'We Don't Have to Know the Designer'

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Then in the late 1920's, observations were made which led astronomers to think that galaxies that they could observe were rushing away from each other and rushing away from the Earth as if in the aftermath of some giant explosion.

So they were using inductive reasoning of their experience of explosions to, and applying that to their astronomical observations. And let me emphasize that they were -- the inductive method, as philosophers will tell you, always extrapolates from what a we know to instances of what we don't know.

So those scientists studying the Big Bang were extrapolating from their knowledge of explosions as seen in, say, fire crackers, cannon balls, and so on, and extrapolating that to the explosion of the entire universe, which is quite a distance from the basis set from which they drew their induction.

But nonetheless, they were confident that this pattern suggested an explosion based on their experience with more familiar objects.

Q. And basically, we don't have any experience with universes exploding, correct?

A. I do not, no.

Q. And scientists do not?

A. No, scientists don't either.

Q. Again, is this similar to the reasoning used in paleontology? For example we haven't seen any live pre-historic birds, for example, but they have features that resemble feathers, as we know them from our common experience today, and we infer that they were used for flying or similar functions, again based on our common experience?

A. Yes, that's right. That's another example of induction from what we know to things we don't know.

Q. Again, that's scientific reasoning?

A. Yes, it is.

Q. Can science presently tell us what caused the Bang?

A. No. I'm not a physicist, but I understand the cause of the Big Bang is still unknown.

Q. Is that similar to intelligent design's claim that science presently cannot tell us the source of design in nature?

A. Yes, that's very similar. All theories, when they're proposed, have outstanding questions, and intelligent design is no exception. And I'd like to make a further point that I just thought of and was going to make earlier, but that, that induction from explosions of our experience to explosions of the universe is analogous to, similar to the induction that intelligent design makes from our knowledge of objects, the purposeful arrangements of parts in our familiar world and extrapolating that to the cell as well. So that, too, is an example of an induction from what we know to what we have newly discovered.

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Q. Sir, do you believe that natural selection is similarly falsifyable?

A. No. Actually, I think that, in fact, natural selection and Darwinian claims are actually very, very difficult to falsify. And let me go back to my article, Reply to my Critics from the journal Biology and Philosophy.

And I don't think I'm actually going to read this whole thing, because it refers to things that would take a while to explain. But let me just try to give you the gist of it. Let me read the first sentence. Quote, Let's turn the tables and ask, how could one falsify a claim that a particular biochemical system was produced by Darwinian processes? Close quote.

Darwin's vulnerability
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