seek the best explanation rather than the best naturalistic one.  And millions of folks who suspect that the universe is not merely material are told they must adopt a materialist stance if they are to engage in “true science”.   

 

 

The Intelligent Design Network Talks Sense - Part 3 .

I’ve been pondering the general statement of objectives of the Intelligent Design Network intended to plead for objectivity and against the forced orthodoxy of naturalistic assumptions in the teaching of origins.  The first two points dealt with the subjectivity of explaining the unobservable events of the distant past by making inferences from present processes and the insistence that those inferences be given the status of irrefutable fact.  While those points are very well crafted, Item C is the part of the IDNet statement of that I find most critical.

C. Implications of scientific explanations of origins unavoidably impact Religion, ethics, morality, government and politics. The implications of materialistic explanations of origins support the central tenets of non-Theistic Religions, while the implications of Teleological explanations support the central tenets of Theistic Religions. Both Theistic and non-Theistic Religions and worldviews address questions of ethics, morality, government and politics.

This is a point I wish others in the debate would make and would argue in the courts.  ID is routinely dismissed for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it is accused of being religion falsely clothed as science.  So ID, to the secular establishment, is not permissible because it would violate the wall of separation between church and state.  The implication of this portrayal is that ID forces a religious view where naturalistic views of origins do not.  This is a completely false and absurd assertion.

The framers of the ID Net proposal are completely correct in asserting not only that both viewpoints have an unavoidable connection to religion, morality, ethics, but that the naturalistic viewpoint promotes religion as well, just religion of a non-theist stripe. 

Consider Humanist Manifesto I, from 1933, which stated exactly this point very clearly:

Today man's larger understanding of the universe, his scientific achievements, and deeper appreciation of brotherhood, have created a situation which requires a new statement of the means and purposes of religion. …To establish such a religion is a major necessity of the present. It is a responsibility which rests upon this generation.

The intent of Humanist Manifesto I was to establish a secular, non-theistic religion for the purpose of addressing the same questions religions traditionally deal with, specifically, “Where did we come from?”, “Is there purpose and meaning in existence?”, “What rules should govern behavior?”.  The entire enterprise of naturalism is intricately in harmony with the “religion” of humanism.  Its many tenets, from the Manifiesto, include:

…(humanists) regard the universe as self-existing and not created.

…man is a part of nature and that he has emerged as a result of a continuous process.

Humanism asserts that the nature of the universe depicted by modern science makes unacceptable any supernatural or cosmic guarantees of human values.

Religion consists of those actions, purposes, and experiences which are humanly significant. Nothing human is alien to the religious.

…there will be no uniquely religious emotions and attitudes of the kind hitherto associated with belief in the supernatural.

Reasonable and manly attitudes will be fostered by education and supported by custom.

Manifesto II in 1973 went much further to define ethics and morality in decidedly non-theistic terms based on the conclusions of naturalism.

… science affirms that the human species is an emergence from natural evolutionary forces. As far as we know, the total personality is a function of the biological organism transacting in a social and cultural context.

Ethics is autonomous and situational needing no theological or ideological sanction.

In the area of sexuality, we believe that intolerant attitudes, often cultivated by orthodox religions and puritanical cultures, unduly repress sexual conduct. The right to birth control, abortion, and divorce should be recognized.

It also includes a recognition of an individual's right to die with dignity, euthanasia, and the right to suicide.

The Second Manifesto also clearly stated the implications of naturalism for politics – a one-world-ish trend toward a global community.

We have reached a turning point in human history where the best option is to transcend the limits of national sovereignty and to move toward the building of a world community in which all sectors of the human family can participate. Thus we look to the development of a system of world law and a world order based upon transnational federal government.

To suggest that the inclusion of ID in public education, (which does not include the banning of the teaching of Darwin), is an unwarranted breach of the separation of church and state is rather dishonest when one considers the implications of teaching Darwin alone, banning ID and giving full intellectual and spiritual shelter to views that are self-identified as a secular religion.  It is hypocritical, but hidden below the surface, because only “theistic” religions are associated with religion and only “natural laws” are allowed to be considered as discussible causes in “science”.

It is telling that the only concession proponents of ID would ask for is the simple allowance that some natural phenomena might not be fully explainable by natural law alone.  That is all that is requested, and that proposition is resisted with vigor and venom.  It must be understood that the particular details of ID arguments are less of concern to the naturalist than the mere suggestion that natural law may have its limits.  Repeatedly it is the insistence that science must be limited to explanations dependent on Natural Law alone reveals the inherent bias against the very notion of the supernatural.  It also gives the lie to the suggestion that naturalism is neutral toward religion.  It is not.

The Intelligent Design Network Talks Sense - Part 2

I started a series on a resource at IDNet which attempts to make a case for including ID as one acceptable theory of origins.  ID is not creationism as it makes no connections whatever to the Genesis account either in its assumptions nor its conclusions.  Nevertheless, ID has been tossed out of the public sphere by the courts on several occasions for failing to comply with the assumption that all things can be explained in terms of natural law alone. 

The second point of the IDNet statement of objectives is:

B. The adequacy of scientific explanations of origins depends on an analysis of competing possibilities. Origins explanations use a form of abductive2 reasoning that produces competing Historical Hypotheses, that lead to an inference to the best current explanation rather than to an explanation that is logically compelled by experimental confirmation. Due to inherent limitations on the experimental validation of Historical Hypotheses, testing requires rigorous competition between alternative hypotheses so that their relative strengths and plausibilities may be compared. While competition among multiple hypotheses decreases subjectivity, it may nevertheless result in no adequate current explanation.

Again, it is helpful to break the statement down.  Origins explanations use a form of abductive reasoning.  According to the footnote:

…abductive reasoning, is the process of reasoning to the best explanations. In other words, it is the reasoning process that starts from a set of facts and derives their most likely explanations.  Key word there is “likely”.  We are talking about probabilities, not certainties.  This point is missed and often obscured by the Darwinist side.  No one disagrees that natural selection occurs.  That is something that can be placed in the category of “fact”.  At question is whether the inferences made regarding the power of natural selection to sufficiently explain massive transformations from the first cell to the human eye can also be categorized as “fact”.

 Current scientific observations, the statement continues…

…lead to an inference to the best current explanation rather than to an explanation that is logically compelled by experimental confirmation.

"Best current explanation".  Such a statement ought to be acceptable even to evolutionists.  They are always saying the findings of science are tentative and constantly under revision. Reading Judge Overton’s Arkansas decision, one central tenet of science is supposed to be “Its conclusions are tentative, i.e., are not necessarily the final word.”  But, even more to the point, in the case of events that occurred prior to recorded history, science’s conclusions can only be inferred from current data based on specific assumptions.  The phrase “not compelled by experimental confirmation” is quite descriptive.  

The IDNet statement does allow for experimental confirmation of theoretical possibilities.

Due to inherent limitations on the experimental validation of Historical Hypotheses, testing requires rigorous competition between alternative hypotheses so that their relative strengths and plausibilities may be compared.

Note again the words “plausibilities” and “historical hypotheses”.  History is a great analogy.  We know from archaeology that certain ancient cultures existed.  We have confirmation of the existence of various individuals in each culture.  Yet historians spend hours and hours arguing about why certain individuals did specific things or why certain events happened and about their significance. 

No ancient areas of study have a fraction of the textual documentation that exists for the early Christian church, yet we still have historians arguing that Gnosticism was a legitimate “alternative” Christianity unfairly shoved aside by early church leaders and others arguing that Gnosticism was a greek heresy that had nothing in common with what the founders of Christianity actually taught.  If we can’t settle debates about written history, how in the world can we say conclusions built from bone fragments and are beyond challenge?

The statement’s point here is that science is impoverished when the challenge of alternative plausibilities is censored.  And the thing that makes ID implausible to many is simply the fact that ID does not assume naturalism.

While competition among multiple hypotheses decreases subjectivity, it may nevertheless result in no adequate current explanation.

There is an old Jewish Rabbinical proverb as I recall that says, “teach thy tongue to say ‘I do not know’”.  Is there anything wrong with saying we don’t have a definitive answer about what happened 4.6 billion years ago?  Is there anything wrong with saying, “IF” we start with assumption A and infer from data points B,C and D, then it is plausible that Z is the result, but that the initial premises cannot be verified?  And conversely, if we start with assumption T and infer from data points B, C and D we may come to a radically different conclusion?

Of course ID has a set of assumptions as well – the key assumption being simply that natural phenomena may have an intelligent cause and not a random, materialistic one.  Assumptions – starting points we all must have – should not be the basis for insisting on only a single conclusion and excluding all others.  That ought to be a reasonable starting point.  I find for those committed to Darwinism, even those who identify themselves as Christians, it is not.

The Intelligent Design Network Talks Sense

Found a good source for Intelligent Design info at the Intelligent Design Network

Managing director John Calvert’s many documents on the site are some of the more readable and insightful I’ve seen. I am particularly interested in the “Statement of Objectives” IDNet sets out that are intended to get around the impasse between ID and Darwinism.

So I’d like to take some time to work through the main points. Here’s the first:

A. Origins Science is an inherently subjective and controversial historical Science. Because we have an incomplete understanding of life and the universe, there is bound to be controversy about origins. Origins Science is also controversial because scientific descriptions of origins seek to explain the cause of a series of singular unobserved events that occurred in the remote past that are often not reproducible under laboratory conditions or susceptible to direct observation. Explanations often amount to subjective historical narratives constructed from circumstantial evidence and analysis using inference, imagination, unproved assumptions, and information that is not intersubjectively Accessible.

This is a very well crafted point and I think it is a worthy task to break this statement down so that it is understood. The first statement is:
“we have an incomplete Understanding of life and the universe…”.

This ought to considered true be beyond discussion. It would be the height of arrogance and exceedingly naïve to assert that we have a “complete” understanding of life or the universe. One would think this obvious reality ought to give naturalists pause about confident assertions of “fact” regarding events that occurred 20 thousand to 4 billion years ago.

The statement continues:
"…because scientific descriptions of origins seek to explain the cause of a series of singular unobserved events that occurred in the remote past…"

Key words in this phrase are, “unobserved” and “remote past”. The conflict between evolution, design and religious creationism is not primarily about observable data in the present, it is about things that occurred long ago, before written records exist, before human beings recorded any observations about what did or did not happen. Regardless of one’s position on origins, we are not dealing with present tense observations, but inferential explanations about events that are beyond the reach of verification.

These are events…
"that are often not reproducible under laboratory conditions or susceptible to direct observation."

It should be obvious that events not reproducible and not subject to direct observation should not be given the status of irrefutable scientific fact. No matter how reasonable the inference from present observations to past events, an inference is still an inference. Explanations of how something might have occurred given certain constraints can be quite plausible. No argument there. But that plausibility is always bound to assumptions and numerous “if” statements. So to shift the cautious language from “might have” to “probably” to “definitely” to “without question” is stretching the matter. No matter how plausible the proposed explanation, plausibility is not the same as proof. And absolute proof of events that occurred in the distant past is not attainable.

"Explanations often amount to subjective historical narratives constructed from circumstantial evidence and analysis using inference, imagination, unproved assumptions, and information that is not intersubjectively accessible."

This one is probably most troubling to the evolutionist, for it asserts the greatest level of presumption. The point is that observable cases of present processes cannot be extended to a necessary conclusion that such a process is the only plausible explanation of all life on the planet.

At issue is the problem of assumptions. In this whole debate, unproved assumptions are often left unexamined or carefully sequestered from discussion, the key assumption of all, the elephant in the lab, is the assumption of naturalism itself, that all natural phenomena MUST be explained in terms of natural cause and effect governed by natural law. There is no reason for this assumption to rule the day. It is very possible to distinguish between phenomena that clearly are the result of natural cause and effect, phenomena that possibly could be the result of natural cause and effect and phenomena that are exceedingly unlikely to be explainable by natural cause and effect alone. Opening the door to design does not bring back an age of irrational superstition.

There is more to this statement, so on we go in future posts.

From the Bookstore...

So we get a mailing from a local Christian bookstore.  I leaf through it.  It has some of the latest Christian music CDs, a big promo for the video release of a recent Christian film.  Lots of knick-knacks related to valentines day and Valentines cards.  There are a whole slew of books about marriage and, yes, sex.  There is as section on finances.  There is an autobiography from a famous athlete.  Lots of decorative crosses, picture frames and a few pieces of jewelry.  A biographical movie about a doctor.  There are a number of Christian fiction entries, mostly in the "romance" category, a few devotionals and some self-help stuff for men.  There are some kids videos, "devotionals" for teens and more CCM CDs.   Add a couple of vids on biblical characters.

In 32 pages of ads, there are three bibles and one book by Lee Strobel on apologetics.  Not a single serious work of theological weight, save for Strobel's.

Just wondering, what does that say about the state of American Evangelicals?   

Origins – the first question

Been reading and pondering and arguing a bit on the web regarding the steady shift among Christians toward either theistic evolution or some form of progressive creation.  It seems more and more University educated Christians who may have come from fairly Bible centered backgrounds are abandoning not only young-earth creationism, but even a broad view of Intelligent Design.

For the moment I won’t argue specific details regarding this or that specific element of the ID vs evolution debate, nor debate the meaning of specific phrases in Genesis 1-3.  What I will question is the assumption those Christians who make this concession may have.  That concession is that God used “natural laws” including natural selection as his method of creation.  Here’s my main beef:

The “common-sense” reading of the text of scripture posits a Creator-God.  I don’t want to go beyond that point for the moment.  We are told that God existed “in the beginning” or even before the beginning.  We are told God created the heavens and the earth.   We are told He is the “beginning and the end”, implying, at least, He is not bound by time.  We are told he will one day destroy the world by fire and bring into existence a New Heaven and a New Earth.  If all this is true, then time, space, and the laws of nature in no way are binding on God.  God created the laws of nature; else, those laws would be higher than God.  This seems a fundamental assumption of belief in a creator.

Additionally, we are presented in both the biblical text and the long history of Christian theology with a God who works miracles.  Again stop with that thought.  This is a second fundamental point of the very definition of God in Christianity.  By definition, miracles are events that are out of the ordinary, suspensions of the normal workings of nature.  Changing water to wine bypasses the normal frame of time it takes to grow grapes, crush them, package them and allow the process of fermentation to work.  The laws of nature as we know them would have to be superseded in the miraculous acts of a God who is above nature.  Healing of a man who is blind or lame from birth is a bypassing of the normal path to healing, or at least an acceleration of it.  Curing someone of leprosy by a touch is a manipulation of reality that goes beyond the laws of nature.  Again this is a fundamental implication of the very concept of a “creator-God”.

So the point is this:  If this picture of a creator-God is accepted as a definition of the very term “God”, then to try to explain either a miracle or the acts of creation in terms of natural laws, to try to uncover “how God did it” in terms of natural law alone, is to miss the point.  He would not need to follow the laws of nature to create the laws of nature. He would not need to because he would be the author of those laws and would be above them.  To reduce what is by definition the “miraculous” to a set of natural causes and effects is to deny the very concept of the miraculous.  And to say that a miracle could not take place is to say that God is not God.

The very starting point of Christian faith, “We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things seen and unseen”, is a God who is outside of nature, who created nature, who is not bound by nature and who can at will supersede the laws of nature.  This is the starting assumption of Christianity.  God exists and created ALL THINGS.

But the starting assumption of naturalistic science is the assumption that all things MUST be explained according to NATURAL causes and only natural causes.  Christians who accept this definition and use naturalism to explain “how God created” seem to saw off the branch on which they sit as professed Christians.  The initial tenet of theism is seemingly set aside by those who accept the full naturalistic explanation of origins and try to wrap Christianity around it.   At best, God is somehow behind the big bang, but every other event in the history of the universe is assumed to be fully explainable  by natural processes alone.  It may be theoretically possible that God “used” the mechanism of natural selection to “create”, but it seems to me that such a view also imprisons God in the straightjacket of “natural law”.  Did God “need” to use “natural processes”?   The answer should clearly be “no”.  The follow up is “why then have you chosen to believe He did use ONLY natural processes?”  The answer usually comes down to something like, “because the science is irrefutable”.  They have been convinced by the details and arguments of “science” that is naturalistic by definition.

And here we reach an impasse.  Since science is almost always defined in the last 50-150 years as 1) the study of natural phenomena, 2) explained in terms of natural law, it is asserted that no explanations that do not appeal to natural law can be permitted. 

The common reason for the closed definition is that once one appeals to something beyond nature as an explanation, that explanation is not falsifiable because no one can test whether the supernatural was in fact the cause.  Such an allowance for something outside of nature would supposedly destroy science by appealing to things not testable by science.  But does no one see that if the only explanations that can be offered for everything that exists are naturalistic explanations, then the central premise of naturalistic science can also never be falsified?  

I fully understand how secular scientists who may be atheist or agnostic would insist on purely naturalistic explanations.  That view is at least logically consistent.  Agnostics and atheists say that they see insufficient evidence to believe in a God and thus conclude the universe is best thought of in terms of naturalism.  That is consistent.

 

But is it consistent for those who describe themselves as Christians, who believe that God is the Creator, who apparently accept the first assumption that God created, to embrace a view that does not allow God to act outside of natural law?  To do so, seems to me, is to in practical terms, give up the very first building block of the Christian faith, that there is a God who stands as creator and Lord over all creation.  One may say he believes in God as creator with one hand, but then take away all God’s power to influence His creation with the other.  It is to profess theism and believe theism irrelevant. 

 

For if we believe that God can can create an entire universe, it is not at all logical to deny that he can work within that universe, to raise Christ from the dead, to turn water to wine, to heal the blind, deaf and lame.  Why, if we believe God is big enough to accomplish the big bang, would we not believe that at least in theory, he could rain manna from heaven, part the water of the Red Sea, judge humanity by a massive flood and create human beings as unique individuals beginning with one man and one woman in a Middle Eastern garden?  How did God cease to be God after the initial moment of creation?

It seems to me that this is a fundamental question.  Yet so many have surrendered the initial statement of Genesis, the gospel of John and the Nicene Creed and yet still profess to be Christians.  I do not see a cogent, logical reason for such a stance.  If one accepts naturalism, then agnosticism is the logical position, not a wrapping of naturalism in the language of faith.