On Straw Men, Subtle Shifts and the Fallacy of Intelligent Design

by Brett Palmer, © 2009

Professor of Christian apologetics at Southern Evangelical Seminary, Richard G. Howe, authored an article critical of skeptics who are not convinced by the showmanship of some in the Intelligent Design movement. Intelligent Design (or "ID"), when referring to biological systems, is the belief that natural processes cannot account for every system in living organisms, especially those advocated to be "irreducibly complex." [1] One of Dr. Howe’s problems is with what he calls the "fallacy of equivocation" which he says critics of ID commit when using certain terms in the Intelligent Design/Evolution debate. He notes that the fallacy of equivocation is when a person "illicitly shifts the meaning of a term during an argument." He notes that,

The term 'natural' is one such term that has a subtle shade of meaning, especially when it comes to causal explanations. On the one hand, 'natural' can be contrasted with 'supernatural.' In this regard, 'natural' has to do with the regularities of the physical world in terms of which events can be understood to be the result of impersonal forces or physical laws. Both sides of the debate acknowledge (or should acknowledge) that when it comes to understanding and doing science, the notion of the supernatural is off limits.

He goes on,

One should not use the supernatural as a causal explanation in science…in making such an appeal to a supernatural agency, one is no longer doing science.

And that is precisely true which is why the Intelligent Design movement is so deceitful, as is Dr. Howe in his defense of their agenda. He writes of the movement,

The proponents of ID argue that there are a number of features of the physical universe that exhibit the signs of intelligence, including the fine tuning of the universe, irreducible complexity, and information in the DNA. These ID scientists argue that such features cannot be accounted for naturally. But in doing so, they are not necessarily claiming that these features must be accounted for supernaturally. This is so because they are using the term 'natural' in contrast to 'artificial' or, to use their term, intelligently designed. They are not using the term 'natural' in contrast to 'supernatural.'

And this is where Dr. Howe reveals his own deceit in partnership with the Intelligent Design movement. The Discovery Institute, headquarters for the movement, authored a document a number of years ago before the notion of "intelligent design" became the political buzz-word that it is today, outlining their "strategy" to promote Intelligent Design creationism. In that document, "The Wedge Document" [2], Intelligent Design is clearly aligned with supernatural causes. One of the goals of Intelligent Design according to this document is "[t]o replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God." (emphasis mine) [3] Additionally, when Intelligent Design was put on trial in the now famous Kitzmiller vs. Dover Area School District court case [4], it was discovered that a 1986 draft of a creationist textbook, Of Pandas and People (in 1986, titled Biology and Creation), contained the following statement:

Creation means that the various forms of life began abruptly through the agency of an intelligent creator with their distinctive features already intact. Fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, and wings, etc. (emphasis mine)

In 1987, on the heels of a judicial defeat of "scientific creationism" being taught in American public classrooms [5], the text was changed to read (now with the draft title, Of Pandas and People, removing the reference to "Creation" from the title):

Intelligent design means that various forms of life began abruptly through an intelligent agency, with their distinctive features already intact. Fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, wings, etc. (emphasis mine) [6]

So, Dr. Howe is just perpetuating a myth which followed on the heels of the Kitzmiller trial that Intelligent Design is not concerned with "supernatural entities," merely with pointing out that naturalistic evolution cannot explain all the supposed "complexity" that is found in biological entities. That’s clearly a deception of the highest sort given the movement’s own statements and historical roots.

Dr. Howe goes on to give an example of the "fallacy of equivocation" in a fictitious conversation he concocts between a proponent of Intelligent Design and a critic. But, before he does, he makes sure to define his equivocal word of choice: "natural." He explains,

…'natural' can be contrasted with 'artificial,' 'contrived,' 'intelligently designed' or a number of other related notions. In this regard, something can be denied as being naturally caused without entailing that it is supernaturally caused. Thus, when a scientist finds an arrowhead buried in the ground, he certainly does not ascribe the arrowhead to natural causes. He is not, even as a scientist, obligated to say that the arrowhead is natural. But in doing so, he is not saying that the arrowhead was supernaturally caused. Rather, in denying that he arrowhead was naturally caused, he is affirming that the arrowhead was artificially caused.

Introducing his fictitious dialogue, Dr. Howe wants his readers set up to believe that "the critics of ID often commit the subtle fallacy of equivocation regarding the use of the term 'natural.'" He then gives his conjured conversation:

ID: Intelligent design is a legitimate category within science. For example, arrowheads exhibit intelligent design.

Critic: I concur. Things like arrowheads cannot be accounted for by natural causes. [Note: The critic correctly understands the term 'natural' here to mean in contrast to 'artificial' or 'designed.']

ID: There are signs of intelligent design in the information contained within the DNA molecule. The information within the DNA cannot be accounted for by natural causes just like the arrowhead cannot be accounted for by the natural laws of wind or water erosion.

Critic: Wait a minute! You cannot allow a supernatural cause into science! To do so would render it no longer science. You're just trying to sneak religion into the public schools. Blah, blah, blah ….

I appreciate how Dr. Howe’s professional assessment of the subject (as a professor of Christian apologetics at a deeply conservative theological seminary) ends the "conversation" by having the "critic" mumble "blah, blah, blah…", having the critic of his fantasy behave as some sort of flummoxed buffoon, stumped by the clear-thinking proponent of ID. But, at any rate, did you catch the subtle shift in his fictitious dialogue? If you didn’t, don’t worry, we’ll be examining it shortly in our own manufactured conversation. But first, if Dr. Howe was trying to expose some sort of fallacy in the thinking of Intelligent Design critics, he wound up committing one of the most insulting of fallacies himself: the fallacy of the straw man.

The straw man fallacy is committed when an debater needs to attack his opponent’s position but is clearly in the weaker position himself and must resort to deceit to try and win back some points. But, instead of attacking his opponent’s position, he makes a mockery of it by creating a caricature of that position. The weaker opponent then goes on to attack this false position, easily defeating something that does not actually represent his stronger opponent’s argument, and then claims smug victory. As the name "straw man" implies, the false position being attacked is weaker than the opponent's actual position. This allows the deceitful opponent to attack it with ease and then bluster with false claims of victory hoping to distract attention away from his crime. The weaker opponent insults his rival by making a mockery of his position, casting him in the role of the dimwitted, mumbling buffoon.

In all my encounters with the Intelligent Design/Creationism/Evolution "debate" over the past decade of my own personal research, I have never been exposed to a critic of ID sputtering the nonsense Dr. Howe invents above. In fact, were I to rewrite Dr. Howe’s conversation using my own experience as a guide, it would go something like the following (notice here where the subtle shift is caught by the sharp critic, not allowing the ID proponent to pull such a deceitful sleight-of-hand trick):

ID: Intelligent design is a legitimate category within science. For example, arrowheads exhibit intelligent design.

Critic: First of all, Intelligent design is not science. There are no "Intelligent Design" departments in any major, mainstream universities in the United States (or elsewhere). There are no research facilities working from the Intelligent Design paradigm furthering knowledge of biology or in the manufacture of pharmaceuticals to treat disease. The "movement" has been ruled unscientific in the American courts. I fail to see how you can call it a "legitimate category" of science.

Secondly, I agree that things like arrowheads exhibit signs of being intelligently designed. Things like arrowheads cannot be accounted for by natural causes. However, I fail to see your point. What is the parallel you’re trying to draw between arrowheads and biological systems? [Note: The critic correctly understands the term 'natural' here to mean in contrast to 'artificial' or 'designed' but the ID proponent has erroneously labeled his movement as a "legitimate category within science" and has not yet drawn a parallel between arrowheads and biological systems.]

ID: There are signs of intelligent design in the information contained within the DNA molecule. The information within the DNA cannot be accounted for by natural causes just like the arrowhead cannot be accounted for by the natural laws of wind or water erosion.

Critic: Wait a minute! Who says the "information contained within DNA cannot be accounted for by natural causes"? Certainly not science! And what does that have to do with arrowheads? [Here, the critic catches the ID proponent’s trick of getting the critic to agree that arrowheads are intelligently designed and then trying to substitute DNA for another sort of intelligently designed object. The wise critic won’t let deceit be part of the exchange.] We can clearly see the manufacture of arrowheads in a great number of places around the world. We know they are intelligently designed because we can point to the intelligent designer. Ultimately, we know the source of intelligence. We can explain fully and confidently how an arrowhead came to be. Merely the shape of an object is not enough to tell us it’s designed. How do we know arrowheads are "intelligently designed"? Because we already know the history of their manufacture!

A great many things in nature mimic "intelligent design." Some rocks found in gardens could be mistaken for an ancient arrowhead or spear-tip, but we know that even nature can make things appear to be "designed," especially things under the influence of natural selection. Natural selection is the great un-intelligent designer. And that’s the difference. Natural selection works on biological organisms in a way that forces of nature like wind or water erosion do not act upon flint or obsidian. Organic living systems, however, can be influenced by natural selection in much the same way that piece of stone can be influenced by the human hand and thus there is the illusion of "design." Natural selection influences the best mutations in DNA that confer reproductive advantage for a living organism. The artificial selection of a good stone from which to chip an arrowhead produces a better suited arrowhead for its job. Both natural selection and human craftsmanship (or artificial selection) result in a finely-tuned product, but the biological organism is selected for naturally, without intelligent or artificial design in mind. When natural selection works, it does not have a goal.

Consider the human eye which behaves so much like a camera. Even Darwin shuddered at trying to explain the eye purely by naturalistic means. But we know today how eyes could have evolved and an eye does not require an intelligent designer. The "information" in DNA is very similar. We know that the complexity of DNA in modern organisms is the result of long evolutionary development, driven by natural selection. Natural selection has "chipped away" at various DNA sequences, producing a wide-variety of organisms. The "information" in DNA has been duplicated, modified, deleted, etc. throughout the passage of the last 3.5 billion years or so, since the first forms of it developed on our planet, by evolutionary processes including random mutation and non-random natural selection. While modern "naturalistic" science doesn’t yet have every answer for how DNA developed, just as in Darwin’s day no one knew how an eye could evolve (or even about DNA!), the frontiers of evolutionary biological science continue to be pushed back by the continuous work of dedicated scientists devoted to discovering its secrets. If these scientists were to accept "Intelligent Design," they need only comment, as you have, that the complexity of DNA is merely the result of an intelligent designer and they could close their journals, pack up their laboratories, and go sell used cars.

And, for the record, just who IS this "intelligent designer," anyway? Hmmm?

ID: Well, it’s not god! No sir! We’re a legitimate category in science and we wouldn’t propose anything supernatural! Blah, blah, blah…

In Dr. Howe’s article, based upon his fictitious conversation, he accused his manufactured "critic" of shifting the meaning of the term "natural." Dr. Howe accuses his fake critic of committing the fallacy of equivocation, saying that the critic’s "objection is predicated on a shift in the meaning of the term 'natural' from a contrast to 'artificial' or 'intelligently designed' to a contrast to 'supernatural.'" But, of course, this fallacy exists only in Dr. Howe’s conjured conversation and in his caricature of an ID critic. Dr. Howe had to create a straw man critic in order to level his charge of fallacy! What we really discover is that ID proponents shift examples in their dialogue, attempting to get a critic to accept as intelligently designed a manufactured artifact, something like an arrowhead or a watch, and then they use sleight-of-hand to shift the example to an organic system, something like DNA or the bacteria flagellum. The deception is subtle and has worked in the past (ever since Paley re-invented it in 1802 after being first suggested by Aristotle), suckering a great number of people into marginally accepting Intelligent Design as a potential candidate to unseat Darwinian evolution.

Dr. Howe points out again that, "While everyone agrees that supernatural causes should not be allowed in science (which means that science should deal only with natural causes) this is not what the ID proponent was originally asserting." On the contrary, as we’ve already seen, Intelligent Design’s roots are deeply buried in supernatural causes. Indeed, the "original assertion" of ID finds its genesis in Genesis! Intelligent Design is merely another head on the monster of biblical creationism! Dr. Howe admits,

…most of the ID proponents with whom I am familiar do regard the nature of the designer as God (i.e., supernatural). But they do so not a scientists but at theologians or philosophers. And they never do so in the midst of their arguments for Intelligent Design itself.

Of course not! Intelligent Design advocates want to hide the ultimate supernatural causation of their assertions so they can continue to pretend they are practicing a "legitimate category within science." But, in the end, when the superficial façade of "irreducible complexity" and "design detection" are stripped away and the logical conclusion of scientific inquiry backs ID proponents into their corner, they must admit that, ultimately, a supernatural causation is behind all their assertions. It doesn’t matter that Intelligent Design advocates push their ultimate conclusion behind the curtains of their new paradigm, it underpins everything they offer. If all these advocates can do is point at biological systems and call them "designed" but not explain how or why they were designed, what sort of scientific explanation is that? It’s completely useless.

Dr. Howe drags poor Antony Flew up to argue on his behalf:

Interestingly, however, Antony Flew, who has been one of the most prominent atheists in contemporary thinking has come to accept the intelligent cause of first life while denying that this intelligent cause is God. This proves that to argue for ID is not ipso facto to argue for a religious notion of God. For the critics to repeatedly steer the discussing this way is a red herring.

It’s not a red herring to remind ID of its roots and the ultimate foundation of its existence. However, any "intelligence" which is not a product of the natural world (which all theists and deists assert) is necessarily supernatural so it’s ridiculous to claim that ID is not advocating some sort of supernatural cause, ultimately, for what it believes was "intelligently" designed. Why is it a red herring to force ID proponents to give cause to their observations? That’s merely good science! While others may have asserted the evolution of species, the assertion was useless until Darwin came up with the cause. Ultimately, he did so with the discovery of natural selection. The fallacy Dr. Howe commits in his article is the creation of straw men in fictitious conversations. He should be ashamed of himself. But what should one expect from a professor of Christian apologetics commenting on a subject beyond his expertise and opposed to his religious agenda? Dr. Howe works under a Statement of Faith at the Southern Evangelical Seminary (in part founded by apologist Norman Geisler in 1992) in Charlotte, NC. He cannot come to any other conclusion when he’s committed to believing:

…in the special creation of the entire space-time universe and of every basic form of life in the six historic days of the Genesis creation record. We also believe in the historicity of the biblical record, including the special creation of Adam and Eve as the literal progenitors of all people, the literal fall and resultant divine curse on the creation, the worldwide flood, and the origin of nations and diverse languages at the tower of Babel.

NOTES

1. "Irreducible complexity" is a phrase coined by Michael Behe. In Behe's own words: "By irreducible complexity I mean a single system which is composed of several interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, and where the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning. An irreducibly complex system cannot be produced gradually by slight, successive modifications of a precursor system, since any precursor to an irreducibly complex system is by definition nonfunctional."   Return to text 

2. The "Wedge Document" can be read in its entirety as a PDF, downloadable here: Wedge PDF   Return to text

3. Funnily, and damaging to Dr. Howe’s claim, The Discovery Institute in 2006 posted a defense of their "Wedge Document" in which they again reveal their roots in supernatural explanations for whatever is uncovered as "intelligently designed." In "The Wedge Document: So What?" they admit,

…we are…challenging scientific materialism—the simplistic philosophy or world-view that claims that all of reality can be reduced to, or derived from, matter and energy alone.

Well, what is there in the natural universe but matter an energy? Even human intelligence is the product of these. Therefore, if something is outside matter and energy it is necessarily supernatural. Who does Dr. Howe think he’s kidding?   Return to text

4. An excellent source for details on the trial can be found here: Kitzmiller vs. Dover.   Return to text

5. "In a landmark ruling in 1987 in Edwards v. Aguillard, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the state of Louisiana's ‘Creationism Act’ was unconstitutional. This statute prohibited the teaching of evolution in public schools, except when it was accompanied by instruction in ‘creation science’. The Court found that, by advancing the religious belief that a supernatural being created humankind, which is embraced by the term ‘creation science,’ the act impermissibly endorsed a particular religious viewpoint." For further reading, please visit: Edwards vs Aguillard   Return to text

6. More on this deception can be found here: Forrest's Testimony.   Return to text

Site Contents © Brett Palmer