Thought Exercise: What Would Happen if Intelligent Design Became a Real Science

[slingblade]

If you think about it, your premise is not a new one to some. But given knowledge of your designer, would it not be logical to seek out his/her person(s) for the path to truth and greater knowledge? Would this not be the very first step?

When it starts talking back to the billions who talk to it each day, we'll have something to "seek." But while it remains coy and silent, as it always has, there's nothing to be sought.

 

[Wowbagger]

Porcine aviation would ensue.

Yes. Understanding how design of life works, would allow us to develop flying pigs at a much faster pace than through evolutionary methods.

For some. I fear that many would simply say "goddidit, and that's good enough for me," and settle for ignorance about a lot of things.

First of all, how is that different from now?

Second of all: The settling for ignorance might not last long. I will argue that "goddidit" would actually NOT be an acceptable dismissal. "How did God do it?" would become the main question.

Except you said "Inspected by God," so I figured you were talking about god.

Yeah, but that was only meant to be an example.

The specifics of how I.D. would change the world would certainly be dependent on the specifics of the nature of the Designer: alien or god or something else. But, in this thread one is free to speculate in any of those directions they wish to.

In science-based industries, as deadlines approached with no realistic chance of meeting them by our own efforts, we would give up trying and resort to prayer instead.

Ah, but in this case, we might have some insight into how to make those prayers actually work! Maybe.

The problems we would be left with is why the designer(s) played such a nasty prank by making it really look like organisms evolved, and where the designer(s) came from to begin with.

Maybe it was not a prank so much, as simply the nature of the imperfect design work. Perhaps the Designers were limited in what they can do, and the new (hypothetical, mind you) science of Intelligent Design would help us understand what those limiting factors were.

And, those same limits would be noted for when we go about engineering life forms, of our own.

Billions and billions of warranty claims.

If the Designer was still around, I can see the possibility of a massive appeal to gain some compensation for our poor designs, from it. Yep. That would be an interesting movie.

A huge trial, with God as the defendant. Humans would sue him for all the crappy stuff. And probably win, too. We control the courts!

That would also make an interesting movie.

I wonder what sort of compensation we could hope to win.

Well I suppose it would mean that MRSA's don't evolve so we could be irresponsible with our antibiotics and stop washing our hands. Whoopee.

Perhaps MRSA's were designed to evolve. If understood how that design took place, the details could help us fight them off, even more effectively.

Wowbagger, is this diety ID in the evidence or is the evidence ambiguos?

Just to be clear: We are assuming, for the purposes of this exercise, that the evidence is unambiguous, widely accepted, and any new technologies based around it generally seem to work.

I am not sure the blue prints on a poorly designed house would always help. There are times you would be grateful to know where things were but the why would still be dumbfounding.

I think it might work like examining badly written source code. Yes, it will be a heaping puzzle of a spaghetti-inspired mess. But, at least you have the code to tweak, if you needed to. And, replacement code was not feasible for the time being.

Of course, implementing new, improved life forms, based on the lessons learned from the design of current ones, would also be possible. Though, like large software systems, it might take a while to work out all the kinks.

And perhaps the ID is proof that it started with design and evolution occured from there.

That could (hypothetically, mind you) be possible, in this scenario. "Front-loading" could be vindicated.

That's what I was going to say. Much of the detail of course would depend upon how precisely ID was proven and of course on whether the designer was extant and contactable.

We can play with all those ideas, here. I am hoping people will pick their favorite scenarios, and run with it.

For example, if we have the blue-prints, labs, and historic documents of communication with the Designer(s), but the Designer(s) died out a long time ago; we would have to rely on interpreting the records, ourselves. That could open up a whole new branch, or two, of science!

To allow for consisancy with current observations I feel that a productive area of research would be in attempting to contact this designer and wake him up.

Yes. If the Designer(s) were still around, but we can only communicate with them in certain ways, that would be a new branch of science too!

I wonder what little details would crop up from stuff like that.

Here's the biggest danger in this scenario.
If there is some alien or whatever "designer" then a whole branch of investigation opens up that explores that designer directly, their intentions and process, as a way of gaining knowledge about life by understanding the origins.

This is not, in itself, a problem. But...

If that designer is really something that could be called a "god" then you get into all this religious nonsense that it is wrong to try to question or investigate "God's Mystery"

I think this could be true, to certain sects of religion. A bit ironic, though: Just when I.D. becomes a real science, we would not be allowed to actually use it.

Though, I suspect most people, including most religious folks, would probably allow us to investigate God's mysteries, if God itself seems to allow us to do so. At least that is what I hypothesize.

Then Theists and woos in general would, in disappointment, look for another non verifiable, fantasy based explanation for the meaning of it all

Those who feel the need to hold onto some sort of exclusive, privileged Truth about the universe, might do that, in fact. But, I suspect it would be a small minority.

It would also be worth looking into whether the same evidence of design existed outside of living organisms. A sim universe type scenario.

Good point. We could extend this thought exercise to Design of the Universe, not just life forms. Maybe certain planets were manufactured by Magratheans, or something.

Looking around at all the pain and terror and sorrow and death, it's obvious that this designer is incompetent, evil, or a complete ass. Scientifically.

Yes, but at least the science if I.D. would help us determine which one of those is most accurate.

But given knowledge of your designer, would it not be logical to seek out his/her person(s) for the path to truth and greater knowledge? Would this not be the very first step?

If the Designer is still around, and we found some method of communicating with it, then: Yes, that would open the flood gates of research on that direction. Perhaps other pre-I.D. lines of research would be abandoned, for a while, until we milked this new one for a while.
Though, I also suspect that most of them (including evolution) would return, in a transformed manner.

 

[itlallburn]

There was coyness and silence prior to the scientific I.D. discovery, no?

 

[Nogbad]

If the stamp said "made in Valhalla" there would be unrest in some camps.

 

[bokonon]

I think it would be great, and I don't think science would flag for a moment.

Seriously, most scientists would wax ecstatic if we found slime mold smeared on the bottom of a Martian rock. Why would they just throw off their lab coats if we had incontrovertible evidence of some other intelligent life that was capable of designing life itself?

Sure, if the designer turned out to be Jehovah, and all that biblical mucky muck was somehow resolved into something resembling "truth", that might suck, but how likely is that?

Far more likely, I think, is that the designers would turn out to be creatures as smart as ourselves, possibly much smarter, but certainly not omniscient, omnipotent, or any of that nonsense.

Science would soldier on, with the additional knowledge that (in biology, at least) we were reverse-engineering someone else's creation. We'd still be capable of mods the original designer hadn't considered, or had considered and rejected, or had planned but never implemented.

I don't see a serious downside. Evolution wouldn't crumble; designer or not, it's clear that this is how most of the diversity we see today arose.

 

[Dancing David]

If you think about it, your premise is not a new one to some. But given knowledge of your designer, would it not be logical to seek out his/her person(s) for the path to truth and greater knowledge? Would this not be the very first step?

Welcome to the forum!

Um, you would not be that interested in talking to me about programing when I was a amateur programmer.

You would want the design team.

 

[Dancing David]

I am reminded of the story of Rincewind and the sandwich in Discworld, where a sandwich left behind is the seed of all future life.

 

[Wowbagger]

There was coyness and silence prior to the scientific I.D. discovery, no?

Yes. But, the Designer could change its mind, and decide to become more communicative with its creation. If not, then whatever.

If the stamp said "made in Valhalla" there would be unrest in some camps.

Yes. Yes it would.

Why would they just throw off their lab coats if we had incontrovertible evidence of some other intelligent life that was capable of designing life itself?

I don't think they would. Though, public relations of science might take a temporary blow, in the minds of non-scientists.

Remember, some people believe that it is a sign of failure and weakness, when science changes its mind about stuff (such how planets and species are defined). If I.D. becomes real, those same folks will see it as a failure on the part of science. Whether it is fair or not.

Of course, we know better: We know that science strives to improve its models, over time, and that becomes its greatest strength. But, we could be in the minority.

Eventually science will recover, once the (supposed) science of I.D. starts making headway.

Far more likely, I think, is that the designers would turn out to be creatures as smart as ourselves, possibly much smarter, but certainly not omniscient, omnipotent, or any of that nonsense.

I also think this is more likely.

Evolution wouldn't crumble; designer or not, it's clear that this is how most of the diversity we see today arose.

Yes, I think evolution would continue to be studied, and applied as a useful science. Though, it might be a bit transformed, in light of this new (supposed) I.D.

I am reminded of the story of Rincewind and the sandwich in Discworld, where a sandwich left behind is the seed of all future life.

You could argue that the sandwhich was designed. Though, the consequences of leaving it behind probably weren't. Especially not the specifics of how life would emerge from it, since the specifics are not being controlled.

 

[Darth Rotor]

Let us assume, for the time being, that uncontroversial evidence was found, for an Intelligent Designer.

OK, your post title had me intrigued.

For the purposes of this exercise, we are going to assume it has already been widely accepted, by most scientists, including all major evolutionary biologists, as completely legitimate.

How would that change our world?

Very broadly, it would completely change how we do medical research, of course. We can refer back to our blue-prints to study how diseases come about, instead of trying to estimate evolutionary pathways.

We could even re-engineer life forms, to make up for flaws in the original design. Imagine something like a Human Being Version 2.0.

The magnitude of the change would depend on how many of the original blue prints were found.

All of them? OK, big change.

A few, still a nice change, which might lead to more changes, but not as big of an impact.

Finding some blueprints still might not answer why.

DR

 

[Wowbagger]

A few, still a nice change, which might lead to more changes, but not as big of an impact.

I am not so sure. Even finding one blueprint (assuming it was unambiguously the product of the Intelligent Designer) would completely change how we view the origins of life, on this planet. Some would hunt for more of them. Some could make inferences about the one blueprint, about what the others would be like. And, that would become a form of science, itself.

Finding some blueprints still might not answer why.

A design journal might.

 

[rocketdodger]

My opinion is that those who are genuinely interested in the objective truth (to the extent that such a thing even exists) are already on the side of science and evolution -- those that claim to be chasing "I.D." are, as Ron_Tomkins said, simply trying to hide behind the unverifiable for whatever reason (yes, there are exceptions, but this was a generalization).

So, were the existence of a designer + design to be verified, I agree with Ron_Tomkins that these types would simply find another pile of B.S. to hide behind.

For example if a designer + design is verified it implies that, among other things, our consciousness really is a physical phenomenon, and thus subject to all the limitations of a physical phenomenon. In particular, the concept of true libertarian free will flies out the window once and for all.

Unless, of course, one wants to say "well, there is still an unknowable aspect to the designer, which we don't have any evidence for, but if there wasn't then we wouldn't have free will," -- which sounds pretty much exactly like what we have today merely on a different level.

 

[quarky]

I confess to skimming here; sorry.
But I dig the question of the o.p. and had to chime in.

For me, the scary, humiliating answer would be "not much difference".
In the self-proclaimed "greatest country in the world" half the people entertain such insanity, but they are able to contribute to the construction of computers and cars and food and all that.

If everyone became atheists overnight, or theists, for that matter, I suspect things would pretty much churn along as they have been.

In a less extreme version of the o.p., imagine everyone was quite sane, except that they all believed in astrology. How would that manifest?

It wouldn't matter much.
It would matter more if everyone suddenly became decent, or kind, or honest.
It would matter more if everyone suddenly was on meth, or coke, or heroin...or even prozac.

If everyone drove a ford, but retained a wild variety of wooish and or scientific mind sets, the change would be monumental.

My cantankerous point is this:

We make too much of small differences. We default to this to feel elevated by our mostly irrelevant stance. I think we got this way from Coke and Pepsi adds.

God/no god is about like Coke and Pepsi. Devout atheists and evangelic Christians both go home in their Ford, and pull out a Coke/Pepsi from their nuke/fossil fuel powered refrigerator.

Imagine if we all became atheistic Amish; dumping God, but keeping the horse and buggy.
That would be a lot more change than if we all believed in the same god, but drove cars.

(Damn. Am I having my period again?)

 

[ImaginalDisc]

If there was an initial intelligent designer, that would not, in and of itself, rule out evolution or other emergent properties.

 

[slingblade]

There was coyness and silence prior to the scientific I.D. discovery, no?

There is the silence of non-existence, yeah.

If god were somehow proven to exist, and yet god refused to communicate, it'd be the same as his not existing at all, to us. What are you going to "seek," from something you can't contact or engage with?

 

[slingblade]

First of all, how is that different from now?

Now you have at least a hope in hell that some people can be persuaded to examine science. With proof that goddidit, you wouldn't even have that.

Second of all: The settling for ignorance might not last long. I will argue that "goddidit" would actually NOT be an acceptable dismissal. "How did God do it?" would become the main question.

"We cannot know, but at least we know he's there. Since we know he's there, we don't need to worry about it."

 

[Ocelot]

I'm reminded of the Star Trek episode when they discovered that an ancient race has seeded life throughout the galaxy with the intention that it should evolve at least one species in their image and encoded a message in this DNA which could only be read through the co-operation of all the races on these varying planets.

In the word according to Roddenberry the fallout from this momentus discovery of intelligent design is exactly nil. The various participants simply comment aha! "So that's why every noted intelligent species in the galaxy is a bipedal humanoid only varying in a manner reproducable by facial prosthetics", shrug and move on with their lives never pausing to mention this moment ever again through two further spin off series and a movie franchise.

The message was of course an appeal to the fraternity of the races all being the spawn of this ancient intelligent designer. I wonder if instead it had a more competitive edge then we might have heard a lot more about the engrossing conflicts that might have ensued.

Certainly if we landed upon another world and found an intelligent species that looked so much like us but with pointy ears or other minor variations, I'd say it's time to revisit those ID theories. Convergent evolution can only account for so much.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

For day to day science -- virtually no impact. Remember that the modern scientific method was born in Christendom with the expressed intent to understand how God's universe works. The basic assumption was that God did it, but they still wanted to know how.

Philosophically, it would make monism more problematic -- depeding on who and what the creator is.

 

[Dave Rogers]

Ah, but in this case, we might have some insight into how to make those prayers actually work! Maybe.

It wasn't entirely flippant (the first paragraph, anyway). If there is a designer, then either that designer still intervenes in the world, or does not. If not, then there is in effect no change; the scientific method is no less valid. However, if the designer does still intervene, then:
(a) Prayer (defined as a serious attempt to communicate with the designer) is a plausible mechanism for scientific advance, as the successful solicitation of the designer's intervention would give access to a far greater capability than we can possibly have otherwise; and:
(b) Prayer is in fact the only mechanism for scientific advance, because any scientific advances would necessarily either have been planned ab initio by the designer, or would only be permitted if they were acceptable to the designer's purpose.

Dave

 

[Wowbagger]

So, were the existence of a designer + design to be verified, I agree with Ron_Tomkins that these types would simply find another pile of B.S. to hide behind.

It depends. Some might go for finding another pile. Some probably would become genuinely interested in objective truth, once it matches their existing beliefs, even if they were not before.

if a designer + design is verified it implies that, among other things, our consciousness really is a physical phenomenon, and thus subject to all the limitations of a physical phenomenon.

Eh, Most likely, maybe. Though, one does not necessarily follow from the other. There might, in hypothetical principal, be a way for the Designer to grant consciousness to its creations, without it really understanding how consciousness works, either. (Perhaps the Designer merely picked a few cognitively-pre-enabled brain buds off a tree, or something, and did minimal work to help it fit into a skull.)

In particular, the concept of true libertarian free will flies out the window once and for all.

I did not realize "true libertarian free will" required dualism. Most libertarians I know are not dualists.

For me, the scary, humiliating answer would be "not much difference".
In the self-proclaimed "greatest country in the world" half the people entertain such insanity, but they are able to contribute to the construction of computers and cars and food and all that.

I disagree. Major scientific discoveries do change our world, in dramatic ways (in business terms, it would be "vertical" changes). Though, those ways tend to emerge slowly over time.

Relativity gave us nuclear power (and bombs), spaceships, and GPS, etc. Are you implying that none of these things transformed our lives, in any significant way?

If everyone drove a ford, but retained a wild variety of wooish and or scientific mind sets, the change would be monumental.

If everyone drove a Ford, and all other car companies couldn't sell anything, then yes that would also change the world in monumental ways. But, those would be more "horizontal" in nature. The way of life is not transforming as much as dramatic, new discoveries induce. But, some internal political details might get rearranged.

God/no god is about like Coke and Pepsi. Devout atheists and evangelic Christians both go home in their Ford, and pull out a Coke/Pepsi from their nuke/fossil fuel powered refrigerator.

Scientific discoveries have a habit of improving the community of humanity, in the long run, a whole lot better than religious practice. At least historically so.

Many scientists might believe in God. But, inserting God into science, today, does nothing to improve anyone's situation. So, it is not exactly Coke and Pepsi. There is a genuine difference in usefulness between God and god-free-science.

Of course, within this thought exercise, that could change. If a god-like-thing was proven to exist, then studying God would probably help us improve humanity over time. And, not accepting God would leave you in the dust, along with anyone who still takes "humours" seriously.

My question is: What would would the details look like.

If there was an initial intelligent designer, that would not, in and of itself, rule out evolution or other emergent properties.

True. Though, I am sure such studies would be transformed in some way.

"We cannot know, but at least we know he's there. Since we know he's there, we don't need to worry about it."

I humbly disagree.

If we know there was a God, but it died a long time ago, then the line "we know he's there, we don't need to worry about it." is not acceptable. We would need to worry about how it Designed us.

If God was still alive, but can only communicate with us and/or influence our existence in a "special way", then a whole, new science of studying that "way" opens up. There would still be limits to using its powers, so very little of the "worry", if any, would be alleviated.

Yes, there will always be folks with that attitude, no matter what you do. But, I suspect there will also always be "a hope in hell" that some will continue to examine science.

In the word according to Roddenberry the fallout from this momentus discovery of intelligent design is exactly nil.

Pseudo-scientists and sci-fi writers will often underestimate the impact of major scientific discoveries, but for different reasons.

Sci-Fi writers only want the level of impact they can handle in their writing. They do not want to paint themselves into corners, nor detract from the story canon; and they don't want something getting "too powerful" as to basically become a deus ex machina, for example.

Pseudo-scientists do not often think the implications of their ideas all the way through. If either ghosts, psi powers, free energy, or gods existed; why it would completely demolish everything we know, and rely upon, about physics!! But, it doesn't bother them the slightest, that they would be on the brink of such a wild overthrowing, if it were true.

Here, I would like to see what all those gruesome changes would look like, if we could.

Certainly if we landed upon another world and found an intelligent species that looked so much like us but with pointy ears or other minor variations, I'd say it's time to revisit those ID theories. Convergent evolution can only account for so much.

But, that is a good point.

For day to day science -- virtually no impact. Remember that the modern scientific method was born in Christendom with the expressed intent to understand how God's universe works. The basic assumption was that God did it, but they still wanted to know how.

If some of the information about our (hypothetical) design became useful in medical research, that would certainly have some major reverberating impacts on science. Perhaps an even stronger impact than germ theory, since we are talking about a whole new realm of "reality" to deal with.

 

[Kotatsu]

But, we would know something about God Himself, and/or how God "didit". That presents a new realm of knowledge to acquire. Science would not stultify, at least not for long. It would simply build new models, in a different direction, than it did before!

Models that, in at least some cases, would be pointless, because we would no longer be able to tell if a pattern we found was actually a true pattern, or something that God did on a whim to make it look like a pattern. Take phylogenetics, for instance. If we found that the genetic tree of a given group of organisms was ((A, B)((C, D)E)) (1), we would not be able to say that was the true tree, because God could have made the genes look like that, without having any relevance to the evolution of the group at all. Only by asking God, "Did you tamper with this evidence, too, and if so why?" would we be able to find out. The basics of biology would change from a science to a mixture of mind-reading and customer complaints; this is all assuming that we can be sure that God is not lying when he gives us an answer.

I cannot really see that a theory that goes "speciation proceeds through random point mutations and selection or by God changing things haphazardly to give us something to do" to be anything other than stultifying.

This is possible to generalise as well, as it can be applied to any patterns we find. We wouldn't be able to tell if it was a real pattern, or if it was the pattern God wants us to see, and thus have no relation to the real workings of the universe (including God). More than anything, it would remove the connection between theory and reality, regardless of what the theory is. I cannot see how that in any way would be an improvement.

---
(1) That is, A and B are close relatives, as are C and D. E is sister group to C+D, which means that it shares a recent exclusive common ancestor with the common ancestor of C and D. It is hard to represent this properly without being able to draw a tree.