Intelligent design & dead-end species

What should an ID theorist say about dead-end species?

My theory is wrong.

What if one took a line like PvI's in "The Place of Chance in a World Sustained by God". There are some things that simply aren't a part of God's design plan, or anyone else's plan for that matter. In this instance it's simply 4000 billion things that weren't part of the plan.

"In this instance it's simply 4000 billion things that weren't part of the plan."

That's an awfully high number of species that were not in God's plan. One has to wonder then how much control God would have had over his creation.

Could a libertarian view of God account for that?

I don't see a reason to think the number is awfully high. Given what I recall of PvI's paper it might be just the kind of thing one might expect. God cares about his plan and lets the rest work itself out. Certainly he has lots of control, but he takes risks by issuing disjunctions that allow for free choices and chance.

For the specified-complexity brand of ID theorists, I don't see why Bryson's point would demand any sort of response.

However, how does one judge how much satisfaction The Designer might get out of a dead in species? Also, who is to say a dead in species is necessarily purposeless? What if humans are a dead in species? Does that necessarily render humans purposesless? I don't think so.

I'm not sure I see the issue, couldn't they always say that the deaths are just part of God's greater plan? Sure it seems to be somewhat implausible but it is still a logical possibility.

It seems more worrisome as a variety of the problem of evil to me.

Hi Ted, I think I'm lost. Why is this issue any different from death, period? Death is a bad thing. We all know it occurs. So perhaps death of a species is bad too. What would make it worse is if ID theory in question predicts continued proliferation of species across time. Then extinction would count as evidence against such a theory, though of course only defeasible evidence (extinction of species S might contribute to the presence of S' and S'', for example). But does the ID theory you are envisioning make such a prediction? You know a lot more about ID than I do, so please inform!

As it happens, I wrote a post on this subject just last week on my personal blog. I don't think ID people need to say a thing about this, since it's not an objection against ID at all but against another thesis that some ID supporters might also hold but need not hold.

"The problem is that dead-end species serve no apparent purpose and so don’t fit well with ID views."

I have to agree with Jon. In what way does ID entail that the purpose of any given thing in nature has to be apparent or even knowable? And how is it knowable that a dead-end species doesn't (didn't) serve all kinds of purpose in their time? Simply because it's not apparent?

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the responses. It's an interesting range of responses from give up ID to what's the deal? I'll start with Jon's, Kevin's, David's, and Mike's "what's the big deal?" response. The issue isn't just the death of a species. If you view evolutionary history as a progression to beings with intrinsic value then the death of a species isn't that big of a deal because it's instrumental to achieving some final good. Rather the problem is with dead-end species, species that don't go anywhere and die off (in the post Jeremy mentions he calls this "waste"). If Bryson's to be trusted there's quite a lot of dead-end species.

I think the problem can be made a bit sharper against certain kinds of ID views. Let’s distinguish between special creation ID views and non-special creation ID views. Special creation ID views hold that each development in evolutionary history is brought about by divine intervention. (There's a family of views here as one tinkers with "each" "a majority" "some" and the requirements for intervention). Non-special creation ID views hold that the majority of developments in evolutionary history were brought about by purely naturalistic processes but that God created the nature of the universe to be life-producing, i.e., God brought about initial conditions and laws such as to make the development of life (somewhat) probable. The problem with dead-end species is primarily a problem for special creation ID views (so to Jeremy's post it's not the same problem for non-special creation ID views). The "dead-end" bit implies that these species lack instrumental value. And so, if they lack intrinsic value—someone might object at this point—there seems no point to their being brought about by divine intervention. Another interesting consequence of this is the dialectic re a restriction strategy for special creation theories. Some of these dead-end species are quite complex and so if one tries to restrict to complex species one re-runs the argument—in general this points to a problem with arguments to special creation ID from complexity alone. (BTW, if you've read my paper with Trent "A User's Guide to Design Arguments" you'll see a connection between these types of ID theories and what we say about the biological design argument and the cosmic fine-turning argument.)

Another interesting connection re Jon's comment: a non-special creation ID theory that accepts most evolutionary history does seem to carry the commitment to the proliferation of species across time. Not sure what to make of this.

I still don't see why having a special purpose means that your species has to survive indefinitely? Couldn't it be the case that a species fulfils its purpose and then dies out? In other words why do dead end species clearly lack instrumental value?

Those are good questions. You're right about the first, but I don't think that's central. And "yes" to the second. What's key to dead-end species is that they don't contribute to a "progression" in evolutionary history. So what instrumental value could they have? The defender of a special creation ID view really needs a covering argument to handle all the cases. I just don't see a plausible covering argument for instrumental value here.

The "dead-end" bit implies that these species lack instrumental value. And so, if they lack intrinsic value—someone might object at this point—there seems no point to their being brought about by divine intervention

I can't follow this, either. How does the fact that the species dies out entail that it lacks instrumental value? In the original post the problem is described differently,

The problem is that dead-end species serve no apparent purpose and so don’t fit well with ID views

Having no apparent purpose is a problem, certainly, but hasn't much obvious to do with being dead-end. Species that have no apparent purpose and never die out would present as much of a problem. Further, knowing that a species will never die out (i.e. until the universe collapses) provides no reassurance that I can see that the species has some purpose or other, even if we do not know about it.

What's key to dead-end species is that they don't contribute to a "progression" in evolutionary history. So what instrumental value could they have?

Certainly that is only one way of having instrumental value. Species have lots of effects on other species and so on downward. It would be very difficult, I imagine, to trace the physical effects of species that die out. But ehy think that the instrumental value must be physical? Maybe contributing to the glorification of God's creation is the instrumental value. Who knows?

1. I wonder if the issue might not depend to some extent on one's view of time. For an eternalist, a dead-end species might well have intrinsic value, since it is a genuine part of reality. If synchronic diversity of species is intrinsically a good thing, and it seems to be such, then why shouldn't diachronic diversity also be a good thing?

What if one is not an eternalist? There I am tempted to adapt a joke that Richard Gale once told me:

Disciple: O Guru, if everything is an illusion, then why did you run away from the crazed elephant yesterday?

Guru: Why are you worried about the illusion of me running away from an illusory elephant?

In other words, if the past species aren't real, why do they present a problem? The presentist might respond: Well, although they aren't real, they WERE real, and this fact of their HAVING BEEN real presents a problem. But why can't the fact of their HAVING BEEN real be intrinsically good, then?

2. Jewish folklore talks of God creating a new choir of angels every night. They sing a song and fade into non-existence.

3. Dead-end species typically provided food for non-dead-end species. :-) That's an instrumental value.

4. It seems that the intuition that a dead-end species is of no value has exactly the same force, i.e., very little, as the intuition that an individual animal that has no descendants is of no value.

5. It's a fairly common Christian view that there are no non-human animals in the new Jerusalem. If that view is right, then all species on earth other than man are dead-end species...

Ted,

This is a point raised by others in recent comments, but I want to emphasize it. Why not think that each species that dies out has an instrumental good of doing something positive for a species that doesn't die out. One species may provide food. Another provide protection, yet another provide warm furs, and so on. That is, why can't the value of dead-end species be derivative on their utility to non-dead-end species?

If so, the special creation IDer has a sufficient response to the problem. Why did God create the meek and meaty thus-and-such species, that died out thousands of years ago? For humans to eat.

Tim

Here's something an ID'er can say:

Either dead-end species have complexity that evolutionary theory is not going to explain (ctetingte) or they don't have ctetingte.

If they do not have ctetingte, we need not suppose them to be designed. But if they do have ctetingte, then they are at least as much of a problem for the non-ID'er as for the ID'er.

In fact, maybe, they are more a problem for the ID'er, who can always (though hopefully only as a last resort) suppose inscrutable purposes.

Suppose that, as the ID'er holds, human bodies have ctetingte. Then probably the only plausible alternative to something like ID is a multiple worlds anthropic principle view on which there are tons of worlds, and it's pretty likely that some would have intelligent life, and of course only such would be observed. If intelligent life involves ctetingte, then our observation of ctetingte is unsurpising. However, such a multiple worlds theory will do nothing to explain ctetingte in dead-end species (or, for that matter, in surviving species (e.g., mosquitoes?) without which intelligent life would have arisen just as easily).

The 99.99% is the percentage of species that have no present members. But for a dead-end species, the relevant statistic is the percentage of species that have no present descendants. There are, of course, going to be a lot of these, too.

Some responses:

1. The barbeque idea, i.e., dead-end species clearly possesses instrumental value because they become food. Frankly I find this a bit hard to swallow (pun intended). On the special creation ID view God brought about all these dead-end species for food. It seems pretty clear that this could be accomplished in a much easier way, not requiring the death of lots of species that don't contribute any thing else to the living order. (This points, perhaps to an agglomeration strategy.)

2. God created the leviathan for sport (Ps 104:26). This points to some non-food, non-progression related value and perhaps some intrinsic value along the lines mentioned by Mike and Alexander. By the way, Alexander can you send me the reference to the Jewish myth you mention? Its interesting enough to read the original account.

3. Alexander I think you're right to point to the parallel you do between an individual with no descendents and dead-end species, though I think it's better described as a pointless individual—i.e., an individual with no intrinsic value and no instrumental value. I take it that a commitment of Christian theism is that there are no such individuals. That's why I think it's interesting to investigate how one can fit into an ID view these apparently dead-end species.

4. Alexander what's "ctetingte"? I'd be interested to hear if you thought that non-special creation ID view was the most plausible alternative to the special creation ID view, e.g., more plausible than a multiple worlds anthropic principle view.

Ted,

All the dead end species needn't be for food. Some could be, as I said, for protection or for furs. But, even supposing they are all for food, they could still have instrumental value insofar as each provides a different aesthetic good for the non-dead end species. they have different tastes. Or different medicinal goods for non-dead end species.

Now, maybe God could have made a species that had huge litters frequently (so they wouldn't die off), were very meaty, had skins that could be used to make clothes, had fur that could be used to stay warm, had very many different parts with medicinal properties, as well as very many other parts that provide different aesthetic properties, were able to defend humans from larger prey but weren't prone to killing humans, that humans could ride as well as use for plowing, and so on and so on. But, I suppose I don't see why God's making only one such species has any advantages over his making many different species, each with one or two uses. Why can't the IDer rest easy with this defense (if there is something that needs defending)?

tim

Your response relies on there being an easier way involving fewer species. Why should that be an advantage of a theory, and why think that God would prefer a way that has one species with lots of uses, rather than many species each with a few uses?

Ted:

1. Re. BBQ: Suppose the designer wants tigers in a given area to be well fed. He has, let us suppose, two options that fit will all the other desiderata: (a) increase the local deer population by 10,000 (relative to what he would otherwise have created), and let the tigers eat the extra 10,000 deer, or (b) create a new species consisting of 10,000 animals, each of which has the nutritional value of a deer, and let the tigers eat that whole species. It is by no means clear to me that option (a) is the better one.

Is it worse to create a one-of-a-kind thing and then let it be destroyed than to create another instance of a standard kind and let that be destroyed? I don't see why.

I am suspecting that you have the intuition that the destruction of a species is a tragedy. That may or may not be. But the question is: Is it better that a species not exist at all, or that it exist for a time and then die out? If it should seem cruel to let a species flourish and die, remember that vis-a-vis the individuals in the species, there is little difference between the scenarios. As I have heard Jeff Schloss remark, whatever happens, there is exactly one death per individual.

2. I may have run across the myth in Agnon's "The Giving of the Law". But maybe not. Sorry--I can't remember.

3. Well, I take it that it is logically impossible that there be something with no intrinsic value. Whatever is, is by participation in God, and God is both Being and Goodness.

4. "ctetingte" = "complexity that evolutionary theory is not go to explain" :-)

" It seems pretty clear that this could be accomplished in a much easier way, not requiring the death of lots of species that don't contribute any thing else to the living order."

What does "easier way" mean in the context of an omnipotent designer?

Following some of the other comments, couldn't the instrumental value of a dead-end species lie in how it shapes the evolutionary chains that don't end in a dead end? For example, it seems that dead-end species could affect how not dead-end species evolved. As such, they would be making contributions to not dead-end evolutionary chains without being a part of them.

Thanks for these helpful thoughts.

1. On BBQ, I take it the general idea is that there can be beneficial dependency relationships between dead-end species and other living things. That seems right, though don't you find it a bit troubling that beings with intrinsic value would be created entirely for food? I think this points to the need to combine the BBQ response with the "leviathan as sport" response.

2. For what it's worth I find the "leviathan as sport" idea appealing. Perhaps it could be filled out by thinking about what—if anything—God owes to mere animals. Is it permissible to create a species that will die-out for no other reason than to let it frolic in the sea? I'm going to look again at Jonathan Edwards' spider manuscript since I think this theme isn't too far from Edwards' purposes in that essay.

3. The problem of dead-end species is part of a larger problem I've been thinking about. Here's a simple way to see the problem. If humans are the telos of the created order then why such a long evolutionary history filled with pain, predation and dead-ends? Clearly if the only final value is the kind of value realized by humans it's more plausible that an omni-competent being would bring about this kind of value directly, but as our evidence indicates it wasn't done this way. Richard Swinburne & Jay Wesley Richards have some brief remarks about this and Trent and I added a few things in our "User's Guide" paper on this, but I think it deserves some more lengthy consideration.

Ted:

I would love to hear what you think of my point (1), above, the question of the relative value of options (a) and (b).

I am also thinking about the following thing (maybe I already said it?) Either species have non-instrumental value or they don't. If they don't, then there is no special problem in their dying out, just as there is no special problem in the perishing of just this configuration of clouds. But if they do have non-instrumental value, then isn't it better that the species existed for a time than that it didn't exist at all, assuming the individual members didn't suffer in unacceptable ways?

I must say that I am strongly tempted to say that it is the nature of some animals to provide nutrition for others with their own selves. Why not? Is there not a value in this kind of interdependence? Maybe some animals flourish, i.e., fulfill their telos, in being eaten?

It seems to me that we have no qualms about it in the case of plants. Why are animals different? Potential consciousness is one issue, but I think is not the main one. I think what bothers us is the fact that animals perish unwillingly--that they run, fight, etc. Thus it's not a generous self-donation (I remember a children's book which said, I kid you not: "Pigs give us ham"), and hence it does not seem to us like it's a part of the flourishing of the nature of the eaten animal that it be eaten. But consider that "unwillingly" in the case of humans and animals is equivocal. Animals lack free will. Everything they do is actually done non-willingly.

Suppose that God made a subspecies of rabbits that ran towards rather than away from foxes? Would this be somehow preferable because these rabbits would be eaten "willingly"? I don't think it would be preferable. And I don't think these rabbits would be allowing themselves to be eaten "willingly", because nothing an animal does is done "willingly" in the sense in which human beings do some things willingly.

I am not perfectly happy with this solution. Another part of what I am actually thinking is that I don't really know that animals suffer all that much. A significant part of human suffering is cognitive: thinking about whether one deserves the suffering, wondering how long it will last, reflecting on how long it lasted, etc. We have no way of answering the question of how bad pain would be in the absence of these cognitive components. These cognitive things may in fact be partly constitutive of an experience's being a pain (observe how sometimes a "pain" is pleasant, say the exhaustion after exercise).

There is also some evidence in humans that the physiological correlates of pain--which are, after all, what gives us reason to think that animals suffer--can exist absent pain, because the physiological correlates of pain can coexist with general anesthesia (patients may scream and struggle). (This is compatible with the alternate hypothesis that general anesthesia does not eliminate pain.)

Alexander,

Re your point (1) above: Of course, a maximally perfect being would have more options than (a)&(b); there's the vegetarian option and the less palatable vegan option—-not to mention manna from heaven. If though it's restricted to (a)&(b) then one consideration in favor of (a) is that (b) involves the death of a species. You're right that I think that that's a bad thing—perhaps not a tragedy. There's an overall loss of diversity and, on the special creation ID view, a loss of a divine artifact.

Re the dilemma: on your view everything has non-instrumental value, so the first option is empty. I agree, though, that's it better for beings with non-instrumental value to exist for a while as long as the balance of goods works out in the right way.

Re suffering: I'm pretty much in agreement with what you say. I once heard someone say that what's really bad about suffering is suffering under an aspect. Here's a way to fill out the view by appealing to Block's distinction between P-consciousness (phenomenal) and A-consciousness (access). It may be that animals lack A-consciousness to pains but they have P-consciousness of pain. There's something it's like to be in pain for them but since they are not A-conscious of this it's not that bad. The case to think about here is the way adrenaline can diminish one's awareness of pain (i.e., block A-consciousness) while leaving intact the P-consciousness.

While I'm not sure the responses are limited to ID theorists (Wouldn't TEs have to answer for this as well?), I fail to see what the problem is. Could be my ignorance at work.

1) As has been pointed out, even if a species dies out, they still contribute to the other species around them - in terms of providing an environment which alters other species' development, providing resources, etc. While there is such thing as a species that dies out, I think the case for a species that served/serves no purpose is unbelievably difficult to make. And I'd reject the idea that God 'could have accomplished the same thing another way' for assorted reasons.

2) Some questions come to mind. Why is the death of a species worse than the individual species-members' deaths, period? And given how evolution seems to work, why should any species' loss be seen as permanent? And finally, are some species' loss worse than others' loss? (Which is more of a loss; The Great Pandas, or a particular species of butterfly?)

3) Specifically with regards to ID, I imagine an ID theorist would say (if they were of the Behe sort, accepting an old earth, common descent, and the like) 'Working as intended, apparently.' Since if the past didn't play out the way it did, it's hard to see how the present would be what it is.

Dear Ted,

Thanks for your responses.

Yes, (b) involves the death of another species. But it also involves the coming into existence of that species which would not have existed on (a). So the badness of the death of that species seems balanced by the goodness of the species having existed.

I guess I just think species diversity is a good thing, including diachronic species diversity. It would not be possible, barring serious twiddling with laws or transporting animals off the earth to have as much species diversity as we've had diachronically in a synchronic way. I suppose it might be possible to arrange things so that each species would give rise to a later species, but I suspect that, too, might lower the total number of species in history.