A case for Natural Design

In discussions between proponents of ID and evolutionists, an often heard ID argument is that there is design in living nature and that therefore there must be an intelligent designer. The unspoken assumption is of course that design can only be the product of intelligence.I think that this assumption is unwarranted and lies at the heart of a persistent misapprehension with regard to the nature of evolution. The often made mistake is to think that if evolution is a mindless process then there can be no design resulting from it. Although I think that evolution is indeed a mindless process, I do not think it cannot create design.This perceived (but false) dichotomy between design and evolution is sometimes exacerbated by evolutionists who have themselves fallen victim of this type of thinking. Proponents of ID often feel strengthened in their conviction by the fact that some evolutionists mistakenly maintain that there is no design in nature, where there is clearly an abundance of it.So the prevailing view, at least among lay people in both camps, seems to be that design implies intelligence. I would like to challenge that view. I propose that there is design in nature and that it arose by natural means. The mechanism of evolution is capable of enhancing this natural design to a very sophisticated level, so sophisticated indeed that it's on a par with intelligent (human) design.With this proposal I hope to pull the rug from under ID arguments that use design as evidence of an intelligent designer, as well as from under evolutionist arguments that deny the existence of design altogether. The scope of this topic should be the feasibility of the concept of natural design, the details of how it could have arisen, and any arguments against it.The choice where to place it would be between "Biological Evolution" and "Intelligent Design", I think, but I'll leave that to the admins to decide.

No, I mean design in terms of "having a functional construction". Take the human eye, for example. It has a lens that can be focussed. The lens has the function of concentrating light on the retina in such a way that sharp images are projected. That is it's only function, apparently.Obviously, I don't think natural design has an underlying plan, I've already made it clear that evolution is a mindless process.

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We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins

I'm sorry Jar, but I think I outlined the scope of the topic to be about natural design in connection with the evolution of life. Of course we could talk about a designer tinkering with the fundamental laws of physics, but that wasn't my intention. If you'd like to start a thread about it, I'd be happy to join you there, but here I'd like to concentrate on natural design in biology. Let's take physics and everything that follows from it, right up to random mutation and natural selection as a given, and go from there.

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We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins

No, the function of the tongue as a whole is to catch bugs, period. A function doesn't appear overnight. A seemingly endless row of mutations that were selected for has resulted in an organ that happens to be very functional for a particular task. A single mutation usually only slightly changes a design. But a long row of them is what refines the design to its level of sophistication. No, it was only by chance that the tongue, which was already pretty good at catching bugs, had the potential to become slightly better at it. Natural selection did the rest. Yes, there might have been. But such a mutation would obviously not be carried very far in the development of the frogs.

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We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins

Vestigial organs? They may not always have been nonfunctional, but they are now. Right now, I can't think of anything that has never had a function, but I'll give it some more thought. That's a very interesting take on the matter. What an intriguing thought! I'm pressed for time right now, but I'll get back to you on this one, after I have thought it over.This message has been edited by Parasomnium, 28-Jul-2005 08:58 AM

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We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins

Logically, yes.An objection might be that the underlying plan may be to have a machine that serves no purpose. But strangely, by serving no purpose, the machine is serving its (planned) purpose. So, logically, there can be no plan for a machine that serves no purpose. Therefore, if a machine serves no purpose, that demonstrates that there is no underlying plan.The problem is of course to prove that the machine serves absolutely no purpose.In reply to Purpledawn's post, Omnivorous wrote: This is reminiscent of Dawkins' idea of the selfish gene. In this view, the organism is a vehicle for genes and the instrument for their reproduction. So the purpose of the organism - Purpledawn's machine - has been made clear in this view, but the problem remains. It's only pushed back to the level of the genes. For what is the function of the genes?I don't think there is one, they're just there and they reproduce.This message has been edited by Parasomnium, 28-Jul-2005 09:27 AM

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We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins

You are forgetting those poor parasites and bugs that depend solely on humans for their existence. Without humans, some of them will surely die out. Nature will be the poorer for it. If you look at it that way, our function is to keep those bugs happy. Our planet doesn't appear to have a function necessary to a larger solar system view. Our galaxy doesn't appear to have...Could we get back to natural design?This message has been edited by Parasomnium, 28-Jul-2005 02:43 PM

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We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins

What I'm hoping to accomplish is the acknowledgement of two things:

• that there is design in nature;
• that design isn't necessarily a product of intelligence.

With the assertion that "there is design in nature", I do not mean that there is some qualitative aspect of life that merely resembles design, but that it's genuine design we are looking at. Body parts, organs, tissues, etc. have a specific function or purpose, and usually they are designed pretty well for it. If it can be established that the design we see in nature is genuine, then I'd say one rug is pulled. No one will be able to use the argument that ID is rubbish because there is supposedly no design in nature. I think ID is rubbish all right, but for other reasons. It will make for a healthier discussion.With the other assertion, that design isn't necessarily a product of intelligence, I'm tugging at another rug, the one with ID-ers standing on it. I'd like to sever the link between design and intelligence by showing that design - genuine design - can arise without the interference of intelligence. I think I don't need to spell out how acceptance of this assertion would affect ID-ist argumentation. (Not that I harbour any illusions about imminent acceptance in ID-ist circles, but I can at least try.)A working definition of natural design? How about: This message has been edited by Parasomnium, 28-Jul-2005 03:37 PM

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We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins

Purpledawn,I realize that my "can we get back to natural design" may have sounded a bit rude to you. I apologize.If a species dies out, I'd say it doesn't impact nature overall, neither negatively nor positively. There are negative and positive aspects of course, but these are 'local' at most, meaning that things may develop in a negative way for a species, which in turn may be a very positive thing for another. If some species hadn't died out in the past (I'm thinking dinosaurs) we might not be here. And some species (your Dodo) have gone extinct because we are here.Incidentally, one might say that evolving into another species is also a kind of dying out.

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We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins

That's very helpful, thank you. This is exactly what I mean. Maybe it's even a good idea to include some kind of disclaimer about which connotations of the word 'design' are not meant to be considered. I'll think about that.

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We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins

Really?Consider your message to me. Do I need to know what editor you used to make up the text, or the brand of your computer, in order to determine that your message is designed to convey the meaning of what you want to say to me? Does it matter where you live, or what you had for breakfast this morning? Would it have had a significant impact on the content of your message if you were missing a toe or two?There are things that I shall not take into consideration when thinking about natural design, because I think it is an emergent phenomenon that has its origin in a high level process called evolution. The substrate on which this process takes place is inconsequential, as can be demonstrated with genetic algorithms: they yield design, yet their underlying layer of physics is quite different from that of biological evolution, and they lack chemistry altogether.This message has been edited by Parasomnium, 02-Aug-2005 08:51 AM

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We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins

I think the fact that snowflakes have no purpose or function excludes them from the category of designed objects in the sense of the word 'design' I'm using. Snowflakes are examples of patterns, not "elaborate design". What function is served by the way a snowflake looks? It's just the laws of physics that makes them look the way they do.Also, snowflakes do not evolve, their patterns are not enhanced over time in any way. The patterns may vary depending on the circumstances, but if you could make an exhaustive list of all possible snowflake patterns, the list would not be different now from what it would have been billions of years ago.

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We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins

Not wanting to redefine the word 'design', I made it clear, I think, that with 'design' I do not mean plans or blueprints. What I mean is that when you look at something designed, say a car, you might think: "What a beautiful design! Just look at that streamline. And what a sophisticated layout of the dashboard." Et cetera, et cetera.So, with 'design' I mean the way things look designed. If you look at a rock, it doesn't look designed. If you look at a car, it does look designed. Admittedly, some rocks may look designed, when they're shaped in nice rounded forms by water or wind erosion, but there is no purpose of function to that shape. It's simply the result of some physical process.The design of a car however (meaning the way it looks designed), although it may have some purely aesthetic aspects, has a lot of functional aspects, in that the car's components are put together, or shaped in such a way, as to provide all the functionality needed in a car.

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We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins

My reply to you wasn't an analogy. There is design in your message, and there is a physical you that wrote that message. But I do not need to take every physical aspect about you into consideration to know that there is design in your message. Likewise, I do not need to take every physical aspect about, say, the human eye into consideration to know that there is design in it. I'll repeat what I said before: natural design is an emergent phenomenon that has its origin in a high level process called evolution. The substrate on which this process takes place is inconsequential.

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We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins

I should have been more precise and stipulated that I meant living nature. I'd love to know what function and purpose you think snowflakes have. Wrong. I am assuming nothing of the kind. I am not perceiving myself as having a function or purpose at all, let alone that I consider the gradation of importance of it.

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We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins