Most theories, once regarded as confirmed, become the basis for further studies directed not at reconfirming the original thesis but getting deeper insights. So what would happen if someone managed to confirm one instance of ID: what research program would follow? What deeper insights might one seek? I suppose one could turn to other events in nature and see if they too exhibit ID. One could keep busy dealing with new apparent counter-examples as well. And one would also keep pretty busy answering the never-ending objections of philosophical skeptics (perhaps one of those objections would be that "ID is just a theory...?"). The latter, however, might be a philosophical rather than a strictly scientific enterprise. But none of these controversies would actually move scientific knowledge forward to a new level. The only way in which that might happen would be by trying to discern what the intelligent designer is like. But that seems likely to be a dead end for science, for (as I have argued elsewhere in this blog) science can’t distinguish between one or many very smart creatures and God as understood in classical theism: that’s a philosophical issue. It seems to me, therefore, that ID cannot not in principle serve as the basis of new discoveries in the manner typically exhibited by theories in the natural sciences.
[this paragraph added later] But if ID is an inchoate social science, then this criticism dissolves. In such a case, it would be a cross-disciplinary study of a common pattern: apparently chance events can contain information that indicates agency. Cryptology and forensics (especially the study of bio terrorism) archeology TRIZ (spelling? the study of how inventions are developed) and SETI (search for extra terrestrial intelligence) would be siblings in this family (I think all of these examples from Dembski) would be a first cousin. Such a discipline could afford insights into analogies across disciplines in a manner similar to how chaos theory finds principles applicable to fluid mechanics, cardiology, economics, population, etc.
Also worth noting is that toward the end of The Design Revolution Dembski lists many interesting possible projects.
Also worth noting is that toward the end of The Design Revolution Dembski lists many interesting possible projects.
[back to my initial ID-directed criticism, which probably needs to be toned down substantially] This limitation is underscored by Dembski’s choice of forensics as one of the disciplines most like intelligent design, for this analogy belies how ID might rely upon science but is not itself a science. Forensics, like medicine, is more the application of scientific knowledge than a scientific discipline unto itself (yes, you can find the phrase "forensic science" but it is an art in the same way as medicine). Both of these arts provoke scientific inquiries into areas such as biology, chemistry, etc. But, unlike scientific theories, these arts are not strictly speaking sciences: they are applications thereof. Both involve an element of prudential judgment in the application of scientific knowledge to a concrete situation. Both forensics and medicine apply the same principles to many different but similar individuals. After a doctor has done one tonsillectomy, he or she proceeds to do a thousand more. Ditto with an expert in forensics: after he or she has solved one crime, he or she moves on to another. I suppose an IDer might find many signs of ID: I don’t suppose, however, that the IDer will be able to show that all of them are evidence of even the same intelligent designer, for that’s a philosophical question. So the explanans of ID theory can never itself be examined or inquired into. That distinguishes it from the explanans in scientific theories (note that this criticism might also apply to the selfish gene metaphor: we are never going to get to the point where we can in any sense observe the purported selfishness in the same way that we "see" a molecule under an electron microscope). Eventually we start making observations about what was previously only a hypothetical entity: we cannot in principle do such a thing with intelligent design. So ID not only fails to be a science, it also fails to give rise to further scientific inquiries in the manner characteristic of medicine and forensics.
Just as we would not call a doctor’s judgment about a particular case a scientific theory but the application of science to a particular situation; just as we would speak in a similar manner about the judgment of an expert in forensics; so too ID does not seem so much to be a scientific theory as it is the application of a theory. I think Dembski has this in mind when he speaks of the design inference. But he points out that he has more in mind than this inference.... that's what I have to study up on and then to compare with what I have said here.
But what is that theory that it applies? Is it forensics? If it is a special discipline that must be created for the sake of the practice of the forensic art in this situation, then isn't this talk of ID not being a science in the full sense of the word a little off target?
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