IDISTS

Dual of Dualists: As atheists struggle to make evolutionary theory water proof IDISTS are committed to finding new gaps in the theory as they attempt to sink it

Evangelical atheist Larry Moran asks the question “What do Intelligent Design Creationists believe?” (See "Sandwalk.blogspot", 25 Dec). In answer he quotes “IDiot” (*1) Granville Sewell:

So what do ID proponents believe?

Perhaps the best way to answer this question is to state clearly what you have to believe to not believe in intelligent design. Peter Urone, in his 2001 physics text "College Physics" writes, "One of the most remarkable simplifications in physics is that only four distinct forces account for all known phenomena."

The prevailing view in science today is that physics explains all of chemistry, chemistry explains all of biology, and biology completely explains the human mind; thus physics alone explains the human mind and all it does. This is what you have to believe to not believe in intelligent design, that the origin and evolution of life, and the evolution of human consciousness and intelligence, are due entirely to a few unintelligent forces of physics. (My emphasis)

Thus you must believe that a few unintelligent forces of physics alone could have rearranged the fundamental particles of physics into computers and science texts and jet airplanes.

Contrary to popular belief, to be an ID proponent you do not have to believe that all species were created simultaneously a few thousand years ago, or that humans are unrelated to earlier primates, or that natural selection cannot cause bacteria to develop a resistance to antibiotics.

If you believe that a few fundamental, unintelligent forces of physics alone could have rearranged the basic particles of physics into Apple iPhones, you are probably not an ID proponent, even if you believe in God. But if you believe there must have been more than unintelligent forces at work somewhere, somehow, in the whole process: congratulations, you are one of us after all!

In response to this Prof Moran writes:

This is a very broad definition. If you believe in God then you pretty much have to be an IDiot unless you are a strict deist. Every single religious person that I know believes that "there must have been more than unintelligent forces at work somewhere, somehow, in the whole process."1 Therefore, every Roman Catholic and every evangelical Christian is an IDiot, according to Granville Sewell. This includes Ken Miller and Francis Collins. In fact, it includes every religious scientist.

Not bad, eh?

For the record, I do not "believe" that " ... a few fundamental, unintelligent forces of physics alone could have rearranged the basic particles of physics into Apple iPhones." I think it's the most reasonable explanation. I don't know of any other explanation that is supported by evidence.

I certainly concur with Larry Moran and can say along with him that Sewell’s definition of ID actually covers all theistic scientists I know of. This would also include people like John Polkinghorne and myself. Sewell has thoroughly screwed up his definition as he didn't intend it, of course, to cover theistic evolutionists. Sewell, like other dualists of his persuasion, sees it as stark choice between “unintelligent natural forces vs. God intelligence”. He stuffs this distorted dichotomy into the heads of Christian scientists who are part of the academic establishment and believes they have made a choice in favour of "unintelligent forces". His “IDiot” community is at logger heads with these scientists and so this straw-man strategy is fair game.

As I have repeatedly said in this blog: If evolution works in the way the academic establishment tells us, then it can certainly be interpreted as an intelligent design option: This is because the selection of the right physical “law and disorder” regime which would be sufficient to constrain the thermodynamically energized computations of seeking, rejecting and selecting is itself a computationally complex task and would therefore demand a highly intelligent act of selection. It is surely an irony that it is in the context of theism confidence in the efficacy of those so-called "unintelligent forces" is refreshed. It is a belief in Divine intelligence that undermines Sewell's contention that "natural forces" can be labelled  unintelligent (*2)

However, as I'm not part of the academic establishment myself there is no pressure for me to commit myself to accepted evolutionary mechanisms or the equivalent belief that current physics provides sufficient constraint to make the formation of living structures a realistic probability. I actually have my doubts, although I do have sympathy with Larry Moran when he says: “I think it's the most reasonable explanation. I don't know of any other explanation that is supported by evidence.”

In fact given that improbable givens are a mathematical fact of life in all the physical regimes we can conceive, I’d even go as far to entertain the possibility that, say, “evolvable replicators” may be one of the givens of this world. But in saying this I would definitely want to distance myself from the kind of theological dualism that Sewell stands for. He is part of a community that has invested all their emotional energy and finances into a dogmatic belief in the incompleteness of physics to explain life and habitually contrast the so-called "unintelligent natural forces" of physics over and against the Divine hand. For them "evolution", should it be valid, is tantamount to the death knell of their faith. Conversely, for their atheist alter ego's, just as bound to theological dualism, evolution serves a redundancy notice on God.

Well, perhaps they are right about the incompleteness of physics, but I would not then stuff a half-baked concept of “unintelligent forces” (as does Sewell) into the heads of those Christian scientists who do believe in the efficacy of evolution (as it is currently understood) to generate living structures.

Footnotes:

 *1) “IDiot” is Larry’s Trade Mark term of endearment for the anti-academic establishment Christian community that Sewell belongs to.

  *2) I once caught another IDist emasculating  “self organization” by simply taking it for granted that the algorithms of a physical regime aren't intelligently selected. See here: http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/more-on-self-organisation.html.


Addendum 28/12/13
It is a remarkable irony that as people like Granville Sewell and friends look out onto  the cosmos they see by and large a Godless place filled with the chaotic patterns generated by natural and unintelligent forces. The cling on, for all their faith is worth, to the notion that the configurations of life simply couldn't be generated by these mindless natural processes; for if they were then that would raise in their minds the spectre of a universe very likely devoid of any master intelligence; atheism would beckon. This slide into atheism and even nihilism is a theme I pick in my essay entitled "The Riddle of The Sphinx" (See link on side bar). We perhaps can see why the God intelligence vs naturalism debate is a contention that is argued with so much vociferousness on both sides; huge emotional stakes are involved. In particular, the North American ID community represented by Sewell is only a few conceptual steps away from atheism and they probably can sense that.
See also: http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2008/08/how-to-know-you-know-you-know-it.html