Huzzah! An update!
A few random things...
The internet is cool. Why?
1. Abebooks - this is one of the best used book search engines ever. Every time I look for something, I find it - and usually cheap.
2. Hulk's Diary That Is On The Internet - It's the Incredible Hulk's blog. I mean, seriously! - I'm not sure if this means that blogging is passe yet, but it makes me pee just a little bit each time I read it.
In other news, the week is treating me well. My discusssant duties went well yesterday. People seemed to like my comments. One professor (John McCormick - who is stylish, funny, really smart and always spills the gossip) even said that "Gerry didn't take your critiques seriously enough." Which I thought was nice. Dinner that nite was good too. So, it was a good day on the whole.
On to the entry proper ...
Given that Kansas is AGAIN talking about evolution, creationism, and all that jazz ... I thought I would toss up some things I've been thinking about intelligent design. Now, I'm no expert on this kind of thing, to be totally upfront and honest: I've never really pursued the more serious philosophical arguments here.
But, I want to approach the debate from a different, and somewhat lateral, angle: sociology of knowledge. It seems to me that intelligent design (the premise that most scientific truths about the world are true in terms of how systems operate, but that their origin was not "natural" - as in a result of evollution - but rather through the work of some Creator) is really a "cultural problem."
How so?
Well, let's assume that we have our current knowledge about the physical world - atomic structure, evidence of evolution, psychological tendencies and the whole bit. In general, this is an explanation for the world around us that relies on material, observable objects and events. There is no real need to necessarily rely on some outside, metaphysical force. In fact, what if in this world we are imagining - humans *never* attributed causality to some omnipotent, anthropomorphic beings. Thus, imagine thta cave dwellers were a more skeptical, rational lot. They figured things happened because of some other event in the world - they just assumed they could not yet *see* that cause, because of some limit in their cognitive abilities or a technological block (no microscopes for instance). So, you get societies that develop of little scientists and natural philosophers, instead of priests and cult leaders. I would posit that, if we never *had* religion has a base - no philosopher would argue that "intelligent design" had to be the reason for our current status.
To try it from a different direction, philosophers who posit that intelligent design explains our current situation *require* the priming of religion. The discourse of religion seeps through, into this other realm of inquiry. It is culture - sociology of knowledge (the idea that position shapes world view, a critique of objectivity) - that leads people to turn to intelligent design. It is an attempt to reconcile faith with reason, obviously. But I think there is something disingenuous about it - it's not so much an argument, then, as it is a coping mechanism; it is a way to deal with tension within a personality. Intelligent design is a way to address the tangly knot of science that is not easily dismissed, but that challenges faith (often a central component of the self, thus requiring maintenance). Hence, there is little in the world or scientific knowledge that *really* leads to this conclusion directly; it is only with the influence of pre-existing standards that we get this
I'm sure this is a really flawed analysis, especially philosophically (and I'm sure someone *cough* galvagin *cough* will gladly expalin why that is
). It's only a rough cut at it. But I do not know if the problem has been approached from this way, and I think it's interesting - certainly an intriguing history of ideas problem that would be fun to pull apart.
Okie. I'm out for now.
A few random things...
The internet is cool. Why?
1. Abebooks - this is one of the best used book search engines ever. Every time I look for something, I find it - and usually cheap.
2. Hulk's Diary That Is On The Internet - It's the Incredible Hulk's blog. I mean, seriously! - I'm not sure if this means that blogging is passe yet, but it makes me pee just a little bit each time I read it.
In other news, the week is treating me well. My discusssant duties went well yesterday. People seemed to like my comments. One professor (John McCormick - who is stylish, funny, really smart and always spills the gossip) even said that "Gerry didn't take your critiques seriously enough." Which I thought was nice. Dinner that nite was good too. So, it was a good day on the whole.
On to the entry proper ...
Given that Kansas is AGAIN talking about evolution, creationism, and all that jazz ... I thought I would toss up some things I've been thinking about intelligent design. Now, I'm no expert on this kind of thing, to be totally upfront and honest: I've never really pursued the more serious philosophical arguments here.
But, I want to approach the debate from a different, and somewhat lateral, angle: sociology of knowledge. It seems to me that intelligent design (the premise that most scientific truths about the world are true in terms of how systems operate, but that their origin was not "natural" - as in a result of evollution - but rather through the work of some Creator) is really a "cultural problem."
How so?
Well, let's assume that we have our current knowledge about the physical world - atomic structure, evidence of evolution, psychological tendencies and the whole bit. In general, this is an explanation for the world around us that relies on material, observable objects and events. There is no real need to necessarily rely on some outside, metaphysical force. In fact, what if in this world we are imagining - humans *never* attributed causality to some omnipotent, anthropomorphic beings. Thus, imagine thta cave dwellers were a more skeptical, rational lot. They figured things happened because of some other event in the world - they just assumed they could not yet *see* that cause, because of some limit in their cognitive abilities or a technological block (no microscopes for instance). So, you get societies that develop of little scientists and natural philosophers, instead of priests and cult leaders. I would posit that, if we never *had* religion has a base - no philosopher would argue that "intelligent design" had to be the reason for our current status.
To try it from a different direction, philosophers who posit that intelligent design explains our current situation *require* the priming of religion. The discourse of religion seeps through, into this other realm of inquiry. It is culture - sociology of knowledge (the idea that position shapes world view, a critique of objectivity) - that leads people to turn to intelligent design. It is an attempt to reconcile faith with reason, obviously. But I think there is something disingenuous about it - it's not so much an argument, then, as it is a coping mechanism; it is a way to deal with tension within a personality. Intelligent design is a way to address the tangly knot of science that is not easily dismissed, but that challenges faith (often a central component of the self, thus requiring maintenance). Hence, there is little in the world or scientific knowledge that *really* leads to this conclusion directly; it is only with the influence of pre-existing standards that we get this
I'm sure this is a really flawed analysis, especially philosophically (and I'm sure someone *cough* galvagin *cough* will gladly expalin why that is
). It's only a rough cut at it. But I do not know if the problem has been approached from this way, and I think it's interesting - certainly an intriguing history of ideas problem that would be fun to pull apart.
Okie. I'm out for now.
VIEW 6 of 6 COMMENTS
akirali:
I think we have a winner 
galvagin:
Oh, don't get me wrong - I think ID probably does have a tremendously interesting intellectual history. I just hate to see philosophical systems *reduced* to poor intellectual coping, even if they're bad ones.