Science: Design: Prosthesis puts us on the teleological trail to ask, Is design perceived or inferred in nature?

We must always remind ourselves that design is not perceived in nature, altho that is the illusion that nature proffers us, or it is the template with which our cognitive faculties target nature in our perceiving (which can in turn be considered a part of nature). We lapse into the illusion of our own "erroneous" perception, in the face of which we must rationalistically cast about for a predesigned dogma from outside such experiences of fawlty knowing, to impose on them in order to say counter-intuitively: Not designed, rather evolved! Perception is misleading! - This is the gambit of the celebrated Fred Crick, according to Del Ratzsch, as recounted in a February 16 post online at Prosthesis - science and technology, where we encounter these earlier reflections of Ratzsch under the title, Design - Inferred or Perceived?.

Even in the last year of his life, Darwin at times felt an "overwhelming force" that certain "purposes in nature" were the result of a mind. Francis Crick is often quoted as saying, "Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved."

The later Prosthesis reflection, today's, simply cites a Ratzsch article newly entered into the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, entitled, Teleological Arguments for God's Existence. Following the lead of Prosthesis, I delved this AM into the dense but lucidly-written arguments of Ratzch's Encylcopedia piece, and can't resist here clipping out a chunk to quote for you, from near the lengthy study's end,

Collins remarks that “Almost everything about the basic structure of the universe … is balanced on a razor's edge for life to occur.” (Robin Collins 1999, “A Scientific Argument for the Existence of God,” pp. 47-75, page 48: chapter in Michael Murray, 1999. (ed) Reason for the Hope Within, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans).).

There is some disagreement over just how many such independent factors there are, but by some counts there are over 100, although not all requiring the above degree of precision. ... But the apparent probability of all the necessary conditions sufficient to allow just the formation of planets (let alone life) coming together just by chance is utterly outrageously tiny—by Roger Penrose's calculation, the probability of chance alone producing cosmoi capable of producing planets is 1 in 10 raised in turn to the 10 [to an exponent of] 123 (Penrose, Roger, 1990. The Emperor's New Mind (Oxford: Oxford). 343-4). With respect to key enzymes occurring by chance, astrophysicist Fred Hoyle throws around numbers like 10-40000 (Hoyle, Frederick, 1982. Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics<, Vol. 20, 1982, 1-35. 4-5). (Although there is no consensus, some, following e.g., Emile Borel, suggest that a probability of occurrence of less than 10-50 can be taken as equivalent to practical impossibility.) Apparently crushing improbabilities of that order tied to the apparent value of a life-permitting (or intelligence-permitting) universe has given rise to cosmic fine-tuning arguments for design, according to which improbable fine-tuning of the cosmos for life and intelligence is taken as empirical evidence of design, purpose, and deliberate intent. In fact, the tighter the constraints, the more reasonable it becomes to see design in the conditions meeting those constraints. Other things being equal, deliberate, intentional design would constitute a plausible explanation for a universe like ours existing against the odds and out of all the myriad possible life-precluding or life-hampering universes.

Thus a samplar of some of the intelligence being invested by design in the Intelligent Design ruminations. And thanks to Prosthesis blog for keeping us abreast. I myself am an evolution-minded Christian who finds ID theory quite compatible with the basic idea of a God-guided long-term evolutionary process of creating the cosmos and humanity, not ruling out in the guidance special interventions along the way. My problem with Evolutionism is its arrogance and its horizon of a closed world, in which the scientist is obligated to a technique of naturalistic rationality only and absolutized, even when the natural tendency of rumination or, if you will, meta-rumination exceeds the boundary of the dogma of naturalism.

My big problem with ID theory in its current state is that it doesn't grapple with the problem/s of biotic foundational laws. ID currently is ignoring the place and process of ongoing restatement of biotic-laws-for-creation, one set of laws among the several dimensional laws that hold for all things creaturely and their interrelations of all kinds. Creational Laws-for the varying encounters with and reflections upon, by all sides in the genesiological controversies today, are more basic than either any kind of evolutionism (naturalist-atheist, theist, or any other) or any kind of ID (which aims to articulate limitedly the existence of an unnameable (unnameable from within the ID theory itelf) which/who designed the cosmos / cosmoi. As I've mentioned before, Dr Uko Zylstra, writing in the biology philosophy journal Zygon in March 2004, raised this challenge to ID theory; but Zylstra's question is also a much more broadly-impinging question and stance that challenges also the cadres of Evolutionism and their established religion within current science and its guilds, of which Richard Dworkin is one of the High Priests. - Owlb

Abstract of Zylstra article