Malevolent Design

[ShadowGryffindor]

I recently found this site: http://www.malevolentdesign.org/biological.htm
I thought it was quite interesting, and I think it brings up a lot of issues that the IDers (sorry - cdesign proponentists) should think of while trying to hock their trojan horse of ID.

Here's the first little bit of the site:

Intelligent Design, the clever Trojan Horse designed expressly as a method to get creationism past the constitutional principal of the separation of church and state, focuses very narrowly on the alleged ‘intelligence’ the theist sees in nature. They target rather benign examples which they believe are designed by the unnamed creator (though a single question will divulge its identity) such as the human eye or the bacterial flagellum. Very wisely, they completely avoid implicating design in pathogenic organisms in public discourse, or even amongst themselves, as it would shine a light on an aspect of their designer the usual theist doesn’t like. There are exceptions to this, of course, ‘fire and brimstone’ Christians come to mind, but this book is not aimed at them. They already believe in an evil god, though I know for a fact that they would contest this!

Malevolent Design, simply put, is the secondary negative quality that one should see if one first sees intelligence. If there be a master designer then one should be able to gauge how it feels about its creations by the interaction between them. Their various body parts should spell out its intentions. What we see in nature becomes a moral issue. It goes far beyond this, though. There are four more very large categories that I will discuss, at length, in the proceeding sections: environmental, cosmological, mythological and finally, chronological.

[QED]

Malevolent Design, simply put, is the secondary negative quality that one should see if one first sees intelligence. If there be a master designer then one should be able to gauge how it feels about its creations by the interaction between them. Their various body parts should spell out its intentions. What we see in nature becomes a moral issue.

Very well put. I've tried to draw attention to the very obvious "arms-races" going on between species throughout the entirety of Earth's history. What should we make of the sanity of any proposed design authority who sets his creations against each other in a continual process of more lethal revisions?

[Assent]

Let's not forget the fact that the only way for higher-order organisms to exist is to eat the remains of other organisms. Even plants beyond a certain point can only exist in soil, which is the decomposed remains of other plants and animals. If all creatures could subsist directly on rock and long-decayed organics, that would be a much less malicious system.

[Rathpig]

I think the power of this OP's argument is that the "design" is only malevolent if one assume a "design" is probable or even meaningful. Without the forcing of a human-centered moral construct on the system, no malevolence exists. It is only malevolent when the disease eats the cell and kills the host because we empathize with the host. We anthropomorphize every little bit of our experience in life, and this leads to a skewed world view.

From the strictly naturalistic metaphysic, malevolence is impossible. Good and evil are descriptions of our emotions. This is why at it's center "Intelligent Design" is a rather childish world view. Intelligent Design assumes that humanity is a goal and not a circumstance. It is the self-centered arrogance of a child's world.

Malevolent "design" demonstrates how limited such viewpoints can become when you examine the entirety of the cosmos. Humans are but one small part of a chaotic whole. Interesting how horribly that frightens some people.

[QED]

Assent, Rathpig, I agree with what both of you have written but there are still those religious die-hards, wearing tin-hats and clutching grenades with the pins already pulled out who would claim that we have no right to expect God to be so genteel. I really don't think they've thought it through though. I hope one or two might join this interesting debate.

[Cathar1950]

Good and evil are descriptions of our emotions.

I think our concepts of Good and Evil are not so simple that we can just say they are discriptions as the are usually shared and created through experiences.
Evil usually has a victim but it also doesn't work.
Evil seems dependent on our concepts of Good.
Granted it has a subjective element but it seems our emotions are driven by our behaviors or activities such as natural disasters. Emotions are not the cause of behaviors, rather they follow action and give satisfaction or feelings of dissatisfaction and are needed to facilitate learning.
Largely Good and Evil are descriptive of what works and doesn't work as perceived by our meanings and experiences.
Unless you have some kind of divine command theory where they are the results of the whim of some deity and hardly qualify as moral.
Malevolent Design does seem a reasonable aspect of the concept of design.
It still seems design is a description of function and connection.
I am reading a book right now by Iam G Barbour, Myths, Models and Paradigms: A comparative Study in Science and Religion, that deals with these issues. It is a Process perspective after the ideas of Whitehead and looks at the language use.
One of the problems with religious language is that many believers extend their notion and project them onto the natural world and beyond the ability to talk about facts. Also Baumeister in "The Cultural Animal" gives a good study in the examples of humans creating and sharing meaning.
Almost done with that last book but I think I might buy it as it is worth reading again.
I am enjoying Barbour as he has helped me reacquaint myself to Process though which was an interest of mine many years ago and was interesting to explore again some of its insights.
Malevolent Design runs along these same lines of thought and has something to offer.
I think they are on to something here which should be also helpful in what are the limits of religious models and language that are not descriptions of the the world as they are of subjective experiences that are shared.

[olavisjo]

I really don't think they've thought it through though. I hope one or two might join this interesting debate.

True enough, I have not given this much thought, but shooting from the hip, I can imagine that all these critters that are so hostile towards us were originally intended to benefit us. The microbes that now kill us, were possibly intended to be little bots that repair us, but since we have become enemies of God, Gods creatures attack us rather than benefit us.
This hypothesis would be most difficult to prove at this time.

[Cathar1950]

I really don't think they've thought it through though. I hope one or two might join this interesting debate.

True enough, I have not given this much thought, but shooting from the hip, I can imagine that all these critters that are so hostile towards us were originally intended to benefit us. The microbes that now kill us, were possibly intended to be little bots that repair us, but since we have become enemies of God, Gods creatures attack us rather than benefit us.
This hypothesis would be most difficult to prove at this time.

It is hard to believe that these critters or microbes only started working their mischief since man arrived on the scene. Things have died and broke down since life appeared and can hardly be blamed on some imaginary relationship mankind once had with God or the gods. Myths and metaphorical language are not even being seen for what they are, they are expressions not facts.
Even the myth has man dependent on a fruit for continued or longer life and it seems even the myth assumes like everything else was created to die. The gods withhold it from man because he now experiences like the gods, good and evil.

[olavisjo]

It is hard to believe that these critters or microbes only started working their mischief since man arrived on the scene. Things have died and broke down since life appeared and can hardly be blamed on some imaginary relationship mankind once had with God or the gods. Myths and metaphorical language are not even being seen for what they are, they are expressions not facts.
Even the myth has man dependent on a fruit for continued or longer life and it seems even the myth assumes like everything else was created to die. The gods withhold it from man because he now experiences like the gods, good and evil.

Back to the drawing board...