ID-heuristics
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ID-heuristics
ID-heuristics is a principle portion of ID’s contribution to the general domain of science. ID-theoretics implies immediate research connections between many of the sciences, including (but not limited to) cosmology, computer science, engineering, biology, geology, and forensics. Heuristically, ID can be considered a hypothetical research network interconnecting the many scientific fields related to designs, planning, and teleology.
ID-theoretics, by its fundamental claims of likenesses between phenomena, explicitly contends it has the ability to develop a conceptual research-generating program, presented here as “ID-heuristics.” This “conceptual machine” interrelates current science with ID-theoretic concepts, and derives how they can work together in such a way that ID-heuristics could be a mass-production research factory. Current science here means facts, ideas, models, hypotheses, theories, techniques, and methodologies currently used in the scientific and applied science disciplines.
An important area under the ID-heuristics sub-field is ID-axiomatics. ID-axiomatics are the “rules of thumb” to be employed by ID researchers. Establishing the rules (heuristics and axiomatics) for the ID-paradigmatic could be difficult, and the second part of this work will address these.
Perhaps equally as important as the radically different scientific view on nature brought by ID-theoretics is our ability to look at current knowledge and see how it would relate to this new view using a heuristic framework. An example of this research method is what Stephen Meyer exacted when he elucidated a new way of studying biological systematics and taxonomy through a design framework.[1] Another example is the research of Christopher Langan into the Cognitive-Theoretic Model of cosmology and Reality Theory.[2]
New thoughts about design
Learning how to think about intelligent design is a new experience for many. Learning how to wrap your mind around an axiomatic where certain features of the universe are designed is difficult. It is nothing short of a revolution of the mind for some. Thinking about how to scientifically test the validity of intelligent design axioms is an even more conceptually difficult challenge. Applying ID to empirical research is getting easier, now that some examples are presently before us.
A good starting point for this type of thinking is grappling with the issues related to defining design, or looking into the study of design detection.
Interesting statements from Mike Gene:
- Now if we are used to thinking about natural history only in terms of regularities, our thinking about mechanisms takes on a particular shape. Here we want to know what interplay of law and chance works to bring about some particular phenomena. And since regularities occur all the time, we can study them at work in the here-and-now and extrapolate into the past or future. But if mind has imposed itself on some aspect of our biotic history, the whole concept of mechanism takes on a different flavor. Mind does not impose itself like a law of nature nor does it do so like a chance event. You will not find the frozen traces of mind by extrapolating from regularities. You will find them as discontinuities interspersed among the regularities, and perhaps forming a coherent pattern. (A good example of a non-teleological discontinuity is a machine. As Michael Polanyi once noted, without men, there would be no machines.)
- <snip>
- Don't try to think about detecting teleological mechanisms in non-teleological terms. Non-teleological mechanisms are detected by studying and extrapolating from natural laws and chance, the one place we will not find teleological mechanisms. To detect teleological mechanisms requires a new way of thinking...
Origin of life considerations related to new scientific ventures
More enlightening statements from Mike Gene:
- But if life were designed, we'd likewise probably be without much definite information. Yet just as standard OOL are still worth talking about ,so too are notions of life's design. In fact, simply talking about life's design can leads to speculations of what this entailed and this in turn can feed back into a better understanding of life. The bottom line here is any attempt to squelch discussions of design until we first extract a data base of definite information (i.e., actual mechanisms, identity of design, etc.) are seriously misguided and do not understand the proper way to brainstorm about an ambiguous topic.
- 3. Note this also, as it speaks for itself: "It may be that no theory is going to fit all the evidence. The trick is to pick which bits to ignore, says John Raven of the University of Dundee, UK. "To create a coherent hypothesis we have to say 'this bit of data doesn't fit, but we're going ahead anyway'." This illustrates what is commonly seen with OOL research - a good degree of slack is cut to these speculations, as everyone realizes the ambiguity of the topic and the great problem of extracting definite information about these events. Thus, when brain-storming, sometimes you have to ignore some lines of evidence, with the plan of returning to them once the original hypothesis is better worked out.
- To summarize, we can see that OOL research is a field of inquiry that lacks consensus, focuses on how things could have happened because such speculation itself is simply worth talking about, tolerates hypotheses that some experts label as 'impossible,' and entails a certain degree of cherry-picking of the data. This is important to keep in mind because many expect ID to adhere to a much higher standard, whereby an initial ID hypothesis is supposed to have the properties of a scientific theory that has matured at the hands of thousands of scientists working over decades. ID theorists need only follow the example scientists have laid down as they explore the OOL.
See also...
- ID-axiomatics - an important theoretical research area under the ID-heuristics sub-field
- The Intelligent Design Paradigmatic and Heuristics
- ID-Paradigmatic
References and notes
- ↑ Richard von Sternberg previously stated: “Darwin set forth phylogeny (common descent with random modification) as being the basis for the discipline of systematics (understanding the interrelationships of taxa). In other words, according to Darwin and most subsequent biologists, taxa at all taxonomic ranks (phyla, classes, orders, families, genera, species) can only be understood as historical accidents, the unplanned product of random variation and selection. Evolutionary theory, then, is the basis of modern systematics. Meyer argues that some kind of deep purpose (which he characterizes as "intelligent design") underlies living systems; if he is right, the whole basis of systematics would be radically altered. Instead of being a historical record of "successful" (surviving) accidents, systematics becomes the study of the putative designer's plans and their interrelationships.” From http://www.rsternberg.net/issue.htm.
- ↑ Christopher Michael Langan, “The Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe: A New Kind of Reality Theory,” Progress in Complexity, Information, and Design, Volumes 1.2 and 1.3, April - September 2002, available at http://www.iscid.org/pcid/2002/1/2-3/langan_ctmu.php.
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