Intelligent Design Isn’t the Future

As some of you might know, I’m fascinated by psuedoscience. When I was a young child, I had a deep interest in all sorts of strange stuff. I remember reading Von Daniken’s Chariots of the Gods and musing about ancient astronauts. I read books about UFOs. I read books about pyramid power. ESP.

But, by the time I was fourteen, I got over it. I realized that it was entirely rubbish, that the people who promoted such ideas were perhaps sincere, but were not the clever, free thinkers they imagined themselves to be. Furthermore, I realized that some weren’t even sincere: they were trying to exploit the gullibility of ignorance of their fellow man.

Which, of course, brings me to Intelligent Design.

As the recent court case Kitzmiller v. Dover, amply illustrated, Intelligent Design is nothing more that a ruse designed to allow the promotion of certain religious ideas as science. I monitor a number of related blogs and websites just to see what’s going on, and what’s going on is largely drivel like the stuff spewed by Jonathan Witt below:
Intelligent Design the Future: Why Trust a Monkey Mind?

Witt quotes Darwin as saying:

With me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has always been developed from the mind of lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?

This quotation was produced by Joe Carter and is meant to imply that it is illogical to believe that human brains could be undesigned and yet reliable: that to trust our monkey brains is illogical unless they are designed.

Can anyone spot the problem with this argument?

The problem is that it’s actually not illogical or even impractical for us to trust our monkey brains. Why? Because the evidence is simply that they work (or at least can work) rather well in practice. It’s easy for ID theorists to lose sight of this, because ID actually has no practical implications whatsoever. Whether our minds are the results of natural, unguided physical processes or intelligent design, they do appear to work.

And, of course, there is the other practical reason. Why trust our monkey brains? Because those are the only brains we’ve got, silly.

Addendum: The quote by Darwin above is seldom provided with a proper citation, it appears in one of his letters to William Graham, author of the book The Creed of Science, which Darwin was apparently reading. If you click through the link, you’ll see the complete text. It’s interesting how often creationists cite this particular sentence, but ignore the surrounding text. Here’s a taste:

You would not probably expect any one fully to agree with you on so many abstruse subjects; and there are some points in your book which I cannot digest. The chief one is that the existence of so-called natural laws implies purpose. I cannot see this. Not to mention that many expect that the several great laws will some day be found to follow inevitably from some one single law, yet taking the laws as we now know them, and look at the moon, where the law of gravitation-and no doubt of the conservation of energy-of the atomic theory, etc. etc., hold good, and I cannot see that there is then necessarily any purpose. Would there be purpose if the lowest organisms alone, destitute of consciousness existed in the moon? But I have had no practice in abstract reasoning, and I may be all astray.

Typical of Darwin’s self-deprecating nature. He continues….

Nevertheless you have expressed my inward conviction, though far more vividly and clearly than I could have done, that the Universe is not the result of chance.* But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?

I find it interesting that Charles Darwin makes the same argument as Witt and Clark, but with the opposite conclusion. Darwin here is not questioning his own science, he is questioning the conviction that Graham has: that the natural laws imply some greater purpose or intelligence. It is that conclusion, unsupported by scientific evidence or metholody that Darwin mistrusts, not his own attempts to reveal the workings of the universe through science.

I don’t think that’s what Witt wanted you to know.

Addendum: I’m curious about another thing. The blog above doesn’t allow comments. What’s up with that?

[tags]Intelligent Design,Darwin,Creationism,Quote Mining[/tags]

3 thoughts on “Intelligent Design Isn’t the Future”

  1. Joe Carter

    The problem is that it’s actually not illogical or even impractical for us to trust our monkey brains. Why? Because the evidence is simply that they work (or at least can work) rather well in practice.

    As I pointed out in my post, this is begging the question. Of course we all assume that our brains are reliable. That is why we can assume that a process that could not produce reliable noetic equipment (non-teleological evolution) is not a sufficient answer.

    Darwin here is not questioning his own science, he is questioning the conviction that Graham has: that the natural laws imply some greater purpose or intelligence. It is that conclusion, unsupported by scientific evidence or metholody that Darwin mistrusts, not his own attempts to reveal the workings of the universe through science.

    You’re exactly right. Darwin is not questioning his own science because the conclusion would undercut his own theory. In order to save the theory, Darwin has to take a “leap of faith” into the mystical (i.e., Even though evolution cannot produce trustworthy convictions I believe that my theory about evolution is

    Editor’s note:  First of all, thanks for the reply.

    Secondly, the presentation by both yourself and Witt is an example of quotemining.  You introduce Darwin’s quote by saying:

    Even Charles Darwin recognized that if the human brain is a product of blind, non-teleological evolutionary processes, then we have no reason to believe that the brain is capable of producing convictions that are trustworthy:

    And continue the discussion as if Darwin was talking about his theory of evolution.  I think it’s clear from the broader context that I cited that Darwin was speaking of “convictions”, not of science.  Darwin trusted the methodology of science to help him strip away the parts his convictions which could not be supported by evidence.  

    Thirdly, even if you’re right, and it’s illogical to conclude that rationality can arise from brains which are designed by purely rational processes, where does this idea lead?   Clearly, there are ideas which are broadly useful (theories of gravitation, quantum mechanics, and yes, even common descent and evolution), but many are not (geocentrism, aether, and cold fusion).   If our brains can be trusted because they are intelligent designed, then why do these bad ideas arise?   What intelligent design was served by the creation of minds which operate so erratically, so irrationally, that are convinced of the truth of things without any supporting evidence whatsoever?

    I think Intelligent Design has a much bigger problem than evolution does: if our brains are Intelligently Designed, then why do they actually behave so poorly?

    I also found all four of your “errors” to be pretty ill-founded.  In order:

    1. Matthew Goggin’s comments is not circular reasoning.   It’s simply the rather logical conclusion that if we observe something, that’s a pretty good reason to believe that it happened.  If we see rational minds that appear to have arisen from natural processes, then yes, the reasonable conclusion is that rational minds can arise from natural processes.  This is simply an assertion that if we observe something, that’s an indication of its reality.
    2. I’m not really sure what you’re getting at here.   Is there a scientist who is promoting the idea that beliefs of things which happen to be “true” are more likely to be adaptive?  This is either obvious or absurd, depending on what the definition of “true” and “belief” are.
    3. I think this is most likely to be overlooked because it’s absurd philosophizing.  It’s like asking if God can create a rock so large he can’t move it.   I can imagine an invisible pink giraffe, but that doesn’t imply that invisible pink giraffes exist.
    4. This criticism applies at least equally well, and in reality to a much greater extent to creationists than to scientists.

    In fact, I think that the most telling part of your essay really stems out of 4.  Intelligent Design theorists have been trying to convince people that science is in fact, just another religion, as if that were going to somehow elevate Intelligent Design to the level of science.   It won’t.   And even if you did prove that “Darwinism” was a religion, it still wouldn’t make ID science (or in fact, of any use to anyone).

  2. Juan Buhler

    My favorite counter-argument to ID is the other ID: incompetent design. Rather than saying that we are so complex that we must have been designed, it’s fun to look at the horrible design of which we seem to be victims. Our teeth are too many and rot, our sperm has to be at a lower temperature so it’s kept outside of our bodies which makes it prone to accidents, our appendices are mostly unneccessary, etc etc.

    The designer seems to be laughably uncapable, even by our mortal standards.

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