My Position On Intelligent Design

I've written this before but it needs to be repeated now. Commenters are asking questions that I've already said should be asked of others, people who are more specialized on those topics.

I view Intelligent Design as a program of scientific and philosophical inquiry that strongly deserves freedom to be pursued. I am not a scientist, and though I have favorable views regarding ID as science, I do not intend to develop a new specialty at this time. I have read most of the major evolution proponents at some length: Gould, Mayr, Dawkins, Dennett, Ruse, Forrest, Miller, and others. I am aware of the literature, considerably more so than the typical layman.

I understand enough of the literature to have a well-informed opinion, but not enough to want to engage in "article wars," in which one side pits their scientific articles against the other's. Everyone knows that ID's published body of literature is considerably smaller than evolution's. This is to be expected of a young science, especially one in which publishing an article can be a fatal career move. But aside from that, for me to engage in these article wars would require me to develop a whole new technical specialty, which I do not intend to do.

ID is not yet an established science. I think it's on its way there, and I even think it will arrive. But there's much more work to be done first. Therefore my position on ID as an empirical science is, "time will tell." I'm watching to see what will happen.

Why then do I write in favor of Intelligent Design? Because I do have a much deeper grounding in the philosophical issues surrounding the question. Most of the discussion on evolution (not all, but most) hinges on its being unguided and purposeless, which is philosophically untenable. This is where I concentrate my work on the topic. If commenters want me to move into discussions of co-optation and scaffolding, I will politely ask them to bring their question to someone who has more background on that. But I'll gladly stay with any discussion on philosophical materialism or any related topic.

In the end, if Dembski and Behe et al. are proved wrong, I will be very surprised but not devastated. Their ID work asks a question that remains open as of today: "Are there features in the natural world that are best explained by reference to a Designer rather than to unguided natural processes?" Still, if the answer to that question someday is decisively no, philosophical naturalism is still wide open for debate, as I show here. (On that page, and also here, you will also find another aspect of my position on ID, which is its relation to Christianity.)

I will also from time to time write about how ID is distorted by its opponents and in the popular press. It's an interesting phenomenon and not too difficult to chronicle. I'm convinced the ID research program deserves to move forward, and I will gladly do what I can to disclose the illegitimate ways in which many people oppose it, as I did just two days ago. Many people claim the ID question has already been answered, that it has already been decisively proved wrong and even laughable. In virtually every case, though, what they have refuted is something other than the real ID program. I'm trying to get them on the topic.

And I'm not saying I will avoid all areas of empirical science altogether. This being a personal blog, I reserve the right not to be 100% consistent about it! I may point to information on other sites that I think may be relevant, and I may even bring up empirical topics here for discussion. When I do that, it will be in areas where I am fairly confident I know the issues well enough to present them accurately and assess differing views knowledgeably. It comes down to this: not talking unless I know what I'm talking about.

So to summarize:

• I believe ID is probably on the right track scientifically, but that has not yet been demonstrated. I'm not (generally) in a position to contribute to the technical scientific discussion, though on some topics there may be exceptions to that.

• I do stand against those who distort the overall ID program. I hope I can contribute to ID's scientific and philosophical research by raising a voice against misrepresentations.

• Philosophical naturalism undergirds most (not all) evolutionary thinking, and I dispute that frequently and vigorously.

That's what I have to contribute to the discussion. I do not try to do more than that. If you want more, I encourage you to look for it elsewhere.

Posted: Wed - March 28, 2007 at 09:33 AM |

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My Position On Intelligent Design

Thinking Christian by Tom Gilson