Cosmic Design and Naturalism

The formulations of the cosmic design argument again reveal the importance of contrasting design with naturalistic explanations. It is argued that the rational order of the cosmos has something that is explained better by a design hypothesis than by any naturalistic alternative – and perhaps even that some things about the cosmos cannot be explained at all on the naturalistic picture. I will now analyse four different naturalistic rejoinders to the argument and the discussion surrounding them. First (1), there are naturalistic alternative explanations for the order of the cosmos. In effect, these explanations are allies of the design argument, because they at least admit that there is something to be explained about the laws of nature.

Second (2), the problem of natural evil is used as counter-evidence to the fine-tuning.

Perhaps the cosmos is not so fine-tuned after all, it is argued. Third (3), it is argued that it is possible to just accept the existence of the cosmos as a brute fact, and deny the rationality of seeking any further explanations. Fourth (4), the explanatory power of the design argument is criticized. It is argued that it is better to state that one does not know the explanation than to posit that design is the explanation for fine-tuning.

Naturalistic Explanations for Fine-Tuning

Collins divides naturalistic explanations for fine-tuning into atheistic one universe -models and atheistic many universes -models.⁶⁰⁵ In one universe -models, it is hypothesized that the fine-tuning can be explained by referring to some physical explanation beyond the known laws of nature. For example, perhaps string theory can help explain the values of the

604 See further in Collins 2005a, 179, and the extended discussion in Collins 2012, 226-252. The possibility of fine-tuning arguments against the normalization problem is also defended with a different strategy by Koperski (2005).

605 Collins 2005a, 184-185. These critiques thus typically admit the existence of fine-tuning beneficial to life. For further discussion of the distinction between different uses of the word “probability” in fine-tuning arguments, see Monton 2006, 407-413.

constants of nature. It is thus hoped that ultimately nature’s order can be explained without intelligence.⁶⁰⁶

Another naturalistic explanation for cosmic design is the multiverse hypothesis.⁶⁰⁷ The idea is that there may be an infinite or at least enormously large amount of universes, with varying constants of nature and natural laws. ⁶⁰⁸ This may be supported with the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, which states that our world is continually dividing up into new worlds.⁶⁰⁹ The weak anthropic principle is then used to explain why we find ourselves in a world with laws of nature that can sustain our existence. The answer is simply that we could not live and observe a world which did not allow for our existence.⁶¹⁰ So, if the universe appears designed to us, this is only because of this selection effect, which ensures that we will only ever observe a fine-tuned universe. However, the vast majority of universes may well be hostile to life.⁶¹¹

A common way of arguing for the explanatory superiority of design is based on how well supported each hypothesis is by our background knowledge. Many argue that multiverse hypotheses are simply ad hoc to explain the data. For example, Dembski argues that potentially any data could be explained by a multiverse hypothesis, since it gives unlimited probabilistic hypothesis and destroys any notion of a probability bound, thus leaving us with no basis to reject chance hypotheses. For example, it could be argued that the pianist Arthur Rubinstein manages to play the piano beautifully by chance, rather than because of his skill. Though the design hypothesis is commonsensical, one could argue that given an infinite amount of universes, we can expect to observe an infinite amount of bumbling idiots who can play the piano just as well by random chance.⁶¹²

To avoid this critique, the ad hoc nature of the multiverse hypothesis needs to be denied. There is indeed some independent rationale for the hypothesis. For example, some interpretations of inflationary theory and quantum mechanics require a multiverse.⁶¹³ In response, a proponent of the design argument could argue that there is no reason to accept these models, other than the rejection of the design argument. Proponents of design arguments who accept theism could also argue, following Collins, that the theistic hypothesis at least is less ad hoc than the multiverse hypothesis, since it was formulated and strongly believed already prior to the discovery of fine-tuning.⁶¹⁴ Using this strategy would

606 E.g. Greene 2005.

607 E.g. Dawkins 2006a.

608 Rees 2003.

609 Susskind 2006a.

610 John Leslie’s example of a firing squad is often used to show that the anthropic principle does not by itself explain the fine-tuning. (See Leslie 1989, 13-15).

611 Dawkins 2006a.

612 Dembski 2003b; see also similar arguments in Behe 2007. Behe’s critique is directed against the absurdity of an infinite multiverse. However, it is also possible to formulate a multiverse hypothesis where the multiverse is finite, and probabilistic resources are not infinite.

613 For more on these, see Rees 2003, Susskind 2006a.

614 Collins 2012, 205-209. A further way of arguing that theism has a higher background probability is to argue that theism is a simpler explanation than the multiverse. (See Swinburne 2004c, 305-306). In response to this, it has

require the Intelligent Design movement to give up its minimalistic design argument, however, and engage in a more robust theistic natural theology.

In a way, naturalistic explanations for fine-tuning are congenial to design arguments, since they at least admit that there is something to be explained in the order of the universe.

Proponents of the multiverse hypothesis agree that it is not satisfactory to just argue that the universe is a brute fact. Leonard Susskind puts the point as follows: “Our own universe is an extraordinary place that appears to be fantastically well designed for our own existence. This specialness is not something that we can attribute to lucky accidents, which is far too unlikely. The apparent coincidences cry out for an explanation. – – But this [design] is an intellectually unsatisfying, if emotionally comforting, explanation. Left unanswered are: who designed the designer, by what mechanism the designer intervenes to guide evolution, whether the designer violates the Laws of Physics to accomplish its goals, and whether the designer is subject to the laws of quantum mechanics.”⁶¹⁵ In Susskind´s analysis, the multiverse hypothesisis is explanatory better than the design hypothesis, because the design hypothesis leaves unanswered questions.

However, the basic admission of the need of an explanation leaves the door open for natural theologians and ID proponents to answer these questions, and to argue that design actually explains the data better.

The goodness of the universe we inhabit, and so the problem of natural evil, is relevant for evaluating the explanatory power of the design argument against naturalistic hypotheses.

In the multiverse hypothesis, the explanation for why we find ourselves in a habitable universe is that otherwise we could not be alive at all. However, this hypothesis only explains fine-tuning that is necessary for life. The defenders of the cosmic design argument claim that the fine-tuning actually extends well beyond that needed for survival. For example, the rationality of the cosmos and its amenability to discovery does not seem to be predicted at all by the multiverse hypothesis. Thus design is argued to explain the properties of nature better.⁶¹⁶

Within the Intelligent Design movement, Behe argues similarly that the amount of different biological forms possible and the amount of purposeful biological complexity in the universe are also not predicted by the multiverse hypothesis, but are explained by design.⁶¹⁷ Denton argues that the multiverse hypothesis also does not explain the evolution of our abilities for art, music and philosophy, which are unnecessary for our survival.⁶¹⁸ As I argued in chapter 5.1, here the concept of fine-tuning used in the ID literature is quite broad, encompassing the whole spectrum of “natural good”: the beauty, rational orderliness and the useful arrangements of the natural world as a problem for atheism. This is another

been argued that naturalism nevertheless has a simpler ontological economy, since it posits fewer kinds of entities. (Dawes 2009, chapter 7) Here the debate is again strongly influenced by our philosophy of mind and our general ontological views.

615 Susskind 2006a, 343.

616 Leslie 1989, 58-61; Swinburne 2004a, chapter 8.

617 Behe 2007, 223.

618 Denton 1998, Behe 2007.

example where the ID movement seems to move between a minimalistic and a more robust conception of the designer.

When the evidence of fine-tuning is stated as a problem of natural good, the relevance of the problem of natural evil – the second naturalistic objection to cosmic design arguments – becomes clear. Defenders of the design argument claim that the fine-tuning of our universe is in excess of that needed for survival, and that this is not explained by the multiverse hypothesis. In this they seem to be correct: the multiverse hypothesis does not explain these other features of the cosmos. The best available response of the multiverse proponent is instead to shift to the attack, and to argue that the theistic hypothesis also does not explain all of the features of the cosmos, particularly the existence of natural evil. The point is made eloquently by the character Philo in Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, comparing the universe to a poorly built house where tenants live in suffering. Philo argues that the bad outweights the good in our universe, and that this provides evidence against the claim that the Creator is good.⁶¹⁹ In defending the multiverse hypothesis, the claim that there is more evil than good seems unnecessary. Perhaps it is sufficient to claim that our universe is neither bad nor good but simply mediocre. While the multiverse hypothesis does not explain all of the characteristics of our universe, perhaps the design hypothesis does not either. The evaluation of this argument depends on our views of theodicy and our overall estimate of what sort of cosmos we live in. I will analyse the problem’s relationship to design arguments in depth in chapter 9.

Level-shifting and the Need for Explanations

The previous discussion has treated naturalistic explanations and design as competing explanations for the same data. On this understanding, both attempt to explain the natural laws, constants and conditions of the cosmos, and the question is simple which one does it better. However, though interesting for the purposes of argument, this way of stating the question does contain a problem. As several proponents of design arguments have stated, the naturalistic explanations do not seem to be able to answer the question that the theists are asking. Thus it can be argued that design and naturalistic explanation operate on different levels.

For example, consider atheistic one-universe explanations for the fine-tuning. As stated, these rely on finding a fundamental natural mechanism that has the properties needed to produce our fine-tuned universe deterministically. However, as Collins notes, this appears to only move the problem of fine-tuning, since this fundamental natural mechanism would then have to be fine-tuned itself, or it could not produce such a specific outcome. If the question of the origin of fine-tuning was reasonable in the case of our cosmos, then it appears that it should also be reasonable in the case of this fundamental physical

619Dialogues, chapters X ja XI.

mechanism.⁶²⁰ Thus a proponent of cosmic design arguments can always argue that the designer works on a different level than the laws of physics.

A similar strategy is also available in the case of multiverse hypotheses. Collins has argued that proposed multiverse hypotheses typically require precisely fine-tuned laws of nature to generate the universes and their varying natural constants. The multiverse hypothesis does not explain the existence of the fine-tuning required for a multiverse capable of generating life-supporting conditions. Because of this, Collins argues that the multiverse hypothesis only moves the problem back, and does not eliminate the evidence for the designer.⁶²¹

Ratzsch calls this type of defence of the design argument “level-shifting”, identifying both plausible and implausible examples of level-shifting. On the one hand, suppose that an elderly uncle dies in suspicious circumstances, and relatives suspect the niece killed the uncle. Police investigations, however, reveal a natural cause for the death: the uncle’s medication was mixed up. The relatives can plausible claim that the niece killed the uncle by mixing up his medication, thus moving their design-explanation up one level. Here the natural explanation does not eliminate the evidence for design. On the other hand, suppose that crop circles (which some UFO enthusiasts suppose are produced by aliens) are proven with video evidence to be made by humans. An UFO enthusiast could respond to this alternative explanation by claiming that the aliens must be mind controlling the humans.

However, here level-shifting is clearly implausible.⁶²² The central factor separating plausible and implausible level-shifting in these examples seems to be whether the natural explanation eliminates the reason why the design hypothesis was made in the first place.

Is level-shifting then a plausible strategy in responding to naturalistic counter-arguments in the case of fine-tuning? I would argue that it is, insofar as the naturalistic hypothesis does not eliminate the evidence of design, but only moves it back one level. This seems to be exactly what Collins argues: proposed naturalistic explanations for fine-tuning themselves require fine-tuning to work.

Here the third naturalistic response to design arguments is relevant: perhaps we should simply stop looking for explanation with the ultimate theory of physics or the multiverse, rather than seeking an explanation for it. Perhaps an ultimate theory of physics is not even needed – one could also say that the laws and constants of nature we now know provide the natural stopping point for seeking explanations. The existence of our universe is just a brute fact which we cannot explain. This line of argument does not really try to present an explanation for the properties of natural explanations. Rather, the question is about the legitimacy of the design inference and what the proper stopping point for seeking explanations is.

620 Collins 2012, 256-262; see also Collins 2005a, 184-185. Collins argues that this holds for restricted multiverse hypotheses where the amount of universes is not infinite and eternally existing, not for unrestricted multiverses where all logically possible worlds exist.

621 Collins 2005, 185.

622 Ratzsch 2010.

The idea that we should not seek explanations for the order of nature is perhaps best defended with an old Humean argument. In the Dialogues, Philo argues that if we can accept the mind of a designer as the stopping point, we can just as well accept the material world as the stopping point to avoid the conclusion of design.⁶²³ The answer of classical theism to this problem has been that God, being existence himself, is capable of being the foundation of reality in a way different from contingent natural laws. One could argue that it is always reasonable to seek further explanations and understanding, until no more can possibly be found. In the case of natural order, we can find a further explanation in divine design.

However, because of the properties which this divine designer has, we can’t possibly find for any explanations for God. Thus the divine designer arguably forms a more natural stopping point for explanations than the order of nature. This conclusion is also supported if we accept the cosmological argument which infers that contingent beings have their origins in the absolute, necessary being – God. Here it simply does not make sense to ask where God came from, though it does make sense to ask such questions of any contingent being or composite of contingent parts, such as the universe.⁶²⁴

The above response is more credible for someone who accepts the existence of the theistic God, who has just these properties.⁶²⁵ The ID movement, however, claims that its design argument is credible even without assuming God. Thus it needs another strategy for responding to the “who made the designer” -objection. One possible strategy is to argue that evoking the further question of where the designer came from does nothing to invalidate the logic of the design argument as such. The design argument can explain fine-tuning even if it evokes some further questions. They can also appeal to the history of science, where new explanatory factors have frequently been proposed without knowing what explains these new factors. If design is thought to have explanatory value at all, there is no reason to not accept the design hypothesis merely because this then creates additional questions.⁶²⁶ Here the fourth and final naturalistic objection – that design is not explanatory – is relevant, and seems to be the one the whole case for rejecting cosmic design arguments ultimately hangs upon.

I have already argued that the Intelligent Design movement sees evidence for cosmic design as providing one reason for seeking evidence for design from biology, as well. Here the ID movement’s rationale is inverse to that of many naturalists, who argue that the evidence from evolutionary biology increases our confidence of finding naturalistic explanations for cosmic design, as well. Richard Dawkins, for example, argues that the success of Darwinism in explaining the appearance of design in biology makes it rational for us to seek such explanations for cosmic order, as well.⁶²⁷ The idea is that the progress of science demonstrates the replacement of intentional explanations with reductionistic and

623Dialogues, chapter II.

624 See e.g. Feser 2008, Hart 2013 and Spitzer 2010. For some critique, see Mackie 1982, chapter 5.

625 Craig & Copan 2004.

626 Leslie 1989, chapter 5; Lennox 2007, 62-64.

627 Dawkins 2006a.

non-purposeful explanations. Any appeal to design is seen as a “God of the gaps” -argument based on our ignorance of the natural causes which are in fact the only necessary explanation. Victor J. Stenger thus argues that “the fine-tuning argument and other recent intelligent design-arguments are modern versions of God-of-the-gaps reasoning, in which God is deemed necessary whenever science has not fully explained some phenomenon.”⁶²⁸ As noted, for some naturalists, confidence in the successes of naturalistic reductionism extends not just to the evidence for cosmic design, but also into explaining our own consciousness.⁶²⁹ Design is not seen as a sufficiently detailed or informative explanation from the point of view of the natural sciences, and so even ignorance is though to be better than belief in design. I relegate further discussion of these points to the following chapters.

628 Stenger 2006, 184. See further also Stenger 2011.

629 Goetz & Taliaferro 2008.

6. BIOLOGICAL DESIGN

Most of the Intelligent Design movement’s literature focuses on biology: on the defence of biological design arguments and on critiques of Darwinian evolutionary theory. In Behe's terms, though it values the cosmic design argument, ID focuses more on finding evidence of

Most of the Intelligent Design movement’s literature focuses on biology: on the defence of biological design arguments and on critiques of Darwinian evolutionary theory. In Behe's terms, though it values the cosmic design argument, ID focuses more on finding evidence of