The Designed Universe and Intelligent Design

In my Brief Primer on Intelligent Design I contrast the specified complexity evident in certain things designed against the regularity and order that can result from purely natural laws. For purposes of my arguments in that article, I grant the assumption that purely natural laws can, and often do, produce regularity and order.

Recently I received a thoughtful email from a reader, however, who astutely questioned whether we can be certain that the regularity and order we find in nature are not the product of design. In other words, the very laws that produce “natural” regularity and order, like in the example I cite of the crystal, may have been created by an intelligent agent.

This raises fundamental questions about the possibility of detecting design in the broader universe. A logical follow-up question, and the context of the intelligent design debate, is to what extent detection of design in the broader universe might be relevant to the existence of design in the origin and diversity of life on the Earth.

Rather than limit my comments to a personal email response, I decided to provide an open response that might be of some interest to others.

Detection of Design

Let us assume for a moment that an intelligent agent in fact created the matter we see around us in the universe, and set in place the laws that govern that matter, such as the laws of gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. Would we have any way of knowing that an intelligent agent did this creating?

In this scenario, it seems to me that there are only two ways to know whether an intelligent agent did the creating: (i) the intelligent agent could reveal that fact to us (either directly or through agents), or (ii) we could discover within the created universe signs of intelligent activity: the artifacts of design or, if you will, the fingerprints of the intelligent agent.

Design Revealed

From a theological perspective, many followers of Christianity, Judaism, and other religious traditions believe that the first path to knowledge has in fact occurred: God has revealed the fact of His creative activity, for example, in revelations to Moses.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I should here add that I do not believe the Bible addresses the question of whether God created all matter in the entire universe and set in place the laws to govern that matter. On the matter side, the Bible seems quite clear that God created the Earth, the Moon, and Sun, as well as the planets and stars that the ancients could see, but that is just one tiny neighborhood in the whole universe. On the governance side, it is not clear to me that the Bible teaches that God created the laws to govern the universe. A fair reading of the text might be just as compatible with the idea that God made use of pre-existing laws – say, for example, gravity, electromagnetism, and nuclear forces – in carrying out His creative acts. One’s reading on this count might depend much on whether one believes God exists within the universe or outside of the universe.

But I digress. My theological musings about the Biblical text aside, it nevertheless remains the case that one way to know that an intelligent agent created the universe and the laws that govern the universe, is to have that fact revealed to us.

Unfortunately, no matter how valid or substantive one’s knowledge on this point, it is not something that can be directly imparted to others. For example, I might be able to share my conviction about God’s creative endeavors with you, but until you have a similar spiritual or metaphysical experience, you will not receive a similar conviction.

Thus, while spiritual and metaphysical insights are an important part of our human experience, and while such insights may at times lead scientists to pursue a particular idea or direction of scientific research, we require something more tangible from the scientific research itself.

Design Discovered

The second way to know that an intelligent agent created the universe and set in place the governing laws of the universe is to discover it. In other words, to research, observe, compare and analyze, and through that process uncover the evidence that betrays the activity of an intelligent agent.

A number of scientists have indeed begun to more closely examine the fundamental laws that govern the universe in an effort to determine whether the universe was designed. The “anthropic principle” has received much recent attention, given a new lease on life, at least in part, by the growing debate over evolution and design. For example, design-oriented anthropists argue that the finely tuned balance of the fundamental laws of gravity, electromagnetism, and the nuclear forces points to the activity of a designing intelligence.

But the anthropic principle can cut both ways, with materialistic-minded anthropists arguing variously that some natural super-force exists that produced this finely-tuned balance (what I might call the “inevitable universe” theory), or that we just happen to be in the one universe where all the pieces fell into place (the “lucky universe”) – a happy coincidence amidst the chaos of countless failed universes.

The difficulty in parsing out the true story of the origin of the universe arises principally from the fact that there are no other data points. We view the universe only from the perspective of being inside the universe. Thus, we have nothing to compare our observations against. One might imagine sitting alongside God at the beginning of our universe as He tinkers with the fundamental forces, while in the nearby trash bin lie a twisted assortment of aborted attempts: gravity a bit too strong here, electromagnetism a bit too weak there . . .

Of course one might also imagine that we have an inevitable universe; that some great super-force cranks out universes when the right proto-matter and proto-energy come into close enough proximity. Finally, one might imagine a “multiverse,” or parallel universes, or alternate dimensions, within the bounds of which lie countless failures, while our universe – the lucky universe – floats serenely amidst the chaos.

The problem, of course, is that if one imagines such scenarios, then one is doing precisely that: imagining. Fair enough, one of the above theories may turn out to be correct, and many of the ideas are based on reasonable principles, but at the end of the day, we are dealing with things unobservable. At best we can make an educated guess; not rarely we are reduced to sheer speculation.

Please do not misunderstand the above to indicate that I am of the toss-up-the-hands, throw-in-the-towel school of thought. In my estimation, studying the origin of the universe and the laws that govern the universe is not only intellectually exciting and emotionally rewarding, but is scientifically and culturally important. Such continued study and observation will no doubt vastly increase our understanding of the universe and will allow us to clarify and modify, and ultimately abandon or embrace, our present theories.

But given our current position – smack in the middle of the subject matter we are trying to study, and with no other examples to compare and contrast – my assessment of the situation is that we have not yet discovered whether the universe was created and finely-tuned by an intelligent agent. We are thus left to answer that question via the first method: metaphysical and spiritual knowledge personally received.

Relevance to Intelligent Design

As explained in my Brief Primer on Intelligent Design, we are neither able to identify all things designed, nor are we able to identify with certainty that a particular thing was not designed. Intelligent design theory proposes, however, that we can identify some things that have been designed, due to certain artifacts of design evident in the designed thing itself: namely, complexity and specification.

It is conceivable that all regularity and order in nature are the result of laws laid down by an intelligent agent who designed the universe in the first place, and that such regularity and order thus indirectly owe their origins to a designing intelligence. However, the science of intelligent design seeks to operate on principles that carry a high degree of certainty, given what we know about the world around us, rather than mere possibility. And obtaining this high degree of certainty requires a large number of data points.

Based on what we know from the world around us, two characteristics are sufficient to determine design: complexity and specificity. By specificity, we mean a discretionary selection within a much larger array of possibilities. Thus, at a minimum, we need a large data sample so that we can begin to draw some cogent conclusions about the possibilities that exist within the laws operable in the system in question. Within the context of those natural laws in the system we are studying, we note that a large number of phenomena exhibit regularity and order, but not necessarily specified complexity.

Note that I did not say that specificity and complexity are necessary for design. Rather, their co-existence is sufficient to conclude design. Similarly, regularity and order may often be characteristic of design, but they are not sufficient to conclude design – again, from the perspective of the particular sphere in which we exist.

Thus, while we might be tempted to view regularity and order in nature as indicative of design, and while it is possible that they are in fact the result of design, from the perspective of the system in which we are currently operating, they are insufficient, by themselves, to lead to a conclusion of design. If at some future date we discover that the very particles of matter which make up the universe or the very laws operable in the universe exhibit specified complexity (as a discretionary placement within a broader framework of possibilities), then we might feel justified in drawing a conclusion of design in the broader universe. Until that time, we have only the observations of order and regularity – noteworthy, interesting, even thought provoking, but not sufficient to conclude design.

Further, even if the laws of the universe were designed, these laws and their effects still allow for randomness, chaos, and chance in the universe. Buildings crumble, lives are snuffed out, entropy and the second law of thermodynamics hold ominous sway. Many of these events, from our perspective inside the universe, seem better explained by reference to chance and necessity. And when we find, amidst this background noise of near limitless possibilities, specified complexity, we can be safe in concluding that we have crossed the path of a designing intelligence.

This brings us round full circle to the question of the origin of life on the Earth. For intelligent design theory, the key question is whether some things can be reliably identified as having been designed. Intelligent design theorists argue that many examples of biological life meet the criteria for design, even given the assumption that the universe and the forces within the universe are not the product of an intelligent agent.

This is true, because even if an intelligent agent created the universe, and even if that intelligent agent set in place the natural laws that govern the universe, as near as we can ascertain, those natural laws are wholly impotent to explain the origin and complexity of life as we know it. Therefore, a subsequent intervening intelligent act is required to create life amidst the near infinite panorama of possible failures. (Evolutionists repose their faith in an as-yet-undiscovered natural phenomenon that can account for this creative work. Design theorists argue that within the known universe there is already something that can account for creative acts: intelligence.)

Thus, we can see that insofar as intelligent design theory is concerned, it is not necessary that the universe be created by an intelligent agent and that this intelligent agent put in place the natural laws operative in the universe. To be sure, the knowledge that the universe was in fact designed by an intelligent agent would be an astounding discovery, and would provide yet another compelling example of design, but it is not immediately germane to the question of whether life arose and developed on the Earth as a result of design.

Conclusion

Some have correctly pointed out that an intelligent agent may have created the natural laws that cause a crystal to take shape or a rainbow to form. I have attempted to show that given our position within the universe and the complete lack of comparable universes to study, the observations of regularity and order in the natural world do not rise to the level of certainty demanded of intelligent design theory. Thus the only current way for us to know that an intelligent agent created these laws is through spiritual or metaphysical means. Such knowledge is not subject to empirical testing, comparative analysis, or even historical inference.

I may fairly be accused of understating the case for design in the origin of the universe, as I am perfectly happy to grant its absence in the context of the debate over the origin and diversity of biological life on the Earth. Let me therefore temper any understatement with the reflection that the order and regularity evident in the universe, the finely-tuned nature of the great governing forces, should lead the thoughtful observer, at the very least, to consider the possibility that the universe was designed.

Nevertheless, as discussed in detail in my Brief Primer on Intelligent Design, the science of intelligent design remains limited in two important respects: neither does it seek to identify all things designed, nor does it seek to identify with certainty that a particular thing was not designed. Intelligent design does, however, assert that some things designed can be reliably detected, and further asserts that biological life on the Earth exhibits just such design, resulting from an intervening creative act beyond what the natural laws in the universe would otherwise dictate.

Together with others, I will continue to monitor with great interest the ongoing research and scientific discoveries regarding the origin of the universe and the laws that govern the universe. The discovery of intelligent design in the broader universe would no doubt lend credence to intelligent design at home, but the existence and detection of design at home does not depend on it.

Eric Anderson

November 26, 2003

Updated

December 17, 2003