We use intelligent design in SETI where we search out signals with information to find hints of intelligent life out in space. We also use this in archeology when we find ancient stones that appear to have been carved or painted on. We immediately recognize the design in that object. The same inferences of design can also be applied to the observations we have of the universe and of biological systems. We observe information and order that may be interpretted as having an intelligent source. This is what intelligent design is after, using our observations to detect whether or not a natural system has an intelligent source behind it's existence.
But is this a legitimate way of looking at biological systems? Let's first examine ID in archeology.
We may find an arrowhead that appears to be very old. It's been carved out in a way that indicates it would be very useful for hunting. The sharp grooved edges are not something that we would expect to see on a rock that eroded naturally. So how did we determine that it was intelligently designed? Our conclusion isn't based on complexity or information, as the arrowhead posses neither of those traits. Our conclusion is based on our already existing knowledge of the needs of ancient man and the effects of erosion on rocks found in nature. The grooves that make the edges sharp may not even be uniform, and the sizes between each may appear random, but because we already know that humans make arrowheads, we can tell that it was made by humans.
We could also find a crystal in a cave. On the surface it certainly looks much shinier than a rock we would find in nature. Closer inspection would reveal that its "atoms, molecules, or ions are arranged in an orderly repeating pattern extending in all three spatial dimensions." (Crystal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) Crystals certainly have a very highly ordered structure and their molecular makeup is quite complex. So does this mean that they were intelligently designed? Or did they form from random, undirected processes? Well, in this case our conclusion is not based on complexity or patterns. Again, our conclusion is based on what we know about the chemical process found in nature. Even though it's possible to create crystals in the laboratory, we still know that they are formed in nature.
While the argument could be made that there are many artifacts that are deemed to be man made because of their complexity or the information on them, information and complexity are not the only factors at work. We know what people can do and we know what nature can't do. Sometimes we find artifacts that we can't explain. How did primitive man build some of the massive structures we see? Scientists have come up with several scenarios for things such as stonehenge and the pyramids, but because they haven't pinned down with certainty the mechanisms that people used should we then abandon the notion that people made them and conclude that aliens did? It seems rather silly to fill in the gaps in our knowledge with an unknown outside source. The problem with using aliens as an explanation for the mechanism is that we still haven't explained the mechanism that they used, hence, it's not an explanation.
SETI looks more closely at patterns and complexity than archeology does. When the signal for pulsars was first discovered it seemed to be unnaturally regular in it's signal. However, it wasn't just declared to be intelligent and left at that. It was further examined and the source for it, the pulsar, was eventually discovered. Does further investigation happen in biological ID? Or are things just declared to be intelligently designed and then left at that?
Intelligent design in biological systems takes a vastly different approach than archeology or SETI. In archeology, we have standard models of what man can make and what nature can make. In biology, what model do we have for what an unknown intelligent designer can make and what model do we have for what the primordial earth could make?
It turns out that our understanding of the primordial earth is increasing and our experiments involving abiogenesis is leading us to more and more new discoveries. But this is just done in a lab so it's actually intelligent design right? Well, no, in the same way we recreate the formation of crystals in a lab, we are trying to recreate primitive cells and self replicating molecules. What progress has been made in the I.D camp?
Also, how could ID ever be falsified? If we explain in detail how the blood clotting system formed, then there are several other examples of complexity to fall back on. Do we need to know every detail of every structures natural formation in order to falsify ID?
Lastly, saying that an intelligent designer did it is as much an explanation as saying that nature did it. Without the mechanisms, it is not an explanation.
My main point is that comparing ID in archeology and SETI to ID in biology is not a coherent argument, as there are different sets of rules and different models that we base our conclusions on.
But is this a legitimate way of looking at biological systems? Let's first examine ID in archeology.
We may find an arrowhead that appears to be very old. It's been carved out in a way that indicates it would be very useful for hunting. The sharp grooved edges are not something that we would expect to see on a rock that eroded naturally. So how did we determine that it was intelligently designed? Our conclusion isn't based on complexity or information, as the arrowhead posses neither of those traits. Our conclusion is based on our already existing knowledge of the needs of ancient man and the effects of erosion on rocks found in nature. The grooves that make the edges sharp may not even be uniform, and the sizes between each may appear random, but because we already know that humans make arrowheads, we can tell that it was made by humans.
We could also find a crystal in a cave. On the surface it certainly looks much shinier than a rock we would find in nature. Closer inspection would reveal that its "atoms, molecules, or ions are arranged in an orderly repeating pattern extending in all three spatial dimensions." (Crystal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) Crystals certainly have a very highly ordered structure and their molecular makeup is quite complex. So does this mean that they were intelligently designed? Or did they form from random, undirected processes? Well, in this case our conclusion is not based on complexity or patterns. Again, our conclusion is based on what we know about the chemical process found in nature. Even though it's possible to create crystals in the laboratory, we still know that they are formed in nature.
While the argument could be made that there are many artifacts that are deemed to be man made because of their complexity or the information on them, information and complexity are not the only factors at work. We know what people can do and we know what nature can't do. Sometimes we find artifacts that we can't explain. How did primitive man build some of the massive structures we see? Scientists have come up with several scenarios for things such as stonehenge and the pyramids, but because they haven't pinned down with certainty the mechanisms that people used should we then abandon the notion that people made them and conclude that aliens did? It seems rather silly to fill in the gaps in our knowledge with an unknown outside source. The problem with using aliens as an explanation for the mechanism is that we still haven't explained the mechanism that they used, hence, it's not an explanation.
SETI looks more closely at patterns and complexity than archeology does. When the signal for pulsars was first discovered it seemed to be unnaturally regular in it's signal. However, it wasn't just declared to be intelligent and left at that. It was further examined and the source for it, the pulsar, was eventually discovered. Does further investigation happen in biological ID? Or are things just declared to be intelligently designed and then left at that?
Intelligent design in biological systems takes a vastly different approach than archeology or SETI. In archeology, we have standard models of what man can make and what nature can make. In biology, what model do we have for what an unknown intelligent designer can make and what model do we have for what the primordial earth could make?
It turns out that our understanding of the primordial earth is increasing and our experiments involving abiogenesis is leading us to more and more new discoveries. But this is just done in a lab so it's actually intelligent design right? Well, no, in the same way we recreate the formation of crystals in a lab, we are trying to recreate primitive cells and self replicating molecules. What progress has been made in the I.D camp?
Also, how could ID ever be falsified? If we explain in detail how the blood clotting system formed, then there are several other examples of complexity to fall back on. Do we need to know every detail of every structures natural formation in order to falsify ID?
Lastly, saying that an intelligent designer did it is as much an explanation as saying that nature did it. Without the mechanisms, it is not an explanation.
My main point is that comparing ID in archeology and SETI to ID in biology is not a coherent argument, as there are different sets of rules and different models that we base our conclusions on.
