Intelligent Design, Naturalistic Evolution, and Philosophical Underpinnings

It often seems to me that scientists lose track of the fact that their research methods and interpretation of results are based on philosophical assumptions.  Now, to be fair, sometimes I have seen this awareness, but oftentimes it is absent.

There is no such thing as philosophy-free science; there is only science whose philosophical baggage is taken on board without examination. —Daniel Dennett, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, 1995.

The notion of evolution can be seen as a psychological or hypothetical construct.  It’s a mental representation that allows for the description of observed information.  In that sense, it can never ‘exist,’ because it is simply a mental heuristic to explain things.  We have to be careful to separate observation from constructs.  For example, a person who believes solely in naturalistic evolution, has a mental representation of how distinct observations are tied together (i.e., different types of fossils in different strata layers, and certain observations from biology).

So what is the difference in psychological constructs between someone who ascribes to ID theory versus naturalistic evolution.  If you use a purely ID based construct without theological elements, they may differ only in the assumption of design characteristics versus happenstance development of features and characteristics.  An ID construct may say nothing more than, an intelligence was involved somewhere in the process and therefore, the characteristics we see have a designated or designed purpose.  So the assumption of characteristics exhibited by life forms will be seen as serving some purpose (as if they have been created by an engineer).

With purely naturalistic evolution, the psychological construct leads to different conclusions, predictions, and a focus of research.  Purpose may be ascribed to mate selection, or selective advantage, or the purpose may be seen as a non-functional hold-over from a previous stage of the evolutionary process.  A person using an ID construct would not necessarily deny many of these things, but would also not make the assumption that all characteristics confer a survival advantage, increase mating fitness, or are ‘hold-overs.’

I have a construct for evaluating science based on its practical and real-world implications.  So far, in my opinion, the naturalistic evolutionary schema has been applied inappropriately to a number of basic biological phenomena.  Purporting evolution to mere natural selection (i.e., bacterial resistance).  Up until recently, people using naturalistic evolutionary constructs have managed to delay advancement in genetics that may have led to cures of important diseases or improved treatments.  As an example, nearly all organs that were previously viewed as ‘vestigial’ or evolutionary ‘hold-overs,’ have been discovered to have important physiological purposes (e.g., appendix, junk DNA, or tonsils).

In my opinion, the design assumption is superior in its possibility for producing long-term real-world benefits to society.  Start with the assumption of design and purpose and think about biology as discovering that purpose.

Now, each construct has societal and personal implications with regard to theology.  Neither construct would speak directly to that issue, but they may be extended with additional constructs.  A person holding a naturalistic evolutionary construct may also come to the conclusion that God exists.  A person holding an ID construct may not believe in God, only that ’something’ was responsible for the design.  It turns out that on a deep level people will be motivated to fill in those blank spots with faith (either faith in God or faith in the non-existence of God).  It just turns out that most who ascribe to purely naturalistic philosophies also tend to extend their constructs to include a construct for the non-existent of God and the reverse for the ID crowd.  Or sometimes, it can work in the opposite direction, the assumption of God leads to the construct of ID, or the assumption of no God leads to philosophical naturalism.  So, while neither theory speaks directly to theology, it is intimately entwined with both theories at their philosophical bases as an outcropping or the philosophical bases for these views is an outcropping of a more deeply held belief system (God’s existence or non-existence).

I would be interesting in hearing opinions about whether you think it would be more advantageous to use a design construct when conducting research or a naturalistic evolutionary construct.  Naturally, I believe that the design construct is a superior approach in the long term for providing demonstrable benefit to society.