Intelligent design. Comments and replies

Some comments and replies to the blog post Genesis and the Scandal of Jewish Indifference by David Klinghofer at

http://blog.beliefnet.com/kingdomofpriests/2009/10/genesis-and-the-scandal-of-jewish-indifference.html

I've not included exchanges in which I was not involved, and in the case of one respondent, I substituted initials for the complete name.

Philip Koplin

October 13, 2009 3:52 PM

The "rabbinic greats" could only make statements based on the science of their day, and so their judgments are irrelevant to the 20th- and 21st-century scientific evidence for a different view of life.

There is a distinction between design and meaning. A belief that one was not designed to serve a purpose assigned by a sentient designer does not logically imply that one cannot find meaning nonetheless. The believer in design might deny that the nonbeliever can actually do this, but if someone believes that he or she is leading a meaningful life, there is no objective standard by which the design advocate can reject the claim.

The supposed "truth ... that we live in a world bearing testimony to purposeful design" needs to take into account not just the existence of, say, the mammalian eye, but also that of neuroblastoma; not just the existence of, say, embryologic development, but also that of pediatric leukemia. Typically, those praising the wisdom of the Creator ignore, or concoct tortuous question-begging arguments to account for, the evidence that a Creator of this world could just as likely be called an ignorant, impotent, or wicked being as an all-knowing, all-powerful, or all-loving one.

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Mark

October 14, 2009 8:26 AM

Philip Koplin wrote: "Typically, those praising the wisdom of the Creator ignore, or concoct tortuous question-begging arguments to account for, the evidence that a Creator of this world could just as likely be called an ignorant, impotent, or wicked being as an all-knowing, all-powerful, or all-loving one."

Philip obviously insists that whenever someone wants to call attention to the brilliance of the design in nature, he must also call attention to disease and tragedy. David, shame on you for not doing what Philip wants. (sarcasm). Meanwhile, Philip, why don't you name a few classical Jewish books that deal with the question of why there's suffering in the world, and fisk them for us?

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Philip Koplin

October 14, 2009 10:42 AM

Mark

I was just pointing out that advocates of the Argument from Design need to take into consideration all of the evidence, not just those aspects of the world that seem to confirm what their holy books tell them the Creator must be like. An argument that ignores inconvenient evidence isn't likely to be very convincing.

The purpose of the Comments section is to respond to what David has written, not to post independent essays analyzing, for example, classical Jewish responses to suffering, (Anyone actually interested in exploring the subject rather than issuing inappropriate challenges to other commenters can look at Oliver Leaman, Evil and Suffering in Jewish Philosophy.)

I guess it's shame on me for not doing what you want.

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Your Name

October 14, 2009 2:13 PM

Philip wrote: "I was just pointing out that advocates of the Argument from Design need to take into consideration all of the evidence, not just those aspects of the world that seem to confirm what their holy books tell them the Creator must be like. An argument that ignores inconvenient evidence isn't likely to be very convincing."

Ahh, if only evolutionists would truly absorb that last sentence.

Philip Koplin

October 14, 2009 3:30 PM

Your Name:

Evolutionists might not address the evidence in a way that you find agreeable, but that isn't the same as their ignoring it, in the way that David and Mark ignore childhood cancer in judging whether the world shows purposeful, brilliant design.

Mark

October 14, 2009 7:23 PM

"David and Mark ignore childhood cancer in judging whether the world shows purposeful, brilliant design."

Eh, because it is reasonable to.

Philip Koplin

October 14, 2009 11:18 PM

Mark. It's hard to tell from a few written words whether someone is being sarcastic or means to be taken seriously, so at the risk of seeming to miss your wit, I'll ask whether you can you expand a bit on why it's reasonable to exclude some of the evidence in trying to decide what the world tells us about a supposed creator, and how, in particular, childhood cancer is the result of brilliant design.

Mark

October 14, 2009 11:50 PM

Philip wrote: "why it's reasonable to exclude some of the evidence in trying to decide what the world tells us about a supposed creator and how, in particular, childhood cancer is the result of brilliant design."

Listen, if you woke up and found that breakfast in bed was waiting for you -- even better than Rachel Ray could make -- but unfortunately, the orange juice was sour, what would you conclude?

Based on the gist I'm getting from your words, you would say that the food was accidentally delivered to your bedroom, or that the person who made it for you didn't really love you. You'd focus on the spoiled juice so much that the rest of the breakfast would be meaningless.

Myself, I would conclude that the person did really love me, but made a mistake. -- But wait. I want to keep the analogy with design, so I would conclude that the person did really love me, but purposefully gave me the sour juice to teach me a lesson of some sort.

No, I don't mean to equate spoiled juice with cancer -- try not to focus on that.

Philip Koplin

October 15, 2009 12:26 AM

On your account, we would have to consider cancer a design brilliantly perfected to serve a particular purpose. And what would be the lesson that the loving Creator would be offering a child by gifting it with cancer?

Mark

October 15, 2009 1:29 PM

Philip, is your disbelief in a designer because you don't see any evidence of design, or because your focusing on the diseases won't let you acknowledge any purposeful design?

(And the answer to your last question is beyond me to know, but maybe there's a future world in which these questions can be answered.)

Philip Koplin

October 15, 2009 2:10 PM

Mark. Your postponement of an answer to my question to maybe a future world beyond presently available knowing is an acknowledgment that belief in purposeful design is based not on scientific data or empirical observation but on faith. This is not to say that faith is an illegimate means with which to try to understand the world, just that the need to invoke it to save the purposeful-design argument shows how ultimately insupportable that argument is.

Mark

October 15, 2009 4:28 PM

Your first sentence is wrong, Philip. Design speaks for itself. No need to look to future worlds for that. It's only the disease and suffering aspect of (parts of) design that might require future worlds. You keep stumbling on that.

Philip Koplin

October 15, 2009 6:07 PM

You claim that "design speaks for itself," yet you admit that there are significant aspects of the world for which you can find no purposeful design--in other words, lack of purposeful design also seems to "speak for itself." You say that maybe in possible future worlds we can find an answer to the evidence that rules out your hypothesis that the world--which means everything in it, not just the parts that you find acceptable--is purposely designed. If have to wait for the next world for an answer, then your argument that one can know by examining this world that it was purposively designed collapses completely.

Mark

October 15, 2009 9:35 PM

I disagree with your logic. All it takes is ONE thing that you and I together can identify in nature that is purposefully designed, and we conclude that there's a designer. The other stuff, diseases and other stuff that don't look all that particularly designed, is irrelevant.

Philip Koplin

October 16, 2009 11:22 AM

First, you and I have not agreed on anything that can only be accounted for by a sentient designer.

In contrast, you insist that the world was brilliantly designed—not just that there are things here and there that are purposely designed, but that the world as a whole is. Thus, logically, all it takes is one counterexample to challenge your claim, and there are many such examples. If you believe in an error-free creation, and I assume that's the sort of creation you ascribe to your brilliant "designer," then to say that pediatric cancer is irrelevant "stuff" is to deny evidence bearing on whether the design really is brilliant.

In fact, the sort of logic on which your belief rests doesn't start with a look at the world to see what kind of "designer" must have made it, but from your presupposition that there is a designer who is brilliant, from which you conclude that that the world must be. This position would logically require you to explain why the suffering of children is part of a "brilliant" design, but since you can't, you dismiss that suffering as irrelevant "stuff."

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Your Name

October 19, 2009 9:14 AM

…The common criticism, as offered by others in response to your article, is that cancer, parasites, birth defects and similar problems imply a foolish or malevolent or nonexistent Designer. It seems to me that the very next consideration should be the also common idea that in the Designer's beautiful (even perhaps "error free") creation, SOMETHING HAS GONE WRONG. The Judeo-Christian concept involves a thing called "sin." Perhaps there are less religious ways to discuss it, but it surely should be considered along with those objections.

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Philip Koplin

October 19, 2009 12:25 PM

If something goes wrong, the design wasn't error-free.

And you still have the problem that all of the universe and everything in it was designed, created, and sustained by the Creator, and that includes cancer and birth defects.

Mark

October 20, 2009 1:39 AM

And you still have the challenge to explain away millions of things in nature that bloody well look designed.

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Philip Koplin

October 20, 2009 11:00 AM

Mark

You still don't understand the logic of your own position, so I'll remind you:

First, you and I have not agreed on anything that can only be accounted for by a sentient designer.

In contrast, you insist that the world was brilliantly designed—not just that there are things here and there that are purposely designed, but that the world as a whole is. Thus, logically, all it takes is one counterexample to challenge your claim, and there are many such examples. If you believe in an error-free creation, and I assume that's the sort of creation you ascribe to your brilliant "designer," then to say that pediatric cancer is irrelevant "stuff" is to deny evidence bearing on whether the design really is brilliant.

In fact, the sort of logic on which your belief rests doesn't start with a look at the world to see what kind of "designer" must have made it, but from your presupposition that there is a designer who is brilliant, from which you conclude that that the world must be. This position would logically require you to explain why the suffering of children is part of a "brilliant" design, but since you can't, you dismiss that suffering as irrelevant "stuff."

Mark

October 20, 2009 12:38 PM

"In contrast, you insist that the world was brilliantly designed—not just that there are things here and there that are purposely designed, but that the world as a whole is. "

Actually I never intended to portray this view.

"If you believe in an error-free creation, and I assume that's the sort of creation you ascribe to your brilliant "designer,"

You don't seem to understand that one can believe in an error-free creation, with the errors that one sees attributable to something else.

Again, you never acknowledged that every SINGLE time you see something that looks designed, you MUST be able to explain it away, or have faith in others who explain it away. If you're wrong just once...

Philip Koplin

October 20, 2009 1:27 PM

Yes, I believe that biological science can explain every single item of apparent sentient design in nature, and I don't see any scheme that invokes any creator god(s) that does a better job.

And here's another example of your curious logic: If the creation is error-free, how can there be errors, and how can those errors be due to "something else" other than the being who created everything in the universe? If you think that childhood diseases and birth defects aren't really errors, please explain.

DM

October 20, 2009 9:53 PM

"If something goes wrong, the design wasn't error-free."

That's a gratuitous assumption. Maybe you're wrong.

"Something went wrong" possibly because one or many individuals, created with the power of free will to choose their own actions, decided to rebel against the original design.

It's not an error that the possibility existed. Creatures could not freely associate with the Creator if they did not also have the freedom to rebel.

"you still have the problem that all of the universe

and everything in it was designed, created, and

sustained by the Creator, and that includes cancer

and birth defects."

Yes -- in spite of huge amounts of damage and abuse, the Creation still operates, but obviously with problems. There's a lot to be said about that, and about the possibility that things will eventually be fixed, and that the compensation for having to endure the problems now may be so extravagant as to make the problems pale into insignificance later.

I admit, though, that little of that is "science."

But what if it's correct?

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Philip Koplin

October 20, 2009 11:49 PM

DM

How does free will relate to the existence of the cancer cells that ravage the body of a child, cancer cells that could not exist unless the Creator willed them into existence and sustained them?

You might hope that somehow such a child will be compensated for the suffering that it endured, but as you acknowledge, that is not science, but faith, and an odd sort of faith at that, since it's based on the infliction of pain on a child as part of an arrangement that the child was too young to morally undertake through the exercise of the free will that you invoke to justify the existence of the cancer.

Mark2

October 21, 2009 8:07 AM

"Yes, I believe that biological science can explain every single item of apparent sentient design in nature, and I don't see any scheme that invokes any creator god(s) that does a better job."

I admire your faith, Philip. It's much stronger than mine.

However, you're right in your implication that explaining suffering is harder for me than for you. I'll leave it like that, and would like to end this discussion with you.

DM

October 23, 2009 1:03 AM

… Philip,

I apologize if I gave the impression that all questions are answered in my theistic viewpoint.

But you overstate my position. I'll grant that the reator "sustains" or in some way allows to exist the problems in His creation, such as cancer cells, parasites, and etc. It was clear in my earlier message, though, that the Creator did not will those things into existence. They have been caused by other creatures working against the Creator's purposes, including, to some extent, you and I.

We all suffer as a result of living within this damaged creation, and experiencing the accumulated consequences of all our decisions. The Creator allows it. I try to understand it by analogy to a loving parent who wants more than anything to shield her child from any pain, but who also knows that it's important for the child to experience the consequences of wrong actions.

That's just an analogy. It does not explain everything, and it does not imply that the child in your example did something to deserve cancer. (Have you ever done something that caused harmful and undeserved consequences to someone else? All the regret in the world does not stop the consequences.)

You could name much worse than a child with cancer. I don't know why problems like that seem to continue for so long. Sometimes I think that the Creator could at least intervene to mitigate, to some extent, the worst of our suffering. But then it occurs to me that perhaps He does. I just don't know. I do believe that cancer and other scourges are bad things, and that it is good to try to remedy them as best I can, until the Creator provides a permanent remedy and extravagant compensation.

I wonder about the situation from your perspective. If I understand you correctly, you believe that undirected physical and chemical processes (i.e., surely not "biological science" alone) are sufficient to account for everything in nature, including ourselves. Then I wonder why you presume to challenge me with hard questions about cancer in children, as if that perceived injustice somehow speaks against the existence of a Creator.

Why does someone like you even care what happens to a child far enough away that it doesn't affect you in any significant way? There is no moral aspect to a few atoms interacting. Neither does a moral component result if it is billions of billions of atoms. It's just what they do.

According to your philosophy, there can be no "right" or "wrong," there is only what happens according to the physical laws of nature.

Your position claims there is no design in the world, that it's all the result of natural processes. Well, that leaves you also with only the illusion of morality. The most you can say about a situation is that you like it or you don't, for reasons that are ultimately just your own convenience.

To me, with a theistic viewpoint, the Creator's mind is the ultimate source and arbiter of moral rightness. Bad things really are "bad" and need to be remedied. In fact it is of moral signficance how I react to those things. But for you, with your naturalistic viewpoint, there can be no source of morality greater than the physical/chemical reactions that produced your own existence, and anything you label "bad" is just your accidental opinion, the result of the accumulated interactions of atoms in your brain.

I think we both have difficulty with issues involving evil and suffering in the world. I think a theistic worldview has fewer difficulties, and is consistent with what appears to be evidence of fantastic design in the created things all around us, even allowing for some things that don't seem so wonderful.

For the record, I do think you sincerely care about children with cancer, and a host of other problems we endure in this world. I just don't think that's consistent with your philosophy.

Thanks for your comments. They were challenging and I had to think a good bit to provide this response. I hope I've given you some things to consider in return.

Philip Koplin

October 23, 2009 2:09 PM

DM

First, I appreciate the civil tone of your comments, which is something it should be possible take for granted, but alas isn’t always the case.

Humans created baseballs, pallette knives, and electric pencil sharpeners, to name a few of my favorite things, but not the mammalian eye or retinoblastoma. If a creator brought the universe into existence out of nothing, then anything that exists that cannot be ascribed to the secondary creation by his creatures must be the direct result of his will and design. No creature designed and created the cells of pediatric cancer. No creature could sustain their being. If there is a creator, he did, and he does.

As arguments like yours often do, you move quickly from the existence of disastrous natural processes for which no human is responsible to “the accumulated consequences of all our decisions,” even though the latter are unrelated to the former. I chose pediatric cancer as an example because it is not the consequence of anyone’s wrong actions--the child’s or anyone else’s. If the world was designed, cancer is part of the design.

I can’t say much about the notion that there is “extravangant compensation” for such suffering, other than that it’s a nice hope for which there is no evidence, which I guess is a definition of faith, although, as I said, it's based on the infliction of pain on a child as part of an arrangement that the child was too young to morally undertake.

Whether I have consistent reasons to care about children with cancer is irrelevant to whether your beliefs about a creator are coherent.

Your claim that a belief in nothing but natural processes leaves only the illusion of morality can be directed equally at your belief that there is a creator and you can know his mind. After all, people believe in different creators and understand his mind differently. Your belief that you or your tradition has it figured out correctly rests on grounds that are as subjective as those you ascribe to me.

DM

October 23, 2009 8:38 PM

> "Your claim that a belief in nothing but natural processes

> leaves only the illusion of morality can be directed equally

> at your belief that there is a creator and you can know his

> mind. After all, people believe in different creators and

> understand his mind differently."

I don't think so. My theistic beliefs are supported by ancient writings in which people testified about their experience with the Creator. They are also in harmony with design that I perceive in abundance in the world. Granted that other cultures have had different experiences, and their beliefs about the Creator are different in some ways, yet there is also a profound commonality of morals among us all. Questions remain, to be sure, but there is a foundation and coherence to theistic belief. I don't think there is anything comparable in a belief system that assumes everything is due to the random interactions of unintelligent matter.

I think enough has been said now.

Thanks for the exchange, and have a good day.

Philip Koplin

October 24, 2009 2:01 AM

I assume that when you say "enough has been said," you mean that you're done, not that I shouldn't reply.

Many different traditions refer to the testimony of ancient writings. You offer no objective reason for believing that your tradition is right, stating only that there is basically “a theistic” position, as though there didn’t exist not only Jews, Christians, and Muslims, but also many subcategories within these groups, as well as other people who might be considered nondenominational theists. They accept different texts and testimonies, interpret them differently, and draw different conclusions about what constitutes appropriate belief and behavior appropriate to the moral life and salvation. Yet you claim that your tradition is founded on the right interpretation of the true testimonies and that every theist pretty much agrees with you not only on what issues are important, but also on what to believe with regard to them. So if theists actually do disagree on things like divorce, priestly celibacy, abortion, the use of contraceptives, capital punishment, or torture, these issues aren’t really important, and even if some theists say they are and have views on them that differ from yours, you know that those theists are referring to the wrong texts or misinterpreting them.

Your perceptions and judgments are as subjective as those of every believer who accepts a tradition different than yours. In addition, your judgment that all theists agree on what’s important and on how to evaluate those issues is your subjective opinion, and so is your judgment that your ancient testimonies are in harmony with your perception of design, which itself is subjective. Finally, your perception that your beliefs have a foundation and a coherence and mine do not is just that—your perception.

That’s quite a jumble of subjectivity.