EVOLUTION,

EMPIRICISM AND

PURPOSENESS (3)

Jesús Zamora Bonilla

Presented at the symposium

‘Evolutionism and Religion’
Firenze, Italy, november, 2009
jpzb@fsof.uned.es 1
‘INTELLIGENT DESIGN’
AND REAL SCIENTIFIC
RESEARCH

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1. ‘PURPOSE’ AND ‘INTELLIGENCE’
AS REAL SCIENTIFIC CONCEPTS

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In order to count as scientific concepts, ‘purpose’ and
‘intelligence’ must be given some empirical content
‘Purpose’ as a kind of processes empirically
identified in nature (basically, in animals having
cognitive maps and desires, both serving as causal
elements in the behaviour of the animal)
‘Intelligence’ is the ability to manipulate one’s
cognitive maps so that one’s desires get satisfied
Hence, ‘purpose’ and ‘intelligence’ are, empirically
speaking, biological phenomena (like ‘digestion’ or
‘photosynthesis’)

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 (E.g., saying that the universe is the ‘result of a
purpose’ sounds scientifically as weird as saying that
it is the ‘result of a digestion’)
If these notions are used to refer to non biological
entities, then they are metaphors, and their literal
meanings (i.e., the elements in the assumed entities
that are analogous to maps-desires-behaviour) should
be specified, or the metaphor will be void
Take also into account that we have an ‘intention
attribution’ module, helping us to discover intentional
behaviours (historically, with plenty of false positives)
in our environment
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2. WHAT VIRTUES DO
GOOD THEORIES
HAVE?

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 A good theory
•Is independently testable (has evidence from
separate sources)
•Unifies different fields
•Makes interesting predictions
•Opens new areas of empirical research
•Does not contradict well established scientific
principles, or, if it does, points to ways of
testing if they are valid

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 Modern ‘Darwinian’ biology
(i.e. the ‘theory’ that living beings have evolved from common ancestry,
by non-directed changes in hereditary features, and natural selection)

•Is independently testable: evidence from experimental

biology, field research, paleontology, embryology, etc.
•Unifies different fields: viz., evolutionary synthesis &
molecular biology
•Makes interesting predictions: the basic properties of the
molecular basis of heredity (Schrödinger); the coincidence of
philogenetic trees (fossil record vs. DNA sequencing)
•Opens new areas of empirical research: modern genetics,
artificial life, cladistics, evo-devo, etc.
•Does not contradict well established scientific principles
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 Intelligent design ‘theory’
•Is not independently testable: it simply consists in the cliché
“look at this complex function  ID”
•Does not unify anything, since it is not really explanatory
•Does not make predictions: it only invents excuses to
explain why we cannot actually observe (either directly or
indirectly) the working of the designer
•Does not open any new area of empirical research: with the
exception of genomic steganography (or Kabbalah)
•Is incompatible with the fact that the DNA bases have to be
‘pushed’ by physical forces, in order to obtain mutations