09.10.08
N-design, G-design, from World History And The Eonic Effect
If the ID argument seems confusing, cf. our frequent distinction here between natural design, and so-called intelligent design
Selection from World History And The Eonic Effect
The argument by design has a long history, and this is not the same as the issue of ‘design’ as such. It is not hard to see that ‘something like design’ is at work in genetic structures. Historical amnesia reigns. We might, for example, review the early debates here, and consider a Kantian perspective or the classic critiques of the argument by design. The Intelligent Design group has not demonstrated the argument by design. These tactics can be very destructive. We cannot examine design under the aegis of particular religious groups with ambitious social strategies. Such questions require strict religious neutrality. But that is unlikely here, making discussion pointless. In any case the design interpretation thrives only because Darwin’s theory is very extreme in its claims for natural selection.
G-design vs. N-design Design arguments tend to confuse two meanings of the term ‘design’. It is incontestable that many biochemical structures show design, in the complexity of their almost programmatic functionality. We might call G-design the action of a known ‘designer’, viz. a supernatural agent (god?), with the term N-design to refer to the bare functional aspect of complex biological structures. We can infer N-design, but this does not resolve the question of its evolution. It is hard to explicate N-design by arguments using natural selection. It does not follow that we can infer G-design.
Natural teleology The design argument is ambiguous and is really a theological version of teleological thinking. In the pursuit of N-design the factor of teleology might arise as a challenge to reductionism, but this teleological aspect can better be seen as a discovery of methodological naturalism.
Does the Old Testament show evidence of design? Proponents of Intelligent Design wish to create a ‘design science’, but adopt a double standard with the Biblical document data. The assumption seems to be that the Biblical text, presumably taken as ‘money in the bank’, prior evidence of G-design, can put a plus in the case for design in early evolution. But the Old Testament can grant no such edge to design preconceptions. Given the Axial correlation of this data, we might consider an argument by N-design (historical directionality). That would require, however, the same argument for the parallel emergence of atheist religions in the Axial interval. Thus, it is hard to maintain an argument for G-design in this classic mass of evidence of the Axial Age or eonic effect. The irony we will see is that the Old Testament is a primitive discovery of (macro) evolution!
This ‘design’ in quotation marks falls between two stools, scientific and religious, and can hardly be taken as a proof of divinity. It is, at least, an aspect of nature, one that monotheistic traditions seem unable to confront. Such thinking is meaningless if we know so little about nature. Only the false claim that Darwin’s theory of natural selection resolved the issue of design could have started such a confused discourse on both sides. Let us set this booby-trapped terminology aside, having acknowledged the cogency of the critique, without succumbing to theological legerdemain.