Last year, Rhonda Byrne discovered the secret of the universe. It is
based on a principle of quantum mechanics and lies in a force with direct
physical effects on matter. If you’re thinking it’s odd that such a momentous
discovery hasn’t been publicized—surely it deserves at least a journal article
or two?—you clearly haven’t been spending much time in the self-help section of
your local bookstore, where Byrne’s new book is found. Tantalizingly titled
The Secret, it’s probably the most slickly marketed idea to draw on
quantum physics in all of history. Alas, though, it won’t be appearing in
Science or Nature. “The Secret,” it turns out, is a lie.
By Robert Camp
“O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?”
I remember learning in high school that when Juliet utters these words it doesn’t really mean what it’s often interpreted to mean. Hers is not a question about Romeo’s location, nor even predominantly an expression of distress that he isn’t present. What it is is an ontological question: why, she wonders, must he be not where, but what he is – a Montague who has stolen her heart.
Even so, there have been versions of this scene staged such that Juliet appears to be looking around from the balcony for her lover as she speaks the famous lines. This misdirection obviously fogs the fundamental character of Juliet’s angst.
Well, I’ve got some angst of my own (though in deference to my neighbors I don’t intend to deliver it from my second floor window), and I can’t help but think of the parallels with the above misinterpretation as I observe the debate over “intelligent design” (ID).
I know it’s often an imprudent digression to quibble over words, but in this case my quibble is one that goes to the foundations of how we frame the discussion of ID: Wherefore, I might ask, art thou design?
And of course I mean the question in exactly the same sense Shakespeare intended for Juliet’s plaint. I’m not interested in the “where,” in discovering or dithering over putative examples of design. That is putting the cart before the horse. I am interested in the “what” and the “why” involved in how such phenomena come to be so designated. It seems to me that we regard the question of whether something may reasonably be described as “design,” or even as “looking designed,” with far too little skepticism.
‘Tis but thy name?
Many, probably most, scientists have at one time or another used convenient language that seems to impute a telos to biological processes (e.g., a gene “wants” to propagate itself). Perhaps it’s this kind of casual reference that allows comfort with “design” language. Nearly everyone is familiar with this from Richard Dawkins The Blind Watchmaker:
“Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.” (Dawkins, 1986)
This passage has been quoted in many a creationist tome and on many a creationist web page. We all know that Dawkins is not saying that things are designed; he’s saying things look like they are designed. And we all know that The Blind Watchmaker, like many of his books that followed, was an attempt to elucidate this distinction:
“The purpose of this book is to resolve this paradox to the satisfaction of the reader, and the purpose of this chapter is further to impress the reader with the power of the illusion of design.“ (Ibid)
Like Dawkins, many evolutionary pundits seem to believe that the real debate begins subsequent to tacit acquiescence to design (if only “the appearance of”). However, the argument I’d like to make is that the word “design” should be avoided altogether. It should stick in the throat of any critic of ID. My reasons for this are twofold:
