YouTube I.D. Questions
Very persistent this individual — I like him!
Q1. Ok, so on your view, I.D. is only science if coupled with a material cause (e.g. panspermia).
A1. Now we’re splitting hairs over definitions. I.D. can’t be scientific by itself if it only concerns itself with agency, but a material hypothesis like panspermia can at least be investigated using the tools of scientific inquiry.
Here is my problem with panspermia: to say that extra terrestrials seeded earth with life 3.5 bya is a metaphysical speculation that attempts to explain why life suddenly appeared on earth after the period of heavy bombardment. On the other hand, others (Darwin included) speculate that the Creator assembled the first living cells on earth by fiat. Special creation is also a metaphysical answer to the riddle of life’s sudden appearance. Neither can really be investigated using the tools of science because in both cases, the question under investigation is a consequence of free agency, not the consequence of a continuous physical law or process (like Evolution and the Big Bang). Both hypotheses assume that some intelligent being “decided” to design and build self-replicating molecules, or even a complete eukaryotic cell and send it to earth just after the period of heavy bombardment.
While panspermia might be a more scientific (naturalistic) answer to the specific question of the “sudden appearance of life on earth” than is special creation, it still doesn’t answer the ultimate question of life’s origin. It simply passes the buck to another world. Where did these extra terrestrial “sowers” come from? Must we accept an infinite regress of aliens civilizations seeding other alien civilizations?
The best way to sort through these metaphysical speculations about the sudden appearance of life on earth (ie: panspermia vs. special creation) is to put our energy into abiogenesis research. There are some very promising things happening in this arena. If a natural mechanism can be found to account for the sudden appearance of life on earth, then there would be no reason to maintain these ad hoc answers to the question. If a mechanism of abiogenesis can never be established, then I guess when we get to heaven we can ask God:
So, in this game of creation billiards, did you really sink every ball on the break? Or you only sink the cosmos, the forces of nature, the milky way and the habitable earth balls on the break, reposition the cue ball, then sink the first life, multi-cellular life, fish, amphibian, reptile, mammal, primate and human balls on your next shot? — because we never quite figured out how you sunk that first life ball!
Q2. If we spoke of such an extra-dimensional creator [as in the book, "Flatlands"], instead of merely an extraterrestrial one, would it still be science?
A2. Again, the existence of an intelligent being that can never be directly observed or detected would be a metaphysical speculation, not a scientific hypothesis. A hypothesis on how this being interacts with our material world, if testable and falsifiable, might be scientific. But any questions about what this being did in the past would be forensic in nature. In other words, the question might be investigated using the tools of science, but the question itself is not necessarily scientific because it posits no regular or repeatable laws or physical process. It only seeks to explain an isolated event from the past.
Q3. Is attributing Stonehenge to design, independent of any specific natural designer, unscientific?
A3. Yes, because the question of design can’t be falsified. As long as there might be some unknown natural phenomenon that naturally cuts and arranges stones into patterns, there is no test we can perform to say it was or wasn’t designed. Pretend, for a moment, that you know nothing of chemistry, and you’ve never seen, nor heard of snow. Somebody shows you a snowflake under the microscope and asked you where it might have come from. You would never assume that something so complex and symmetrical was created naturally, apart from any free agency. For all you know, this is a tiny ice sculpture. The fact that there is an unknown mechanism of creation (at least unknown to you) would cause you to “fail” the design test. However, if you were an inquisitive individual and did some research on the properties of water that cause the ice crystals to arrange themselves in complex patterns — you would then have to reverse your original conclusion about design after discovery that this happens naturally. So the design inference did not help you at all. In fact, to conclude that what you were looking at was a tiny ice sculpture might cause you to forgo the chemical investigation. So in addition to no helping you, the design inference might prevent you from looking for that elusive natural cause — WHICH IS WHY METHODOLOGICAL NATURALISM MUST NOT REPLACED WITH DESIGN THEORY IN THE LABORATORY!
Q4. How specific do we have to get with our proposed designer… must we specify the species/tribe/precise person(s)?
A4. Again, this would be a forensics investigation into the past act of an alleged agent. The tools of science can certainly assist in the investigation, but there is no fundamental natural process under investigation here unless one chooses to accept the challenge of trying to find a yet unknown physical mechanism capable of arranging stones in complex patterns (good luck getting funding for that research!).
Q5. What keeps your standards/requirements of specification from being arbitrary (because surely even today we don’t know the specific persons involved in Stonehenge’s design)?
A5. Well, in a forensics investigation, “beyond all reasonable doubt” works pretty good. So we might never know for certain exactly who built Stonehenge. But we can know, beyond all reasonable doubt, that it was built by somebody (ie: that it was not natural). Again, we can’t prove this with absolute certainty because the questions is of a forensic nature, but only a kook would believe that humans didn’t do it.
April 5th, 2009 at 11:40 pm
The thing about all this talk about the first life is that I always think creationists consider the first life to be a bacteria, that has a membrane, and internal structures, moves, and reacts to stimuli. In reality is that I think Dawkins has it right, the first “life” is that things that starts replicating, the replicating thing.
April 5th, 2009 at 11:57 pm
Whoops, I accidentally hit submit comment. I was just getting started.
The replicating thing was probably not exciting at all. Just a polymore chain of atoms, one that replicated itself (or even extended itself and broke though random process). Such polymore chains have already been identified. I put “life” in quotes because defining when this replicating molecule becomes “alive” is difficult and probably semantics. Are virus’s “alive”?
I’m much more interested in the birth of consciousness. And even as I say that I recognize the human consciousness is an advanced model of consciousness that can be found in the animal kingdom as a whole. Still, that doesn’t mean we aren’t special, or the ultimate purpose of God’s design.
If pure chemistry led to molecules, that led to chains, that led to replication, that let to replication/inheritance/mutation, the necessary components of evolution, that led to cells, that led to multicelluar creatures, that led to vertebrates, that led to mammals, that led to primates, that led to humans, why would I assume God didn’t direct the whole course? Goodness, do you know what I prayed for this past week? Safe travel (ie good friction between the tires of cars and the road), no rain at a wedding (a extremely complicated process between different pressure zones on earth ultimately stemming from differential heating from different zones produced by fusion of hydrogen plasma in the center of the sun ((countless generations ago)). If these took place, where’re they a miracle that defied science? If God controlled them, would I be able to identify the moment where natural laws must have been broken?