Nature, Design, and Science: The Status of Design in Natural Science (Suny Series in Philosophy and Biology)

Rating:
Summary: Ratzsch Builds Slowly and Solidly
Review: "Nature, Design, and Science" is an excellent treatment of the question of how design considerations could play a role in science. This book is not another of the many "how science is daily proving the existence of God" tomes that regularly appear in the bookstores these days. Ratzsch is both more well informed than most of the authors of such works, and, perhaps paradoxically, less ambitious in his current aims. Ratzsch is not mining the depths of current scientific knowledge for proofs of the existence of a Designer. Rather, he is tackling the tough, often neglected, and always necessary task of asking: Can science -- not just the science of today, but science *in principle* -- make room for a Designer in the first place? After tackling with great rigor a host of objections to including design considerations in science, he concludes that yes, under certain circumstances, the possibility of a Designer can be a legitimate and even fruitful scientific consideration.

Ratzsch's rigor of thought is remarkable throughout the book, as is his grasp of the historical background of his subject. His writing is engaging and lucid, particularly so for a work as philosophically technical as this book would has to be. My only complaint is that he relies on Thomas Kuhn's account of scientific progress a bit too much for my taste. But then again, I never graduated beyond Karl Popper.

"Nature Design, and Science" is not an easy read, and may be boring to readers who have already made up their minds on the questions Ratzsch tries to answer. But for those who appreciate clear thought and who find it important to settle first things first, it lays a great foundation for fruitful discussion on how science and our concepts of a designer can be related to one another.

Rating:
Summary: Little of substance
Review: As one already familiar with current intelligent design (ID) theorizing I found this book unsatisfactory for several reasons: 1, Ratzsch continually attempts to make the highly problematic analogy between living things and manufactured objects. 2, He continually oscillates between arguing that design could have been inserted in the initial conditions of the big bang or could have been inserted supernaturally throughout history, two very different propositions by any standard. 3, For him the history of science began with the theistic approach of Newton rather than, as should be recognized, with the explicit rejection of supernaturalism by the Greeks. He continually lauds Newton's theism without noting that it was just those theistic parts of Newton's work that were the most unsuccessful. 4, Like so many ID advocates he completely avoids discussing extinction, the necessary other side of any design argument. Overall a very unconvincing read.

Rating:
Summary: Well-argued, persuasive defense of 19th century metaphysics
Review: This is one of the better argued forms of the so-called design argument in metaphysics.

"Intelligent design" theorists mostly focus on specific aspects of form in nature to try to illustrate things whose origin cannot be explained by natural mechanisms. Michael Behe looks for irreducible complexity in biochemistry and then satisfied that he has found it and that it cannot possibly be explained as arising from a previous forms over time, he concludes that this is a break in the naturalist paradigm. Dembski does something very similar by trying to show that an information code such as DNA cannot have been derived from a previous form by natural means. I find Phillip Johnson consistently frustrating to read because he seems to me to deliberately miss the points made by his opposition rather than engaging the issues. I suppose this is an unavoidable result of the underlying mentality of insisting on making war on mainstream 20th century science and claiming triumphantly that it is now "in decline." Ratzsch takes a very similar approach to those others, but his points are often easier to appreciate.

From most ID theorists, we're left with a view that obviously helps at least a subset of people reconcile scientific findings a view of nature as divinely inspired or designed by a greater intelligence.

Most ID theorists also generally leave us with a view that most scientists and philosophers of science find unacceptable, because they believe it puts a foot in the door for older and less productive forms of metaphysics to again enter into scientific discussions.

Ratzsch takes a broader, and philosophically more interesting perspective on the pro-design side. Rather than emphasizing the usual (mostly incorrect) points claimed to debunk Darwinism, he in effect argues more to the point that while supernaturalism has indeed been cast out of science; that viewing the universe as having an intelligent design is not neccessarily counter-productive to scientific progress.

Scientists and philosophers of science generally share an assumption from the most common interpretation of the influence of teh likes of Aristotle, Hume, and Darwin, and most interpretations of the history of science and technology. They assume that empirical observation and causal modelling once was polluted by less useful supernatural causal explanations, and effectively stopped scientific exploration in the most interesting and productive areas. They assume that belief in causes outside of the self-contained natural world are either superstition, less scientifically productive, or at least less parsimonious than any form of supernatural belief, purpose in nature, or theory of divine intelligence could possibly be.

Ratzsch clearly and simply disputes these assumptions. He pulls from Newton's theological leanings and those of other scientists to show how supernatural leanings can be a positive influence on scientific thinking. Ratzsch takes the perspective here that if even Einstein believed that God does not play dice with the universe, then we can't deny that having a Designer in mind is part of even the origin of even purely naturalistic theories and causal models.

Some of his points were far more persuasive than others. There are many things in this book I found to disagree with in his interpretations of history and principles of theory construction, too many to list in a brief review, and most probably an inevitable result of my having an unapologetic and unwavering naturalist viewpint toward science, at least in its methodologies. However I did find this to be one of the most thought provoking ID books I've read so far.

I certainly agreed with the author in principle that the notion of seeing the world as designed should be judged based on the productivity of that model. If indeed the universe was designed by some prior scheme rather than being an evolving result of contingency and natural laws, then seeing it as if were designed would yield additional insights. Even if it weren't designed, looking at it that way is a natural kind of human thought process, as the author points out.

The place where I had to differ was that, consistent with methodological naturalism, it seems to me that we already tried the "design" model in the 19th century, and have since then discovered some insights that went way beyond it and have proven far more fruitful.

Ratzsch seems to argue that we didn't give the design model of nature a fair enough shake. If our concept of design is based on human thought processes (design models based on other things, such as literal interpretation of Scripture do not seem particularly predictive to me), and our knowledge of human thought processes is increasing, then it could well be argued that perhaps an increasingly more sophisticated design model of nature could be fruitful in science.

The irony here is that most of our growing understanding of design in nature seems to be coming from science being done within the natural selection paradigm. Building a more fruitful design model of nature from knowledge gleaned from Darwinian science is a wonderful paradox to consider, but quite honestly I don't think most people who want to see nature as "designed" are going to be this flexible in their thinking. So ironically, in the places where I think Ratzsch is right, I think he opposes the agenda of most of the people who will most appreciate this book.

In the end, though Ratzsch certainly made me think here, I had to still feel that as painful is this has been to our sense of meaning, the most important and striking scientific insight we have ever made into our own nature is that we are the result of a remarkable but contingent process rather than the isolated and most revered creation of a loving deity and the center of the universe. Consequently, seeing the universe as designed would only be as useful as a design metaphor would fruitfully produce new insights, and this seems not only as yet a case not proven, but downright unlikely.

Ratszsch does a very good job questioning why this should be so, even though I found it personally unconvincing, and I think naturalist methodology has actually been a positive contribution beyond the original design view that was mainstream when Darwin studied.