God-of-the-gaps objection (Part 4 of 4)

APOLOGIA
By Hendrik van der Breggen
The Carillon, March 15, 2012

God-of-the-gaps objection (Part 4 of 4):
Intelligent design is not a theological explanation

Sometimes the intelligent design hypothesis is said to be an illegitimate scientific explanation because of the so-called God-of-the-gaps objection. The idea is that intelligent design (ID) is mistakenly used to cover gaps in our knowledge but, as science will show, non-intelligent causes do the job.

In previous columns I set out three philosophical arguments for thinking that the God-of-the-gaps objection, when aimed at ID, is problematic. Today, I will address a theological objection to ID.

Let's review my previous arguments, then let's take a look at the theological concern.

Review.

1. The God-of-the-gaps objection fails because it is too strong ( Feb 2). Always ruling out ID runs the risk of ignoring actual limits to what non-intelligent causes can in fact do, and thus we end up always appealing to non-intelligent causes even when there might be good evidence that an intelligent cause actually produced the event or structure. The result: We assume the outcome of an investigation before the investigation takes place (which is, to put it mildly, closed minded).

2. The God-of-the-gaps objection fails because the proper application of ID is not an appeal to ignorance or gaps in our knowledge; rather, ID is an appeal to positive knowledge (Jan 12). ID is appropriately applied when, and only when, two conditions are satisfied: (1) we have positive knowledge that non-intelligent causes clearly struggle/fail, and (2) we have positive knowledge that the phenomena to be explained clearly resemble the sorts of things that only known intelligent causes do.

3. The application of the ID hypothesis is guided by an additional reasonable constraint: ID is to be applied only (if at all) to historical sciences, not nonhistorical sciences (Feb 23). ID isn’t an appropriate explanation in sciences that attempt to explain the ongoing regular operations of nature via natural laws; rather, ID is limited to sciences that attempt to explain a historical origin of a structure or event.

Yes, we should keep in mind that the God-of-the-gaps objection sometimes gains traction when an appeal is made to what we don’t know and God or ID is mistakenly introduced to cover gaps in our knowledge. Nevertheless, the God-of-the-gaps objection doesn’t gain traction when we have positive knowledge of gaps in nature’s causal capacities plus positive knowledge of what intelligent causes can do.

So far, so good.

Enter: The theological concern.

As odd as this may seem, there is also a theological objection to the use of ID in science. This objection stems from a "strong" doctrine of creation, i.e., the creation itself is characterized as “fully gifted” or having a "robust formational economy." The idea is that God created a universe with an “inbuilt potentiality” so that it organized itself (some say “freely”), without subsequent creative acts by God, into all the complex and diverse structures and life forms we observe.

On this view (or set of views), the doctrine of God may be a metaphysical presupposition for the doing of science per se (to explain the universe's orderliness and the human mind's capacity to understand the universe's order), but God is not to be used as a scientific hypothesis to explain some particular event/s in the created order. Hence: ID, which attempts to explain scientifically some events as caused by a special act of God, is theologically inappropriate.

I have three responses to this theological objection.

First, ID does not attempt to identify any specific agent as the cause of the events or patterns that smack of intelligent agency. Rather, ID merely attempts to employ empirical evidence to discern that an intelligent agent was at work. Whether the intelligent agent is God or an alien—or whomever—would be determined by the doing of philosophy and theology.

Perhaps an analogy will help here. Think of ID as merely the first step in a crime scene investigation—think of the popular television series CSI: Miami. When detective Horatio Cain arrives at the scene of an alleged crime (and after he takes off his sunglasses), Horatio first attempts to discern that the death wasn't an accident, i.e., the death is not due to natural (non-intelligent) causes, but due to a mind (an intelligent cause). In subsequent investigation Horatio tries to determine the specific identity of the criminal. (Yes, now the CSI theme song "Who are you?" should come to mind. :-)

Second, whether or not God has made the universe in such a way that all design potentialities were front-loaded at the initial creation event, without subsequent creative acts (so everything comes into being via some form of evolution, e.g., chemical evolution, then neo-Darwinian evolution, etc.)—whether or not this is how God chose to act should be determined by the evidence given by the universe, not assumed at the get go.

Perhaps another analogy will help. Think of the universe and its contents as a beautiful oil painting. Yes, it's theoretically possible that an artist created a “fully gifted” canvas so that it contains the potentialities of all the oil paints in such a way that while the artist stretches the canvas the paints emerge out of the canvas to become the beautiful complex configurations we now behold. Or perhaps, like Rembrandt or Van Gogh, the artist first secured the canvas on wooden stretchers and then later, after the canvas was taut, used various brushes to add and spread paint onto the canvas to form the beautiful image.

Surely, whether we should accept the first of these options or the second (or even some third option) should be determined by the evidence, not assumed at the start. The "strong" doctrine of creation with its “fully gifted” or "robust formational economy" (etc.) would have us think that the painting must have emerged and evolved without subsequent special creative acts by the artist. My point: Art historians should let the painting itself tell us how it came to be.

In other words, the universe should be allowed to speak for itself—which is what ID allows. In other words (again), because God is free to create however God wants, we should let the evidence of the universe tell us what happened.

Third, nature itself (i.e., the cosmos), the general patterns of nature which science discovers (i.e., the laws of nature), and the very doing of science per se (i.e., our ability to know the world and discern its patterns, albeit fallibly and non-exhaustively)—these provide philosophical grounds for thinking that there is a Mind (God) who created an orderly universe along with human beings whose minds can discern this order. ID embraces this. However, unlike the "strong" doctrine of creation, ID also allows for an additional possibility: i.e., that of scientifically discerning the more specific causal actions of an intelligent Mind (perhaps God) as they may have also occurred in history.

So, on ID science can discern that a Mind created not only the universe (e.g., via the Big Bang) which is hospitable to life (e.g., fine-tuning of the universe’s initial conditions) but also life itself (e.g., the first life's DNA), if the latter creation in fact occurred later on in the history of the cosmos.

If God has in fact acted in various ways and at various times in the past, then ID would allow for such acts to be investigated by the various scientific disciplines, disciplines that, because of their very existence, also point to God. All of this, it seems to me, is theologically significant—and exciting.

Hendrik van der Breggen, Ph.D., teaches philosophy at Providence University College. Van der Breggen acknowledges that Intelligent Design is presently a minority position in science and that many bright people disagree with ID. He also admits that he could be mistaken, though he likes to believe he is not, so he encourages readers to think carefully. The views in this column do not always reflect the views of Providence.

God-of-the-gaps objection (Part 3 of 4)

APOLOGIA
By Hendrik van der Breggen
The Carillon, February 23, 2012

God-of-the-gaps objection (Part 3 of 4):
Intelligent design has reasonable constraints

According to the God-of-the-gaps objection, science should not appeal to intelligent design (ID) to explain phenomena found in the natural realm. The concern is that ID will be applied inappropriately, filling gaps in our knowledge, gaps that science will explain via non-intelligent causes.

Philosopher David Hull warns, "Once [scientists] allow reference to God or miraculous forces to explain the first origin of life or the evolution of the human species, they have no way of limiting this sort of explanation." As biochemist Michael Behe observes, "There is the anxiety that if the supernatural were allowed as an explanation, then there would be no stopping it—it would be invoked frequently to explain many things that in reality have natural explanations."

In other words, at the heart of the God-of-the-gaps objection is the idea that the application of a hypothesis must be guided by reasonable constraints but, or so the objection goes, the ID hypothesis has none. Thus, we must always appeal to non-intelligent causes.

Last time I argued that the God-of-the-gaps objection fails because it is too strong. Always ruling out ID runs the risk of ignoring actual limits to what non-intelligent causes can in fact do, and thus we end up always appealing to non-intelligent causes when an intelligent cause actually produced the event or structure. The result: We assume the outcome of an investigation before the investigation takes place (which is, to put it mildly, closed minded).

The time before last time, I argued that the God-of-the-gaps objection fails because the application of ID is not an appeal to ignorance or gaps in our knowledge; rather, ID is an appeal to positive knowledge. ID is appropriately applied when, and only when, two conditions are satisfied: (1) we have positive knowledge that non-intelligent causes clearly struggle/fail, and (2) we have positive knowledge that the phenomena to be explained clearly resemble the sorts of things that only known intelligent causes do. In other words, and contrary to what the God-of-the-gaps objection would have us think, the application of ID is guided by reasonable constraints.

Today I will argue that ID has yet another reasonable constraint to guide its application, and this constraint weakens the God-of-the-gaps objection even further. (This constraint may be a bit more difficult to understand than the constraints I set out previously, so please bear with me.)

The additional constraint is this: In many sciences, explanations that appeal to intelligent agency constitute a syntactically/ categorically inappropriate response to the question motivating those sciences, so in these sciences an appeal to ID is inappropriate from the get go, whereas in other sciences ID is not inappropriate.

Philosopher of science Stephen C. Meyer explains the constraint well, so I will follow him closely (subsequent quotes are from Meyer).

Meyer points out that the sciences can be divided into two broad categories: historical and nonhistorical.

The nonhistorical sciences consist of branches of physics, chemistry, and biology, and are "concerned primarily with the discovery and explication of general phenomena." The goal of these sciences is to investigate the world's regular operations, i.e., "to discover, classify or explain [via] unchanging laws and properties of nature."

The historical sciences, on the other hand, consist of such sciences as historical geology, evolutionary biology, and archaeology. Their concern is "to reconstruct the past and explain the present by reference to the past," i.e., to "explain events or data not primarily by reference to laws but by reference to past causal events or sequences of events—what might be called 'causal histories.'"

Whereas Meyer uses the terms "nonhistorical science" and "historical science", some thinkers use the terms "operation science" and "origin science," respectively. Operation science has to do with the ongoing regularities of nature; origin science has to do with historical singularities or beginnings in nature.

Clearly, an appeal to intelligent agency is not always inappropriate in the historical sciences. In archaeology it makes sense to claim that an intelligent agent was the cause of what appears to be a cave painting. Also, in historical biology it makes sense to claim that an intelligent agent may have been the cause of life's origin. Of course, these claims might be false. However, with respect to the motivating questions of the historical sciences—i.e., questions of the sort "What is the cause of X?"—they are not logically inappropriate responses.

On the other hand, in the nonhistorical sciences an appeal to intelligent agency is logically inappropriate always. The answer "an intelligent agent did it" fails to respond correctly to the kind of question motivating the nonhistorical sciences. Nonhistorical sciences ask questions concerning how nature operates normally, i.e., how nature operates without the interference or special actions of intelligent agency (whether human or divine or alien), and so these sciences seek answers which involve the descriptive and/or explanatory use of natural laws and non-intelligent processes.

Meyer puts it this way: “To offer ‘God did it’ as an answer to a question such as ‘How does weightlessness generally affect crystal growth?’ clearly misses the point of the question. The answer does not so much violate the rules of science as the rules of grammar.”

Appeals to intelligent agency in the natural realm, then, are constrained by the fact that they are syntactically inappropriate in the nonhistorical or operational sciences. This means that as a possible causal answer in the doing of science, ID is limited primarily to the category of historical or origin sciences. Significantly, this constraint reduces the chances of applying ID erroneously.

Therefore, because the application of the ID hypothesis is guided by this additional reasonable constraint, i.e., the constraint that ID is to be applied only (if at all) to historical sciences, the God-of-the-gaps objection to the scientific legitimacy of ID (arising from ID's alleged lack of reasonable constraint) is additionally weakened.

Stay tuned for part 4.

P.S. My quotes from Stephen C. Meyer are from his essay "The Methodological Equivalence of Design and Descent," in The Creation Hypothesis: Scientific Evidence for an Intelligent Designer, edited by J. P. Moreland (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1994), 67-112. Meyer restates these points in his book Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design (New York: HarperCollins, 2009), 408-410.

Hendrik van der Breggen, PhD, is assistant professor of philosophy at Providence University College. The views in this column do not always reflect the views of Providence.

God-of-the-gaps objection (Part 2 of 4)

APOLOGIA
By Hendrik van der Breggen
The Carillon, February 2, 2012

God-of-the-gaps objection (Part 2 of 4):
Intelligent design lets evidence speak for itself

According to the God-of-the-gaps objection, the intelligent design hypothesis is an illegitimate scientific explanation. The idea is that intelligent design (ID) is mistakenly used to cover gaps in our knowledge but, as science will show, non-intelligent causes do the job.

Last time I argued that ID, when properly applied, is actually an argument from positive knowledge, not from ignorance or gaps in our knowledge. I argued that ID is to be applied when, and only when, two conditions are satisfied: (1) we have positive knowledge of the capacities (or lack thereof) of non-intelligent causes, that is, we have good reasons for thinking that non-intelligent causes fail and will very probably continue to fail in their accounting of a particular event or structure, and (2) we have positive knowledge that the event or structure in question is the sort of thing known intelligent causes do.

Today I will set out another argument for thinking that the God-of-the-gaps objection, when aimed at ID, is problematic.

The God-of-the-gaps objection is too strong. The objection tells us that to avoid the risk of mistakenly appealing to an intelligent cause, we must always stick with non-intelligent causes. However, it turns out that always ruling out intelligent causes means that we must appeal to a non-intelligent cause even if an intelligent cause, in fact, produced the event or structure.

Indeed, if we accept the God-of-the-gaps objection, then we must always ignore known limits of what non-intelligent causes can in fact do, even when the known evidence points to intelligent design.

Surely, this is a problem.

To illustrate the problem, consider a Scrabble game (played at my home) where the letters are arranged as follows: DAD IT IS YOUR TURN TO BUY PIZZA. If we always disallow ID, then I would be committed to thinking that the letters arranged themselves, however improbably, without the benefit of intelligent causal input. But I know (have very reasonable belief) that there is a causal gap in the capacities of the Scrabble tiles to arrange themselves into a meaningful sentence, and I know that the arrangement in question is the sort of thing that intelligent causes do. The upshot: A constant appeal to non-intelligent causes will block what my sons actually communicated via the Scrabble board. Hence, no pizza.

Now, let’s think about God. If God really did create the universe a finite time ago (e.g., via a finely-tuned big bang), and if God subsequently really did act in the world in a special way (e.g., to create the first living organism), and if God actually left good evidence or traces of Himself in what He created (as the Scriptures suggest)—if these were all the case, yet science is never allowed to provide explanations that involve intelligent causation (whether divine or merely supernatural or whatever)—would our scientific theories miss something important?

It seems to me that they would. Our theories would always be plugging actual gaps in the non-intelligent causal capacities of reality with non-intelligent causes, even when the events and structures in question point to actual intelligent causation. That is to say, the requirement of a constant appeal to non-intelligent causes will block our knowledge of intelligent causation even if an intelligent cause actually produced the event or structure in the world.

Here's the lesson: The number 1 rule of science should be that we seek the best explanation of the evidence, period; we should not force the evidence to fit a philosophy.

Lehigh University biochemist Michael Behe illustrates the above lesson in a fun but deeply insightful way:

“Imagine a room in which a body lies crushed, flat as a pancake. A dozen detectives crawl around, examining the floor with magnifying glasses for any clue to the identity of the perpetrator. In the middle of the room, next to the body, stands a large, gray elephant. The detectives carefully avoid bumping into the pachyderm's legs as they crawl, and never even glance at it. Over time the detectives get frustrated with their lack of progress but resolutely press on, looking even more closely at the floor. You see, textbooks say detectives must ‘get their man,’ so they never consider elephants.” (Michael J. Behe, Darwin's Black Box [The Free Press, 1996], 192.)

In other words, the God-of-the-gaps objection assumes the outcome of our investigations before the investigations take place. Surely, this is closed-mindedness.

Thus, the God-of-the-gaps objection is problematic—and it shouldn’t block our scientific inquiries into evidence for intelligent design.

Stay tuned for part three.

Hendrik van der Breggen, Ph.D., is assistant professor of philosophy at Providence University College, Canada. The views in this column do not always reflect the views of Providence.

God-of-the-gaps objection (Part 1 of 4)

APOLOGIA
By Hendrik van der Breggen
The Carillon, January 12, 2012

God-of-the-gaps objection (Part 1 of 4):
Intelligent design is not an appeal to ignorance

Sometimes the intelligent design hypothesis is said to be an illegitimate scientific explanation because of the so-called God-of-the-gaps objection. Today I will explain the God-of-the-gaps objection, plus I will argue that this objection is problematic.

According to the God-of-the-gaps objection, intelligent design (ID) is a faulty explanation because it is based on ignorance, not knowledge. That is to say, ID is based on gaps in our knowledge of the capacities of natural non-intelligent causes, but natural non-intelligent causes are actually at work, as further scientific investigation will show.

For example, many years ago people appealed to God as an explanation for lightning. But, of course, we now know that lightning is an atmospheric electrostatic discharge (i.e., a form of static electricity), not God's intervention. Clearly, using God as an explanation of lightning is to display ignorance of the actual causes of lightning. Clearly, too, as science progresses, the gaps due to human ignorance close—and so the "God" of the gaps gets squeezed out.

Thus, according to the God-of-the-gaps objection, we should not appeal to ID as an explanation.

Is the God-of-the-gaps objection reasonable to believe? I don't think so. Here is one argument for thinking that the God-of-the-gaps objection, when aimed at ID, is problematic. (Next time I will set out a second argument.)

Yes, the God-of-the-gaps objection gains traction when a God hypothesis is applied without reasonable constraint, that is, when evidence truly doesn't warrant it (think of our lightning example). However, the fact remains that ID can sometimes be applied reasonably.

According to ID proponents, ID is appropriate when—and only when—two conditions are satisfied: (1) we have positive knowledge for thinking that non-intelligent causes clearly struggle/fail, and (2) we have positive knowledge that the phenomena to be explained clearly resemble the sorts of things that only known intelligent causes do.

Interestingly, the satisfaction of these conditions is at the heart of reasoning that we do in everyday life when we discern intelligent causes.

For example, if I am playing Scrabble with my family and I see the letters, DAD-IT-IS-YOUR-TURN-TO-BUY-PIZZA, I know (i.e., have reasonable belief) that the arrangement of letters has been intelligently designed. Why? Because (1) I know that it’s extremely improbable for Scrabble letters to arrange themselves this way without input of intelligence, and (2) I know that this arrangement of letters displays those distinct characteristics which originate from a mind or personal agent, i.e., an intelligent cause.

Sure, it's logically possible that the letters' arrangement was due to chance, natural law, or some combination of these, but, clearly, it's reasonable to think that an intelligent cause explanation is the more plausible hypothesis.

In the 2009 book Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design, philosopher of science Stephen C. Meyer takes the above-described ID reasoning to the investigation of the origin of the information content of Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA), the blueprint of life. Notice how Meyer employs the aforementioned two conditions.

First, Meyer argues, we know that the origin of the code of DNA is highly improbable when we are given non-intelligent causes only. According to Meyer, contemporary science tells us that the major contending explanations which do not appeal to intelligent causes are not up for the explanatory task. Contemporary science tells us that material non-intelligent causes, when understood wholly in terms of chance, physical necessity, or combinations of chance and physical necessity, very apparently lack the capacity to produce the rich information content of DNA.

In other words, because of what we know of physical matter, we have positive knowledge that explanations of DNA's origin which don't appeal to intelligent causes have great difficulty.

Second, Meyer argues, we know from our uniform and repeated experience of the cause-and-effect structure of the world that only intelligent causal agency produces the sort of information that is found in DNA (i.e., information that is like that found in my string of Scrabble letters, but is much more complex). Meyer calls this sort of information functionally specified information (or specified information, for short). The information consists of a complicated set of instructions that direct the construction of non-living material/chemical structures to function together in a highly specific way, i.e., as a complex integrated system, which is the first life.

Moreover, we know that DNA's code, i.e., DNA's complex functionally-specified information, resembles human-made computer software, but is much more sophisticated. As Bill Gates of Microsoft has famously said, “DNA is like a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software we’ve ever created.”

Because of the satisfaction of both of the above two conditions, Meyer concludes that the ID hypothesis is a scientifically legitimate way to go.

But, we should pause here and notice: Meyer's argument is definitely not an argument from gaps in our knowledge.

In other words, the ID hypothesis (when used properly) is based on what we know. It's based on positive knowledge of the capacities (or lack thereof) of non-intelligent causes, and it's based on positive knowledge of the sorts of things only intelligent causes do. Properly understood, then, ID is not an argument based on ignorance, so ID is not a case of God-of-the-gaps reasoning.

Therefore, when directed at ID, the God-of-the-gaps objection is problematic—and it should not block our scientific inquiries into evidence for intelligent design.

Stay tuned for part two.

Hendrik van der Breggen, Ph.D., is assistant professor of philosophy at Providence University College. The views in this column do not always reflect the views of Providence.