An implication of any conscious designer invalidates a hypothesis that is supposed to explain the natural world. The reason is that a consciousness is by nature unpredictable. One feature of any successful hypothesis is that it makes testable predictions. In the case of evolution, one of these predictions is that we should see a gradual change in the physical features of creatures as we track their lineage back through time. In the case of evolution, that prediction has been borne out. To take whales as an example, we can track their progression from land-dwelling foxlike predators all the way to the modern forms. Should we find a whale with fully-modern features alongside one of their ancestors, then the prediction has failed the test.
In the case of ID, the fact that there is a conscious intelligence controlling the process as a positive factor makes it pass any test. Taking the whale as an example again, the finding of a modern form doesn’t mean that the test failed, because it simply means that the “designer” chose differently than we thought.
Let’s have a peek at some of the presumptions you hold so dear before we make any erroneous conclusions about “the case of ID.”
First, let’s distinguish between how “a cause of” and “a reason for” can both operate as “explanations of.”
You seem to rule out consciousness as a possible explanation because it is unpredictable. I would disagree, it is not inherently unpredictable and even if it were, ID does not make any claims about consciousness, you do.
ID claims that intelligence or a process of reasoning can be used to explain the origin of genetic code because material causes are insufficient to do so. Proponents of the thesis go to great lengths to demonstrate that and ought not be dismissed on frivolous grounds.
As an example of the distinction between material causes and intelligence as a cause consider the following.
You created a password and username to have entry into this forum. Those two items are examples of specified information. If we try to gain a full explanation for why your username and password are set to the exact specifications that they are, material causes do not provide a sufficient explanation. Sure, you used your fingers on a keyboard, touchpad or touchscreen to do so and the electronics of the device transferred your keystrokes into the processing unit and onto to the CAF server, but those “material” causes to not explain why the upper case M is followed by an o is followed by an n, etc. The explanation for the order or sequence of those letters can only come with reference to an intelligent designer who had “reasons for” choosing the order he did. You had your reasons. The fact that no one else may ever know those reasons does not nullify the explanatory potential of “intelligence.” As intelligent beings, we “know” that only intelligence could possibly have created the order of letters in your username because NO OTHER causal explanation can do so.
We need not know your precise reasons for setting the letters in that order, but that simple fact does not disqualify us from inferring that the letters could ONLY have been set in that manner.
We certainly CANNOT conclude that intelligence could NOT have set your user name BECAUSE intelligence is not predictable. We cannot predict what you as an intelligent being will set your user name to, but THAT does not mean we cannot infer that an intelligent being did, in fact, set the user name. Obviously, YOU did and presumably you are intelligent and used your intelligence (aka the ability to specify reasons for) to do so.
An “explanation for” can legitimately be a material cause or, in the case of intelligence, a “reason for.” You had a “reason for” setting the open fields of the user name space to Monkey1976. We know material causes cannot sufficiently explain why the order of letters is set the way it has been, so we legitimately can infer an intelligent designer did so for “reasons” which yet require explanation. However, merely because those “reasons” require further analysis does NOT negate the plausibility that intelligence could be a possible explanation. “Reasons for” act as sufficient explanations all of the time. Wherever material causes cannot fully explain the way things are, we are not justified in denying the possibility that a “reason for” might just suffice as an explanation.
This is not an argument from ignorance, it is an inference to the best explanation. Just as in all scientific pursuits, the best explanation stands until a better one can be offered.
In the case of genetic code, the similarity of DNA with specified complex codes in use all the time by intelligent human agents and the fact that NO chemical or physical causes explain the critical ordering of the nucleotide bases along the spine of the DNA molecule means that some other explanation must be sought (by the principle of sufficient reason.) Intelligence is a plausible explanation because we know that “reasons for” can operate as sufficient explanations for material events even though reasons are not material causes.
Clearly, material causes do not explain every physical event. They don’t explain why Monkey1976 is your user name, for example.
