ID’s volte-face on the importance of meaning and evidence, since the time of Paley

IDists like to claim that they have a “new theory” that is being suppressed.  Needless to say, they don’t.  However, when one reads Paley and compares him to the current sorry crop of apologists, one realizes that Paley was genuinely (if not very successfully) trying to explain many aspects of organisms according to a “design” which was close to our actual understanding of what design is, and appears to see the very real flaws in some of the non-creation, including evolutionary, theories of his day.  The lack of supporting evidence for Buffon’s “theory of forms” to explain life, and of what are now called “Lamarckian” theories of evolution came under attack by Paley.

I have discussed the differences significantly in the past, like in this recent post.  However, I would like to quote extensively from Paley’s discussions of the failings of both Buffon’s conception of how life appeared, and the prominent evolutionary idea of his day, to show how he uses fairly competent criticisms, and how he contrasts those to design in life that he really thought was like our own, and thus considered to provide meaningful evidence.  For, altogether, Paley manages to attack pseudoscientific ideas for being meaningless and for being lacking in evidence, while holding ID to the standards of both meaning and evidence like a genuine scientist would do. 

Paley is hardly the person to which a person should turn to understand science.  He calls his output “natural theology,” not to distinguish it from science, but to suggest that science and theology may in fact be the same thing.  I can hardly applaud something like that, nor his many factual errors.  Nevertheless, he is a beacon of science and of good sense compared with the current bunch of IDists, and  I wish to demonstrate this fact through a passage of some of his best thought.  Today’s ID simply withers when one applies Paley’s standards, which should be obvious in the following piece.  The passage begins with Paley criticizing Buffon’s concept of “internal molds” producing life:

Lastly; these wonder-working instruments, these “internal moulds,” what are they after all? what, when examined, but a name without signification; unintelligible, if not self-contradictory; at best, differing in nothing from the “essential forms” of the Greek philosophy?  One short sentence of Buffon’s work exhibits his scheme as follows:  “When this nutritious and prolific matter, which is diffused throughout all nature, passes through the internal mould of an animal or vegetable, and finds a proper matrix, or receptacle, it gives rise to an animal or vegetable of the same species.”  Does any reader annex a meaning to the expression, “internal mould,” in this sentence?  Ought it then to be said that though we have little notion of an internal mould, we have not much more of a designing mind:  The very contrary of this assertion is the truth.  When we speak of an artificer or an architect, we talk of what is comprehensible to our understanding, and familiar to our experience.  We use no other terms, than what refer us for their meaning to our consciousness and observation; what express the constant objects of both; whereas names, like that we have mentioned, refer us to nothing; excite no idea; convey a sound to the ear, but I think do no more.

Another system, which has lately been brought foraward, and with much ingenuity, is that of appetencies.  The principle, and the short account of the theory, is this:  Pieces of soft, ductile matter, being endued with propensities or appetencies for particular actions, would, by continual endeavours, carried on through a long series of generations, work themselves gradually into suitable forms; and at length acquire, though perhaps by obscure and almost imperceptible improvements, an organization fitted to the action which their respective propensities led them to exert.  A piece of animated matter, for example, that was endued with a propensity to fly, though ever so shapeless, though no other we will suppose than a round ball, to begin with, would, in a course of ages, if not in a million of years, perhaps in a hundred millions of years, (for our theorists, having eternity to dispose of, are never sparing in time,) acquire wings.  The same tendency to locomotion in an aquatic animal, or rather in an animated lump which might happen to be surrounded by water, would end in the production of fins; in a living substance, confined to the solid earth, would put out legs and feet; or, if it took a different turn, would break the body into ringlets, and conclude by crawling upon the ground.

Although I have introduced the mention of this theory into this place, I am unwilling to give to it the name of an atheistic scheme, for two reasons:  first, because, so far as I am able to understand it, the original propensities, and the numberless varieties of them (so different, in this respect, from the laws of mechanical nature, which are few and simple,) are, in the plan itself, attributed to the ordination and appointment of an intelligent and designing Creator; secondly, because, likewise, that large postulatum, which is all along assumed and presupposed, the faculty in living bodies of producing other bodies organized like themselves, seems to be referred to the same cause; at least is not attempted to be accounted for by any other.  In one important respect, however, the theory before us coincides with atheistic systems, viz. in that, in the formation of plants and animals, in the structure and use of their parts, it does away final causes.  Instead of the parts of a plant or animal, or the particular structure and use of the parts, having been intended for the action or the use to which we see them applied, according to this theory, they have themselves grown out of that action, sprung from that use.  The theory therefore dispenses with that which we insist upon, the necessity, in each particular case, of an intelligent, designing mind, for the contriving and determining of the forms which organized bodies bear.  Give our philospoher these appetencies; give him a portion of living irritable matter (a nerve, or the clipping of a nerve) to work upon; give also to his incipient or progressive forms, the power, in every stage of their alteration, of propagating their like; and, if he is to be believed, he could replenish the world with all the vegetable and animal productions which we at present see in it.

The scheme under consideration is open to the same objection with other conjectures of a similar tendency, viz. a total defect of evidence.  No changes, like those which the theory requires, have ever been observed.  All the changes in Ovid’s Metamorphoses might have been effected by these appetencies, if the theory were true; yet not an example, nor the pretence of an example, is offered of a single change being known to have taken place.  Nor is the order of generation obedient to the principle upon which this theory is built.  The mammae of the male have not vanished by inusitatem; nec curtorum, per multa saecula, Judaeorum propagini deest praeputium.  It is easy to say, and it has been said, that the alternative process is too slow to be percieved; that it has been carried on through tracts of immeasurable time; and that the present order of things is the result of a gradation, of which no human records can trace the steps.  It is easy to say this; and yet it is still true, that the hypothesis remains destitute of evidence. Natural Theology

One might first ask why ID should be privileged over evolution via appetencies, or Buffon’s “theory of forms,” at least if these were updated to avoid the problems that these ideas had (aside from no evidence).  The flying spaghetti monster is one thing, for even if it has provided a good deal of fun at the expense of IDists, it appears to be yet another “intelligent designer,” thus not an actual competitor with ID.  The ideas that Paley criticizes, on the other hand, were serious ideas a couple of centuries ago (the lack of evidence was not an immediate problem, since no well-evidenced theory–including design–existed at the time, and future evidence might have conceivably supported them).  And if they are seriously devoid of explanatory ability and evidence, so is today’s ID.

Secondly, how could Paley’s complaint about the meaninglessness of “internal moulds” not apply equally to present-day notions of ID?  They do not tell us what “design” means (except by illegitimately conflating what we know, that life is complex, with “design”), nor what “intelligence” is supposed to produce, rather they try their very best to avoid predicting known design principles behind organisms’ forms:

Another problem with the argument from imperfection is that it critically depends on a psychoanalysis of the unidentified designer.  Yet the reasons that a designer would or would not do anything are virtually impossible to know unless the designer tells you specifically what those reasons are.  One only has to go into a modern art gallery to come across designed objects for which the purposes are completely obscure (to me at least).  Features that strike us as odd in a design might have been placed there by the designer for a reason–for artistic reasons, for variety, to show off, for some as-yet-undetected practical purpose, or for some unguessable reason–or they might not.  DBB, 223

I have quoted this previously, but it is a frequent–if intellectually-unsound–excuse trundled out nearly every time we ask for evidence of design.  That it goes against other claims of Behe to find “purpose” in life should go without saying–for anyone who has read his books, that is (he claims that design is visible as the purposeful arrangement of parts–until he denies that we should be able to find purpose, as in the above passage).  But it also goes against a far more honest version of ID, that of Paley, who contrasted the pseudosciences of his day with an ID that appealed to observation and experience:  “When we speak of an artificer or an architect, we talk of what is comprehensible to our understanding, and familiar to our experience” (Paley, long quote above).  Well, Behe most certainly does not, for he is not trying to explain anything, except how it is that he is not required to produce evidence for his statements.

There is not much sense in belaboring these points.  Suffice it to say that, unlike Paley, Behe and the rest of the “DI fellows” do not mean anything more with terms like “purpose,” “Intelligence,” and “design,” than Buffon’s “internal moulds” had meaning (indeed, they really mean less, because Buffon’s terms still have a kind of abstract meaning, while the IDists use terms that do not comport even with abstract meanings of their words), and they are completely uninterested in providing evidence in favor of ID.  They wish to claim that scientific evolution is “insufficient” and to suppose that “design” (of indeterminate meaning) is the only alternative, even though at least several ideas at least as explanatory (that is to say, little if any) and with equal evidence (that is, little to none) have previously been broached.  That an IDist like Paley found fault with the alternatives, often on the exact same grounds with which we fault today’s meaningless and unevidenced ID, is either lost on today’s sorry apologists, or they ignore the fact as asiduously as they ignore virtually all empirical matters.

I would like to point out that both before and after the long Paley quote, the over-reliance upon analogy found in these alternative concepts came under Paley’s fire–just one more case where the old ID would be forced to condemn the new ID, if it were consistent anyhow (I do not say that Paley would denounce today’s ID if he encountered it, or that he would not.  That would be idle speculation).    The issue was too much to discuss here, other than this mention, since Paley’s criticisms of both the meaninglessness and the lack of evidence of pseudosciences (at least later they would be understood as such) of his day were far more important and meaningful.

ID has not always been a vapid attempt to avoid the meanings of terms and of the evidence.  It is not fair to Paley’s legacy for today’s ID to make the “design hypothesis” appear as though it was always a pseudoscience intent on destroying the standard’s of science so that even the most worthless ideas could be given the label of “science.”

This is part of a series of posts that I am combining into one long post, which may be found at Darwin’s Black Box.

The primary issue at stake is the foundation of knowledge

In this cause, therefore, we ought to rest; in this cause the common sense of mankind has, in fact, rested, because it agrees with that which in all cases is the foundation of knowledge,–the undeviating course of their experience.  The reasoning is the same as that by which we conclude any ancient appearances to have been the effects of volcanoes or inundations, namely, because they resemble the effects which fire and water produce before our eyes; and because we have never known these effects to result from any other operation.  William Paley  Natural Theology  Chap. 23

Paley actually understood the epistemology of science fairly well.  As he mentions there, we have to use our experience, our observations of causes, in order to understand the causes behind anciently produced phenomena.  We watch what “fire” and water produce today, and if we see what seems to be the results of these particular “forces” in phenomena from the past, we ascribe “fire” and water as the causes of said phenomena. 

To be sure, the context of the above quote makes it clear that he believed that design could be properly inferred to be behind the structure and function of animals in the same manner, something that even in Paley’s time strained the meaning of experience, considering how different animals are from our own designs.  Nevertheless, the principle he called upon for the foundation of knowledge is sound, and not a few considered design to be a legitimate inference prior to the development of evolutionary theory.  Dawkins still writes as if it would be a sound inference without Darwin’s insights and subsequent developments of theory, although I myself do not think that inferring from human design to a very different sort of “design” in life was ever as clearcut as either Paley or Dawkins consider it to be in the early nineteenth century (many ancients did not see animals mechanistically, so it appears that the industrial revolution was partly responsible for such reductionism).  Let us allow that it was reasonable enough for Paley to make his arguments at that time, however.

I bring up Paley’s sound epistemology (whatever we think of his application of it) as a sort of follow-up to recent posts about Darwin’s Black Box, and equally, as a prelude to further evidences of evolution in basic biochemical pathways (whether or not Behe touches upon these).  For it is one thing to claim that we do not have exact knowledge of the evolution of even something as evidently evolved as the clotting cascade, while it is quite another thing to ignore the clear evidence that it did evolve as the result of selection and also of contingency and of “accident”.  Paley did not supply the exact mechanisms of design, although he typically suggests that it is quite like those of “artificers” and of “architects” (following his belief that we make proper inferences from experience).  Behe not only does not provide any exact mechanisms, he seems to deliberately avoid any suggestion that the foundation of knowledge is experience, for we certainly do not experience design producing anything like the constrained and partly accidental constructions of Archaeopteryx, the clotting cascade, the systems of photosynthesis, nor an adaptive immune system built upon the innate immune system.  Behe demands near-total knowledge of pathways that evolved long ago, without ever having accepted the burden to provide even a tiny level of explanation via his claims regarding “design”.

Evolutionary theory (the non-woo variety) rests upon our experience that certain physical characteristics allow animals to succeed, ultimately in the reproduction stakes, and that these physical characteristics vary from animal to animal within species, and likewise across species.  More exactly in today’s understanding, evolution is recognized as being founded considerably upon the natural selection of random mutations–with both what is selected and what is “merely accidental” revealing the accidental nature of these mutations.  Experience only provides us with knowledge of random mutation in nature, and of natural selection, outside of a bit of human meddling, and whatever intelligence enters into the mating strategies of the smarter animals.

So if we follow “Paley’s principle” (in reality, these could be considered to be principles of “natural philosophy” going back to Newton, and continuing through Hume, and Kant) of using experience as our guide, we can hardly suppose that the apparent duplications of genes found in the clotting cascade were caused by anything but random processes of duplication and of natural selection.  What else have we ever seen producing duplication, and fixing it into genomes?  Nothing, that is all.

But what of Behe’s analogies with design?  Might we have we sufficient reason to suppose that cilia and the clotting cascade were in fact be designed, and thereby have at least a competing hypothesis?  Hardly.  Paley was quite careful to use for his examples what he understood to actually be like what human artificers and architects would produce.  Behe avoids exactly such examples, because he happens to know that the most humanly design-like structures in organisms are actually quite well explained by Darwinian selection from random mutations.  So from whence does he even have analogy, let alone the kind of knowledge that is firmly founded upon experience and observation?

He has none, for there is no precedent for design making the clotting cascade.  And more importantly, the evidence of origination only points to causes which we know by experience are those of natural selection and random mutation.  Vitamin K is crucial to the clotting cascade only because of the accident of its already existing in the organism evolving a clotting mechanism.  The various proteins involved were simply co-opted and adapted because of the accident that these particular proteins already existed in the organism, apparently were duplicated (or genes were shuffled, or some other process occurred–depending on the particular protein being considered), and either had some of the needed function immediately, or did soon after a few changes occurred.

Behe actually has no evidence of design whatsoever, only his unwarranted and never substantiated belief that if evolution is not sufficient for complex articulated processes that design is responsible.  Paley actually tried to make a positive case for design (he knew that it would be hypocritical to criticize the evolutionary ideas of his day for lacking proper evidence if he did not provide some for his claim), while Behe does not even make an argument in favor of design.  If he and the other IDists cannot make a case for design, as they have definitely failed to do thus far, the only recourse that any real scientist has is to follow Paley’s dictum about using experience to match up known causes to known effects, and to conclude that accident and selection produced the clotting cascade that has all of the marks of random mutation, common descent, and of selection.

This is why ID is such a potential menace to science and to science education.  While Paley and other proponents of natural theology prior to the development of scientific evolutionary theory were quite content to be scientific and thus to argue from cause to effect–from experience and observation to the apparently similar phenomena that happened in the past–today’s IDists pointedly bypass any rigorous match-up between the mechanisms of life and their claims of “intelligent design”.  Indeed, it is in the “accidental” (in a broader sense than as used above) characters that one discerns cause, and the accidental characteristics all point to random mutation, common inheritance, and natural selection.  We do not know exactly how the clotting cascade arose, but we know that we should be looking at evolution to provide the answer to that question (insofar as the question can be answered), for the only evidence of origination that we have for it points toward evolutionary.  Behe’s shift to “the design provides the mutations” is as lacking in evidence (and experience) as all of his other claims, and it avoids addressing all of the random characteristics that pervade the cases which he claims could not have evolved without assistance.

The question is whether or not science is going to continue to be rigorous, and thus to apply Paley’s principle that we must use our experience as our foundation of knowledge.  We say yes.  The IDists say no.  It does not appear as though there is any room for discussion between the “two positions,” rather the IDists would simply deny the principle by which we must gain any knowledge about the world.

This is part of a series of posts that I am combining into one long post, which may be found at Darwin’s Black Box.