Intelligent Design A, B, and C

Jonathan Wells makes the point, every opportunity he gets, that "evolution" has different meanings in different contexts. There is change over time and variation of populations within species, with which ID has no quarrel whatever. There is descent with modification often leading to descent from a common ancestor; and ID theory can accommodate these, though ID theorists differ on their opinions about them. And then there is the theory that includes all of the above, and adds that it has all happened by the operations of chance and necessity alone, unguided. That's classic neo-Darwinism, with which ID takes issue.

Distinctions like these are very helpful. I'm wondering if we ought to think of doing the same with the way Intelligent Design is understood. ID also means different things in different contexts. It would be ideal if we could distinguish these different meanings by using different terms. It's probably too late for that, but I'm going to float an idea here to see if it might lead to some useful discussion anyway.

It seems to me there are at least two categories of theorizing about Intelligent Design, and that the confusion between the two is hampering progress. There is Intelligent Design as science, and there is Intelligent Design in its philosophical implications. The philosophical side of it further divides into two aspects. The first addresses research definitions: it attempts to answer, what would intentionality (or teleology) have to look like in nature in order for us to reliably identify it? The second deals with, If intentionality is found at the root of nature, then what does that mean to us all?

I'm going to call these Intelligent Design A, B, and C here, with ID A being the pre-scientific philosophical definitions, ID B being strictly the scientific research, and ID C the philosophical implications that may follow. (I'm sure someone else could come up with better names, in fact, that ought to be done. That's the whole point I'm getting to here. But I haven't thought of them.) I don't mean to imply that science can be divorced from philosophy, but it seems there might be something to gain from trying to mark off some loose boundaries, for they really aren't all the same thing.

Intelligent Design B, the science aspect, is conceptually simple on one level, which is to say, it can be defined in just a few words. It is an empirical program that seeks to find and identify features in nature that can be more credibly be attributed to intentional design than to chance and necessity. ID B depends on ID A to help define its research parameters and goals. ID C is the seriously contentious part: if A and B are successful, then what? But ID C can be kept conceptually separate. It follows A and B, and in terms of logical sequence, the questions of ID C do not even have to be taken up until A and B have finished their work.

The value of this set of distinctions is that it sets the theological implications free of the pre-scientific and scientific work, and vice-versa. In fact, it has always been that way; that's what ID theorists mean when they say that the identity of the Designer is not assumed by the science. But this has been obscured by a confusion of terminology, in which the same words have been used for all three of these aspects of the problem. Case in point is the title of William Dembski's book Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Theology. The book is carefully thought out and closely argued, and it does not, in fact, make the mistake of confusing the science of ID with theology. But detractors are so quick to accuse ID of committing that confusion ("Intelligent Design Creationism," on which see here), that it would help if we had better terminology to help head that off.

I'm at a loss at this point to suggest better terminology, and a lot of water has gone under the bridge, so this may have to stand as just a futile wish for clearer terms, and a continuing hope for improved conceptual distinctions. I'm sure that regardless of what we ID proponents say, antagonists are always going to call it Intelligent Design Creationism. But the matter seems worth working on anyway.

Related Follow-up Post

Posted: Sat - May 19, 2007 at 07:32 PM |

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Intelligent Design A, B, and C

Thinking Christian by Tom Gilson