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To: r9etb
What then do you consider to be the I.D. hypothesis? If everything I say is a “strawman” then perhaps you had better tell me what “man” you posit is under that straw, because so far straw is all I see.

I accept Behe’s contention as being definitive, as he is the only actual Biologist to weigh in on the I.D. side that I know of. His I.D. hypothesis is that ‘The Intelligent Designer is needed to effect any large scale change or innovation in Biological systems’. So what then is YOUR I.D. hypothesis?

If all it is is that there are things that are designed by intelligent agents and that we can detect such, well then of course that is completely Scientifically valid as long as you are not delving off into supernatural agency.

63 posted on 07/08/2008 2:54:35 PM PDT by allmendream
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To: allmendream
I accept Behe’s contention as being definitive, as he is the only actual Biologist to weigh in on the I.D. side that I know of. His I.D. hypothesis is that ‘The Intelligent Designer is needed to effect any large scale change or innovation in Biological systems’. So what then is YOUR I.D. hypothesis?

I believe you have mischaracterized Behe's position. He may well have concluded, based on his observations and interpretation of them, that naturalistic evolution is not sufficient to explain the sorts of large-scale changes one sees in nature. Note, however, that Behe also acknowledges that evolution can and does occur at a certain level.

Clearly there is a balance that can be struck between the two. So I would say that "large scale" is a term that needs to be carefully defined, and you have not done so.

The fact of the matter remains, however, that intelligent design can and does occur on a daily basis. It is clearly not the impossible hypothesis that you make it out to be.

If all it is is that there are things that are designed by intelligent agents and that we can detect such, well then of course that is completely Scientifically valid as long as you are not delving off into supernatural agency.

You're almost there ... but not quite. There's no scientific requirement to rule out a "supernatural agency," either. For one thing, it is as imprecise a term as "large scale." For another, to rule out the actions of a "supernatural" designer a priori assumes that we would not recognize anything that designer did ... but it is not really valid to assume that.

66 posted on 07/08/2008 3:12:06 PM PDT by r9etb
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