Essays & articles: Scientific Naturalism and Intelligent Design

Yet we must exhaust all natural explanations before we fall back upon such a theory as this.
Sherlock Holmes, "The Adventure of the Devil's Foot,"
His Last Bow [Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1917]

by Kelley L. Ross

Criticism of Evolution by Natural Selection, mainly with a religious motivation, formerly taking the form of "Scientific Creationism," has lately been revived through the movement for "Intelligent Design." Just as with Scientific Creationism, this new approach has pretentions or ambitions to being part of mainstream science and relies on a critique of a "materialistic" or "naturalistic" method in science as being inadequate to the empirical evidence. It must then be asked, "Is science 'materialistic'?" The answer to that is "no," because, although many scientists may in fact be materialists, materialism is a metaphysical doctrine and is both inessential to science and independent of its method. We then must ask, "Is science 'naturalistic'?" The answer to that is "yes," because naturalism, properly undertood, is a method, an empirical method, which is the very essence of modern science ever since Galileo. The Intelligent Design theorists want to claim an empirical justification themselves, but the assumptions that they introduce into their method are inconsistent with the very logic of scientific method.

The naturalistic method of science involves one fundamental procedure, the use of observation and experiment to confirm or falsify hypotheses. This is "naturalistic" for two reasons: (1) the observations and experiments are done in nature, i.e. on empirical and phenomenal objects; and (2) the hypotheses are about the laws of nature. Thus, phenomena are observed, a theory is proposed to explain the phenomena, and the theory is tested by predictions that can be proven by observation or experiment. This is science as understood by Karl Popper, whose views have been discussed elsewhere.

Intelligent Design denies the naturalism of science by asserting that natural causes are insufficient to explain certain phenomena, such as biological organisms and the diversity of life. This fails as science for the following reasons. The denial of "natural" causes can only mean the introduction of "supernatural" causes. This can only mean (1) that the laws of nature are suspended or (2) that the laws of nature are inadequate to explain the phenomena, and a particular kind of supernatural cause is the only alternative. Now, the suspension of the laws of nature is, by definiton, a miracle. It is not surprising that such a notion would accompany theistic belief, but by its very nature it cannot be part of science. If the purpose of science is to discover the laws of nature, then events that involve the suspension of the laws of nature by that very fact can be no part of science. Science cannot study a law of nature when such a law is not in operation -- indeed when no law is in operation. At the same time, since miracles are only occasional events, they cannot be studied in a scientific way, when it must be possible to repeat an observation or experiment in order to see the operation of the law. A supernatural cause that suspends the laws of nature thus can have no part in scientific knowledge.

Advocates of Intelligent Design apparently do not want to pursue that meaning of the denial of natural causes, in any case. So they want to argue that the laws of nature as such are insufficient to explain the phenomena and must be supplemented by supernatural causes. This is also adverse to the basic meaning of scientific method. If available theories are insufficient to explain the observed phenomena, then it is scientific method to look for a new theory, not to give up and invoke supernatural causes. That would prejudge that the relevant laws of nature do not exist. That the reason for the phenomena is not presently understood is no evidence for this; and since it is the very business of science to look for laws of nature through empirical inquiry, the failure of any particular theory simply means that the search continues for new theories. Giving up inquiry and invoking a supernatural cause means giving up science. It means the end of science. [note]

Indeed, with a supernatural cause, science need never have started. That is because if a supernatural cause can be invoked, then laws of nature are entirely unnecessary in the first place. If a supernatural cause means an omnipotent Creator, then the problem is just that this explains too much. Why is the sky blue? Because God made it that way. Why is there a bright red line in the spectrum of the Sun? Because God put it there. As they would have said in the Middle Ages, all this testifies to the marvelous design and aesthetic of God. Indeed, Islamic Occasionalism simply held that God was the direct cause of everything that happens. This eliminated need for laws of nature at all.

If advocates of Intelligent Design are not to embrace Occasionalism, for which science would not exist at all, they must explain why natural laws and natural causes can be pursued for some phenomena but can be said not to exist for others, like the origin of life. And they must do that with a priori reasons, for it is not enough to say that present theories do not explain all phenomena, or contain anomalies. No one expects present theories to explain everything: That is just why science is not finished. Nor is any conscientious scientist going to deny that scientific theories are without anomalies, for those are the clues how a theory is to be extended, improved, or replaced. But no conscientious scientist is going to assert at some point a priori that a theory about natural laws for certain phenomena cannot be found. Such an argument might even be part of metaphysics or epistemology, but it cannot be part of empirical science.

Thus, the very denial of naturalistic method by Intelligent Design advocates is inconsistent with scientific method itself. Science is the means of the discovery of the laws of nature, and it is about just that, i.e. nature. Does this mean that naturalistic theories are appropriate for everything? No. I have examined elsewhere the reasons why naturalistic theories of meaning are wrong. The empiricism of science is only appropriate where empiricism is appropriate, and that is not everywhere. This is why projects like "Scientific Creationism" and "Intelligent Design" are a waste of time. Charles Darwin has nothing to do with religion, morals, metaphysics, or epistemology. There are certainly those, "secular humanists" even by their own description, who by some kind of positivism or scientism think that naturalistic explanations are sufficient for everything in life, but they are simply wrong, philosophically wrong. Attacking them for their science, however, is suicidal and worthless. If they are confused that science has implications that it doesn't, they can be corrected.

But biology isn't an implication, it is a science; and behind the Intelligent Design theories, I must be forgiven the suspicion that there still lurks the old "Scientific Creationism" contention that the universe is only 10,000 years old. To get that, it is not just biology that must be attacked, but geology, astronomy, and physics also. This is what helped discredit "Creationism." Whether the Intelligent Design theorists want to admit that these sciences are in their sights, they cannot deny that a supernatural cause, once allowed, would make it possible that, as some have seriously argued, God created the universe to make it look like it was old (with fossils and unconformities, etc.), even if it wasn't, just to test the faith of the faithful and tempt the disbelief of the wicked. Since they must already think of Darwin as a kind of Satan, this might not be too large a step.

Given the failure of Intelligent Design as science, we can certainly still ask, "Why are the laws of nature as they are?" This is where we can introduce a more traditional version of Design, namely the Argument from Design, which is an argument for the existence of God. As part of natural theology, and so part of metaphysics, this would not be part of science -- though confusing or linking science with theology is precisely what the advocates for Intelligent Design want to do. Although very old, the Argument from Design is now particularly linked with the natural theology of William Paley (1743-1805, Natural Theology, 1802), who expessed, if not originated, the notion of God as the "watchmaker," the architect of the mechanism of nature, and so perhaps of nature itself only indirectly through that mechanism. This puts Creation back one step from the direct and Mediaeval forms, taking into account the existence and significance of the laws of nature, and so of the scientific project to discover those laws. This is Newtonian natural theology, and indeed, things like this were in fact popular with Isaac Newton, who in his own day admired the cosmology as sacred history of Thomas Burnet (1635-1715, Telluris Theoria Sacra or The Sacred Theory of the Earth, 1681). As a proof for the existence of God, however, the Argument from Design is not a good argument. The requirement would have to be that only a Creator God could explain the existence of the laws of nature. This is not the case, as anyone familiar with the history of Western Philosophy would know; for with Plato we have the theory that the laws of nature exist because all perfection and order derives from the Forms in the World of Being. In the Timaeus, Plato posits a Creator God, the Demiurge, but this God does not create the Forms -- he looks to them in order to make his own creation of the world as good as possible.

Plato's theory avoids problems that arise with a Creator God. For a Creator God, as it happens, is expected to do what is best -- if the theistic attributes of God are going to be omniscience, omnipotence, and benevolence. If such a God does not look to the Forms as the standard of what is good, then the good would have to be just whatever he does, which renders characterizing him as "good" trivial and pointless. This is the ancient antinomy between God's goodness and God's omnipotence. To Kant, such antinomies are what happen when we attempt to reason about transcendent objects. And there are more. For instance, if we accepted Plato's theory, we might want to ask, "Why are the Forms as they are?" We could then propose God as the Creator of the Forms. This gets us back to the antinomy of goodness and omnipotence, but it also suggests a new one. Why can't we ask, "Why is God the way he is?" If we ask for a cause for the laws of nature, and then a cause for the World of the Forms, why not a cause for God? Why isn't he caused by something? If the answer is that God is the "First Cause" (Aristotle's idea), then we must ask (1) why have a God rather than some other kind of First Cause? and (2) why must there be a first cause rather than a infinite series of causes? The first objection is that we do not have sufficient reason to conceive a First Cause as a personal God rather than as something else (like the Forms), while the second objection is that the choice between a First Cause and an infinite series is just, indeed, a classic Kantian antinomy of metaphysics (the Fourth). We do not have sufficient reason to choose between an unconditioned cause and an infinite series of causes.

If Intelligent Design fails as science, it also fails as metaphysics. Thus, Kant concluded that arguments for the existence of God don't work. Nevertheless, our question, Why the laws of nature are as they are, or, alternatively, Why the world is orderly the way it is, is a good and reasonable question. Our tendency is to propose an answer in terms of causes (God did it) or purposes (God has a Plan), but this may just be the problem. Causes and purposes make sense to us, Kant would say, in dealing with phenomenal objects, but in those terms we use each as members of a series, i.e. a cause also has a cause, and a purpose also has a purpose. The boundaries of the series are then trouble, for a causal or purposive series as a whole is an unconditioned reality, and we have the choice between puting unconditioned beginnings and endings to the series, or taking an infinite series as a whole. Kant's argument is that we can clearly conceive neither the unconditioned beginning nor ending to a natural series (since we can always imagine the next or the prior member), nor do we have sufficient reason to choose between a finite but unconditioned series and an infinite series. We are caught in multiple antinomies, which to Kant means that we cannot have a positive speculative metaphysics of transcendent objects.

Now, Kant said he wanted to limit reason to make way for faith. The theists, indeed, have on faith their reason why the world, and why the laws of nature, are the way they are (they just don't want to believe that Evolution is the way the world is). On the other hand, some would say that we don't need any reason, on faith or otherwise, why the world is the way it is. Although in A Brief History of Time Stephen Hawking said that, like Einstein, we wanted to know the Mind of God, it turns out that Hawking is actually a kind of positivist. This means he does not believe there even are "laws of nature" in reality, and that what we are doing in science is just making up stuff that, as luck would have it, enables us to make predictions about the future. Now, my feeling is that anyone who doesn't care, or who doesn't ask the question, why our predictions work, or why the world is such that we can "make up" laws of nature that allow us to predict events, suffers from a grave deficiency in curiosity. Why would anyone, who presumably starts out with a desire to know and understand nature, end up embracing a theory that there is nothing to know or understand? If science is just a conjuring trick, based on unknowable realities, why would anyone even call it "science," i.e. scientia, "knowledge"?

The theistic advocates of Intelligent Design like to accuse the Darwinians of dogmatism, although dogmatism, in its original sense (dogma as religious revelation), is exactly what these advocates believe in. A Darwinian, indeed, as a materialist or a positivist, is a kind of dogmatist. What each side would have in common is a lack of curiosity. The theists have a lack of curiosity about science, while the materialists and positivists have a lack of curiosity about metaphysics. What each thinks is sufficient, Creationism with the former and a metaphysical naturalism with the latter, actually is not sufficient -- the one a scientific error, the other a philosophical error. My own view, of course, is to continue down the path of Kantian philosophy.