Re: Intelligent design
- From: "John Smith" <bobsyoungbro@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 02 Sep 2008 15:16:34 GMT
Robert Carnegie wrote:
On Sep 2, 4:45 am, "John Smith" <bobsyoung...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Steven L." <sdlit...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:EeCdnWgeT6k52SHVnZ2dnUVZ_hqdnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
John Smith wrote:
Steven J. wrote:
On Sep 1, 9:57 am, "John Smith" <bobsyoung...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
How can Intelligent Design be a viable theory when evolution is
still required?
The only answer seems to be that this "intelligence" didn't get
it right the first time ..... or the second .... or the third
.........etc..
Humans engage in intelligent design; indeed, the ID argument leans
heavily on apparent analogies between features of life and known
cases of design by humans (and tends to dismiss disanalogies by
reminding us that we're not entitled to assumptions about the
Designer's methods, motives, design philosopher, nature, number,
ability, etc.). But humans frequently refine designs over several
generations: compare modern automobiles to the models of a
century ago, or modern computers to those of a couple of decades
ago. No one thinks it odd to talk of the "evolution" of, say,
sailing ships, or musical styles, even though both are entirely
the result of human manufacture. In the field of biology, of
course, humans have a long history of taking the products of
biological evolution, and fiddling with them, first by selective
breeding, and later by direct genetic engineering. A bacterium
that produces human insulin is the result of both engineering and
intelligent design. Humans, of course, have also used genetic
algorithms to help design things from aircraft wings to
electronic circuits.
Of course one would have to make a valid connection between the
fact that what humans create, and change, has anything to do with
natural objects. No one has - they've only bellowed it as though
it were an absolute reality.
Well, sure, that's been a standard philosophical objection to
Paley's watchmaker argument, long before anybody ever heard of Behe
or Dembski. Paley and this counter-argument are often covered in a
typical Philosophy 101 course. No esoteric biological science
needed.
In principle, life on Earth could be a case of a Designer using
evolution to accomplish some tasks, while intervening directly for
other tasks (roughly Behe's version of ID), or of hardly using
evolution at all, but constantly revising designs and creating
instances of those new designs over time (some OECs' version of
ID/ creationism), or even creating all life on Earth within six
consecutive calendar days and making it look like the product of
successive modifications over vast periods of time (some versions
of YECism).
Then you would have to go back to the beginning and prove a (any)
creator - before you even suggest what this "creator" might have
done. No one has - they've only bellowed it as though it were an
absolute reality.
Now that is NOT true. One can gather evidence for a phenomenon long
before one adequately explains the mechanism underlying the
phenomenon.
Ah ......... but the religious zealots DO claim that they have the
underlying cause ... "goddidit".
For example, Wegener conceived of continental drift by looking at
the shapes of the continents, fossil evidence, etc. But his
speculations on the underlying mechanism were way off base. It took
a long time before the theory of plate tectonics explained the
drifting.
How long a time was it between the suggestion of continental drift,
and the discovery of the cause?
How long have the zealots been bellowing "goddidit" without even one
shred of supportive evidence FOR that god?
According to
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_drift>
and
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_tectonics>
it was about 370 years.
"We" have had scientific creationism for about 80 years according to
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creationism>
Nooooooooooooo ............. creationism, for the layman and for early
scientists, has been around for thousands of years - as the ONLY way life
and the universe could have been created.
"Scientific creationism" is just a new face on an old pile of crap.
By this argument, it is premature to ask creationists to abandon their
position for lack of evidence anytime before the year 2300.
(Where there is evidence against their position, that's different!)
.
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- Re: Intelligent design
- From: Robert Carnegie
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