Intelligent Design 김장훈 아주대학교
Acknowledgments Heinz Lycklama Discovery Institute 이승엽 http://www.kacr.or.kr
All truth passes through three stages: 1. Ridicule 2. Violent opposition 3. Self-evident acceptance. Arthur Schopenhauer
Chance, Necessity or Design?
Intelligent Design What is it? History Key movers and shakers Irreducible complexity Specified complexity Testing for complexity Some examples
What is Intelligent Design? "The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." Source: The Discovery Institute
Evidence for Design Cosmology: evidence suggests the universe-- including all matter, space, time, and energy--came suddenly into existence a finite time ago, contradicting the earlier picture of an eternal and self-existing existing material cosmos Physics: evidence has shown that the universe is "finely-tuned" for the existence of life, suggesting the work, as Astrophysicist Fred Hoyle puts it, "of a super-intellect
Evidence for Design - 2 Biology: the presence of complex and functionally integrated machines has cast doubt on Darwinian mechanisms of self-assembly Molecular l biology: the presence of information encoded along the DNA molecule has suggested the activity it of a prior designing i intelligence Harvard biologist Richard Lewontin urges scientists to embrace a "materialism [that] is absolute" and to stick with "material explanations, no matter how counter intuitive."
History of Intelligent Design Greek philosophers p a few 100 years before Christ Some early church fathers in 3 rd /4 th centuries William Paley, Natural Theology (1802) Watch is the product of intelligence (watchmaker), not the result of undirected natural processes Organisms (e.g. the eye) are the product of intelligence Purposeful design -> purposeful designer Important sign of design is complexity
An Early Argument From Design Rev. William Paley in Natural Theology, 1802: "In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone and were asked how the stone came to be there, I might possibly answer that for anything I knew to the contrary it had lain there forever; nor would it, perhaps, be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer. But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place, I should hardly think of the answer which I had before given, that for anything I knew the watch might have always been there. Yt Yet why should not tthis answer serve for the watch as well as for the stone? For this reason, and none other, viz., that when we come to inspect the watch, we perceive e what we could not discover in the stone, that its several eral parts were put together for a purpose."
Modern Intelligent Design (ID) Began with the work of Charles Thaxton, Walter Bradley, Michael Denton, Dean Kenyon and Phillip Johnson Scientifically, Darwinism is an inadequate framework for biology Philosophically, Darwinism is hopelessly entangled with naturalism Michael Behe, William Dembski, Stephen Meyer, Paul Nelson and Jonathan Wells Proposed positive research program wherein intelligent causes become key for understanding the diversity and complexity of life
Intelligent Design Theory Living organisms are too complicated to be the result of natural processes working independently Based largely on the theories underlying Information Theory Concerned with measuring the complexity of structures/information contained in structures Generally concerned with two main concepts: Irreducible complexity Specified Complexity
Irreducible Complexity Mike Behe introduced the concept of irreducible complexity in his book, Darwin s Black Box Something is irreducibly complex if it is composed of two or more necessary parts Remove one part and function is not just impaired but destroyed A mousetrap is irreducibly complex
The Mousetrap A mousetrap cannot be built by natural selection
The Mousetrap An Explanation () (1) a flat wooden platform or base (2) () a metal hammer, which crushes the mouse (3) a spring with extended ends to power the hammer (4) a catch that releases the spring (5) a metal bar that connects to the catch and holds the hammer back (6) All the pieces have to be in place before you catch any mice. Michael Behe - 2002
Specific Complexity The following strings of characters illustrate the concept of Specific Complexity. Consider the following: Complex but unspecified: fjbn ghtur ieiod ofjkgjbn mfkritj Complex and specified: The state of education in Korea
Dembski s s claims Both designed artifacts and organisms exhibit special order: specified complexity Chance and necessity cannot generate Specifi ed Complexity, or information Intelligence is a separate principle Blind mechanisms (like those of Darwinian ev olution) cannot explain life Artificial Intelligence is impossible
How To Detect Specified Complexity Contingency: No Physical Constraint; all sorts of strings can appear on the paper Complexity: Improbable to optain by pure chance Specification: Can t read it, but fits properties of a language, priorly known DNA also a code G?ayd inlar! Bug? hava iyi, ancak yarin daha k t?o lacak gibi. Bulut?k, ama ne yapar, belli degil.
Start William Dembski s Explanatory Filter Highly probable? bbl? No Yes Law Intermediate probability? No Yes Chance Specified/ Small probability? Yes Design No Chance From Mere Creation: Science, Faith and Intelligent t Design. William A. Dembski Ed. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1998. P99.
Is The Pattern Random Or Designed? Probability: =2-256 =8.6 x 10-78 =0.00000000000 00000000000000 00000000000000 00000000000000 00000000000000 000000000086
Is The Pattern Random Or Designed? Probability: =2-256 =8.6 x 10-78 =0.00000000000 00000000000000 00000000000000 00000000000000 00000000000000 000000000086
Arguments for a Designer Organisms look designed for at least three (3) reasons: Redundancy - A Designer can engineer redundancy into a system, but chance is unlikely to do this. An example of this is the presence of degeneracy in the genetic code and other features that minimize or negate the effects of many point mutations Excess potential - Organisms have potential that may never be used. For example, Wallace, co-discoverer of natural selection, pointed out that primitive people have the capacity to do calculus when trained. Natural selection is unlikely l to select for capacity that is not used Complexity - Life exhibits a kind of complexity that it is hard to produce by processes involving chance
Design and Deductive Reasoning In general, arguments for a designer are arguments against the alternative. This does not mean these are just arguments against evolutionary theory. All arguments, by definition, are characterized by taking one side while arguing against another side. Arguments against a theory are about eliminating possible explanations. There is nothing inferior about this, in fact, it is deductive reasoning which is used by scientists all the time in their quest for truth.
The Likely and the eunlikely Arguments for a Designer frequently revolve around probability. Meaningful complexity is unlikely to result from random events. Organisms are meaningfully complex. Some claim that natural selection overcomes much of this problem as, while change may be random, selection is not Science is about predicting what is likely and what is unlikely. Everyone is in agreement that the events leading to production of living organisms are unlikely l
In a Long Time and Big Universe It has been argued that given massive lengths of time and a universe to work in, the unlikely becomes likely: Given infinite time, or infinite opportunities, anything is possible. The large numbers proverbially furnished by astronomy, and the large time spans characteristic of geology, combine to turn topsy-turvy turvy our everyday estimates of what is expected and what is miraculous. Richard Dawkins (1989) The Blind Watchmaker: Why the evidence of evolution reveals a universe without design. W. W. Norton and Co. New York. p139. Dawkins says that while life looks designed, the designer was not God, but massive chance coupled with natural selection. Nature was the designer In The Panda s Thumb, Stephen J. Gould argues that life does not look designed
Little eor Big gchanges? Not all changes improve fitness, they may: Improve the fitness of an organism (very unlikely) Be neutral, having no effect on fitness Be detrimental, decreasing an organisms fitness (most likely) The bigger the change the more likely it is to be significantly detrimental Darwin argued that evolution is the accumulation of many small changes that improve fitness, big changes are unlikely to result in improved fitness. Many large groups of facts are intelligible only on the principle that species have been evolved by very small steps. The Origin of Species Chapter VII under Reasons for disbelieving in great and abrupt modifications
Darwin s Black Box Over 100 molecular motors are now known to exist inside the cell with very specific analogies to human designed motors.
Behe s Insight Michael Behe contends that t when we look at the protein machines that run cells, there is a point at which hno parts can be removed and still have a functioning machine. He called these machines irreducibly ibl complex (IC) We encounter irreducibly complex devices in everyday life. A simple mouse trap is an example of an irreducibly complex device: Board Staple Trigger Cheese Bait holder Hammer Spring
Evolution of Complex Organs The Origin of Species Chapter VI "Difficulties of the Theory" Organs of Extreme Perfection and Complication To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correcting of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.
Evolution of the Eye To go from nothing to an eye would be a very big jump Darwin proposed a series of what appeared to be relatively small steps (they are still gigantic leaps) that might be able to produce an eye
Bacterial Motors Certain bacteria swim by means of rotary flagella. These are driven by reversible electric motors!
The Bombardier Beetle An ordinary looking beetle with an extraordinary defense mechanism Could this system evolve one step at a time? All of it is programmed in the beetle s DNA. Unless all the parts are present, the whole system is useless. Even if all the parts were present, if any one of them did not work right, the beetle s ancestors might have exploded!
Science is a human activity of systemically y seeking natural explanations for what we observe in the world around is. Kansas State Education Board