FARMS Review: Intelligent Design

The most recent FARMS Review is out and it contains an article by Richard Sherlock titled, "Mormonism and Intelligent Design." It is not a book review, rather it is an extended opinion piece wherein Sherlock defends ID.

In the editor's introduction, Daniel Peterson writes that he expects the piece will be controversial and that FARMS will take criticism for publishing it. He further writes:

Candidly, I've been astonished at the consistent inaccuracy with which ID theory, as it's sometimes called, has been depicted in the press, and at the knee-jerk and caricaturizing negativism with which some believing Latter-day Saint scientists have responded to it. It seems to me, whether ID is ever shown to be correct or not, or whether it can even be formulated as a truly scientific hypothesis or not, Latter-day Saints, of all people, should not automatically dismiss it as a possibility. We have no obligation, whatever the surrounding culture may say, to accept the notion that naturalism is the default setting for scientific and scholarly discussion. Why hand such an advantage to critics of the gospel and the restoration without even seriously considering the question? Sometimes, it seems to me, we Latter-day Saints are so terrified of being thought provincial and backward that we are much too quick to signal our submission to reigning cultural and intellectual dogma. But such submission will never convince any of our cultured despisers that we're not backward rubes . . . and a hasty and uncritical zeal to ape our "betters" may only serve to confirm that we are, indeed, insecure provincials.

The motivation for publishing this article may be to begin to address "secular anti-Mormonism," something that Peterson recognizes as a problem with an inadequate response. As far as publication goes, my initial criticism is this: an articulate LDS scientist with a contrary opinion should have been invited to respond. This is something that can be remedied in the next issue, and I hope it will. But let me also say that I am pleased that FARMS is willing to publish material that breaks through the standard creationist paradigm.

For the sake of easier blog-post digestion, I will save many of my comments for at least one more post. For now, I want to get a few things out of the way. First of all, ID can be a difficult issue to discuss because assumptions and agendas concerning science, theology, scripture, and law/politics quickly come into play. The ID concept is intimately wrapped up with a particular group of advocates associated with a think-tank that has been persuing a cultural agenda that involves scientific and legal issues, and must be viewed in the context of the decades-long fight with creationists over evolution in the public schools. It does not necessarily follow that because one dislikes or fights against the ID movement that one is therefore dead-set against God intervening anywhere in the 4.5 billion-year history of the earth.

Let me state up front that I have no philosophical problem with God intervening in the world on occasion. I agree with Sherlock that our theology, scriptures, and history demand such things. However, I am skeptical of our ability to recognize his interventions scientifically (at least yet) and I think that ID advocates have charted a course which, if persued, could do real damage to the scientific enterprise. Furthermore the central claims of ID advocates are at best untested hypotheses that have not yet earned their place in the sciences. The fact that such hypotheses seem intuitive does not make them right.

More to come.