WHO DESIGNS THE DESIGNER?

By Hendrik van der Breggen

If TIME magazine is a reliable news source, then intelligent design as a possible explanation of life’s origins has recently become a news item (see “The Evolution Wars,” TIME magazine, 15 August 2005).

Of particular interest to thinking people is the fact that the atheist Richard Dawkins, Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University, told TIME that it is a mistake to explain nature’s complexity in terms of an intelligent designer. Why is it a mistake? Because, according to Dawkins, this raises the question: Who designs the designer?

Dawkins’ who-designs-the-designer objection is basically the argument that the appeal to an intelligent cause (in this case God) does not explain the mystery of nature’s complexity because it merely transfers the mystery to another level, which is, Dawkins thinks, of no explanatory help.

Surely, it behooves all thinking people to ask: Is Dawkins’ who-designs-the-designer objection a good one? Does it have rational merit?

In what follows I will argue that, from a rational point of view, Dawkins’ objection is seriously problematic.

The biggest problem with Dawkins’ objection is that it ignores the fact that intelligent cause/ intelligent designer explanations are legitimate explanations in science even though we haven’t a clue who designed the designer. In archeology the hypothesis of an intelligent agency is used to explain the cause, say, of ancient cave paintings, even though we do not know who or what created the cave dweller. In forensic science the hypothesis of intelligent agency explains “Who done it?” even though we have no idea of who the culprit’s parents are. In SETI (search for extra-terrestrial intelligence) the intelligent cause hypothesis is readily available to explain radio signals that suggest intelligence even though we have no idea about ET’s origin.

Intelligent design explanations, then, are good explanations, even if we do not know anything about the causal history of the intelligent designer.

At this juncture, Dawkins would probably assert (as he has in some of his writings) that the above instances of intelligent design explanations are only correct as temporary explanations: We should appeal ultimately to a non-intelligent cause. But, we should ask: Why should we think that an intelligent cause could never be ultimate? Just because Dawkins says so? Surely this is a case of someone illegitimately elevating his philosophy, in this case a materialist philosophy, to a rationally untouchable, privileged position, and pretending it’s a requirement of science. Science, though, should pursue truth wherever the evidence ultimately leads—whether we end up with a material non-intelligent cause, or a non-material intelligent cause such as God.

But isn’t God’s existence merely a matter of blind faith, impervious to evidence and reason? I don’t think so.

If all matter, energy, time and space came into being at the big bang, then it turns out that we have no good reason to assume that the ultimate basis or ground of all being must be Dawkins’ material, non-intelligent cause. Indeed, in view of the big bang and the universe’s exquisite fine-tuning for life, a very powerful, non-material intelligent cause is surely a reasonable contending explanation for what is ultimate.

But perhaps I have misunderstood Dawkins’ who-designs-the-designer objection. Perhaps the point of his objection is that we should simply rather stop with the universe in our explaining. After all, if the designer doesn’t need an explanation, why not just say the universe doesn’t need one too, and leave it at that? Isn’t that simpler?

It’s simpler, but mistaken. It mistakenly ignores the direction that the evidence is pushing us. The evidence for the big bang gives us good reasons for thinking that the universe began. Also, the causal principle, that whatever begins has a cause for its beginning, is a very reasonable principle to hold. This means, then, that we have good grounds for thinking that the universe’s beginning has a cause. But (now read this carefully) it turns out that we don’t have good grounds for thinking that the cause of the universe’s beginning has a cause. Why not? Because we don’t have evidence that it began. Therefore, it’s more reasonable to go with a universe that has an intelligent cause, whether that cause began and was caused, or did not begin and was not caused, than with a universe that began but is causeless. This is the direction that the evidence points us, and, of course, in science we should follow the evidence.

So, is Dawkins’ question — Who designs the designer? — a good objection to the intelligent design hypothesis?

Intelligent people can reasonably think not.