Another Short Bit on Intelligent Design

I think we may be too harsh or hasty in rejecting the notion of intelligent design outright. So I'm going to suggest that we take the ID hypothesis and consider what inferences we might make about the nature of the designer or designers, based on observations of biology and the natural world.

First, the strongest inference that can be made is that there is probably more than one designer. I make this suggestion as an alternative to the other possible conclusion: that there is a single designer who is both stupid and neurotic.

Consider, there are numerous examples of superior designs throughout nature that are nevertheless overlooked in the design of other flora and fauna. One famous example is the eye of the octopus, which is notably superior to the mammalian eye. Why is the superior design not used? Clearly, the mammal designer did not have access to the better design. For a single individual that would be enormously stupid, but for multiple designers it could easily happen. Indeed, we do not even have to hypothesize that the mammalian designer did not know about the octopus, merely that the patent (or something analogous) has not run out. Similarly, we can say that the reason why there are no centaurs is that the mammal designers do not have access to the six-limbed design, while the insect designers can’t design decent endoskeletons.

So far so good. But the neurotic design aspects are a little harder to understand. Simply put, the designer(s) have a great deal of difficulty eliminating unwanted features from their designs. For example, if I go out and cut into a current model Cadillac, I will not find vestigial tail fins, despite the fact that all such creatures had them only forty of so generations back. In fact, all traces of tail fins disappeared in a single design cycle. But human still have vestigial tails, as well as many other such archaic features, to say nothing of the ontogenetic features of fetuses. In fact, vestigial features are typical in practically all organisms.

Why is this? That is hard to say. One resists the conclusion that the designer(s) are so neurotic as to be unable to ever discard anything. Indeed, discards do occur—by the complete elimination of a species, genus, etc. that contains that trait. That is rather like throwing the baby out with the bathwater, however, and it seems to result in a permanent loss of those design ideas. Perhaps intelligent designer intellectual property law works similar to our own trademark law, where failure to protect (use) a trait means that the trait is no longer available for future designs. In any case, this is another situation where multiple designers makes more sense, primarily because game theory tells us that such seemingly irrational behavior can often result from rational behavior of individuals in groups.

In summary, therefore, it may very well be that the camel was indeed a horse designed by committee. The ethical, moral, and religious implications of these insights is left as an exercise for the reader.

Intelligent Design Stories

The hypotheses of intelligent design, as well as the related hypothesis of "directed evolution," have been a matter of speculation for quite a long time in the realm of science fiction. In fact, the two ideas are often referred to as the "black monolith theory" after Arthur C. Clarke's 2001, A Space Odyssey, where creatures who look like black monoliths tamper with ape evolution to make smarter apes, i.e. humans.

Intelligent Design advocates are obviously squeamish about inquiring into either the design process or the motives of the designer(s), owing to their religious intentions. They deny that they are actually Creationists, but silence can speak louder than argument. The refusal to address important issues speaks volumes. Fortunately, science fiction writers and readers are not so shy.

In science fiction, the motives of the alien meddlers have long been a matter for speculation (and some cracking good yarns). I'll summarize a few of those ideas here. I will henceforth call the meddling aliens "black monoliths" or simply "monoliths." One hypothesis is that of "Benevolent Education," namely that the monoliths might be lonely, or otherwise desiring of companionship, so they try to create said companionship and do so benevolently, as parents might raise children. At first glance, this might seem to give a special place for humanity in the general scheme of things, and indeed, often that is the case, in such stories. There are, however, other stories whose authors have a greater sense of the ironic. In some of those, it turns out that humanity is merely a byproduct of a plan for some other creature (e.g. "God must love beetles; why else would he make so many of them?"). In other stories, humans are still a very primitive form, and it will still be billions of years before the process produces anything actually interesting to the black monoliths.

A related, and also darker, vision is one in which what the monoliths desire is not companionship, but rather servants, or maybe slaves. In some versions, humanity is too cantankerous to make good slaves. In "happy ending" versions, this leads to either being left alone or a war in which humanity prevails. In more realistic versions, the monoliths just wipe us out and start over.

There is at least one story in which we have not been made slaves because we just aren't smart enough yet.

In various stories, the motive of the monoliths is simply esthetic. The world is made because the monoliths find it pleasing. Sometimes this is of little comfort, since tastes can change, and who knows what next year's fashion brings?

Feel free to add to this list.