Can Any Theory of Intelligent Design be A True Scientific Theory?

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Can Any Theory of Intelligent Design be A True
Scientific Theory?

• Sean D. Pitman, M.D.
• April 2006

www.DetectingDesign.com
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Both Could Have Been Deliberately Designed
Only One Had to Have Been Deliberately Designed
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The Scientific Method

• Make an observation
• Use that observation to make a falsifiable
  prediction as to what will happen in the future
• Test the prediction to see if it successfully
  avoids falsification
• If the prediction avoids falsification, the
  hypothesis gains predictive value
• It is more likely that this prediction will
  continue to hold true with more testing
• If the prediction fails, the hypothesis must be
  either modified or discarded completely in favor
  of a new hypothesis

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• Karl Popper, one of the most influential
  philosophers of the 20th century
• Any hypothesis that does not make
  falsifiable predictions is simply not science.
  Such a hypothesis may be useful or valuable, but
  it cannot be said to be science.

http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science
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• Popper began considering the importance of
  falsification in science after attending a
  lecture by Einstein
• Noticed that Einsteins theories were much
  different than those of Marx or Freud
• Einstein Theories were extremely risky while
  those of Marx and Freud were not in that they
  explain too much, often with completely
  opposing explanations for observations that could
  not be decisively disproved

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Non-Scientific Prediction?

• Observation Dinosaurs and Birds share several
  features
• Hypothesis Dinosaurs and Birds have a common
  ancestor
• Prediction A link between dinosaurs and birds
  will be found sharing additional features like
  a feathered dinosaur
• This prediction is not falsifiable, it is only
  verifiable
• If feathered dinosaurs are never found, the
  hypothesis still isnt falsified
• It therefore does not meet Poppers criteria as a
  true scientific prediction however useful it
  may be

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A Scientific Prediction?

• While in Las Vegas I observe that I roll double
  sixes every time after I scratched my nose . . .
  3 times so far!
• Through inductive reasoning, I hypothesize that
  scratching my nose causes me to roll double sixes
• I therefore predict that every time I scratch my
  nose I will roll double sixes
• If I continue to roll double sixes after
  scratching my nose, my hypothesis gains
  predictive value
• If I end up rolling anything else after
  scratching my nose, just once, my hypothesis
  looses predictive value

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Designed Things

• Do things of known design have any predictable
  characteristics that can be used to predict
  design when such characteristic are found in
  other things?

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Everything and Nothing

• It is a common saying among many evolutionists
  that ID explains everything and therefore nothing
  
• Is this true? Can ID explain everything?
• Can anyone name anything that could not be
  deliberately formed given enough knowledge, power
  and creativity?
• If ID can explain everything, does this mean it
  explains nothing?

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ID Explains Nothing?

• ID does seem to be able to explain everything
• ID is limited in explanatory power only by the
  limits of the proposed designer
• Mindless Nature is used to explain everything
  as well and therefore nothing?
• If ID and non-deliberate natural processes are
  both equally limitless in potential creative
  ability, how can one tell the difference?
• One or the other must be limited in the ability
  to produce certain characteristics over a certain
  span of time

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Non-Deliberate Forces

• Which one is more limited, intelligent or
  non-intelligent activity given access to the
  same amount of energy, basic building blocks and
  time?
• Oh, but given enough time, cant non-deliberate
  forces do everything that highly intelligent
  forces can do?
• Sure, but how much time do you have?

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•      Time is the hero of the plot. The time
  with which we have to deal is of the order of two
  billion years... Given so much time the
  'impossible' becomes possible, the possible
  probable, and the probable virtually certain. One
  has only to wait time itself performs miracles.
• George Wald (1967 Nobel Prize winner in
  Medicine), "The Origin of Life," Scientific
  American, vol. 191 1954, p. 46 reprinted on p.
  307-320, A Treasury of Science, Fourth Revised
  Edition, Harlow Shapley et al., eds., Harper and
  Brothers Publishers, 1958. p 309.

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Deliberate or non-deliberate?
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Non-deliberate?
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What Limits Non-Deliberate Processes?

• All known non-deliberate processes interact in an
  apparently random way when it comes to certain
  features of certain materials
• Apparently random or chaotic activity has a
  certain fairly predictable look
• Cant predict heads or tails of a particular coin
  toss better than 50/50, but I can predict that
  the ratio will almost certainly be 50H/50T
  after 1 million tosses if the tossing is truly
  random

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Kolmogorov/Chaitin Complexity

• "Although randomness can be precisely defined
  and can even be measured, a given number cannot
  be proved to be random. This enigma establishes a
  limit to what is possible in mathematics."
• Gregory Chaitin, Scientific American, 1975

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• A non-random process, like ID or Pi, can produce
  non-random and random-looking looks
• A truly random process, coin tossing, can also
  produce non-random and random-looking looks
• Given enough time it is possible for a million
  monkeys typing away at random to produce all the
  works of Shakespeare
• What good are the concepts of random and
  non-random processes if there is no detectable
  difference between what one can do vs. what the
  other can do?
• Some things just seem so intuitively random
  while other things seem so non-random
• Is there a detectable difference?

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Gregory Chaitin Explains

• Almost everyone has an intuitive notion of
  what a random number is. For example, consider
  these two series of binary digits
• 01010101010101010101
• 01101100110111100010

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01010101010101010101

• The first is obviously constructed according
  to a simple rule it consists of the number 01
  repeated ten times. If one were asked to
  speculate on how the series might continue, one
  could predict with considerable confidence that
  the next two digits would be 0 and 1. Inspection
  of the second series of digits yields no such
  comprehensive pattern. There is no obvious rule
  governing the formation of the number, and there
  is no rational way to guess the succeeding
  digits. The arrangement seems haphazard in other
  words, the sequence appears to be a random
  assortment of 0's and 1's.

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01101100110111100010

• . . . The second series of binary digits was
  generated by flipping a coin 20 times and writing
  a 1 if the outcome was heads and a 0 if it was
  tails.
• Tossing a coin is a classical procedure for
  producing a random number, and one might think at
  first that the provenance of the series alone
  would certify that it is random. This is not so.
  Tossing a coin 20 times can produce any one of
  220 (or a little more than a million) binary
  series potential sequences in sequence space,
  and each of them has exactly the same
  probability. Thus it should be no more surprising
  to obtain the series with an obvious pattern than
  to obtain the one that seems to be random each
  represents an event with a probability of 2-20.

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• If origin in a probabilistic event were made
  the sole criterion of randomness, then both
  series would have to be considered random, and
  indeed so would all others, since the same
  mechanism can generate all the possible series.
  This conclusion is singularly unhelpful in
  distinguishing the random from the orderly.
• A more sensible definition of randomness is
  required, one that does not contradict the
  intuitive concept of a patternless number.

Gregory J. Chaitin, Randomness and Mathematical
Proof, Scientific American, 232, No. 5 (May
1975),  pp. 47-52
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A Patternless Pattern

• Patternlessness is based on the pattern itself
  without any regard to its actual origin
• Patternlessness Complexity (KCC)
• KCC Measure of Compressibility
• Given the ability to recognize symmetry or
  repeating patterns, a sequence with greater
  internal symmetry has greater compressibility
  (Low KCC)

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What about Pi?

• 3.1415926535897932384626433832795 . . . . No
  simple, repeating patterns longer than 10 digits
  (out of 200 million digits)
• Yet, this apparently infinite patternless
  sequence is very compressible/reproducible with a
  very simple formula of Pi
• the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of
  a perfect circle

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• Patternlessness cannot be absolutely known this
  side of absolute knowledge
• An unknown compressor, like Pi, may come along
  and compress a very long apparently random
  sequence into a very small expression or formula
• Something with apparently high KCC in reality has
  a low KCC
• So, what good is the concept of KCC?

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Apparent Randomness or Chaos

• Chaos Theory arose out of trying to predict the
  weather (Edward Lorenz)
• Its kinda like playing pool Perfect knowledge
  of position, direction, velocity and several
  other features of each pool ball on a perfectly
  frictionless table would give exact
  predictability over time
• Slightly non-perfect knowledge results in
  exponentially worse and worse predictability over
  time
• i.e. The Butterfly Effect

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• Even a slight lack of knowledge of the starting
  parameters results in an appearance of
  randomness/non-compressibility or high KCC
• The actual rules governing the starting
  parameters may have been very simple (low KCC)
  and very reproducible - if they could be
  perfectly known
• Problem certain apparently simple formulas
  cannot be known to perfection by us humans
• i.e., the current starting points, velocities,
  and trajectories of all particles involved in
  next years weather patterns
• Such things will therefore predictably produce an
  apparently random pattern with high KCC

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The Predictable Random Look

• Imagine a 10 x 10 meter very smooth/polished
  highly symmetrical granite cube
• Now, imagine that it gets exposed to intense
  natural weathering for 10,000 years
• What is it going to look like?
• What are the odds that the resulting
  irregularities of one half will look identical to
  the other half?
• Will the irregularities show any significant
  symmetry? this side of repeating this
  experiment a near infinite number of times?

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or
Complex?
Simple?
What About Random Etchings?
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Entropy and Disorder

• Non-Deliberate processes tend toward Complexity
  and away from Simplicity Right?
• Complexity, in this common understanding of the
  word, actually means Randomness or Chaos
• Greater Complexity equals greater KCC, which
  equals greater Entropy (Algorithmic Entropy (AE))
• Like Thermodynamic Entropy (TE), AE heads toward
  its maximum value over time
• Highly symmetrical irregularities have lower
  overall AE

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From Complex to Simple

• Mindless Nature can turn Complex to Simple
• Some materials can turn apparently random
  forces into non-random highly ordered activities
  with very predictable outcomes
• Crystals like quartz, salt, snowflakes, pyrite,
  etc.
• Humans, dogs, cats, iguanas, trees, bacteria,
  etc.
• Based on the pre-established internal order of
  the subparts of such systems

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Where are the Limits?

• If nature can create both complexity and
  simplicity, where are the limits?
• It depends on the material in question
• There are types of materials where all known
  non-deliberate forces have pretty much the same
  limitations when it comes to producing certain
  features like symmetry
• Granite, marble, flint, clay, French-style
  gardens etc.

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When to Stop Looking

• Science doesnt demand 100 certainty
• If all potential ways of falsification were ruled
  out completely, 100, there would be no more need
  for science
• Science is needed because of limited knowledge
  A gap in knowledge
• Science is an effort to determine the odds that a
  particular possibility is not filling the gap
• What do statisticians do at Las Vegas? You draw
  4 Aces 10 times in one night, youre never going
  back!
• What if Schwarzenegger wins the CA Lottery 5
  times in a row? keep looking for a
  non-deliberate process?

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• Einstein A beautiful theory can always be
  destroyed by one ugly fact!
• Gaps will always be there, but the odds that a
  falsifiable hypothesis or theory is actually
  wrong become less and less with more and more
  testing that the limits are what they are
• The odds that anything other than an intelligent
  agent can fill certain gaps, within a certain
  period of time or number of occurrences, can be
  statistically calculated
• What are the odds that mindless Nature could
  produce a near perfect symmetrical polished 10 m
  granite cube with 3 different complex etchings
  identically reproduced on opposing faces this
  side of 1 trillion years?
• 1 trillion to one? If true, should I keep looking
  for a Natural cause? or accept ID as being
  most likely?

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• All scientists actually do accept the truth of
  their hypotheses well shy of 100 certainty . . .
  even when it comes to the notion of ID - Except
  if the ID hypothesis has something to do with the
  origin of life or different kinds of life.

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James Gibsons List of Seven Criticisms of ID
Theory

• 1. Intelligent Design Inhibits Scientific
  Inquiry
• Attributing a phenomenon to design is to remove
  motivation for further study, and/or to make it
  impossible to reach any conclusion because we
  cannot know the intentions of the designer
• How long does one have to look for a
  non-deliberate cause of a French-style garden or
  a similar highly symmetrical pattern drawn in the
  sands of Mars before one should loose the
  motivation for such a fruitless pursuit?

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• 2. Intelligent Design is a Sterile Idea
• Intelligent design does not provide any
  questions to explore scientifically, hence it is
  useless for science, whether true or not.
• Gibson argues Intelligent design may not be a
  hypothesis to test, but it may provide a
  metaphysical research programme in which
  hypotheses may be generated and tested
• Is this really true? that ID cannot be based on
  any testable hypothesis?

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• If I hypothesize that all known non-deliberate
  forces have a limit with regard to a certain
  feature, like symmetry in gardens or granite,
  beyond which they cannot go this side of a
  practical eternity of time, what happens to my
  hypothesis if some non-deliberate apparently
  random force does happen to cross this line?

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• What if there is a limit to Natural Selection?
• Gibson himself quotes Darwin
• If it could be demonstrated that any complex
  organ existed that could not possibly have been
  formed by numerous successive, slight
  modifications, my theory would absolutely break
  down.
• Hypothetical If such a demonstration could be
  done, what would be left besides ID as the most
  reasonable scientific explanation for such an
  organ system?
• Is the Mindless Nature Can Do It Hypothesis
  falsifiable this side of a practical eternity?
  or is it only verifiable?

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• 3. Intelligent Design is an Appeal from Ignorance
• Design is invoked when we dont understand
  something. It is the same kind of argument as the
  god-of-the-gaps argument of former ages. As
  science advances, our understanding will
  increase, and the number of mysteries will
  decrease. Thus, what appears as designed today
  will eventually be shown to be the result of
  chance and natural law.
• Science is based on a lack of perfect knowledge
• It is science that is invoked when we dont fully
  understand
• The ID Theory is not based on a complete lack of
  evidence or knowledge, but on an extensive data
  base concerning the very similar limits of all
  known non-deliberate forces, with regard to
  certain features, like symmetry, acting on
  certain materials like granite, gardens, and
  even biosystems (Ill explain the biolimits
  shortly)

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• 4. Design is Religiously Motivated and
  Inappropriate in Science
• Is the detection of design in forensic science
  religiously motivated?
• How about SETI?
• How about detecting cheaters in Las Vegas?
• Are these sciences Religions just because they
  propose to detect design?
• It seems to me like the Religion Card is played
  only when deliberate design is theorized as a
  valid origin for certain aspects of living things

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• 5. Any Designer Would Also Have to be Responsible
  for Evil
• What about the creation of true freedom?
• What about the possibility of multiple designers?
• What about the possibility of a truly evil
  designer who indented to create just what we see
  around us? - as it is?
• ID Theory only shows that design happened as a
  cause for certain aspects of certain things
• ID Theory does not detect who or why or how

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Such a Wide Range of IDists

• Those who enter under the umbrella of
  Darwinian-style evolution are also just as wide
  ranging in their beliefs regarding evolution
• The range of those who accept an idea is not
  evidence that is it ill-defined and therefore
  invalid as a good scientific idea

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• 6. Design is Superfluous Because Natural
  Selection is Adequate
• Natural selection is an adequate mechanism to
  explain the apparent design of living things.
  This has been demonstrated by computer analogies
  such as the Tierra program, in which computer
  images are subjected to a series of modifications
  and selection, resulting in unexpected complexity
  and creativity. Design is an unnecessary and
  untestable hypothesis.
• If natural selection were an adequate mechanism,
  ID would not be detectable in living things
• Problem Random mutation and natural selection
  only give rise to different systems that are at
  very low levels of Functional Complexity

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• Tierra evolution
• Starts out with program codes that reproduce
  themselves
• Gain reproductive advantages if they reproduce
  faster
• Result paracytic-type programs that are actually
  smaller than their original programs
• These smaller programs leach off the functional
  aspects of larger programs
• Because of this leaching effect, the population
  eventually stalls out and usually goes extinct
• No higher-level systems of function evolve beyond
  what the population started with

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• Biosystem Evolution
• A higher Level of functional complexity requires
  a greater minimum sequence size and specificity
• Antibiotic Resistance (can evolve, basically
  unlimited)
• Most forms require a loss or interference with a
  pre-established function (antibiotic-target
  interaction)
• Much easier to break something than to make it
  again, because there are so many more ways to
  break than to fix
• Nylonase Minimum of 300 AA (can evolve,
  limited)
• Lactase Minimum of 400 AA (can evolve,
  limited)
• Ratios in language systems
• cat hat bat bad dad did dig dog
• Try it with longer sequences gets exponentially
  harder and harder to do because of an exponential
  decline in the ratio of potentially beneficial
  vs. potentially non-beneficial
• Odds that a large book will have the sequence
  cat preformed somewhere? what about
  supracalafragalisticexpialedocious?

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• Higher level biosystems
• Flagellar Motility system gt 10,000 AA (gt30,000
  bp of genetic real estate)
• Evolution never makes it past systems with a
  minimum requirement of more than a few hundred
  fairly specified AA ( lt 3,000 bp of genetic real
  estate )
• A system requiring a minimum of just 4 or 5 K bp
  of genetic real estate would require literally
  trillions upon trillions of years to evolve on
  average
• A God-of-the-Gaps argument? Certainly!
• What else besides a very high level of ID could
  fill such a gap with an average time less than
  trillions upon trillions of years?

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• 7. Accepting Design Would Overturn All of Science
• Science is based on naturalistic explanations.
  To accept design as an explanation would change
  the fundamental nature of scientific methodology.
  Furthermore, it would alter the conclusions drawn
  in all areas of science and would create chaos,
  leaving only religious speculations to take the
  place of rigorous inquiry.
• ID Theory can be based on naturalistic
  explanations
• Are humans intelligent?
• Are humans natural?
• How then is the detection of design behind
  anything going beyond what natural intelligent
  agents are theoretically capable of achieving?
• Does the detection of a superior intelligence
  really force the conclusion that such an
  intelligence is unnatural?
• I can certainly detect that many people are
  smarter and more creative than I am. Are these
  people therefore unnatural from my perspective?
  Yes! They clearly go beyond my natural
  abilities

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Different Ways to Truth?

• I often hear, Oh, thats just a philosophical
  notion or Thats just a religious idea
• I never hear, Oh, thats just science
• Why do scientific claims demand so much respect
  while philosophical and religiously derived
  truths take a back seat?
• I believe it is because of the testable nature of
  the truths derived by science
• Is it possible for ones religious ideas to be
  testable? at least when it comes to those ideas
  about things that happen in the physical world
  outside the mind?

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• The fact that I like vanilla ice cream is a
  truth that cannot be tested I just know it as
  an internally derived fact
• Morality, like knowing that it is wrong to steal
  or to murder, is likewise an internally derived
  truth as part of the Law apparently written
  on the heart of all human beings
• However, the religious notion that God or some
  higher power exists outside the mind and does
  stuff to the physical world and to the mind that
  can be detected as being beyond the natural
  capabilities of either the physical world or the
  mind - - is moving into the realm of science and
  potential falsification (risky ideas)

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• God, as quoted in the Bible, often use the notion
  of falsification to support His claims as God and
  of being more real than false gods made of
  wood or stone
• Only I can do this or that and no other
  like predict the future or raise the dead or burn
  up alters on Mt. Carmel or guide new mother cows
  back to Bethel
• Prove me through tithes and offerings and see
  if I will not open the store houses of Heaven and
  pour you out a blessing so great that you will
  not be able to receive it
• Often God provides physical signs and
  miracles as proofs of the Divine origin of a
  promise or warning

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• Abundant physical testable evidence of both Gods
  existence and character are available
• For the invisible things of him from the creation
  of the world are clearly seen, being understood
  by the things that are made, even his eternal
  power and Godhead so that they are without
  excuse (Romans 120 KJV)
• God does not expect or desire blind faith
• Religion can therefore be a science
• The strongest evidence will be rejected if one
  does not have a Love of Truth that is greater
  than everything else

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• Scientists are always religious even atheists
• Subjectivity and faith are always required for
  even scientifically derived beliefs about the
  world that exists outside the mind
• Distinguishing Truth from Error, concerning
  ideas about the world around the mind requires
  the same not true filter
• Can be used by both science and religion, making
  both the same thing
• Ellen White comments that in Heaven the study of
  the plan of salvation will be our science and our
  song

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Is Love Testable?

• The fact that I love someone or something is not
  testable it is an internally derived truth
• Therefore doesnt need scientific evidence
• My notion that someone else, like my wife or God,
  loves me is testable (tested every day even if
  only subconsciously) and falsifiable qualifies
  as a science

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A Little QuizDesigned or Not?
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Stonehenge in the Snow
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ID Potential
ID Potential
ID Potential
Non-Deliberate Potential
ID Potential
ID Potential
ID Potential
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Flagellar Assembly A Marvel of Microengineering
www.DetectingDesign.com