Intelligent Design: Bad Science, Bad Philosophy, or Both

1
Intelligent Design Bad Science, Bad Philosophy,
or Both?

• Taner Edis
• Truman State University
• www2.truman.edu/edis

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Our response to creationism

• We say creationism is not sciencenot just that
  creationists do not practice science, but that
  the very idea of supernatural design is out of
  bounds for science.
• We say creation is an essentially religious or at
  least metaphysical notion. Science is all about
  natural explanations for natural phenomena.
  Totally different.

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Interfering philosophers

• Some philosophers give sophisticated version.
• Robert Pennock science must follow
  methodological naturalism (MN). Excludes ID,
  protects liberal religion.
• No ID in science class!

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But is science naturalistic?

• Philosophers dictating what science must be do
  not have a great track record.
• Historically strange Biologists adopted
  evolution as better explanationthey didnt
  suddenly decide creation was not allowed.
• Explanations involving design and intent not odd,
  e.g. in history. Nothing wrong with ID in
  biology as a hypothesis.

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Practical naturalism

• Philosophical ID supporters attack MN, as
  illegitimately excluding ID.
• Theyre right. Politically bad move as well.
• Better view Naturalism is the most successful,
  best-supported broad description of the world.
  We expect this to continue.
• ID could be scientifically correct. It just
  happens to be wrong.

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ID is a scientific mistake

• Protecting the integrity of science education
  should be the job of scientists, more than
  philosophers!
• The strongest reason to keep ID out of secular
  education is that ID proponents do make
  scientific claims, and they consistently get it
  wrong.
• Ask scientists how they explain complexity.

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Bottom-up naturalism

• Physical science takes a bottom-up view. No
  life force no molecular soul to give
  properties of H2O.
• Complexity is built up on the simple.

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Chance and Necessity

• Physics relies on chance and necessity.
• Radioactive decays happen at random.
• H2O structure explained by physical laws QM.
• Combinations of chance and necessity!

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Rules and Dice

• Chance and necessity are inseparable.

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Complexity?

• How, then, do we explain complexity?
• Theories of thermodynamics (self-organization),
  computation, evolution etc.
• All are related, and all do their work through
  chance and necessity.
• Life becomes mechanical?

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ID A separate principle
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Specified complexity

• William Dembski, mathematician and philosopher.
  Leading theorist of ID.
• ID irreducible form of explanation, distinct from
  chance necessity.
• ID is a revolution.

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Dembskis claims

• Both designed artifacts and organisms exhibit
  special order specified complexity.
• Chance and necessity cannot generate SC, or
  information.
• Intelligence is a separate principle.
• Blind mechanisms (like those of Darwinian
  evolution) cannot explain life.
• Artificial Intelligence is impossible.

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Testing for Design
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Why computers cant create

• Programming and input determine the output of a
  computer. No new information added.

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What about chance?

• Chance outcomes are not determined by input and
  programming. And Darwinian variation-and-selectio
  n relies on random mutations which might work
  better
• Dembski says nothing changes. In that case, the
  SC (information) is extracted from the selection
  criteria.

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How are we creative?

• Humans are truly creativewe are flexible, not
  bound by pre-programmed rules. We always might
  figure out a new way to do things.
• Gödelian critique of AI Any system of rules is
  rigid it has blind spots.
• Dembskis SC this ? No mechanism can be
  creative, including Darwins.

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Where is ID mistaken?

• All the previous claims are wrong.
• Approach AI aspect first how can we get
  flexibility and creativity without magic?
• ID, and Gödelian arguments, demand that humans
  are nonalgorithmic, beyond computer programs.
• This can be achieved by combining programs
  (rules) with randomness.

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Game theory

• In games where the opponent can adapt to a set
  strategy and exploit it, occasional random
  behavior can be the best strategy.
• Not bound by rules. Novelty, unpredictability
  come from randomness.

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Completeness Theorem

• All functions are partly random (Edis 1998).
• The only tasks beyond rules and randomness
  (chance and necessity) are those needing infinite
  information. We have no way to do these.
• Any human output, including that with specified
  complexity, can be produced by mechanisms
  including chance.

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ID cannot work!

• We know what is beyond mechanisms. Not
  flexibility, not creativity, not specified
  complexity.
• Intelligence itself must be built out of chance
  and necessity. Not a separate principle!

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Darwinian Creativity

• How, then, can randomness give real creativity?
• Biologists have already solved this problem. The
  Darwinian mechanism does exactly thiscreates
  information (Schneider 2000).
• Darwinian thinking has become common in other
  fields concerning creativityin AI, and
  cognitive and brain sciences.

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Darwin takes over the brain

• Our own intelligent designs are enabled by
  Darwinian processes taking place within our
  brains!

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Dembskis mistake

• Dembski thinks of evolution as solution to a
  preset problem.
• Evolution is no such thing. What is fittest
  continually changes, depending on the organisms
  themselves. There is no preset or final goal.
• ID is completely out of touch with todays
  science concerning complexity.

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Creationism is futile

• In Darwins time, we could still say intelligence
  was a principle separate from chance and
  necessity but the evidence was that life
  diversified by blind mechanisms.
• Today, we can again notice that artifacts and
  organisms are alike. This is because
  intelligence itself is absorbed in chance and
  necessity. Intelligence is itself Darwinian!

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ID gets it wrong!

• We can see ID has it wrong about complexity, and
  we see this by doing good, ordinary sciencenot
  just philosophy.
• Politically difficult to say ID is like the flat
  earth, since ID expresses deep theistic
  intuitions about divine design.
• Nevertheless, scientists should at least stand up
  and say we know better.

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Shameless plugs

• Chapter in Taner Edis, The Ghost in the
  Universe, (Prometheus, 2002).
• In preparation essays by scientists,
  mathematicians, and philosophers, criticizing ID.

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My web site

• www2.truman.edu/edis
• Contains all sorts of articles on ID, creationism
  and other topics, including the slides of this
  talk.
• My e-mail is edis_at_truman.edu