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ID theory, Aquinas, and the origin of life: A reply to Torley

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Several days ago, over at Uncommon Descent, VJ Torley posted a response to my recent post on “Intelligent Design” theory and mechanism. I’ve now posted a reply to Torley over at my own blog. This latest piece explores in greater depth some issues that arose here in the W4 comboxes, such as the origin of life.

Comments (45)

That was very helpful, Ed, though I'm left wondering what we would see from you if you saw your "project" a bit differently.

In particular, I'm left wondering what kinds of essays we'd see from you if your goal was to show us how to reinterpret neo-darwinism (well, its speculative successors, since the neo-darwinists are now busily telling us that their old theory is so eighties, but that their newest wild speculations about climate change, I mean origins, represent merely a tweak here and a tweak there in an otherwise sound theory) or ID in a manner consonant with A-T philosophy.

I mean, presumably you don't object in principle to searches for historical origins of either particular life forms or particular artifacts (taking them to be categorically different kinds of things). Presuming as much, it would be great if each of your "here is what is wrong with the metaphysics" salvos was followed up by a "here is a way to reinterpret what we are doing, in our exploration of historical origins, in a manner coherent with A-T metaphysics".

One reason that would be helpful is because I think it is obvious that the vast majority of modern people who look at scientific endeavours are going to interpret them in a way which clashes with A-T philosophy as you understand it. Heck, there are probably as many metaphysics-of-science as there are scientists. But I at least am left wondering why the ID project in particular is the target of so much of your specific opprobrium.

Let me draw on the water-in-the-lab and fizzy tablet examples in your essay.

Suppose we understand, say, the first bacteria on earth as a natural life form, a "breed" of asexually reproducing microscopic life which is extraordinarily difficult to "breed" from antecedents. Those antecedents are understood to have the potencies of the bacteria in them, though not in precisely the same manner as the bacteria itself -- fizzy tablet and water, if you will. Suppose further that we can demonstrate that under any plausible early-earth conditions with no realized existing life forms but only "potential" life forms, fizzy tablets separated from water, "breeding" such a life form would have required intelligent intervention.

Does this not re-cast the ID project in a manner consonant with your understanding of A-T philosophy? I understand that you might still object on other grounds, of course, but is this understanding strictly mechanistic the way you use the term mechanistic? If so I don't at present understand why, because it stipulates the categorical natural-artifact distinction which seems to do all of the heavy lifting in your objections to ID.

Hello Zippy,

It's not just the natural/artifact distinction which is doing the lifting (with the hylemorphic conception of substances implicit in that). It's also the whole A-T understanding of causality (the apparatus of final causality, act/potency, formal vs. virtual or eminent, etc.). Mechanism chucks out all of that -- that is indeed the core of the "mechanical" revolution of the early moderns, the only part which has survived -- and that is the problem with it.

You are right to say that most people would interpret modern biology (and to a lesser extent the other sciences) in a way that is at odds with A-T. But they do so because they have no clear understanding of the difference between those parts of modern science that are empirical and those parts that are simply naturalistic metaphysics tarted up as "science." So, from an A-T point of view the actual empirical evidence given us by modern science needs to be reinterpreted in light of a better metaphysics. Oderberg does some of this, as have other contemporary A-T writers like William A. Wallace. And it's a theme of many Neo-Scholastic works of the pre-Vatican II period.

Obviously that's a rather ambitious goal, but there it is. Anyway, no one who is already inclined to think that naturalism is false and that it has been too lazily taken for granted by modern scientists should be surprised if their work might need to be reinterpreted as a result. Also, I expect you'll agree that there are other entire academic fields that are complete intellectual messes -- sociology, say, or biblical studies (to take an example that got some attention in the recent combox discussion) -- and need to be re-thought from the ground up. So, the need for some revision even in a harder science like biology shouldn't be surprising.

Nor do I deny that some of the points made by ID theorists might be useful to this end. But it's got to be disentangled from all the error it's been associated with. For example, some of the points about the problems in giving a naturalistic account of genetic information are well taken, but the issues is completely muddled by making it a matter of "improbability" or "complexity." That's got nothing at all to do with it. The right way to see it is in terms of the whole apparatus of A-T causal analysis referred to above, because the existence of biological information is a clear instance of inherent teleology or final causality.

Re: the focus on ID, I have repeatedly said that naturalistic approaches to life are at odds with A-T as well. But everyone probably knew that already. What people don't realize is that A-T is also at odds with ID, and that's one reason it is worth emphasizing. Another reason, as I've also said many times, is that ID's mechanistic approach coupled with the anthropomorphism inherent in modeling the "Designer" on human designers (via a univocal application of concepts to both human beings and God -- more A-T jargon, sorry) leads to a conception of God at odds with classical theism. It's not only bad metaphysics, but bad theology. (See the erlier posts on Paley I keep linking back to.) So, for that reason too -- for that reason especially -- the focus on ID is warranted.

Look, anyone who has read The Last Superstition knows that I regard the anti-Aristotelian mechanistic revolution of the early moderns as the original sin of modern intellectual life, the intellectual factor (not that there aren't other factors) that, far more than any other, has led to the moral, theological, philosophical, cultural, and political pathologies of the modern world. Its errors permeate every aspect of modern life and need to be exposed, especially where they are given an appearance of being "orthodox" or "conservative."

So, really, people need to stop trying to tease out "what Feser is up to." E.g. "Is he trying to kiss up to the Darwinists?" Well, I think it's blindingly obvious that I'm not. And I'm not "up to" anything else either, other than what I've repeatedly said I'm up to. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Ed writes,

It would be like saying that it is “improbable” that a triangle could be constructed merely out of two straight sides. Somebody who said that would not merely be understating the case; he would not merely be taking a “different approach” to reach the same conclusion that those who reject the notion of two sided triangles as a metaphysical impossibility have also reached. Rather, he would be showing that he simply doesn’t understand the nature of the issue at hand.

In other words, you’re arguing that making a true statement shows that one “simply doesn’t understand the nature of the issue at hand;” for according to logic one side of every contradiction must be true. So if it’s not true that a two-sided triangle is improbable, then a two-sided triangle must be probable, which is absurd. Therefore, it would seem according to your way of thinking that to say that a two-sided triangle is improbable is a true statement the making of which proves that the speaker doesn‘t know what he‘s talking about.

Interesting.

Oh come on, George R. It is almost always the case that whenever anyone says "X is improbable" they are elliptically saying, "X is improbable ... but X could happen." Obviously, anyone who says "triangles having two sides is improbable ... but it could happen" is failing to understanding something deep about the nature of triangles.

Your response to Ed reminds me of that Mitch Hedberg joke: "I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to as well."

Take a container and split it into two equal parts, A and B. Add one mole of Ne atoms. The odds that all Ne atoms will be found totally in either the A or B part is approximately 1.54^(-2 x 10^23). That is 1.54 raised to the -2 x 10^23 power. To put that number in perspective, it is so close to zero (.ooooooo etc.) that if you wrote one zero per second, it would take 3.2 x 10^29 years just to write down all of the zeros. This is 100 billion times longer than the length of the universe in years. On the other hand, one can use this seemingly improbable result to show a high degree of order (since all of the gas is in one part of the container). Therefore, under ID theory, the non-living gas in the container must have been put there by the result of some intelligent design. Is that right?

The Chicken

Oh come on, George R. It is almost always the case that whenever anyone says "X is improbable" they are elliptically saying, "X is improbable ... but X could happen."

Not necessarily, Bobcat.

Consider a defense attorney who presented certain evidence showing that it would have been highly unlikely that his client committed the crime, then presented other evidence to show that it would have been flat-out impossible for his client to have committed the crime. Will he have contradicted himself, arguing first that it was possible then that it was impossible that his client committed the crime? Of course not, because both arguments were making the same case, the one imperfectly (as in incompletely) the other perfectly.

Neither would the first argument have been necessarily superfluous!

I agree with Bobcat: "Evidence E demonstrates that Q is a practical impossibility" does carry with it the implicit assumption that Q is presumed to be possible in principle. I don't know why a Thomist would have a problem with explicitly stipulating something contrary to Thomism in order to show that it fails on its own terms though.

Ed:
I appreciate all that, without a hint of snark, and I apologize for what amounts to an irrelevant digression into your personal priorities.

What I am trying to understand - which is why I asked the question I did in the second half of my previous comment - is where we would begin in order to re-frame ID in a manner consonant with A-T philosophy.

Let me ask what I think is the same substantive question a bit differently.

Suppose I was a researcher on dogs, and my thesis was that that most wonderful dog, the Bernese Mountain Dog, could not have been bred "in the wild" without the careful intervention of an intelligent breeder. I can gather together everything we know about dogs and make my case in terms of probabilities. I don't see anything inherently in conflict with A-T philosophy in that research program or its thesis. Do you?

It seems possible to me to re-cast the metaphysics of ID in order to view it as a similar project. In this re-cast ID project, we ask the question whether it is possible for nature "in the wild" to breed bacteria until they become human beings; or if, rather, intervention by an intelligent Cultivator is necessary, probabilistically, given what we know about nature, to bring this about.

Would there be any inherent metaphysical conflict, in your view, between A-T philosophy and ID recast in this manner?

On the other hand, one can use this seemingly improbable result

Chicken, can you explain why you used the phrase "on the other hand" here? I don't quite understand that. Most people wouldn't think there was some prima facie conflict between "event X has a near-zero probability given no intervention" and "event X is an argument for intervention."

I would myself be inclined to think that someone had been messing with the experiment, if all the gas ended up on one side. Wouldn't you? I suppose there might (you would know better than I would) even be ways for a human being to do that behind your back just to freak you out.

But I do consider this a less-than-overwhelmingly-strong inference, simply because it would be rather surprising also that anyone would want to intervene in the experiment.

"Evidence E demonstrates that Q is a practical impossibility" does carry with it the implicit assumption that Q is presumed to be possible in principle.

I agree.

But let's assume further that evidence F demonstrates that Q is an absolute impossibility; would that, thereby, render false the proposition that evidence E demonstrates that Q is a practical impossibility? No. Or would that mean that anyone who argued that evidence E demonstrates that Q is a practical impossibility did not know what he was talking about? Of course not. Or would that mean that anyone who argued that evidence E demonstrates that Q is a practical impossibility was implicitly denying the existence of “evidence F”?

Of course not.

My point was this is improbable state that is higly organized, nontheless, it does not occur in a universe where such states are supposed to indicate design. In other words, sometimes design design can mean a thing should not happen if improbable.

Let me explain my last comment. ID theory says that an improbable but organized situation indicates Intelligent Design if the probability of it not occurring is greater than 10^150 and yet, occurs. I have presented a case of an organized situation that has a probability of it not occurring far greater than this and yet, it does not occur. In other words, there is a profound contradiction. IDer's claim that DNA organization, a process which is highly counter-entropic, indicates intelligence, and yet, i have indicated that a process that would increase entropy is something that would be forbidden by an Intelligent Designer in this case. Either the two cases of high improbability and organization show intelligent design or the cased of high possibility and disorganization show intelligent design. You can't use the math to prove both. The reason Dembski's argument fails is because he has not taken into account that there are a hierarchy of laws which interact. Sometimes, one law supersedes another, in a highly connected system, it is impossible to know which law will supersede the other without knowing all of the laws. This goes back to the notion of synergy within a system.

An Intelligent Designer can create a universe where one law is slaved to another, but you can't use these sorts of statistical arguments to argue for Intelligent Design without knowing a lot more about the organization of the universe. In other words, suppose there are two Intelligent Designers who have decided to split up the designing task. Suppose designer A is in charge of gas molecules and designer B is in charge of DNA. One could get exactly opposite results for intelligence from the same statistical arguments, since Designer A needs a certain set of improbabilities to keep thermodynamics going, whereas designer B needs another set to keep life going. In other words, in a sufficiently large universe, it is impossible to tell the number of designers. Suppose we were part of a multiverse and we got Designer John for our universe who is overseen by a Designer Fred who is in charge of a group of universes. Would Dembski's statistics even pick up a hint of Designer Fred?

If statistics can be used to argue that a improbability not occurring is a necessity bu design in one case and that an improbability actually occurring is necessary by design in another case as a result of intelligent design, then Demski's argument or at least his method of determining the presence of intelligence is refuted by contradiction.

The Chicken

George:

But let's assume further that evidence F demonstrates that Q is an absolute impossibility; ...
The assumption makes no sense when "absolute" means "in principle". Q is never impossible in principle because of evidence, at least not the way I understand Ed to be using the terms.

What Ed is saying is that the assumption "assume there is such a thing as a two-sided triangle" is incoherent. I completely agree.

Mind you, I also often see a response to the effect "given their system of thought, naturalists think that there is such a thing. So lets stipulate their system of thought and show that such a thing would be impossible in practice even though their erroneous system of thought doesn't rule it out in principle". I don't know why an A-T philosopher would object to that approach per se, though I suppose it might be seen to provide a target rich environment for metaphysical discussion.

Still, what I am suggesting is a different approach. Since all of modern science is interpreted under a faulty metaphysics most of the time, why not take the next step and figure out where we could make a start in re-interpreting ID in a way consonant with A-T philosophy? Thus my question about analyzing the probabilities involved in breeding humans (or apes for that matter) from bacteria, which in effect is what Darwinism claims to have occurred "in the wild".

My typing errors are so statistically improbable that they must indicate intelligence :-)

Let me try, again. How can an Intelligent Designer be detected by Demsbki's arguments when, as in the case of gases, the improbable state not happening (molecules collecting in a room) indicates intelligence (the second law of thermodynamics and such), but the improbable state happening, as in the case of DNA organization, indicates intelligence. His method should be able to detect intelligence in both cases, but it can't. He has stacked the dec k to determine intelligence only in the second cased. This is a subjective use of statistics.

The Chicken

Zippy,

For my part, I think if most people were made more aware of philosophy/metaphysics such that they would be able to tell the difference between a metaphysical claim and a scientific claim most of the time, it would be a huge advance for ID and Thomism alike. Maybe the goal shouldn't immediately be to come up with an A-T compatible formulation of ID, but for more ID proponents to be on board with the metaphysical and philosophical project.

In fact, isn't that one thing both ID proponents and A-T proponents can agree on here? That metaphysical and philosophical baggage is very often injected into science in unjustified and unwarranted ways - and that, if nothing else, both groups have a shared interest in combating this?

Since all of modern science is interpreted under a faulty metaphysics most of the time, why not take the next step and figure out where we could make a start in re-interpreting ID in a way consonant with A-T philosophy?

As you might have noticed, I do not see any essential conflict between ID and A-T. To the extent that there is a conflict, it is accidental. In other words, it arises from the confusion within the thinking subject with respect to one or both of the sciences, and the relationship between the two. With this is mind, I absolutely agree with you that we must interpret ID in a way consonant with A-T. Also, I would add, the findings of ID should inspire one to learn A-T, because the evidence of ID points toward the reality of the metaphysical order, which is the proper subject of A-T metaphysics. Therefore, while the findings of ID do not depend on A-T metaphysics, I believe that the proper interpretation of those findings definitely does.

I can only say "amen" to Zippy's comments, and keep out of it otherwise; he's doin' such a good job.

Chicken, I still don't get you, but remember--I use a Bayesian rather than a Dembski-Fisher approach to all of this. I'm always looking for best comparative explanation of evidence. Some evidence may be best described as "X didn't happen." (Sherlock Holmes's dog that didn't bark in the night.) But other evidence may be best described as "X did happen."

Bayesian statistics would do a much better job, but of course, one has to have some a priori knowledge. What I am saying is that Dembski claims one need two things to detect intelligence: irreducible complexity and specified complexity. I have just shown that in the case of gases, lack of complexity (low entropy) and randomness (lack of specificity) indicate the second law of thermodynamics which is a sign of intelligent design. So, One cannot have A indicating intelligence and not-A. Law of non-contradiction. If Dembski's method indicates intelligent design, he must also concede that the exact opposite can, too, so his method is worthless in a blind analysis to make a distinction.

The Chicken

What Dembski would say is that he doesn't care about false negatives but only about avoiding false positives with his method. This, by the way, is part of what I meant in the other thread about attempting to combine a scientific theory or method with a probabilistic reconstruction. Qua method-maker, Dembski is concerned only for avoiding false positives.

I'm not completely convinced myself that the 2nd law is simply by its existence evidence of design. I could give you much better and more intuitive examples of false negatives within Dembski's theory--for example, lotteries that aren't all _that_ big in which the brother of the person running the lottery wins--evidence of cheating/design in the outcome, but not catchable by a method that requires such an enormously low probability on chance.

Joseph A:

In fact, isn't that one thing both ID proponents and A-T proponents can agree on here? That metaphysical and philosophical baggage is very often injected into science in unjustified and unwarranted ways - and that, if nothing else, both groups have a shared interest in combating this?
That path is fraught with danger, though, for two reasons. First, that a fairly lightweight and not well defined objection to what some other group is doing doesn't make for a very cohesive alliance. Second, and related to the first, is that the demarcation problem hasn't been solved and at least in my view is not solvable: which is to say, it is not possible even in principle to "do science" without also "doing metaphysics".

A-T philosophers and ID proponents might agree - indeed already do agree - that materialist metaphysics, even when adopted only "methodologically", distorts the truth. From the A-T perspective, assuming I've grokked it, the ID guys just want to trade one bad metaphysics for another; and precisely because there is no absolute "demarcation" between science and metaphysics, which allows us to "do" the former without ever touching on the latter, not only is there no point to an alliance, but an alliance undermines understanding and acceptance of this basic fact: the alliance would necessarily be "positivist" in nature, which undermines the whole point to an alliance in the first place.

But I'm asking a different question here. In A-T terms, Darwinism proposes that we can start with bacteria and through selective breeding we can breed a human being. Darwinism further claims that this exact "selective breeding" actually took place in the wild, unmanaged by any intelligent agency: no clipping of hoofs, no grafting the branches of seedless orange tree mutants onto other trees, etc: no intelligent cultivation.

Now it seems to me that an A-T philosopher who accepts common descent as an historical fact should not have a problem with a project to demonstrate that, again as an historical fact supported by probabilistic inferences, intelligent agency was required in order to breed bacteria into human beings. IOW, I am trying to re-cast the ID project in a manner which accepts the A-T distinction between living things and artifacts. I won't know how well the proposal goes over until some A-T philosophers respond to it though.

Hello Zippy,

I pretty much agree with everything you say in your most recent (9:15 AM) comment. In response to your question at the end, yes, an A-T philosopher qua A-T philosopher need have no objection to such a project per se. But, of course, the approach will be very different from the standard ID approach.

So, for example, I have noted that A-T takes the life/non-life distinction to be a difference in kind rather than degree. A-T also traditionally affirms an absolute distinction in kind and not degree between animal life and vegetative life, and between human beings (given their possession of intellect and will) and other animals. And it holds these things on metaphysical grounds: The claim is that the distinctive properties of animals (traditionally understood to be sensation, appetite, and locomotion) cannot in principle arise from the properties of vegetative life, and that the distinctive properties of human beings (intellect and will) cannot in principle arise from the properties of non-human animal life. As with the origin of life question, if these particular A-T claims could be defended today, then the issue won't be a matter of probabilities, complexity defined in purely quantitative terms, etc. So A-T still would not be compatible with ID in terms of method. It also seems that within these broad categories -- within the animal realm say, or within the vegetative realm (even if not between the realms) -- A-T could still allow that all sorts of evolutionary transitions could occur. And that may be a matter of probabilities. But whether such a transition has occurred in any specific case could only be evaluated via careful metaphyscial and empirical analysis, and the metaphyscial side will still not involve mechanistic assumptions, thinking of living things as "artifacts," etc.

I certainly think the transition of non-rational animals to rational animals (i.e. human beings) is impossible in principle to account for in entirely naturalistic terms, and have said so in many places. The reason is that the intellect is immaterial, and thus different in kind and not degree from anything going on in the brain or any other material organ. (I have of course written on this at length, and also on questions about how the mind and body are related, why hylemorphic dualism is the right view to take on that issue rather than either Cartesian dualism or property dualism, etc.) I have not addressed the vegetative life/animal life transition, though Oderberg has defended the traditional A-T view as have others. If one accepts these views, then what I said about the various possible "origin of life" scenarios applies to some extent mutatis mutandis to "origin of animal life" and "origin of rational life" questions as well (with an extra complication in the latter case given that intellect, unlike vegetative or animal functions, is immaterial).

Where do bacteria fit in there, Ed? As far as I know, bacteria do not have sensation, for example. But neither are they generally considered to be plants.

While you're answering that question from Zippy, Ed, I think further words on this point would be very interesting:

within the animal realm say, or within the vegetative realm (even if not between the realms) -- A-T could still allow that all sorts of evolutionary transitions could occur. And that may be a matter of probabilities. But whether such a transition has occurred in any specific case could only be evaluated via careful metaphysical and empirical analysis, and the metaphysical side will still not involve mechanistic assumptions, thinking of living things as "artifacts," etc.

So complexity, perhaps even something like the Behe-an notion of irreducible complexity, could be relevant to the careful, empirical side of such investigations? Or not?

Lydia, notice that a vegetative soul does not necessarily have to be confined to plant life. Vegetative life is merely that which actively seeks to maintain existence and to reproduce. Nutrition and reproduction are the essential operations. Do these activities describe bacteria correctly?

Ed:

Re: the focus on ID, I have repeatedly said that naturalistic approaches to life are at odds with A-T as well. But everyone probably knew that already.

Not really. I see theistic evolutionists who promote what appears to be garden variety mechanistic Darwinism (Darwin had the same mechanistic view as Paley, but denied the intentionality that Paley affirmed as well - and the neo-Darwinists were just as mechanistic) attempt to appeal to A-T in dismissing ID all the time, with seemingly no inkling that it could run against their own view as well. In fact, I'd wager, that's why you frequently get accused of being a Darwinist when you write on ID: people are so used to seeing Darwinists (who's real reason for rejecting ID is clearly because they're Darwinists) latch on to A-T in their desire for a "theistic" rebuttal to ID that they assume you're doing the same thing.

I don't know why a Thomist would have a problem with explicitly stipulating something contrary to Thomism in order to show that it fails on its own terms though.
Exactly. I do not understand at all why Thomists get upset by an argument that states in effect "Even if we grant you the mechanical philosophy, you still lose." The IDists have kicked a lot of hornet's nests, taken a lot of flack, ruffled a lot of feathers, and made all the right atheist enemies over the last 15 or so years. What have the Thomists accomplished? I say this even though I regard myself as a Thomist (and an IDist) at heart. Both approaches leave the atheists "without excuse" as Romans 1 would say.

There do seem to be theistic Darwnists who take comfort from the A-T assault on ID. The more the discussion proceeds the less tenable that comfort seems though. I am a long way from understanding what a "scientific A-T" account of origins would look like, and I'm grateful for Ed's reading recommendations which I plan to follow up; but I am getting the impression that it would be even more "hostile" to Darwinism-as-science than ID.

I am getting the impression that it would be even more "hostile" to Darwinism-as-science than ID.

I've drawn that same conclusion myself, Zippy. But I think it would be good for Thomists to say that explicitly.

Oh, also, it depends on the Thomist. Dr. Beckwith is, as far as I know, a theistic evolutionist. Or so I recall his saying.

In A-T terms, Darwinism proposes that we can start with bacteria and through selective breeding we can breed a human being. Darwinism further claims that this exact "selective breeding" actually took place in the wild, unmanaged by any intelligent agency: no clipping of hoofs, no grafting the branches of seedless orange tree mutants onto other trees, etc: no intelligent cultivation.

This is such a weird description of evolution Zippy. Is that really your view - that there is nothing natural about some traits (which can involve trade-offs like the sickle cell gene providing malaria resistance) being propagated that improve a population's chances of survival for a specific environment? If that is supposed to be the mark of an intelligent cultivator, why should there be any trade-offs at all, why isn’t every trait simply an improvement added to the others? Phrased a bit differently, if there was a mad scientist like the hilarious photo up above, designing a human from scratch, what prevents him from designing more acute senses and better strength, greater speed and agility, all in addition to a superior intellect?

As far as I can tell there is nothing factually inaccurate or even polemical in my description. Darwinists propose that bacteria bred into human beings 'in the wild'.

Yes, and meteorologists propose that air regions over large bodies of water produce hurricanes 'in the wild'. That view ignores most of the intermediate explanations about air and water currents, water temperature, and cloud formation, along with the energy dynamics that maintain its intensity and spin, but don't worry about it. Hurricanes are probably intelligently cultivated.

If someone can't tell the difference between a hurricane and a gorilla, I probably can't do much to help.

Funny you should say that, Zippy. Stephen Barr, the anti-ID physicist who writes at first things, made exactly the same comparison of evolution of animals to...weather. He also thinks the use of the term "evolution" for stars tells us something significant in this same context...

If someone can't tell the difference between providing a non-biological example of how Zippy's description was a grossly simplistic caricature and attempting an equivalence between development of hurricanes and primates, there isn't much point in continuing the discussion.

You know, with the ability to self-annihilate ourselves and every living creature on the planet (if we really put our minds to it), why is it that we aren't in the driver's seat as far as "intelligent" design is concerned? If we are now capable of termination of the species, hasn't natural evolution reached its logical apex and ceded control over to man? Even if nature wanted to make that next giant leap forward, could we not frustrate the designer and decide to blow ourselves up? Even more, could we not decide, if we were tyrannical enough, to wipe out everyone except those who have red hair or some other traits? Can we not fight back against evolution? If we can do all of this, should we not look to see where we have arrived in terms of evolution, even as we look back at where we have come from? The Intelligent Designer is no longer the only kid on the block.

Make room for humanity. We haven't yet decided if it is intelligent or not, however.

The Chicken

Chicken:

... why is it that we aren't in the driver's seat as far as "intelligent" design is concerned?
Interesting question. There is, mostly implicit but occasionally explicit in this discussion, a background question of, not what non-living nature distinct from the agency of humans and other created beings is capable of causing, but also what human beings, angels, etc are capable of coaxing nature to do that nature would not do on its own. And that seems to me to be an empirical question: that is, whether and how human beings are capable of building life from non-life in a laboratory is, specifically, an empirical question.

It is a question of great theological interest. If human beings can custom-build viruses from nonliving material in a laboratory - and we do seem to be capable of doing so - then perhaps fallen angels, say, are also capable of building viruses from non-living materials. Presumably whatever we can do in the world, fallen angels may also be able to do, in general. I could see that being a very uncomfortable proposition for an Aristotlean-Thomist: one salutary outcome from this recent discussion is that I do understand the perspectives of the A-T side better, and it doesn't appear to be as, shall I say, completely immune to empirical propositions as I had naively thought before.

And that seems to me to be an empirical question: that is, whether and how human beings are capable of building life from non-life in a laboratory is, specifically, an empirical question.

It is a question of great theological interest.

Its even more than that. The whole discussion of an intelligent designer ignores the fact that the intelligent designer has, apparently, created one singular species capable of not only detecting him (her, it, etc.), but of actively resisting him. Why would an intelligent designer create a rival?

My point is that even though I know not where evolution started, I know where it could end. Humans are a possible terminal point in creation. We, unlike every other species on the planet, can refuse to evolve. We can, in fact, raid the game. We can change the rules. We can destroy the arena.

If we so choose, we could as a species, decide that everyone would be sterilized. Poof, no more worry about mutations from us! We could decide to change the dog into only those who have no hair (kill the rest). We could decide that, henceforth, all of humanity will have red hair. So, a few billion have to die to realize our scheme, but in principle, it could be done.

Zippy, we don't have to wait to see if man can create viruses in the laboratory. We don't have to see if we can be mere imitators of the intelligent designer, we can completely change the game. We have far more power, evolutionally speaking, than we can possibly know (and thankfully haven't realized).

My point is that there is something fundamentally different about man that takes him out of the evolutionary loop. That is the real theological point.

I submit that Dembski and noe-Darwinists, alike, may be able to explain every other species on the planet, but they will never explain man.

Man was not merely the product of careful planning, but of a mad love. Man is the greatest risk that could ever be known, as love is the greatest risk, and he was created in the summer of mad passion. Man is the joyfully unplanned pregnancy of an Eternal Creator.

Say what you will, but for all of the talk of ID or neo-Darwinism, neither one will be able to touch the transcendent. You see, they merely come to the ridge of the preamble of Faith, but cannot cross over into the promised land. Faith is something beyond. They may be able to argue for a creator, but they cannot explain why he would create.

Likewise, they cannot explain why man creates, nor how he loves. These things will always be hidden from the learned and clever and only be revealed to the merest of children.

The Chicken

If human beings can custom-build viruses from nonliving material in a laboratory - and we do seem to be capable of doing so - then perhaps fallen angels, say, are also capable of building viruses from non-living materials.

Yes. I think that's actually a relevant and helpful speculation. A very ID-friendly friend once said to me something like this: "We're going to have to deal with the fact that the rabies virus is a wonderful and amazing thing that appears to be intelligently designed. And the only purpose it appears to have is messing up the nervous systems of mammals." Bingo. I'm entirely open to the idea of fallen angel designers of diseases. Nor is such a theory entirely without biblical moorings, even (not that that would be necessary). Jesus said that a "daughter of Israel" had been bound by Satan for many years, yet in that particular case, there is no other reference to demon possession, and she appears to have had an ordinary disease. (Something with symptoms akin to Parkinson's, if I recall the passage correctly.)

Chicken:

Man is the joyfully unplanned pregnancy of an Eternal Creator.

That's a keeper! This article of mine might interest you: https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AZiWNpv2uM5uZGQyY2c0a3BfNXczdnFteg&hl=en.

Best,
Mike

And that seems to me to be an empirical question: that is, whether and how human beings are capable of building life from non-life in a laboratory is, specifically, an empirical question.

Zippy, in suggesting the possibility of making life in the lab, you are denying the reality of substantial being, and thereby implying that A-T metaphysics is a complete crock. Therefore, I think it‘s a little bit more than just an empirical question. However, I think it could be empirically determined that such a project would be completely impossible.

George:

Zippy, in suggesting the possibility of making life in the lab, you are denying the reality of substantial being, and thereby implying that [certain peoples' understanding of] A-T metaphysics is a complete crock.
Could be. Some Thomists seem to agree that the creation of life from non-life in a laboratory would falsify their metaphysics; others don't agree; still others don't seem altogether sure.

It wouldn't be the first time in science that what was thought to be an untestable metaphysical claim in fact had empirical implications which it was ultimately possible to test. We are already building viruses from non-living matter in the lab. Cells are a whole lot more complicated than viruses, of course; but it isn't crazy to think that at some point very simple synthetic cells could be built from non-living raw materials.

Will they live, if built? Perhaps certain conceptions of metaphysics stand or fall on the answer to that empirical question.

Zippy:

I've always suspected that the answer to your closing question is yes. But I'm not sure which brand of metaphysics in play here would be falsified. I'm not even sure that any would be falsified.

In such a circumstance, life would have been made from non-life by intelligent designers, namely us. But nothing would follow about the question whether life could have emerged from non-life by chance, over a long-enough period of time. That question would remain just as it is now. If the answer to that one also turns out to be yes in due course, IDers might be in serious trouble; but Thomists could point out that all that would have been shown is that God so designed matter that the non-living contains bios "in potency," as it were. Think here of the Neoplatonic idea, adopted by Augustine, of "seminal reasons." For Thomists, the principle that what's in the effect must somehow be in the cause could still be preserved, albeit with a great deal of care--the kind Ed Feser gives the matter.

I'm inclined to think that much of the dispute between IDers and their theistic opponents hinges on how one develops such concepts as causality, organism, artifact, intention, etc. I don't think one has to develop them in an orthodox "Thomistic" manner, although there's a good deal to learn, philosophically, from A-T. It could turn out that A-T, as it now is, is inadequate to the task by itself. But at least the A-Ters like Ed are thinking more rigorously about such matters than IDers seem to be.

Best,
Mike

Mike:

But nothing would follow about the question whether life could have emerged from non-life by chance, over a long-enough period of time.
I don't agree. We would know more about the probabilities of such a thing occurring. So saying "nothing would follow" overstates the case in a way endemic to this discussion, that is, where reasoning from empirically founded probabilities is discounted as not knowledge, in situations where it actually is knowledge.
Thomists could point out that all that would have been shown is that God so designed matter that the non-living contains bios "in potency," as it were.
I've always assumed it to be the case that the Thomist could claim that. But if it were true that this move is valid in the one instance, it must also be true in the other: that is, 'reconciling' Thomism to an ID account, if it turns out to be true, should be no more difficult than reconciling it to a Darwinist account: a trivial matter of pointing out that the potencies (in a Thomistic sense) must have pre-existed and shuffling around a little terminology. In which case this whole hubbub is a tempest in a teapot, solvable by a trivial semantic move and some clarification of terminology. I suggested as much a few threads back.
But at least the A-Ters like Ed are thinking more rigorously about such matters than IDers seem to be.
That could be the case, but it doesn't look that way to me. It looks to me like a case of Aristotleans attacking the Big Bang in principle, claiming that it might be possible to re-formulate Big Bang theory in Aristotlean terms but that if we did so it wouldn't look anything like General Relativity and that this Eddington fellow was involved in so much foolishness. (Though I suppose the example is ironic, since Eddington himself rejected the Big Bang on what amounts to an Aristotlean conception of an eternal universe).

It looks to me like a case of Aristotleans attacking the Big Bang in principle, claiming that it might be possible to re-formulate Big Bang theory in Aristotlean terms but that if we did so it wouldn't look anything like General Relativity and that this Eddington fellow was involved in so much foolishness.

Bravo.

Zippy:

'reconciling' Thomism to an ID account, if it turns out to be true, should be no more difficult than reconciling it to a Darwinist account.

That’s more than an understatement, because ID in no way contradicts Thomism, and Thomism can never EVER be reconciled with Darwinism. And not only can it never be reconciled with Darwinism, it can never be reconciled with any theory of macro-evolution whatsoever. Theistic evolution, deistic evolution, you name it, if Thomism is true, evolution is a metaphysical absurdity. If evolution of living species is possible, then Thomism is rubbish. This is the great error these Thomists are making here. The ID/A-T conflict is just a sideshow. The real abomination is the suggestion by certain Thomists that any theory that rejects the Thomistic understanding of substantial being, (the keystone of his whole metaphysics!), which all the theories of evolution do, can in any way be compatible with Thomism.

It is utterly ridiculous. That’s all that can be said about it.

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