Is intelligent design a plausible theory?
Students and faculty in search of an answer gathered last Friday afternoon in the Lecture Hall to hear Professor Elliot Sober, a guest speaker from the University of Wisconsin, lecture on the design argument. The event was part of the Evolutionary Studies Program, a seminar series in the Biology Department.
Professor Sober began by clarifying the difference between the intelligent design theory and the creationist theory.
“There’s a very common, familiar attitude in our culture that the religious beliefs and scientific beliefs are answerable to very different standards,” said Sober. “That religion is something you believe (in) because you have faith, whereas scientific apposition is something you believe or disbelieve based on the evidence. The design argument is in disagreement with that dichotomy. (It) tries to establish the existence of God by using the methods of science.”
The design argument, Professor Sober said, emerged in 1805 when William Paley published his book entitled “Natural Theology.”
“(Paley) thought that there was an independent way to justify the idea that God exists that does not require the sacred bible and sacred texts to say that God exists,” Professor Sober said. “He thought that if you look at nature you can see abundant evidence for the existence of God and that is what the design argument intends to do.”
Professor Sober referenced Paley’s example of a stone, a watch and an eye. He said that when one looks at a stone it is not hard to imagine that it was made by some mindless process. However, when one looks at a watch, which is a complicated machine that has to fit together just right in order to function properly, it seems highly unlikely that it was created by chance, and that an intelligent designer was behind it. Paley then applied the same principle to an eye. The eye is far more complex than a watch and therefore it’s highly unlikely that it was made by mindless processes.
“Given those limited choices, (Paley) was entirely correct to think that intelligent design is by far the more plausible of the two explanations,” Professor Sober said. “Intelligent design was a perfectly respectable scientific theory until 1859 (publication of Darwin’s theory) and then it was just left behind as science progressed and produced an even better explanation.”
He then went on to explain the weaknesses of the intelligent design theory, stating that it cannot make predictions or establish what is probable and what is improbable.
“(Intelligent design theory) doesn’t have any equipment to say why the human beings have one kind of eyes and insects another,” Professor Sober said. “We can invent assumptions about God that allow the God hypothesis to fit what we observe. (Intelligent design theory) makes predictions by peaking at the observations.”
Throughout his lecture Professor Sober did not reference the merits of Darwin’s evolution theory, stating that the faults of the intelligent design theory can speak for themselves.
“I think a minimum requirement for a theory is that it be testable,” he said. “Intelligent design falls down; it doesn’t say anything really.”
Although in Sober’s opinion the intelligent design theory lacks supportive evidence, national debate over evolution is heated.
“There is something emotional involved with (this topic),” said Margaretha Hendrikt, professor of global strategic management, who attended the lecture. “Because it’s about our existence and so if we start really emotional we don’t listen and that’s the problem.”
At the end of the lecture some students and faculty members stayed to discuss the topic and many agreed that Professor Sober did an excellent job.
“I though it was great,” said senior Hamza Airzai. “He had a very convincing argument.”