HOUSTON?Intelligent design is not “a gussied-up version of creationism,” William Dembski said in the opening remarks of a debate with evolutionist Niall Shanks before an audience of Bible scholars gathered at the Havard Campus of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Houston.
In a discussion free of the rancor that has defined many of the debates between intelligent design (ID) advocates and scientific materialists, Dembski and Shanks laid out their reasoning for and against ID March 29 during the regional meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society.
In existence for almost 50 years, the ETS is, according to its website, “a group of scholars, teachers, pastors, students, and others dedicated to the oral exchange and written expression of theological thought and research.”
The plenary sessions between Shanks and Dembski focused on the theme “Natural Revelation, Natural Law, and Design in the Cosmos.”
Dembski is one of the world’s leading ID theorists and is a research professor in philosophy at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. Shanks, with a Ph.D. in philosophy, holds the Curtis D. Gridley Distinguished Professor of History and Philosophy of Science chair at Wichita Sate University in Wichita, Kan.
Dembski argued that the ID proposal stands on its evidence within nature, while Shanks countered with his concerns of theories claiming to resolve scientific questions with little or no evidence to substantiate them.
ID: Study of nature’s patterns
Confessing that the two men?although philosophical and scientific rivals?have become friends over the course of their debates, Dembski set the tone for what would be a cordial debate. In his opening remarks, he said ID is often accused by critics in science and the media of being creation science revisited. Dembski said there are important distinctions between the two schools of thought and “ID has no stake in [creation science].”
ID, Dembki argued instead, is “the study of patterns in nature that are best explained as the product of intelligence.”
The frame of reference by which humans observe and make assumptions about the world around them leads one to concede the existence of a designer. Dembski called upon the work of 18th-century scientist and theologian William Paley and his famous reasoning for the inference of a designer. If a person were to see a rock on the ground, that person would conclude the rock had always been in this natural state. But to stumble upon a watch?with its intricate mechanizations?one must conclude the presence of a designer. Quoting Paley, Dembski said, “The marks of design are too strong to be got over. Design must have had a designer.”
“This is a fundamental way we have of summing up reality,” he said.
But, if one were to surmise that this same thought process can be applied to biological systems, “all hell breaks loose,” Dembski said. “That ends up having huge worldview implications.”
Scientists have long held the idea of natural theology, the belief that God, the creator, is evidenced in the creation. Paley’s book “Natural Theology,” published in 1802, was required reading by the students at Christ College, Cambridge?students such as Charles Darwin.
But ID, Dembski said, does not so much build a concept of a designer in the cosmos, but more effectively shows the weaknesses of scientific materialism. It is the mechanisms of evolutionary change that are challenged most by ID, he said.
“That is what is at issue. The evidence is not there.”
The cornerstones of Darwinian evolutionary theory?random chance and natural selection?are called into question by ID-friendly scientists. Dembski asked how, in the process of evolution, does an organism survive from point A to point B without the immediate use of highly complex, often interdependent parts that would theoretically take thousands or millions of years to develop.
The presence of ID thought and discourse, Dembski said, has served to keep evolutionary scientists honest. And it is a theory that should be given as much peer consideration as studies in physics such as string theory and dark matter. Dembski said ID is not “God in the gaps,” but a legitimate theory that should be given respectful review. The arguments for design, he said, are not made from ignorance but from what we do know, such as the complexity of the cell.
It is a reasonable inference to believe there is a design in the system, he said.
Design without a designer?
It is theories such as string theory and dark matter that concern Shanks, who has written several books on the history of science and philosophy. Such theories, including intelligent design, do not stand up to evidence and merely try to explain aspects of the cosmos that science does not yet understand, he said.
Shanks said Mount Rushmore is evidence of rock formations far beyond the realm of simple erosion. But, he asked, does the appearance of design always point to a designer?
Although he disagrees with ID theory, as outlined in his book “God, the Devil, and Darwin: A Critique of Intelligent Design Theory,” Shanks conceded, “I think one has to entertain the possibility of ID.” But, he added, all claims have to be open to revisions in light of new evidence.
Shanks said his skepticism for ID is an “evidential worry.” The lack of evidence for a designer outside an organism and no watermark on the finished product lead Shanks to find dubious the claims of a creator. With no knowledge of or evidence for a designer, Shanks argued the inference of design is a stretch.
“We have to work in the realm of appearance,” he said.
Biology irreducibly complex
But ID researchers claim such evidence exists in the irreducible complexity of some biological systems. Of his theory, Darwin wrote: “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organism existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.”
An irreducibly complex system is one made of several parts with each part being interdependent with each of the others for the function of the whole system. Without one of the parts, the system cannot function. The bacterial flagellum is such an organism, argues Michael Behe in his book “Darwin’s Black Box.”
Behe wrote, “Because the bacterial flagellum is necessarily composed of at least three parts?a paddle, a root, and a motor?it is irreducibly complex. Gradual evolution of the flagellum, like the cilium, therefore faces mammoth hurdles.”
To the ETS audience, Shanks countered the proclaimed evidence for ID on the microscopic level and said, “I don’t see it as product of design but something that has been cobbled together through evolutionary process.”
The “hallmark” of the evolutionary process, Shanks said, is the re-use of modules from other organisms. Such systems begin on a simpler scale within simpler organisms.
But, Dembski countered, the re-use of components in the bacterial flagellum does not discount the element of design.
“It is a marvel of engineering,” he said.
Layers of information and the engineering, not cobbling, of mechanisms in biology refute the idea of randomness producing such a working system.
With regard to science’s inability to discover a designer, Dembski said, “Our technologies are so dwarfed by the design of a cell that we don’t have the technology, yet, to define the designer. But the design, nonetheless, can be inferred.”
Darwin’s God snub
In a second session of the ID debate, Shanks opened with his views on Darwin and his theological ideals. Shanks said Darwin was a theist when he wrote “The Origin of the Species” but languished into agnosticism before his death due, not to his the
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