The Toolbox argument against Intelligent Design
Posted: Mon Sep 10, 2018 12:55 am
One of the most popular arguments for the existence of God is the argument from intelligent design. Look at the world in all its grandeur and beauty, there has to be an intelligence that has created it, they say. Particularly, in biology, it is argued that living things seem to have been created. The Intelligent Design Theory (ID) even claims that it impossible for evolution to create some features or functions used in animals and plants. The latter claim is dismissed for several reasons, mostly that it is a God of the Gaps argument, gaps that science have closed or probably will close in the future.
However, I don’t want to discuss ID now. I will rather discuss another argument, an argument against the claim that living things seem to have been created by an intelligence. I’ll call the argument the Toolbox argument. I somehow came up with it a year ago and I haven’t seen it before. It may be new even if I doubt. Few thoughts are new nowadays. When I happened to get Dawkin’s book The Blind Watchmaker as Christmas present I read it carefully looking for the argument without finding it so I bought The God Delusion but without finding it there either. I have tried to search the net but without any success. Therefore I present the argument here. All comments and critique are welcome.
The Toolbox argument is an argument from design and evolution. It is often said that the world around us is so well designed that there is a need for a Creator. I argue that this is mistaken. Looking at the evolution of species it is just the opposite. I will explain and to be understandable I have to go more in details.
(Much of what I write here is based on http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/ 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution The Scientific Case for Common Descent. It is a long, 100 pages, description of the reasons why it is clear that all life evolved from one single occasion of abiogenesis. It is worth reading by anyone that is the slightest interested in evolutionary theory even if it is not updated after 2012).
The characteristic of evolutionary development is that it is done in small small steps. When a mutation occurs it may change an animal so that it is more fit for survival and get more offspring. Most mutations are not beneficial especially not when the environment is stable. But some are and that together with more mutations may in the long run entail that a group of that species will develop so much that they can't interbreed with the original group any longer, a new species is generated. In this way the phylogenetic tree is created. Species fork and fork again, some die off and some create more species. If a feature as eyes evolve it is inherited down the phylogenetic tree (I see it with the root upwards) but they are never inherited between the forks. (There are exceptions, mostly at the bacteria level, but that is not of interest here). Eyes, for instance, have developed in different species several times but they are not identical and these differences in the original design are inherited to the descendants. Many features that are unique to one species and its descendants do never appear in species elsewhere in the phylogenetic tree even if they would be very useful for other species.
Is the claim that life seems to have been developed by an intelligent designer true? To evaluate this assertion we should investigate how intelligent design really is done. The only designers we know of for certain are human designers so it should be of interest to study how humans design, for instance technicians that design a new product. In many cases the design is about amending an old design but of more interest here is the design of new products. After having specified the product the designer tries to find a solution to the technical problem. To do that he/she searches for solutions among older products that already exist but some times he/she has to invent new technical solutions. In new designs there may be some new component but most of the design work is done by putting together known components found in older designs. These elements may be simple mechanical elements as levers, bearings, gearwheels, and springs but often complete subsystems are incorporated in the design. So technical design is usually characterised by one or a few inventions. Besides is used earlier developed subsystems and techniques that are put together in different ways in different products. Let's take the development of transport vehicles as an example. The steam engine, the Otto engine the Diesel engine, turbo engines, and electrical motors were all invented and developed separately and then put into complete vehicles like cars, boats and in some cases aeroplanes. The same with other systems as wheels, break, lights, transmission systems, steering systems etc. It can be seen as a tool-box strategy. When you design a new machine you do an overall sketch and then tries to break down the problem to smaller parts. To implement these parts you search your tool-box that can be anything from handbooks of mechanical elements to existing design and design components and try to combine them to an optimal design. Only in special cases you start with an old design and make minor modifications. This is a general strategy not only in technical design but in any design activity.
The question then is if the biological evolution has any similarity with intelligent human design. As far as I can see the answer is no. Eyes, again, have been developed many times but the different solutions are sometimes similar but there are no example of a new design that is a blue copy of an earlier design. If there were an intelligent designer why doesn’t he use the toolbox strategy in the same way as human designers do? We would find squirrels with birdlike wings, dogs that have retractable claws, birds that don’t lay eggs but give birth to live young etc.
There seems to be two ways to design, the incremental design done by biological evolution and intelligent design using the tool-box strategy. A clear difference between the methods can be seen if you try to draw a heritage tree. In biology you get the phylogenetic tree. Parts of it is well known due to fossil findings and nowadays primarily from DNA studies. There is a simple criteria for closeness in a phylogenetic tree, the similarity of DNA between two species. However, if you try to draw a heritage tree for designs done by known intelligence, i.e. humans, you get formidable problems. Let’s take cars as an example. To draw a tree you have to determine which property is used for the primary criteria of closeness, is it age, number of wheels, motor technology, size, transmission system, steering system, colour, number of doors, placement of ash trays etc. etc. Then you have to determine a secondary and a third etc criteria more or less arbitrarily. If for example ten persons would try to draw a heritage tree for all cars you will probably get ten different trees without any similarity.
My conclusion is that biological evolution isn’t explained by reference to an intelligent designer.
There are two arguments for intelligent design.
1. Evolution without intelligence is impossible (the ID argument).
2. Evolution is best explained by intelligence (what I discuss here)
I think both arguments are false.
Nils
However, I don’t want to discuss ID now. I will rather discuss another argument, an argument against the claim that living things seem to have been created by an intelligence. I’ll call the argument the Toolbox argument. I somehow came up with it a year ago and I haven’t seen it before. It may be new even if I doubt. Few thoughts are new nowadays. When I happened to get Dawkin’s book The Blind Watchmaker as Christmas present I read it carefully looking for the argument without finding it so I bought The God Delusion but without finding it there either. I have tried to search the net but without any success. Therefore I present the argument here. All comments and critique are welcome.
The Toolbox argument is an argument from design and evolution. It is often said that the world around us is so well designed that there is a need for a Creator. I argue that this is mistaken. Looking at the evolution of species it is just the opposite. I will explain and to be understandable I have to go more in details.
(Much of what I write here is based on http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/ 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution The Scientific Case for Common Descent. It is a long, 100 pages, description of the reasons why it is clear that all life evolved from one single occasion of abiogenesis. It is worth reading by anyone that is the slightest interested in evolutionary theory even if it is not updated after 2012).
The characteristic of evolutionary development is that it is done in small small steps. When a mutation occurs it may change an animal so that it is more fit for survival and get more offspring. Most mutations are not beneficial especially not when the environment is stable. But some are and that together with more mutations may in the long run entail that a group of that species will develop so much that they can't interbreed with the original group any longer, a new species is generated. In this way the phylogenetic tree is created. Species fork and fork again, some die off and some create more species. If a feature as eyes evolve it is inherited down the phylogenetic tree (I see it with the root upwards) but they are never inherited between the forks. (There are exceptions, mostly at the bacteria level, but that is not of interest here). Eyes, for instance, have developed in different species several times but they are not identical and these differences in the original design are inherited to the descendants. Many features that are unique to one species and its descendants do never appear in species elsewhere in the phylogenetic tree even if they would be very useful for other species.
Is the claim that life seems to have been developed by an intelligent designer true? To evaluate this assertion we should investigate how intelligent design really is done. The only designers we know of for certain are human designers so it should be of interest to study how humans design, for instance technicians that design a new product. In many cases the design is about amending an old design but of more interest here is the design of new products. After having specified the product the designer tries to find a solution to the technical problem. To do that he/she searches for solutions among older products that already exist but some times he/she has to invent new technical solutions. In new designs there may be some new component but most of the design work is done by putting together known components found in older designs. These elements may be simple mechanical elements as levers, bearings, gearwheels, and springs but often complete subsystems are incorporated in the design. So technical design is usually characterised by one or a few inventions. Besides is used earlier developed subsystems and techniques that are put together in different ways in different products. Let's take the development of transport vehicles as an example. The steam engine, the Otto engine the Diesel engine, turbo engines, and electrical motors were all invented and developed separately and then put into complete vehicles like cars, boats and in some cases aeroplanes. The same with other systems as wheels, break, lights, transmission systems, steering systems etc. It can be seen as a tool-box strategy. When you design a new machine you do an overall sketch and then tries to break down the problem to smaller parts. To implement these parts you search your tool-box that can be anything from handbooks of mechanical elements to existing design and design components and try to combine them to an optimal design. Only in special cases you start with an old design and make minor modifications. This is a general strategy not only in technical design but in any design activity.
The question then is if the biological evolution has any similarity with intelligent human design. As far as I can see the answer is no. Eyes, again, have been developed many times but the different solutions are sometimes similar but there are no example of a new design that is a blue copy of an earlier design. If there were an intelligent designer why doesn’t he use the toolbox strategy in the same way as human designers do? We would find squirrels with birdlike wings, dogs that have retractable claws, birds that don’t lay eggs but give birth to live young etc.
There seems to be two ways to design, the incremental design done by biological evolution and intelligent design using the tool-box strategy. A clear difference between the methods can be seen if you try to draw a heritage tree. In biology you get the phylogenetic tree. Parts of it is well known due to fossil findings and nowadays primarily from DNA studies. There is a simple criteria for closeness in a phylogenetic tree, the similarity of DNA between two species. However, if you try to draw a heritage tree for designs done by known intelligence, i.e. humans, you get formidable problems. Let’s take cars as an example. To draw a tree you have to determine which property is used for the primary criteria of closeness, is it age, number of wheels, motor technology, size, transmission system, steering system, colour, number of doors, placement of ash trays etc. etc. Then you have to determine a secondary and a third etc criteria more or less arbitrarily. If for example ten persons would try to draw a heritage tree for all cars you will probably get ten different trees without any similarity.
My conclusion is that biological evolution isn’t explained by reference to an intelligent designer.
There are two arguments for intelligent design.
1. Evolution without intelligence is impossible (the ID argument).
2. Evolution is best explained by intelligence (what I discuss here)
I think both arguments are false.
Nils