Between The Fires of God and Science
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A Troubled Mind
Last Friday I went to a forum evening at my university about ‘Cosmology, Evolution and Intelligent Design’. It was supposed to be a discussion between three panel members, a moderator and the public (about 300 - 400 people I think) about the relation between these three concepts.
Unfortunately the only defender of Intelligent Design (ID) was one of the panel members, Cees Dekkers. The two other panel members as well as all of the public that asked questions were clearly against. Thus the discussion went mostly towards people attacking ID and Cees defending without getting really deep into how Cees’ thought Intelligent Design manifests itself on the molecular level for example.
To be honest I didn’t quite feel very comfortable when I left the room. I had not been convinced by Cees about ID at all, but neither did I find the answers from the two other panel members and the public to be very satisfying. With a troubled mind I went to bed…
The Privileged Planet
This morning I saw a video called ‘The Privileged Planet’, which a friend of mine advised to me. Nice video, but some of its arguments raise questions as to the scientific methods used and it suffered somewhat from circular arguments. But what disappointed me most was that once again I quickly found out that the video was funded by the Discovery Institute, the organisation which has among others the goal “To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and hurnan beings are created by God.” [Link]. For the scientists among us, that’s hardly the source you want to refer to for scientifically sound arguments.
In either case… I googled around for reviews on ‘The Privileged Planet’ and found a lot of different reviews, ranging from the very good to the very bad. After a few hours of reading I was honestly getting quite sick of it. The more I read, the more I felt that the ID defenders were being imposing their Bible on me, and on the other hand the less comfortable I felt with the usual Carl Sagan explanation that we have no meaning in the grand scheme of things, that we are ‘mediocre’.
I guess that leaves me stuck in the middle, isn’t it? Between the two big fires… They’re both intriguing, but they’re both a little hot too (ouch!)… Where do I want to go? I guess many people have similar experiences and just like me tend to go back to their ‘Fire of origin’ for comfort. I hope society as a whole will support people into experiencing both Fires and decide on their own where they want to go, whether that is at one particular Fire or somewhere in between. Or are we really too stupid to decide for ourselves?…
Between Design And Natural Selection
Maybe the human body wasn’t just a matter of chance and natural selection, but I don’t like the thought that we’d be the end goal of a supreme being. Life is interesting, and we ought to be very grateful that we have been given the ability to live. But I don’t feel comfortable thinking we are somehow ‘privileged’, that we are somehow more special than others… Privileged among the animals that roam this planet, or among the billions of planets that are harboured by this universe.
For me life is like the structures you can make out of a bunch of Lego blocks (which I played with fondly as a boy). Lego blocks on their own have not much intrinsic value. But put them together and you can make the most intriguing and beautiful structures, machines and everything.
Let’s compare very very roughly the building blocks of life with children’s building blocks. Darwin says that human beings naturally developed through natural selection out of a bunch of plastic blocks. Intelligent Design says that life is too complex to have developed out of a those silly blocks. True enough, there are still a lot of big gaps in our understanding of how natural selection can turn a bunch of plastic blocks into a human being. But does that necessarily mean that “God” has been messing with our genes, so to speak?
Personally I feel much more comfortable assuming that there’s something ‘funny’ about these building blocks that we don’t truely understand. Maybe it’s not even something physical. Compare those ‘funny things’ with the pins and holes that make plastic boxes into real Lego blocks. Without them, the blocks are pure rectangles and are not suitable to make complex structures of, but with them, you can attach them to eachother and make the most crazy things. Why not even life and even human beings?
I would not be surprised if later on we find out what those ‘funny things’ are. But if we don’t, I think I’ll feel just as happy assuming that they are what gives us the ability to be, to breath, to live, to love,… and consider them my God.
Tijl Kindt
I attended the same panel discussion, and I too found it lacking. As a Christian myself, I went through the journey many go through from Young Earth Creationism to some sort of agnostisism about it (not about religion but about the persuit of ‘proving’ the existance of a Creator).
I guess as much as they tried, the structure of the discussion was very poorly defined. Dekkers started out by defining ID, and then saying why it’s ok to be a scientist and a christian (something completely irrelevant and not helpful IMO). van den Heuvel went on to semi-defend the anthropic principle … fine. But then Boersema gets up and critiques the combination of Science and Religion! I thought it was a discussion about ID! Maybe he could have tagged that on at the end, but since ID can logically be areligious, then he should have focused on the main issue.
Unfortunately, ID-as-science could not be defended, because it was not really presented. Dekkers outlined 4 levels which ID can be applied. The first is generic, philosohpical statement about life and the universe. The second and third are “Privileged Planet” and “Privileged Species” concepts (fine-tuning, irreducibly complexity, etc.). These first three are not useful scientific tools as a) they aren’t testable and b) one is effectively giving up and invoking a supernatural agent. They are indeed useful philosophical tools (and as Dekkers pointed out just as valid as the multiverse theory).
The only scientifically useful part of ID is the fourth level, specified complexity. The idea is that you can apply a figure of merit to the level of complexity of an system, with a critical value above which it must be designed. This would be something you could measure in a lab and calculate. But Dekker didn’t know anything about it beyond that. I’ve been around this for ~6 years now, and everytime I hear somebody talk about this they say two things: i) “I don’t know much about this”, and ii) “It’s interesting, but I’m not sure if it’ll work”. Well find out!! Explain it to us!! A biologist put up his hand and asked Cees what he can do with ID, and he didn’t have a satisfactory answer because he didn’t know much about SC. If you’re going be an expert on ID, you should at least know the only measurable part of it. Read more about it here.
My opinion? As a scientist I don’t really care since I can’t really apply it right now, as a christian, I’m content with the fact that the Big Bang implies a beginning which lends weight to a first mover.
Finally, with respect to schools/textbooks in the US, this is really dumb. I guess the real problem is that creationists are borrowing IDs ideas on their own crusade (you don’t want to know how often I’ve heard one talk about Behe as if he was one of theirs … from the pulpit as well). But really, the debate should be moot. Are you really going to explain specified complexity in a high school textbook? How about multiverses? Just stay neutral and take out the word random before mutations and everyone should be happy.
Btw, sorry for the way to too comment, but I needed to say this to somebody :)
May 4th, 2006 at 8:10
Thank you for the interesting reply, Rob!
I especially liked the following: “[…] b) one is effectively giving up and invoking a supernatural agent.”
That’s exactly why I feel most aspects of ID and the discussion around it has not much to do with science. If you revert to some kind of supreme being because you can’t explain something, you’re doing the kind of science they did in the Classical Antiquity when a thunderstorm was due to Zeus being mad. I hope we’ve gone to a higher level of science by now…
I too am interested in how ID is supposed to work on the molecular level like Prof. Frenken asked during the discussion.
By the way… I’m kinda curious… How did you end up on my website? :P
Greetings from the guy in room 542 of the Oort Building (yes, that’s right above your head :D),
Tijl
May 4th, 2006 at 8:47
I was avoiding work by looking at all of the personal webpages of my fellow sterrewachters.
You can pat yourself on the back for having the most interesting so far …
May 4th, 2006 at 13:43
Lol, okay… Good job :D
May 4th, 2006 at 18:00
I was googling ethereal light and I came upon your website. Ethereal light was proposed by tne Pantheists, a termed coined I believe by John Toland who wrote the hilarious Christianity Not Mysterious,1696.
It seems the defensive War with Christians has been raging for centuries. I believe it was they who first declared war on all other religions. I seem to recall something about witch burnings, crusades, and inquisitions.
anyway
I saw your ID piece. My friend and I are making a video essay on the subject at the moment.
It is definitely those who wish to inject validation for their religious belief into our schools who are behind this movement. The claim of scientific is a veil, they lack honesty, a characteristic highly regarded by their God. They have been soundly excoriated for their duplicity in our courts.
I’m 50 years old and I don’t think it matters whether the universe was designed or not. It took so long for human life to emerge on this planet, that it is not unreasonable to imagine that so many random events happened over those eons resulting first in the most simple forms of life which over more eons evolved into more complex life forms…. Of course, if the world and all it’s creatures had emerged in 7 days, some other process would be suspected.
But as I was saying, it doesn’t matter to me, I’m going to love it anyway. And that is my problem with the ID movement and the whole theocratic movement in the United States. These people reject social support for the poor, elderly and needy in our society. They attack public goods like education and social security. They support war in Iraq, they reject environmental regulation and deny the reality of Global Warming. They accept hurricane Katrina as a punishment for the people of New Orleans and don’t care that the place is still a wreck. They seem to be at war with compassion, truth and the future. That is a real problem that I do care about.
Nuff said.
May 17th, 2006 at 3:05
Firstly I must applaud Rob’s seemingly objective approach to both science and faith. It frightens me how so many Christians, and atheists alike seem to impose ignorance on themselves and others in order to not have to deal with truth, so it’s refeshing to hear people talk like that.
With regards to what Lillian said, I’d have to agree with her closing paragraph. It truly is terrible the way religion is being used as a political tool yet again… No wonder ID is being pushed in the schools. I very much doubt wether Bush gives a rat’s posterior about God - religion is just being used as the riegns and bit for controlling his followers which is pure blasphemy in my mind.
July 13th, 2006 at 7:27