Slifkin on ID

My favourite rabbi, Natan Slifkin, has a piece in the Jerusalem Post entitled "The problem with intelligent design". In it he distinguishes between thinking that evolutionary processes involve randomness and thinking that a universe that can evolve living things is random, the latter of which he rejects.

In particular, his response to ID is telling:

THE PROBLEM with ID was demonstrated by David Klinghoffer's November 9 Post op-ed "Wayward religious reconcilers." He argued that for the universe to meaningfully attest to a Creator, it must do so in a way that is potentially scientifically falsifiable, just as the testimony of witnesses is only meaningful if it could theoretically be proven false.

ID, claims Klinghoffer, uses certain cellular structures to present evidence for design that, if proven wrong (i.e. if proven to be explicable in terms of ordinary naturalistic processes), would no longer attest to a Creator.

So where does that leave the rest of the universe? What about all those structures that do not, even by the admission of the ID camp, present irreducible complexity? The unstated implication of their position is that these things do not attest to a Creator. Don't have a grasp of cellular biology? Sorry, you won't be able to perceive that the universe was created by God.

Either God is everywhere or He is nowhere. But He is certainly not limiting His appearance in the universe to the bacterial flagellum and the blood-clotting system.

The underlying lack of faith of IDevotees is nowhere stated more clearly. As an agnostic I don't mind lack of faith, of course, but there's a tu quoque going on here that Slifkin brings out nicely.

More like this

I don't think that his response is that good. (*Deep breath before I sound like I am defending the ID crowd*)

When IDers say that the human eye is too complex to require a designer, they don't mean to admit that other structures evolved and were not designed. For all they care, the designer may have designed them in a way that they look like they evolved.

However, he's right that in the previous century, people who claimed to perceive universe as God's creation were wrong according to ID. It's quite a nice admission by them, imho.

I disagree with you about what IDevotees claim. They will concede that parts of the living world are not designed - basically all those parts that have been, or are about to be, explained. They concede that unguided physical law is able to do a whole lot (some, of course, prevaricate and bluster on this point). So Slifkin is right - by their own logic, those aspects of the world don't show forth the glory of God (lets abandon any pretense that the Designer isn't God now, hey? They've as much as conceded that point too, now that the secular designer failed in law).

Using God as a "gap designer" is as false now as it was when the term "God of the gaps" was invented by Henry Drummond in his Ascent of Man in the 1880s. It's a fundamental heresy (for those of you who think that matters).

It seems to me that this is making explicit, once more, the roots of the "design" argument in theism-without-providence (what is usually called "deism" today). A belief in a god who wound up the clockwork of the universe and let it run on its own. A god who was more interested in giving flagella to bacteria than in our well-being.

ID basically assumes a highly complex, intelligent entity as a beginning. Yet, as supposed evidence of a complex beginning, it examines simplicity and attempts to suggest that simple origins denote a superior intelligence.

"Irredicible complexity" suggests (whether you accept something is irreducibly complex or not), that living things have a simple origin instead of a complex one.
(Semantically, ID has 2 bites of the same cherry by calling something "irreducibly complex" - They might as well describe it as, "simple and complex.")

Evidence suggests that not only living things develop from the simple to the complex, but also that many other demonstrable aspects of human life and life in general have their beginnings in simplicity and evolve into complexity.

Why wouldn't this (simplicity leading to complexity) apply to the universe?

It seems more of a stretch to believe that a highly complex, highly intelligent being came into existence from nowhere, rather than to believe that simple origins lead to complex entities.

ID, claims Klinghoffer, uses certain cellular structures to present evidence for design that, if proven wrong (i.e. if proven to be explicable in terms of ordinary naturalistic processes), would no longer attest to a Creator.

No sorry, the Bible tells them that everything everywhere attests to the creator regardless of what science says about it. Scientific evidence is just extra bonus points for gaining more converts. Saying that creationists have an underlying lack of faith is just a fancy pontifical way for Mr. Slifkin to pick on the creationists. "Nya nya, you have an underlying lack of faith, nya nya nya."

It seems to me that this is making explicit, once more, the roots of the "design" argument in theism-without-providence (what is usually called "deism" today). A belief in a god who wound up the clockwork of the universe and let it run on its own. A god who was more interested in giving flagella to bacteria than in our well-being.

Then how do you explain what the rabbi says here: "Either God is everywhere or He is nowhere. But He is certainly not limiting His appearance in the universe to the bacterial flagellum and the blood-clotting system."

Let's put it this way: if there were legitimate scientific evidence for God, would that strengthen the rabbi's faith, or would it stay the same? Now apply that to the IDers, and bingo, there you go. Same deal. Except that maybe the IDers have more faith that the whole God thing ain't a bunch of hooey.

They concede that unguided physical law is able to do a whole lot (some, of course, prevaricate and bluster on this point).

Yeah, I'm sure they really believe physical laws are unguided.

He is certainly not limiting His appearance in the universe to the bacterial flagellum and the blood-clotting system.

So then His appearance is everywhere. Okay, and yet somehow if it can be detected scientifically in only a few places, then suddenly His appearance is nowhere. Sorry rabbi, but you're not making any sense there. That's what superstition will do to ya buddy!