Philosophy and Science

One of my honorary daughters links me to this exposition on Intelligent Design. I did blog briefly on this controversy here. It’s easier to say: “A pox on both their houses!” and ignore the details of the debate, to the extent there is one. I’ll try to expand my thoughts a bit here.

One of the points that interests me is the concept of irreducible complexity. Intelligent Design advocates criticize Darwinism (so-called) because it’s gradual-change-through-small-variations-leading-to-major-differences-we-now-see hypothesis assumes that all current differences, and, indeed, some apparent similarities, can be explained this way.

Two of the battlegrounds are eyes and feathers. Can gradual small changes account for the different types of visual organs we now see? Can the existence of feathers at all (seemingly only good in their current configuration for flight) be explained by minor genetic modifications over millions of years?

I don’t have a dog in this race. This is clearly a question for scientists to answer, I would think. Plausible pathways for genetic changes have to be illustrated to defeat the i.c. argument and bolster the Darwinist hypothesis. Let that debate continue to it’s natural conclusion.

More of a concern (as distinct from an interest) is the relationship between Natural Theology and Science that might be ignored in these debates. At first blush, the Intelligent Design side seems to be in danger of violating the “proper limits of science”. Again, this is an open question for me as yet. Let that discussion continue as well.

But something about some presentations of the Darwinist hypothesis (usually presented as if it reflected scientific fact and law) smack of an atheistic back-door attempt to pre-empt Natural Theology occurring at all. Darwinism as a brilliant hypothesis that has been promoted to a pseudo-scientific religious dogma (proving that belief in God is unscientific) is what concerns me. Some expositions of “Evolution” along these lines are critiqued by Intelligent Design proponents and others in ways that resonate with me.

Perhaps that is more forthcoming than my previous post. Thanks to KC for the link.