Intelligent Design is an Inversion of Science.
I know, it's getting to be a boring old topic, but it is intriguing. Creationism and "intelligent design" are immensely silly, but, on the other hand, if the existence of life does NOT seem utterly mind-boggling to you, then where's your imagination?
If you are one of those who think evolutionary science says nothing more than "It all just happened by accident - No big deal," then you HAVE to respond "Whoa! Wait a minute. Life is just too staggeringly unlikely for that to be the whole story. There has to be more!"
And there is, of course. And we don't know how life started - yet. But never mind how life came about, the mere fact that life is possible right now in this universe is pan-galactic gargle-blasting stuff! In my mind, saying "God did it" is a cop-out that cheapens the whole thing. God can do anything, I am told, so if he made it, then life really is no big deal. I'd rather go with science, since it makes the whole thing, - the fact that I am here typing blogs, - WAY more mysterious and spooky.
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Creationists try to muscle in on science. That's what they are doing in their guerrilla war on education; and here is one of the reasons why they are wrong.
There is an important difference between science and engineering. Science is trying to understand things, engineering is trying to make things.
Engineering requires understanding materials we are using, and so the two become very closely connected. Rocket science involves both understanding and making - but science comes first (often through failed attempts at engineering.) Successful engineering occurs after scientific understanding makes it possible. A caveman cannot make a plough until he figures out that wood is tougher than soil.
Both of these activities, science and engineering, are intelligent, animal, activities. Neither happens without our agency. (Non-human animals understand and build things too.)
Science, insofar as it is the pursuit of understanding the world, tries to understand complicated things in terms of simpler things. It is essentially reductive. The rainbow turns out to be caused by light and raindrops. The fall of the apple, the movements of the planets, the orbit of the moon; all turn out to be described by the same simple equation. Molecules of infinite properties are made of less than a hundred types of atoms, which are in turn made of a smaller number of particles. The complex surface of life is produced by complicated arrangements of simpler substances underneath. We shriek “Eureka” when we see that the apparently chaotic is the result of simple and consistent principles.
And so the essential question of science is “what simpler explanation than mere description can I find?” Science answers the question “How is the complex possible as a result of the simple?” One of the answers evolution suggests is "by trying out gazillions of different combinations of rather a lot of simple things." And when good scientific explanations are found, they have the usefulness of being able to predict other things that have not happened yet, and even more importantly, making it clear what things absolutely cannot happen. (Such as pumping squigwillions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere and not fucking up the planet.)
Good science can tell us what is strong, what is weak, when things melt, what conducts electricity, and how much, and why. Achieving that opens the door to inventive engineering.
===============================
Creationism and “Intelligent Design” take the position that everything is engineering. They confuse science and engineering. So when they say "Look, this thing is so complicated that it must have been engineered deliberately" they claim to be talking about science. But they are not; they are talking about engineering, and refusing to imagine that things can be brought into existence by non-conscious processes. But they can. We see it all the time - as rivers carve valleys, as waves make sand-dunes, as falling rain makes rainbows, as stars make iron, as dripping water makes stalactites and stalagmites.
If, with the Creationists, we insist that very complicated things with feed-back controls (things like wheels on axles, or elephants) are across some imaginary divide which requires "engineering" as opposed to possibly very slow, repetitive processes, then we would be taking the position that complex things can only be produced by something even more complex. “If we have a complicated eye, that can only be because something even more complicated contrived it.” Thus we can see that creationists and advocates of the doctrine of “Intelligent Design” take the view that everything that exists can only have come about in the way that we make things - as a deliberate act of construction, using our complex brains, based on an understanding of what the result will probably be.
This is emotionally appealing. Religion involves an anthropomorphic attempt to see the world as being controlled in the same way we try to control our own surroundings.
If God made us in his image, then he must be just like us!
If we make God in our own image, then he must be just like us!
So far as I can see, there is no difference.
(And either would seem to mean that God is just like George W. Bush. Need I say more?)
We fear a random universe, a universe created and controlled by non-conscious processes, since we realize we cannot control and dominate such a universe. Religion is a fear-abating strategy. The faith of the creationists consoles them in their hope that the universe itself is just like the world we build around ourselves; that the universe was created just as if it had been done by us. It is a faith built out of fear; there is no remote reason to suppose it is true, and it is empty, since even the engineering of the almighty, if he worked just like us, would need the almighty's science first.
We cannot prove that they are wrong. (How could you prove that the universe was NOT created five minutes ago, including your belief that that is a silly idea?) But if everything is as it is only because something hugely more complicated and intelligent than us made it that way, then we cannot, even in principle, have a clue as to what will be made next, or what will happen next. We are even more powerless than scientists. And if all complexity is the result of intelligent design by a more complex being, because that is the only way complex things can ever arise, then how could that being that made us exist, except by being made by an even more complex being? It is just as infinite a futile chain as the search for ultimately simple components of reality. The old search for the "first cause."
The doctrine of “Intelligent Design”, claiming to be science, is nothing other than a refusal to do science at all when it comes to looking at life. It claims that everything is engineered by a scientist who knows more than us. Oddly, it then goes on to say that our lesser science is wrong. Why? It is a complete non-sequitor. Our science may or may not supply an ultimate explanation, but at least it can find out something. Creationists assert that there is nothing to be found out.
In the end, it is guilty of that worst of all sins. It is boring.
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If you are one of those who think evolutionary science says nothing more than "It all just happened by accident - No big deal," then you HAVE to respond "Whoa! Wait a minute. Life is just too staggeringly unlikely for that to be the whole story. There has to be more!"
And there is, of course. And we don't know how life started - yet. But never mind how life came about, the mere fact that life is possible right now in this universe is pan-galactic gargle-blasting stuff! In my mind, saying "God did it" is a cop-out that cheapens the whole thing. God can do anything, I am told, so if he made it, then life really is no big deal. I'd rather go with science, since it makes the whole thing, - the fact that I am here typing blogs, - WAY more mysterious and spooky.
---------------
Creationists try to muscle in on science. That's what they are doing in their guerrilla war on education; and here is one of the reasons why they are wrong.
There is an important difference between science and engineering. Science is trying to understand things, engineering is trying to make things.
Engineering requires understanding materials we are using, and so the two become very closely connected. Rocket science involves both understanding and making - but science comes first (often through failed attempts at engineering.) Successful engineering occurs after scientific understanding makes it possible. A caveman cannot make a plough until he figures out that wood is tougher than soil.
Both of these activities, science and engineering, are intelligent, animal, activities. Neither happens without our agency. (Non-human animals understand and build things too.)
Science, insofar as it is the pursuit of understanding the world, tries to understand complicated things in terms of simpler things. It is essentially reductive. The rainbow turns out to be caused by light and raindrops. The fall of the apple, the movements of the planets, the orbit of the moon; all turn out to be described by the same simple equation. Molecules of infinite properties are made of less than a hundred types of atoms, which are in turn made of a smaller number of particles. The complex surface of life is produced by complicated arrangements of simpler substances underneath. We shriek “Eureka” when we see that the apparently chaotic is the result of simple and consistent principles.
And so the essential question of science is “what simpler explanation than mere description can I find?” Science answers the question “How is the complex possible as a result of the simple?” One of the answers evolution suggests is "by trying out gazillions of different combinations of rather a lot of simple things." And when good scientific explanations are found, they have the usefulness of being able to predict other things that have not happened yet, and even more importantly, making it clear what things absolutely cannot happen. (Such as pumping squigwillions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere and not fucking up the planet.)
Good science can tell us what is strong, what is weak, when things melt, what conducts electricity, and how much, and why. Achieving that opens the door to inventive engineering.
===============================
Creationism and “Intelligent Design” take the position that everything is engineering. They confuse science and engineering. So when they say "Look, this thing is so complicated that it must have been engineered deliberately" they claim to be talking about science. But they are not; they are talking about engineering, and refusing to imagine that things can be brought into existence by non-conscious processes. But they can. We see it all the time - as rivers carve valleys, as waves make sand-dunes, as falling rain makes rainbows, as stars make iron, as dripping water makes stalactites and stalagmites.
If, with the Creationists, we insist that very complicated things with feed-back controls (things like wheels on axles, or elephants) are across some imaginary divide which requires "engineering" as opposed to possibly very slow, repetitive processes, then we would be taking the position that complex things can only be produced by something even more complex. “If we have a complicated eye, that can only be because something even more complicated contrived it.” Thus we can see that creationists and advocates of the doctrine of “Intelligent Design” take the view that everything that exists can only have come about in the way that we make things - as a deliberate act of construction, using our complex brains, based on an understanding of what the result will probably be.
This is emotionally appealing. Religion involves an anthropomorphic attempt to see the world as being controlled in the same way we try to control our own surroundings.
If God made us in his image, then he must be just like us!
If we make God in our own image, then he must be just like us!
So far as I can see, there is no difference.
(And either would seem to mean that God is just like George W. Bush. Need I say more?)
We fear a random universe, a universe created and controlled by non-conscious processes, since we realize we cannot control and dominate such a universe. Religion is a fear-abating strategy. The faith of the creationists consoles them in their hope that the universe itself is just like the world we build around ourselves; that the universe was created just as if it had been done by us. It is a faith built out of fear; there is no remote reason to suppose it is true, and it is empty, since even the engineering of the almighty, if he worked just like us, would need the almighty's science first.
We cannot prove that they are wrong. (How could you prove that the universe was NOT created five minutes ago, including your belief that that is a silly idea?) But if everything is as it is only because something hugely more complicated and intelligent than us made it that way, then we cannot, even in principle, have a clue as to what will be made next, or what will happen next. We are even more powerless than scientists. And if all complexity is the result of intelligent design by a more complex being, because that is the only way complex things can ever arise, then how could that being that made us exist, except by being made by an even more complex being? It is just as infinite a futile chain as the search for ultimately simple components of reality. The old search for the "first cause."
The doctrine of “Intelligent Design”, claiming to be science, is nothing other than a refusal to do science at all when it comes to looking at life. It claims that everything is engineered by a scientist who knows more than us. Oddly, it then goes on to say that our lesser science is wrong. Why? It is a complete non-sequitor. Our science may or may not supply an ultimate explanation, but at least it can find out something. Creationists assert that there is nothing to be found out.
In the end, it is guilty of that worst of all sins. It is boring.
posted by Andrew Massey | Saturday, February 18, 2006
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1 comments
