Hair spray, DNA, and the Design Inference

Lucy the environmentalist is getting ready for the spotted owl rally while her friend Charlene chews gum and listens to ELO on the record player. Just as Lucy pulls out the Adorn hairspray in order to finish off her bouffant hairstyle, Charlene grabs the bottle away. "You can't use this you idiot!"

"Why not?" asks Lucy, rather shocked at the insult and hostility.

"Because old hair spray produces CFCs which contribute to the depletion of the ozone layer, you idiot!"

I understand Charlene's frustration. The link between CFCs and ozone depletion is strong, and as an environmentalist herself Lucy certainly should have known this.

I thought of this as I gave a nod to the strength of the design argument and was treated as an idiot spraying CFCs into the atmosphere. What justified this strong response? That's what I was very interested to find out. I wanted to know not only why many atheists think the DNA design inference is incorrect, but even irrational.

So my last post asked pointedly for arguments sufficient to warrant that summary dismissal. What is the ozone producing equivalent in the design argument?

The short answer is that I got some interesting comments and scattered suggestions, but nothing remotely convincing as a demonstration of the sweeping illegitimacy of the DNA design inference.

So let's review: in the last post I noted two criteria provided by the critics that they aver are required for a design inference. I'll add names here for ease of reference

(1) Recognizable agency criterion (RAC): evidence that an agency crafts the kind of object (e.g. agencies craft radios but not trees) 

(2) Recognizable fabrication criterion (RFC): evidence in the object of fabrication (e.g. tool marks) 

I then asked whether these should be seen as sufficient and necessary to justify a design inference. Gaga seems to say that they are sufficient but not necessary: "The list wasn't meant to be exhaustive." AnAtheist.Net is not sure. Interestingly, AnAtheist.Net seems to be moving toward the addition of something like Dembski's specification criterion: "Since it is reasonable to infer that natural forces do not carve intricate patterns into rocks then it would be reasonable to infer design in such a case." Finally there is beetle496 who seems to say that because Dawkins compares DNA to programming code that one cannot infer DNA is designed. I don't follow the reasoning there.

In sum, I saw some scattered responses, but nothing that supports the sweeping dismissal of Paley (let alone contemporary ID) as false (let alone irrational). In other words, there seems to be more a changing of intellectual fashion here than real substance.

Let's look more closely at these two criteria proffered to screen out DNA as possibly designed. It is true that in keeping with the RAC we have no direct evidence that DNA was produced by somebody. But the problem there surely lies with RAC not with DNA.

The problem is that RAC is neither sufficient nor necessary to infer design. To begin with, it is not necessary. Let's say that we land on Mars and encounter some bizarre machine that we have never seen before on earth. Although we have no understanding of its designer, purpose or origin, we could surely infer that it was indeed design. (At first blush this seems due to RFC.) 

Nor is RAC sufficient to infer design. Chuck spends his Saturdays trying to sell rocks at the crafters market. Chuck makes his "rock art" by throwing rocks together until they break into shards and chunks.Then he puts a price tag on them. Frankly, they look like any rock you'd seen on the side of the road, but they are the product of Chuck's careful contrivance. Does the fact that Chuck's rocks are designed (and you've seen the process) warrant the inference that any rock on the side of the road that looks broadly similar is likewise crafted by an artist? Of course not.RAC is a bad criterion for inferring design.

I'll take a look at RFC in the next round.