Random Thoughts

I watched a show on Nova yesterday on Intelligent Design focused on the Kansas School Board case. I get most of the arguments both sides make; what I don't get is how the "science" of intelligent design can help. Bear with me with the long post, but I think this should be fun to read as well.

Let's consider 2 examples:
1) Setting 1: 5000 BC, you are living in some nomadic tribe and you observe a lightning in the sky. You are scared and so are most people in your tribe. You probably will consider one or more of the following questions (not exhaustive, there may be other questions as well):
a) Who did that?
b) How did he/she do it?
c) Why did he/she do it?

Given that it is 5000 BC and there isn't much for you to do around, you decide to pursue these questions seriously. You launch a detective operation with your friends and ask questions
For a): Who else observed it, did they see anyone generating the lighting, does anyone know who might have done it, etc.
For b): Does anyone know how to do it? What tools/conditions are needed (clouds?, rain?)
For c): Was it because I did something wrong? Was it because my tribe did something wrong? Was it because someone else did something wrong?

Questions for a) will yield either no answers or speculative answers --> you reach a dead end
Question for b) will yield some information (clouds are always present during lighting, rain may or may not fall but typically does etc), but in the end you will get stuck
Questions for c) will tend to spread more anxiety and will yield more speculative answers

You decide to keep a note of all your findings and resolve that someone down the line will answer these questions. Lo and behold, several thousand years later, people following your train of thought make progress for b) and figure out an explanation for the lightning. Along the way they make fabulous useful discoveries (e.g., electricity). For a) and c), all those thousand years yielded more and more speculative answers (and still are!).

Now lets take another example:
2) Setting 2: 20th century, you have just discovered crop circles. You are scared and so are s0me other people in your town. You probably will consider one or more of the following questions (not exhaustive, there may be other questions as well):
a) Who did that?
b) How did he/she do it?
c) Why did he/she do it?

Let's assume again that there isn't much for you to do around, and you decide to pursue these questions seriously. You launch a detective operation with your friends and ask questions
For a): Who else observed it, did they see anyone generating the circles, does anyone know who might have done it, etc.
For b): Does anyone know how to do it? What tools/conditions are needed (tractors?, certain types of fields?)
For c): Was it because I did something wrong? Was it because my town/tribe/country/etc did something wrong? Was it because someone else did something wrong?

Questions for a) will yield allegations and speculative answers --> you don't know who to believe and whom to not. Maybe you get lucky and someone admits or you find answer to b) and that helps you track who did it.
Questions for b): you talk to agricultural experts, try out making crop circles yourselves etc. and if you are persistent enough, you will figure out that this is humanly possible
Questions for c) will yield speculations, allegations, and maybe some truth (especially if you are able to answer a) )

End of examples ------------------

In both cases above, the b) line of questioning generated insight. In setting 1) it led to many practical and useful discoveries, in 2) it led to discovery of something that probably has no practical use (and is therefore art!?!), but it explained that crop circles can be made by humans.

Now I do not want to say that a) and c) are not useful lines of questioning (in fact, those are critical if you are a real detective trying to solve a crime). But I think, you would agree that b) will always generate insight -- the insight may be that this phenomenon is trickery (like magic shows), but it will generate insight ... eventually (maybe thousands of years later).

Now having put forth my case that you should always strive to pursue the b) line of questioning, I ask this question: why don't proponents of intelligent design pursue the question "How does the intelligent agency do it?"? Wouldn't that be a better use of their scientific efforts than arguing in public that Intelligent Design is science? Or do they fear they'll end up discovering evolution?

Labels: Intelligent design