Writing in Slate, William Saletan illustrates how the case for intelligent design is essentially an argument from incredulity, namely that the mere fact that one fails to see how an organism could emerge (notwithstanding the fact that it bears all the traits of common descent, albeit modified, and shared characteristics with fellow travellers on its phylogenetic tree) via the double axle of genetic reshuffling and natural selection means that an intelligent creator is undoubtedly involved.
The questioner is Eric Rothschild and the expert witness is Michael Behe, author of Darwin's Black Box.
Q: Please describe the mechanism that intelligent design proposes for how complex biological structures arose.
A: Well, the word "mechanism" can be used in many ways. … When I was referring to intelligent design, I meant that we can perceive that in the process by which a complex biological structure arose, we can infer that intelligence was involved. …
Q: What is the mechanism that intelligent design proposes?
A: And I wonder, could—am I permitted to know what I replied to your question the first time?
Q: I don't think I got a reply, so I'm asking you. You've made this claim here (reading): "Intelligent design theory focuses exclusively on the proposed mechanism of how complex biological structures arose." And I want to know, what is the mechanism that intelligent design proposes for how complex biological structures arose?
A: Again, it does not propose a mechanism in the sense of a step-by-step description of how those structures arose. But it can infer that in the mechanism, in the process by which these structures arose, an intelligent cause was involved.
The interrogation goes on like this for pages and pages. Like the theorist in the Monty Python sketch, Behe throws up a blizzard of babble: process, intelligent activity, important facts. What process? What activity? What facts? He never explains. He says the designer "took steps" to create complex biological systems, but ID can't specify the steps. Does ID tell us who designed life? No, he answers. Does it tell us how? No. Does it tell us when? No. How would the designer create a bacterial flagellum? It would "somehow cause the plan to, you know, go into effect," he proposes.
Can ID make testable predictions? Not really. If we posit that a given biological system was designed, Rothschild asks, what can we infer about the designer's abilities? Just "that the designer had the ability to make the design that is under consideration," says Behe. "Beyond that, we would be extrapolating beyond the evidence." Does Behe not understand that extrapolating beyond initial evidence is exactly the job of a hypothesis? Does he not grasp the meaninglessness of saying a designer designed things that were designed?
Evidently not. "That is exactly the basis for how we detect design—when we perceive the purposeful arrangement of parts," Behe declares. The essence of science—that detection means going beyond perception—escapes his comprehension. It also escapes his interest. He says his belief that the bacterial flagellum was intelligently designed could be tested, but he's never run the test. Why not? "I'm persuaded by the evidence that I cite in my book that this is a good explanation and that spending a lot of effort in trying to show how random mutation and natural selection could produce complex systems … is not real likely to be fruitful," he says. Who needs science when you've got faith?
So, this is my theory, which belongs to me, and goes as follows. All intelligently designed things are brought about by an intelligent designer through a process of intelligently conducted design. If it's good enough for Monty Python, it's good enough for biology class.
The issue of bad theology aside (I will leave for another day the barely remarked disjuncture between ID [which claims to be old earth, among others] and their supporters in the literalist school), the same criteria used by Behe might be applied to quantum physics to sweep aside ungodly speculations about bosons, gluons and other subatomic particles (after all, nobody has actually seen the Higg's boson, even in experiments; it's merely the hypothesised particle that gives mass to quarks and we all know that it's divine will that keeps all matter from falling apart, don't we?).
It's said that when you repeat a lie over and over again, eventually it might be taken for a truth. Sadly, most Americans seem unable to distinguish between ID creationism and evolutionary biology, ranking them as equal in stature as scientific disciplines subject to peer scrutiny and rigorous review. So now, evolution is 'just' a theory (like the 'theory' of relativity perhaps? Now how many times have I heard Einstein suffer beration from the pulpit for introducing relativistic thinking into morality and life?) on par with creation myths and the wedge of ID ("Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions") is finding adherents and blind followers amongst those who simply cannot imagine how the insertion of supernatural intent into the study of life, the universe and everything could spell the collapse of objective scientific discovery and a return to the Dark Ages of dogma and doctrine. Have we emerged after centuries of struggle against those who would subject free will to dominion and docility only to find science, whose advancement relies on unfettered enquiry into the material domain, becoming a sacrificial lamb on the altar of those who seek to remake each and every soul in the image of a faithful and obedient dog?
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More on the subject. Writing in American Scientist Nov-Dec 2005, Pat Shipman highlights the ID movement's unabashed goal of "nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its cultural legacies" and its false claim that "new developments in biology, physics and cognitive science raise serious doubts about scientific materialism and have re-opened the case for a broadly theistic understanding of nature."
As she notes, "In the ID lexicon, 'scientific materialism' – the idea that the world around us can be explained without resorting to supernatural forces – is the enemy. ID advocates favor instead something they call 'theistic realism', which 'assumes that the universe and all its creatures were brought into existence for a purpose by God.' The most revealing word in this statement is 'assumes'. Scientists rely not on assumption but on evidence, and there is none for ID. Theistic realism and ID are statements of religious faith, which does not require evidence."
An interview with ID advocate Philip Johnson reveals the school's cynicism about science and truth: "[Y]ou have to have people that talk a lot about the issue and get it up front and take the punishment and take all the abuse, and then you get people used to talking about it. It becomes an issue they are used to hearing about, and you get a few more and people and a few more, and then eventually you've legitimated it as a regular part of the academic discussion. And that's my goal: to legitimate the argument over evolution... we are bound to win."
With ID being considered as an addition to the required science curriculum in schools in 40 American states, Shipman urges a coherent response from the scientific community that would "expose Intelligent for what it really is: religious prejudice masked as intellectual freedom." She warns in conclusion: "The ID movement is more than an attack on biology because evolutionary theory unifies the life and earth sciences with physics and chemistry. If ID is accepted as a credible science, then the most basic definition of a scientific theory and the fundamental principles of the scientific method are not being taught. Johnson is right: ID can be the wedge that splits science wide apart."
Michael Ruse, a philosopher of science, sees ID as nothing less than "science stoppers" that make it impossible for the study of life and natural phenomena to progress. For latecomers (and self-persuaded students) to the scene such as myself, this battle is one that I suspect many (safe pitbulls such as Dawkins) are loathe to enter, for in the time and energies devoted to rebutting claims of divine intervention, precious hours and passions are diverted from the truly fruitful task of exploring the pathways and patterns of life on earth.
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