One of the most common objections against Intelligent Design is that if an intelligent agent is causally involved in the natural world, then science is no longer predictable because at any time the agent could intervene and mess with our experiments. For example, Michael Ruse writes, ““[T]he relationship of the natural and the supernatural are unpredictable … [if] the cause of a natural event is the whim of a deity, the event is neither predictable nor fully understandable.”[1]
I think this objection is misguided. First, it is based on a faulty understanding of ID. ID only claims to have discovered evidence of a designer’s activity in the past. It takes no position on the question of whether the designer is still in existence, whether the designer is presently involved in the cosmos, or whether the designer will be involved in the cosmos in the future. Those are philosophical and religious questions.
Secondly, the materialist seems to forget that even in the absence of a designing intelligence there is no guarantee that the empirical world will be predictable in the future, because there is no guarantee that natural laws will continue to operate in the future as they do in the present. If this possibility is not a science-stopper, then neither is the possibility that the designing intelligence may act in the natural world in the future.
Thirdly, this is a red herring. The truth of a hypothesis, rather than its implications, is the most important issue at hand. If the evidence points to the activity of a designing intelligence in the past, then scientists ought to conclude that a designing intelligence was causally active in the natural world regardless of what consequences it may have for future science.
[1]John A. Moore, Science as a Way of Knowing, (Harvard University Press, 1993), 502.
Thinking to Believe 
January 3, 2011 at 1:13 pm
“. . . there is no guarantee that natural laws will continue to operate in the future as they do in the present.”
Likewise, there is no guarantee that natural laws have operated in the past as they do in the present. This is a major flaw in naturalistic attempts to explain the origins of life, the universe, and everything. Science is great for learning how the world works today, but why should we assume that it has always worked that way?
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January 4, 2011 at 12:37 am
Aletheist,
Even if it is just a presupposition, do scientists have reason to think any differently? If we had no empirical data one way or another, and if we observe that the physical laws are constant in our own time, then aren’t scientists at least prima facie justified in thinking that the laws of nature were constant in the past?
And as I understand it, the past values of at least some of the constants and laws can be empirically tested. For example, the velocity of light can be tested by observing distant stars. And as I understand it, the “star record” shows that the velocity of light has only changed by something like one part in a billion over a period of 13 billion years. Of course, that’s not to say all constants/laws can similarly be tested. But if the ones we can test show that they have remained constant, then it increases our justification for thinking the others have remained constant as well.
Do you personally think the laws of nature were different in the past? If so, why? Do you have a religious or philosophical motivation?
Jason
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January 4, 2011 at 4:24 am
Actually Jason, I believe that we cannot measure the velocity of light.
We can only measeure its mean velocity. (there is a theory that light travels instantly in one direction and 1/2 c in the other (so I’m told))
The problem with light and time boils down to relativity.
Also, you have already shown a presupposition that the universe has been around for 13 billion years in your comment. The problem is that science cannot be removed from philosophy, yet scientists try to say that they are seperate.
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January 4, 2011 at 9:57 am
Jason,
What do you think about the science news from 2010 that the rules believed to be constant actually vary throughout the universe?
Arthur
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January 4, 2011 at 10:04 am
Jason,
It seems you have a dilemma. On one hand you want to posit that divine being(s) tampered with the universe, thus rendering the laws of nature unreliable. On the other hand, you want to assume that all of the laws are unchanging throughout history and uniform throughout the universe, so that you can calculate life as not occurring by chance. Isn’t that a problem?
Arthur
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January 4, 2011 at 3:39 pm
Jason:
I agree that it is reasonable for scientists to assume that the laws of nature have been constant in the past and will remain constant in the future. My point was simply that this is, in fact, an assumption – not something that can be demonstrated, scientifically or otherwise. It represents a limitation on the legitimate reach of scientific “knowledge.”
When it comes to events that happened in the distant past – like the origins of life, the universe, and everything – I take the Word of the only living eyewitness of those events over the speculations of fallible human beings, no matter how reasonable the assumptions that underlie the latter may be.
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January 4, 2011 at 3:47 pm
Arthur wrote, “On the other hand, you want to assume that all of the laws are unchanging throughout history and uniform throughout the universe, so that you can calculate life as not occurring by chance. Isn’t that a problem?”
Actually, the whole point is that it is a big problem for the naturalist, who must rely on the assumption “that all of the laws are unchanging throughout history and uniform throughout the universe.” In other words, naturalism fails on naturalism’s own terms. Personally, I prefer to challenge the underlying assumption instead.
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January 4, 2011 at 4:20 pm
Arthur,
You asked me the same question in another thread, and I responded: https://theosophical.wordpress.com/2010/10/25/it-behooves-naturalists-to-jettison-methodological-naturalism-in-science/
Jason
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January 4, 2011 at 5:16 pm
Arthur,
I have two different responses in my mind—one shorter and one longer—so I’ll give you both.
Here’s the shorter one: One does not have to believe that the laws of nature are unchanging to point out to those who presuppose that they are regular, that natural processes alone cannot account for the origin of life. One can simply adopt their opponent’s presuppositions for the sake of demonstrating that their conclusion will not work. So even if I believed that the laws of nature are irregular, the argument is still valid. But that’s not what I believe, which leads me to my longer response.
You seem to think that one who affirms divine involvement in the physical world cannot also affirm the regularity of the laws of nature without contradiction. This is not true. I dealt with this objection/misconception at https://theosophical.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/signature-in-the-cell-part-7-addressing-objections-to-intelligent-design-2-of-2/, noting that “humans regularly act in ways that interfere with the normal working of natural laws, but we don’t ‘violate’ those laws [or make then unreliable]. We simply ‘alter the conditions upon which the laws act.’ When we arrange letters on a magnetic board to create information we are not violating the laws of electromagnetism, but merely altering the way matter is configured. [Likewise, when you pick up a box you are not violating or altering the law of gravity.] Agents regularly initiate new events within a matrix of existing events operating according to natural law. And since historical sciences seek to discover the cause of events rather than some natural law, it is legitimate to posit an intelligent agent who causes a new event.”
God, like humans, is not altering the laws of nature (or rendering them unreliable) by acting within the universe to bring about some special physical effect, but merely altering the conditions on which those laws act. The laws remain the same before, during, and after God’s activity.
“Tampered” is a loaded term, belying a negative view of any God who would get His hands dirty by involving Himself in the physical world he created. This reminds me of a post I read recently titled “Children of a better God?” at http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/children-of-a-better-god/. But if the evidence suggests that such involvement was necessary or just plain desired, then who are we to object?
Jason
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January 4, 2011 at 5:16 pm
Aletheist,
I can agree with that explanation.
Jason
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January 5, 2011 at 12:51 am
Scott,
That’s true. We can’t measure it’s one-way velocity, and scientists simply have to assume that it goes and comes back at the same speed. But at the very least testing the speed of light in the past also uses the mean velocity, and if it shows no real change, then there is no reason to think the velocity of light has changed over time.
I agree that science and philosophy cannot be separated (just as no discipline can be separated from philosophy, including theology), but how does this relate to the question of the age of the universe or the regularity of physical laws?
Jason
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