Q&A: Intelligent Design — How Did It Actually Happen?
Intelligent Design — How Did It Actually Happen?
Question
Hello Rabbi,
As is well known, you support the claim of intelligent design, meaning that the designer intervened in evolution and directed it toward “the right direction.” The question is: how did this actually happen in practice? After all, intervening in evolution each time would mean breaking the laws of nature. Without outside intervention, this is a deterministic process governed by the laws of nature. Since the probability of creating a human being approaches zero, according to your view this should not have happened. That would mean that the designer intervened constantly and broke the laws of nature again and again.
Answer
Unfortunately, what is known to you is not known to me. I never spoke about His intervening in evolution. My claim is that He built the laws of nature in such a way that a blind evolutionary process would lead to the emergence of the life forms familiar to us (including human beings, of course), even without any need for His intervention during this long process. Maybe He intervened and maybe He did not, but I do not see any need to assume that He did.
Discussion on Answer
Interesting to hear, and thanks for the correction. Still:
If the result is known in advance, and the system is completely deterministic, why assume an intelligent designer at all? After all, this result (man) is not the realization of something rare, but a necessity of reality that was foreseeable from the outset.
I know that you tend to say that this is something improbable—but that happened. So why is it improbable? After all, even according to your view the laws of nature dictate that it must happen.
Haggai,
What compels the laws of nature to be what they are?
Doesn’t the fact that the laws of nature are such that they allow developed life, when the probability of selecting such laws of nature is about zero, cry out for explanation?
Just note that the question here is not a scientific question but a philosophical one (this is not evasiveness, as Avram wrote in his blindness). Science simply cannot offer an answer to such a question. Science may perhaps say that there are laws and basic constants from which all the laws and constants follow, but in the end we will ask about those basic laws and constants too: why are they such that they allow life? Science, by definition, cannot answer that, and therefore this is a philosophical question.
And that’s enough for the wise.
@Yishai: You wrote:
Doesn’t the fact that the laws of nature are such that they allow developed life, when the probability of selecting such laws of nature is about zero, cry out for explanation?
Do you have an argument showing that indeed “the probability of selecting laws of nature” that “allow developed life” is “about zero”? I’d be glad to hear one.
@mikyab: Since you agree, I’d be glad to hear your opinion too, of course.
Life requires certain kinds of chemical elements. A slight change in the laws of nature and most chemical elements would not exist. This is called fine-tuning.
Someone who discusses this at length is Richard Swinburne in his book.
The designer’s intervention
Since the chance of arriving at an intelligent human being is fairly slim, isn’t it reasonable to assume that He intervened? Or perhaps He just didn’t care what came out?
Moshe,
On the face of it this is deterministic, and He set the initial conditions.
But Avram HaIvri wrote it!
Could it be that he doesn’t know how to read?!