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Contents 1 ID-detection 1.1 Comparative approach 1.2 Eliminative approach 1.3 Composite approach 1.4 Mind correlativity 1.5 Specified Complexity 1.6 Irreducible Complexity 1.7 Other design indicators 1.8 What ID-detection cannot do 2 See also... 3 References and notes 4 Paradigm Dawning

ID-detection

While ID-theoretics seeks to understand intelligence and its observable effects in a general way, ID-detection is the derivation of systematic methods to make a reasonable inference that an object or event was designed - as opposed to having come into being purely by natural forces. Intelligent design first inquires how science can determine if specific physical phenomena in the natural world were designed by intelligence. This is accomplished by detecting the types of unique physical effects known to be produced by intelligent agents when they act.

The goal is to understand the relationship between intelligence and the physical world, and identify intelligent activity by observation and analysis of data. Where the causal history of a design event is known, there are certain characteristics and patterns that (while not necessarily present in all things made by intelligence) are never present in things that are observationally known to be the result of natural regularity or chance. This fact leads ID theorists to propose that science can observationally identify design, even if the causal history is unknown.

Simply stated, ID asks, “Can science detect if something was designed by intelligence?” ID researchers are compelled by physical evidence, seen through the application of inference, statistical probability, and logical premises that detecting design is a scientific possibility.

There are many conceivable ways this goal may be accomplished; yet all of them can be arranged into one of four approaches. The approaches are eliminative, comparative, an eliminative-comparative composite, and mind correlation.

Comparative approach

In a comparative approach, intelligent design employs induction that moves from knowledge that is most certain and proceeds into areas of knowledge that are less certain. First, intelligent design states that there are certain instances where phenomena are known with certitude to be the effects of intelligence. These have been referred to as signs of intelligence by theorists of ID. One example of these proposed signs are phenomena that contain the following attributes: functional information, information interpretation, and the functional application of that information within a context (e.g. a computer-controlled manufacturing facility.) Objects or events that have these features are inferred as designed.

Eliminative approach

The eliminative approach works with the three fundamental causes in the known universe: chance, natural regularity, and design. If an event or object cannot be attributed to either natural laws or chance, design is a reasonable conclusion based on logical elimination. An eliminative approach is typified by what William Dembski has called the Explanatory Filter, which operates by reference to these three fundamental causes.

• If an event is necessary based on natural law, then natural regularity is the reasonable explanation. If an event is not necessarily based on natural law, natural regularity is reasonably eliminated as an explanation.
• If an event has a significant likelihood of occurring, then chance is the reasonable explanation. If an event is extremely unlikely, chance is reasonably eliminated as a cause.
• If law and chance are reasonably eliminated, and a phenomenon exhibits specificity, design then becomes a sensible explanation.

(Refer to the first figure in the Appendix to see an illustration of the Explanatory Filter.)

Composite approach

A composite approach incorporates aspects of both the comparative and eliminative approaches. First, the phenomenon under study is compared with other intelligently designed phenomena in order to uncover signs of intelligence. Second, if signs of intelligence are present, those signs are eliminated as possibly designed by inferring ways that chance or natural regularity could reasonably account for them. If the signs could be reasonably accounted for by either chance or law, an inference to design is not warranted. If the signs could not be reasonably accounted for by either chance or law, an inference to design is warranted.

Mind correlativity

The fittingness of understanding that exists between mind and phenomena in the universe, seemingly making knowledge and science possible, is called mind correlativeness.^[1] The universe and much within it is ordered in a systematic way such that it is understandable (e.g. galaxies, solar systems, biological systems, geological systems, etc.). The human mind is ordered in such a way that it can understand these many systematic aspects of the universe. This fundamental correlation in nature between mind and phenomena is taken by some as another sign of intelligence, indicating that the cosmos is designed.

Specified Complexity

Detecting design is the project that mathematician, philosopher, and ID theoretician William Dembski has been most frequently engaged in. The strongest formulation of ID-detection, which has undergone the most research and scrutiny, is his formulation of Specified Complexity. Dembski’s formulations of Specified Complexity are a type of mathematical rendering of the eliminative approach discussed earlier.

Specified Complexity is a two-part criterion for objectively detecting the effects of certain types of intelligent activity without first hand evidence of the cause of the event in question. Specified Complexity can only be employed to analyze the significance of patterns found in nature. It consists of two important components, both of which are essential for inferring design reliably. The first is the criterion of specificity, which is a type of independent informational-functional pattern with low descriptive complexity. That is to say, the pattern can be summed up in a short narrative span. “Minimum description length” is another term for this concept. The second component is the criterion of complexity or improbability. This means the pattern must be hard to achieve by undirected material means, which is to say, highly improbable with respect to chance and necessity.^[2]

Irreducible Complexity

A special case of Specified Complexity is what Michael Behe has called Irreducible Complexity (sometimes abbreviated IC). In his book Darwin’s Black Box, Behe defines Irreducible Complexity as a characteristic of systems “wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning.”^[3] What does this loss of function mean for biological adaptation? Further research into Irreducible Complexity could bring clarity to the nature of these biological structures.

According to William Dembski in his No Free Lunch, Irreducible Complexity is: “A system performing a given basic function is irreducibly complex if it includes a set of well-matched, mutually interacting, non-arbitrarily individuated parts such that each part in the set is indispensable to maintaining the system’s basic, and therefore original, function. The set of these indispensable parts is known as the irreducible core of the system.”^[4]

One of the most scientifically interesting aspects of IC is that it makes possible the reverse engineering of biochemical systems. Scott Minnich made this observation in a talk he delivered, and Fernando Castro-Chavez summarizes this feature as follows:

"because biological systems are Irreducibly Complex it is possible to learn about the function of its vital genes through deliberated inactivation of them (by using artificial mutations, deletions, insertions, translocations, etc.)"^[5]

Systems having distinct IC cores essentially makes much of applied genetics research possible, since these processes of deactivation allow for cataloging of specific genotype-phenotype relationships.

Other design indicators

While not having a great deal of research and scrutiny to their credit, concepts outlined by Del Ratzsch such as artifactuality, counterflow, contextuality, and artificiality have definite contributions to make to the sub-field of ID-detection.^[6] All of these design detection methods are rough-and-ready to be used as tools for ID research.

What ID-detection cannot do

Currently, methods of design detection have inherent limits, just like there are inherent limits on detecting any event of the past, including the action of the mutation-selection mechanism. These inherent limits seem theoretically insurmountable, without further knowledge of the causal history of the object or event under study.

• ID-detection methods are able to detect almost everything in the universe that is designed, but like any methodology in historical sciences, exceptions do exist.

• Anything designed to mimic natural regularity cannot be detected as designed, without particular knowledge of its causal history. Yet, this concern is belayed by reality, since intelligent agents rarely set out to imitate nature in an undetectable way. (That is to say, intelligence tends to act in accord with its nature, which virtually never produces features that are indistinguishable from the regular processes of blind, natural regularities.) Additionally, such imitations will not concern ID-detection and many of its applications within the ID-paradigmatic because the inability to detect design in certain special cases in no way negates the strong ability to detect ID in most other cases.

• ID-detection can identify that something is not designed with high reliability, but not with absolute reliability.

• This follows from the fact that intelligence rarely imitates nature, but natural regularity cannot imitate many of the unique abilities of intelligence. Nevertheless, science does not deal in absolutes; it only deals in provisional acceptance pending subsequent data. As a scientific undertaking, detection can only claim that based on reasonable and knowledgeable inferences, intelligence is the most likely cause. This is the nature of all historical sciences.

See also...

• The Intelligent Design Paradigmatic and Heuristics
• ID-Paradigmatic
• FauxTography

References and notes

[edit] Paradigm Dawning This article is part of Paradigm Dawning, a collection of essays about intelligent design research.