That Infinite Regress Again
John Sutherland interviewed Michael Behe in the Guardian yesterday. (P Z comments on the interview at Pharyngula). He didn’t ask some questions that it seems to me he might have.
JS: It’s no secret that you are a Catholic. But, as I understand it, your scientific theory does not predicate God in any form whatsoever. You’ve suggested that the designer could even be some kind of evil alien. Is that right?
MB: That’s exactly correct. All that the evidence from biochemistry points to is some very intelligent agent. Although I find it congenial to think that it’s God, others might prefer to think it’s an alien – or who knows? An angel, or some satanic force, some new age power. Something we don’t know anything about yet.
What is the difference? What’s the difference between an evil alien, God, an alien, an angel, some satanic force, some new age power? They’re all the same thing, really – just a big X, a big ?, a big ‘who knows’, a big wild card, a Something, a Whatever. A designer.
In other words it’s such an empty category it might as well not be there. It’s just a substitute for ‘I don’t know’. So why not just go with ‘I don’t know’? Because it’s more cuddly to suggest that it might be God, even though ‘God’ could in fact translate to ‘evil alien.’ (Apart from anything else, God is pretty obviously an alien, right? I mean what else is he going to be? A local?)
But the more basic unasked question is closer to the beginning of the interview.
JS: Is there a discourse problem here? Metaphysics can’t engage meaningfully with physics? Does intelligent design belong in science?
MB: I believe it does. I see it as straightforward empirical observation. One analogy I like to use is to Mount Rushmore. If you had never heard of Mount Rushmore, you would see immediately the images of four people and immediately recognise that to be design. There wouldn’t be any question of metaphysics there. You can tell that something was designed from its physical structure.
But then what designed the designer? ‘You see this design when you see co-ordinated parts coming together to perform a function – like in a hand. And so it’s the appearance of design that everybody’s trying to explain. So that if Darwin’s theory doesn’t explain it we’re left with no other explanation than maybe it really was designed.’ But that’s not an explanation, because it leaves you exactly where you were. So who designed the designer? Why do you think saying ‘Intelligent Design’ is explanatory when obviously anything that intentionally designed all the complex things in the universe would have to be a lot more complex than they are? You think those less complex things have to be explained – so why don’t you think the same thing about the more complex thing, only more so?
Is it just because you can’t see it? You see the flagellum under the microscope, and think ‘It looks designed’ – but you don’t see the Designer under the microscope, or through the telescope, or any other way, so, unimaginatively enough, you just forget to wonder who designed that? Don’t you think that’s kind of simple-minded? Because I do.
It’s such an obvious problem, and it’s so fatal – it’s odd that it so seldom gets raised.
And this in the newspaper that publishes (but presumably doesn’t read) Ben Goldacre?
My problem with ID is the feeling (no, certainty) that it is dishonest. It isn’t what its proponents really believe. Is there a non-Christian supporter of ID?
Its main purpose is, I suppose, to avoid the US constitutional rules on teaching religion in schools.
My problem with ID is the feeling (no, certainty) that it is dishonest. It isn’t what its proponents really believe. Is there a non-Christian supporter of ID?
Its main purpose is, I suppose, to avoid the US constitutional rules on teaching religion in schools.
I think Ken Nielsen nails it. It’s sophistry, pure and simple.
I actually have less problem with “believing” or positing a creator, a God “outside nature” (ducks and hides in shame) than most of you. It’s just that science to me doesn’t “need” to be tied to that God or force at all. What use does the transcendent God provide for science, which is an explanatory system for observable physical reality in nature? Scientists already are/should be humble about the philosophical and metaphysical questions. ID does nothing for science.
Scientists already are/should be humble about the philosophical and metaphysical questions.
Dawkins is a scientist (although some would argue that he is dogmatic and thus that he’s not necessarily a very good one)–but he is not humble about these questions and neither should he be. Physicists are better placed than anybody else to say whether the existence of a creator is likely or explanatorily necessary. For instance, if it can be shown that the universe need not have had (or did not have) any particular beginning, that pretty well rules out the need to posit a creator, whom many have postulated exists outside time as well as space. It would be remiss of a scientist not to point out the implications of such a finding to the general public if it withis his or her power to do so.
If a transcendent god is without the bounds of scientific enquiry, there is no need for a scientist to be humble on the matter of its existence since it has no more bearing on her work than whether or not she likes the colour green.
Philosophical point- How can we tell that an object is *designed*? Is there something that just leaps out at us? We *know* that Mount Rushmore is designed (and given our history of sculpture we could probably guess even if we didn’t know). Many people have mistaken natural rock formations for the ruins of ancient buildings (usually when searching for “lost civilizations”) so is it so easy to tell if something is designed or not?
“Dawkins is a scientist (although some would argue that he is dogmatic and thus that he’s not necessarily a very good one)–“
i think that his ‘dogmatism’ is overstated. evolution by natural selection is as well confirmed as many other scientific theories that nobody doubts. many people may be keen on homeopathy etc, but scientist who insist that the world is round are not often acused of being dogmatic. it isnt fair to round particularly on dawkins.
The article is so irritating. Behe has been saying these things for ages but the interviewer John Sutherland eggs him on the whole time. He compares Behe to Galileo! It’s so smug and stupid, the Guardian should be ashamed to publish it..
It is irritating.
The Galileo thing is a popular trope. ‘The Church condemned Galileo, therefore my whacked-out ideas are brilliant.’ Err –
Right-wing Xian Suck-Up Watch.
Well, after sucking up to Islamic wackos so egregiously for so long, isn’t sucking up to the Xian wackos the next logical step? I’ve known more than a few squishy New Age liberals who have slid down the slippery slope from warm fuzzy feelings about “spirituality” to sympathy for “sincere, passionate” Islamists to outright membership in Xian fundamentalist churches. Hey, at least they’re not soulless technocrats!
BTW, comparing IDers and Creationists to Galileo is a very common tactic in Creationist propaganda. Hey, they were both persecuted by the establishments of their day, weren’t they? We need a name for this new fallacy: The Lonely Hero fallacy? The Man of Sorrows fallacy, perhaps?
We need a name for this new fallacy: The Lonely Hero fallacy? The Man of Sorrows fallacy, perhaps?
How about the Martyr fallacy?
“the Guardian should be ashamed to publish it..”
But the Guardian looks like a student newspaper now so it’s probably appropriate.
I’d just call it the Galileo fallacy, myself. In fact I think I already have, somewhere in here. (But since I’ve been doing this for three years now…it’s not as if I can remember them all…in fact it doesn’t need three years, I can look at a comment I wrote three weeks ago and stare blankly in non-recognition…)
“How about the Martyr fallacy?”
That’ll work.
“it’s not as if I can remember them all…in fact it doesn’t need three years, I can look at a comment I wrote three weeks ago and stare blankly in non-recognition”
Me too. In fact, the Galileo fallacy rings a very vague bell with me. Now who the hell are you and what the hell were we talking about, anyway?
i think the most irritating thing is how much Behe must have enjoyed that interview.
I prefer ‘the Bozo the Clown fallacy’. As in
“They laughed at Newton, they laughed at Einstein . . .”
“Yes, but they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.”
Perfect. Bozo the Clown it is, then.
stuart > Indeed; I wasn’t endorsing the view myself and was trying to show that the viewpoint is unjustified.
Didn’t Graham Chapman say something like “They laughed at my wife when she wrapped herself up in greaseproof paper and hopped into the Social Security office. But that doesn’t mean that Pasteur was wrong!” I guess we need new lyrics for “They All Laughed.”
But seriously, folks… The Mount Rushmore thing: the ID argument is so easy to pull apart in so many ways (and every time you point out one way they find some wiggle room, which is one way of defining the entire ID movement: wiggle room for creationists). There are lots of gaps in all kinds of science. If there were nothing but gaps, that still wouldn’t be evidence for an intelligent creator. Not knowing one thing is not the way to arrive at the conclusion that another must be true. They try to make it seem that way because they have an answer they want accepted and therefore spend all their time trying to demolish whatever doesn’t fit that answer. If your answer has no evidence behind it, then what is it that could make it more likely than any other answer, especially the one (in this case) with all the evidence behind it? They keep on pushing all their favourite examples that are likely to make sense to people who don’t know science (but go to church and vote): Irreducible Complexity, the eye etc. And if you point out to them all the examples of what look like bad design, but are in fact merely the signs of features that were useful to a life form in an earlier phase of its evolution, then you get the really ridiculous wiggles, all the way to the ones who explain that Adam was created as a baby and therefore had to be suckled by apes, as there were no previous humans who could have been his parents. At least a lot of the scientists have started waking up after the Bush statement and realized that they have to be energetically out there telling everyone ID is a crock of shit instead of honorably boycotting hearings in Kansas.