Let's study ID: clearly answering Darwin (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, February 11, 2022, 16:10 (1014 days ago) @ David Turell

From Cornelius Hunter:

https://evolutionnews.org/2022/02/why-the-main-argument-against-intelligent-design-is-f...

Whether presented centuries ago by Darwin or earlier naturalists, or by today’s evolutionists, the evidence and arguments for a strictly naturalistic origin of species is powerful and compelling. But the power of the arguments does not come from an objective empirical analysis. It comes from the underlying religious premises.

A reader might rightly ask, why exactly is it, and how do we know, that the biological variations Darwin discussed in chapters one and two are “utterly inexplicable if each species has been independently created”? Darwin never did give an explanation for this important claim. Any such explanation would have required a metaphysical rationale that Darwin was not prepared to give. This, and the other theological claims made by evolutionists, are nothing more than bare assertions. Not only are they non-scientific, metaphysical claims, but they are unsupported even by any metaphysical rationale.

To all of this, evolutionists claim foul. There is no theological content to their theory, they claim; rather, they merely are addressing the opposing theory. If religious people make claims about the origin of species, then certainly it is fair game to address those claims. And addressing those claims requires that the failures of the religious reasoning and expectations be explained. Nothing more, and nothing less. Beyond this, evolutionary theory is strictly scientific.

But, in fact, this is false. Consider, for example, the common argument from disutility. Darwin often cited biological structures that appeared inefficient or otherwise not to function very well as refutations of design. For instance, there were birds that were mostly observed away from water yet had webbed feet. As Darwin argued, “we can hardly believe that the webbed feet of the upland goose or of the frigate-bird are of special use to these birds … We may safely attribute these structures to inheritance.” Inheritance was the right conclusion because no Creator worth his salt would have created such a utilitarian failure.

Of course, this is a religious argument. Remove the theological claim about what a Creator would and would not do, and the argument collapses. There is no scientific evidence here for evolution.

But more importantly, the theology is unique to evolutionary thought and its underlying Epicureanism. The evolutionist’s rejoinder that such arguments merely address opposing views is false for the simple reason that there are no such opposing views. Opposing views did not hold that such webbed feet would not have been divinely intended. Nor, more generally, that inefficient or otherwise non-utilitarian structures would not be intended. Even the natural theologians, often stereotyped as utilitarians, in fact consistently appealed to non-utilitarian design criteria such as aesthetics or design patterns.1

The theological claim that divine intent is strictly utilitarian is uniquely evolutionary. It makes for powerful arguments for evolution, but the power derives from the theology. Mark this: the stronger the argument for evolution, the stronger its theological commitment. Absent theology, there is little reason to believe the entire biological world arose spontaneously, as evolutionists heroically claim.

The irony in all this is that evolution itself is a utilitarian formulation. That is, natural selection describes a process in which species with greater fitness (or utility) evolve. The evolutionary process must create greater utility. Therefore, the many examples of disutility, presented as proof of evolution, in fact are problematic for evolution. We must believe that such useless designs escaped natural selection’s watchful eye which, otherwise, seems to have no limit of precision engineering.

While evolutionists fail to apply this evidence of disutility to their own theory, they inappropriately apply it to intelligent design. In other words, evolutionists subject intelligent design to the evolutionary criteria of fitness and utility, while dropping that criterion from evolutionary theory. They have it backwards.

Comment: so the observations cut both ways. If natural selection is so efficient why the non-useful results like webbed feet on the wrong birds? Darwinists have their cake and eat it too. Either natural selection is precisely efficient or it isn't. Its the overcommitted Darwinists who invented junk DNA.