Hendrik van der Breggen

For more on Intelligent Design, I recommend the links to Access Research Network and to the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture.

For a look at my November 14, 2005, Record article, in which I discuss Simon Singh’s “rule” against Intelligent Design, click on the link “Simon Singh, Big Bang, and Intelligent Design.” (If you scroll to the end of this article, you can find comments from my Record critics plus my replies.)

For my thoughts on Wired magazine’s November 2006 cover article “The New Atheism,” click on “The New Atheism.”

If you click on the link “Did the Easter miracle happen?” you can read my award-winning article by the same name, published in The Record in April of 2004.

Comments are welcome (but if they lack civility, I will simply delete them).

With best regards,
Hendrik van der Breggen

By Hendrik van der Breggen

(This article appeared as a Second Opinion in The Record, August 23, 2005)

President George W. Bush’s recent comments about public education and life’s origins have placed the intelligent-design movement squarely in the public eye. Should intelligent design be taught in science classes as an explanation of life’s origin, alongside evolution (where “evolution” is understood as involving no intelligent causes whatsoever), or not?

Having recently studied the question of intelligent design’s scientific status as a part of my PhD program in philosophy at the University of Waterloo, I would like to look at some popular philosophical objections to intelligent design and show that these objections fail. My hope is that by recognizing the failure of these objections the public and the scientific community will be more inclined to give intelligent-design theory a fair hearing.

Objection 1: Intelligent design is a failure because it merely fills in gaps in our present knowledge with an appeal to an intelligent cause, and these gaps will be filled with non-intelligent causes as we do more science.

Reply: This is known as the god-of-the-gaps objection and this objection unfairly represents intelligent-design theory. Intelligent design theorists do not argue, “I can’t see any solution to the problem, therefore a Higher Power did it.” Rather, proponents of intelligent design argue as follows: “The scientific community can see that, after years of trying, non-intelligent cause explanations demonstrably fail to account for phenomenon X; plus, the more we investigate X, the more we can see that the structure of X bears features that very clearly resemble the effects of known intelligent causes. Therefore, it is reasonable to think that an intelligent cause is responsible for X.”

In other words, the appeal to an intelligent cause is based on what we know, not on what we don’t know.

Incidentally, if we always hold out for a non-intelligent cause, in spite of contrary evidence, then we may fall prey to a naturalism- or atheism-of-the-gaps.

Objection 2: Intelligent design is not legitimate science because appeals to intelligent causes are not a part of the scientific explanatory enterprise.

Reply: This objection is false. In archeology the hypothesis of intelligent agency is readily available to explain the cause of, say, ancient cave paintings. Also, in forensic science the hypothesis of intelligent agency is readily available to explain “Who done it?” Was the death due to natural causes, or was it an accident, or was it designed (and thus a crime)? Also, in SETI (search for extra-terrestrial intelligence), the hypothesis of intelligent agency is available to explain radio signals that suggest intelligence.

Without the intelligent cause hypothesis, scientists who search for extra-terrestrial intelligence could in principle never recognize contact from ET, even if ET were to exist and communicated clearly.

Intelligent causes, then, are a legitimate part of the scientific explanatory enterprise. To stipulate that they can never come from outside the universe is to prejudge the data to fit a philosophical bias which rules out what might be the best explanation of that data.

Objection 3: Talk of “a cause of the universe’s beginning” lacks meaning; it’s nonsensical. To ask what caused the big bang assumes that the universe’s cause came “before” time, but time itself came into being at the big bang, so asking what caused the big bang is like asking, “What is north of the North Pole?” It’s absurd. So intelligent design is absurd.

Reply: This objection assumes that all causes precede their effects in time. But some causes are simultaneous with their effects — and this latter sense is all that is needed for intelligent design to remain within the realm of reason.

Think of a bicycle chain that moves the rear wheel sprocket. Or just consider the rear wheel sprocket moving the axle that moves the rear wheel. In these everyday cases there is simultaneous cause and effect. (In philosophical parlance, the cause is ontologically prior to the effect, but not temporally prior.) It’s not unreasonable, then, to think that time’s creation could occur simultaneously with its cause.

In other words, we are not asking something like “What is north of the North Pole?” Rather, we are asking something like, “What is above the North Pole?” Because such talk is not nonsensical, neither is intelligent design.

To better understand intelligent design theory as a scientific research program, I recommend the following book, even though I don’t agree with everything in it: William A. Dembski, The Design Revolution: Answering the Toughest Questions About Intelligent Design, by InterVarsity Press.

Hendrik van der Breggen received his PhD last fall from the University of Waterloo philosophy department. He is an adjunct philosophy instructor at Emmanuel Bible College in Kitchener and at Heritage College and Seminary in Cambridge.

By Hendrik van der Breggen

Several Record readers recently raised a flurry of criticisms concerning my article, “There’s an intelligent defence for intelligent design” (August 23), in which I deflated some philosophical objections to intelligent design as a scientific explanation of life’s origins. I would like to reply to two important and widely-held criticisms from that flurry, and I would like to do so in such a way that many of the minor and less-widely-held criticisms presented in the flurry are addressed as well. My hope is that thereby I could continue to encourage the public and the scientific community to give intelligent design a fair hearing.

Criticism 1: Intelligent design is not falsifiable or testable.

Reply: This is patently untrue. The intelligent design hypothesis predicts (retrodicts) that life’s origin is due to an intelligent cause, be it God or whomever. The hypothesis is falsifiable/testable because, in principle, evidence can be mustered to show that an intelligent cause was at work or not.

Significantly, intelligent design, though falsifiable in principle, has not been falsified in fact.

But don’t take my word for it. Consider the following comments from credible scientists and science reporters concerning the scientific community’s ongoing failure to explain life by non-intelligent causes.

Francis Crick (co-discoverer of DNA’s structure): “An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have to be satisfied to get it going.” (Francis Crick, Life Itself: Its Origin and Nature [New York: Simon & Schuster, 1981], 88.)

Klause Dose (of the Mainz Institute for Biochemistry): “More than 30 years of experimentations on the origin of life in the fields of chemical and molecular evolution have led to a better perception of the immensity of the problem of the origin of life on Earth rather than to its solution. At present all discussion on principal theories and experiments in the field either end in stalemate or in a confession of ignorance.” (Klause Dose, “The Origin of Life: More Questions Than Answers,” Interdisciplinary Science Review 13 [1988]: 348.)

Paul Davies (theoretical physicist turned origin-of-life investigator): “[S]cientists are currently stumped…. The problem of how and when life began is one of the great outstanding mysteries of science.” (Paul Davies, The 5th Miracle: The Search for the Origin and Meaning of Life [New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999], 19, 27.)

Fazale Rana and Hugh Ross (a biochemist and astronomer reporting on a combined meeting of the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life plus the International Conference on the Origin of Life): “Some 45 years of well-funded investigation have led to one dead end after another. The same intractable problems still remain, with no glimmering of resolution in sight.” (Fazale Rana & Hugh Ross, “Life From the Heavens? Not This Way…,” Facts For Faith 1 (2000): 11.

Nicholas Wade (New York Times science-writer summarizing the results of the scientific community’s attempt to explain the origin of life solely in terms of non-intelligent causes): “Everything about the origin of life on earth is a mystery, and it seems the more that is known, the more acute the puzzles get.” Wade adds: “The genesis of life on earth . . . remains an unyielding problem.” (Nicholas Wade, “Life’s Origins Get Murkier and Messier,” The New York Times [June 13, 2000], F1, F2.)

In other words, scientists (not philosophers) have demonstrated that non-intelligent causes are deeply problematic as explanations for life’s origin. Significantly, this means that attempts to falsify intelligent design have been made, and have been found wanting.

But this means too that nature’s prima facie evidence for intelligent design hasn’t been explained away. Nature’s apparent design remains.

But there is more. Intelligent design is also positively supported by scientific discoveries which show that biological life’s complexities are analogous to the effects of known intelligent causes.

For example, DNA is like a language/code. Even Bill Gates of Microsoft has observed that “DNA is like a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software we’ve ever created.” (Bill Gates, The Road Ahead, 2nd edition [New York: Penguin Books, 1996], 228.)

Also, the cell’s interior is like a factory (some say city) filled with highly complex and intricately coordinated machines—machines that are “like the machines invented by humans,” as even evolutionist Bruce Alberts, former President of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, admits. (Bruce Alberts, “The Cell as a Collection of Protein Machines: Preparing the Next Generation of Molecular Biologists,” Cell 92 [February 6, 1998]: 291.)

Surely, evidence and good reasoning can test these analogies to effects of known intelligent causes

Thus, criticism 1—that intelligent design is not falsifiable or testable—does not weaken intelligent design.

(For more discussion about testing the analogies between, on the one hand, the universe’s fine-tuning for life, the molecular machines of the cell, and DNA’s code/language, and, on the other hand, the effects of known intelligent causes, see chapter 4 of my “Miracle Reports, Moral Philosophy, and Contemporary Science” [PhD dissertation, University of Waterloo, 2004]. Several copies of my dissertation are available at the University of Waterloo. For more discussion of testability, refutability, and predictability, see William A. Dembski’s The Design Revolution: Answering the Toughest Questions about Intelligent Design [Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2004], 280-290.)

Criticism 2: We know only of intelligent causes located in biological systems, so appealing to unembodied, nonphysical intelligence is a conceptual error.

Reply: There is no conceptual error. Empirically, we know that intelligent causes (apart from one’s self) exist because of their physical effects. This is plainly so with humans. However, from the fact that all human intelligent causes are located in biological systems, it doesn’t follow that all intelligent causes must be embodied. Whether we know empirically that an intelligent cause can exist unembodied (as, say, the cause of the big bang’s fine-tuning and life’s subsequent origin) depends on whether there are empirical effects that point to such a cause; not on prior stipulations or rulings that disallow such causes.

To rule that an unembodied intelligent cause cannot be a scientific explanation of effects which clearly point to such intelligence is to constrain science by a materialist philosophy that will not allow what may be the best explanation of the empirical evidence.

* * *

Should intelligent design be taught in public schools as a theory of life’s origins alongside the theory of evolution (where “evolution” is understood as not allowing for any influence of an intelligent cause)? Obviously, there is much controversy on this question, and much remains to be discussed. As scientists learn to consider the merits of intelligent design without being unduly influenced by a materialist philosophical bias, I think we can at least agree on this: Public school curricula should include good science instruction on evolution’s successes AND on evolution’s shortcomings.

In this regard, I recommend biologist Jonathan Wells’ book Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth? Why much of what we teach about evolution is wrong (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publications, 2000).

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.