If you give me a pile of feathers, don't be surprised if I make a duck

So far, I have stayed out of the blogger debate about evolution and intelligent design. I first studied the subjects a long time ago and for me the matter is pretty much settled. But in recent days the issue has arisen on Rand Simberg's site, TransTerrestial Musings, Volokh and elsewhere. Pigs and Fishes has a summary links page.

Intelligent design (ID) basically says that the universe, including life, is so overwhelmingly complex that it is reasonable to infer a designing intelligence at work behind the universe's existence. The other side of the debate (which I will simply call Undirected Evolutionism, or UE) says that ID is really religious creationist doctrine gussied up with scientific language and cannot be taken seriously. UE says that it is reasonable to conclude that the universe simply came to be and that its present form is the result of processes that were not affected by anything except other physical objects or energies, as modern scientists understand and describe such things.

Based on the evidence, they are both right. But neither position is actually scientific. The reason is because both positions move beyond the empirical to the metaphysical. Both are faith claims. ID says, the evidence shows this. UE says,no, the evidence shows that. Another way of looking at it is that UE does not need to postulate a deity-designer to do science. But neither does ID. Contrary to some breathless accusations of some UEers, adherents of ID don't explain phenomena by saying, "Oh, well, God does it." Eugene Volokh seemed to think that science would just stop if IDers were in charge: "Assuming intelligent design of the universe, or even some corner of the universe, will yield you virtually no interesting theories." Well, why not?

Actually, the modern scientific revolution was begun by deistic scientists – Isaac Newton wrote more biblical commentary than he did scientific treatises. Early modernity's mechanistic view of creation was originally proposed as a way to preserve God's agency. This view was soon supplanted by the view that knowledge about the world beyond the self was limited to what could be known through sense-perception of material things, wrote David Griffin in God and Religion in the Postmodern World. The materialism of the modern world view is its central feature. Thus, "the modern world view simply has no natural place for God in it," said Griffin.

The difference between ID and creationism is that ID attempts to account for scientific knowledge and discoveries, while creationism usually simply rejects them. Simply put, the IDers do consider the history and complexity of the universe, but creationists don't care. Yes, the IDers' leap from observing the universe's complexity to postulating an intelligent designer (God) is a leap of faith, but so what?

Most arguments in science are not about the facts, but about the inferences, theories and opinions. Almost all scientists agree on almost all the data, and the data in doubt are researched collegially. But when the question is asked, What does it all mean? the fur can fly. The reason is that science is not just a pile of facts any more than a duck is a pile of feathers. The whole objective in exploring the physical universe is metaphysical, a quest not merely for knowledge but for meaning. Massing knowledge raises questions of its use, and those are questions that science cannot itself answer. (This is very evident in medical science and issues of terminal care.) Religious communities are the central places where such discussions occur.

Ultimately, science bumps up against what Prof. Langdon Gilkey called "limit questions," those that a discipline leads to but that it cannot answer within the discipline itself. (Religion has limit questions, too. So does law, medicine, etc. Incidentally, Gilkey was the chief theological witness for the plaintiffs in McLean v. Arkansas, which struck down an Arkansas law requiring the teaching of so-called creation science. The plaintiffs asked for the law to be struck down and it was. Most people don't know that of the 21 plaintiffs against the law, 18 were ecclesiastical and included a Methodist bishop and leaders of most other mainstream denominations.)

Hence, the postulate that the universe is/was intelligently designed is an answer to a limit question. There is indeed solid science behind the conclusion, it's just that the conclusion is not per se a scientific one. The discipline of science leads to questions that science itself cannot answer.

OTOH, just as some scientists and laypeople derive religious-type conclusions from science, others place their religious faith in science itself. Scientism is faith in science. I was fortunate to have studied under Langdon Gilkey and owe to him this point. Scientism makes two major claims:
(1) only science reveals the Real and only science can discover truth;
(2) scientific knowledge of reality is exhaustive, not inherently limited, is holistic and sees reality as reality really is.
(The late Carl Sagan and Stephen Jay Gould are excellent examples of scientistic scientists.) Neither claim is provable using the scientific method. They are metaphysical conclusions, just as ID is.

A purely religious apprehension of the universe, based solely on religious texts, is indefensible in our day (thinks, "madrassas"). Such a view is dangerous to science, education and indeed, other religions. But a purely scientific understanding of nature is dubious and possibly dangerous. It objectifies nature and voids it of inward value.

Both science and religion are essential to our common life. To say that an ancient text, such as the Bible, is "scientific" is badly to misuse and misunderstand what the Bible is all about. But to say that no religious conclusions may be validly drawn from science is scientistic fundamentalism.