Posted on 02/09/2010 3:15:53 PM PST by cornelis
It is time to take stock: What has the intelligent design movement achieved? As science, nothing. The goal of science is to increase our understanding of the natural world, and there is not a single phenomenon that we understand better today or are likely to understand better in the future through the efforts of ID theorists. If we are to look for ID achievements, then, it must be in the realm of natural theology. And there, I think, the movement must be judged not only a failure, but a debacle.
Very few religious skeptics have been made more open to religious belief because of ID arguments. These arguments not only have failed to persuade, they have done positive harm by convincing many people that the concept of an intelligent designer is bound up with a rejection of mainstream science.
The ID claim is that certain biological phenomena lie outside the ordinary course of nature. Aside from the fact that such a claim is, in practice, impossible to substantiate, it has the effect of pitting natural theology against science by asserting an incompetence of science. To be sure, there are questions that natural science is not competent to address, and too many scientists have lost all sense of the limitations of their disciplines, not to mention their own limitations. But the ID arguments effectively declare natural science incompetent even in what most would regard as its own proper sphere. Nothing could be better calculated to provoke the antagonism of the scientific community. This throwing down of the gauntlet to science explains not a little of the fervor of the scientific backlash against ID.
(Excerpt) Read more at firstthings.com ...
There is no “law of reality” that life cannot be designed, but there can be no scientific theory that makes an appeal to that which is beyond physical reality. Science doesn't work that way. Systems of knowledge that relied upon things other than physical laws to describe physical reality have not been nearly as productive or as useful as science.
So what in this universe are you saying was not designed by God? Are some things “more” designed by God than others?
So where does energy come from?
So what about thermodynamics do you think physical reality is insufficient to explain?
Why are you avoiding my question about the “marks” of design?
If there are marks that indicate if something was designed, what in this universe designed by God would NOT have these marks? Are some things “more” designed than others?
Now, you are asking what isn't designed. That's a philosophical question, not a scientific one.
To state that DNA has the characteristics of design is not a philosophical question. It is a practical observation of nature.
Can you see the difference?
I will grant that saying everything is designed is far more useful -- it's the foundation of science in fact -- than assuming everything is by chance which is the paradigm that anti-IDist in effect advocate.
Classic science assumes design and attempts to find what the design is.
Energy detected in the physical universe comes from physical means. Have you ever detected or measured energy that derived from non-physical means?
No you have not.
If you say detecting design is a scientific question, then how could detecting things NOT designed not also be a scientific question by your flawed criteria?
Do you think that DNA is “more designed” or has more “characteristics of design” than other things in the universe? Are those other things any less designed by God?
Science, classic or otherwise, describes physical causes that are necessary and sufficient to explain physical phenomena. Nowhere in the history of science has the supposition of non physical causes led to anything of any productive use.
Interconnectedness, interdependence, and the overall beauty of Creation point to a designer.
But some things are "more designed than others," in the sense that their existence can't be explained by purely natural causes --those things which are irreducibly complex.
Design can also be proved negatively. For example, it is impossible for scientists to create and build a machine that can meet the specifications of a human being. Ask an engineer if it would be possible to design a machine to the following specifications:
1) The machine must be molecular in size, to start. Over a period of 15 years, the machine must "grow itself" to weigh over 100 lbs.
2) The machine must "run" on organic materials, such as vegetation, meats, water and sunlight.
3) The machine must be able to move bi-pedally over any terrrain.
4) The machine must be able to move through water.
5) The machine must be able to "see," "hear," "taste," "touch," and "smell," and be able to differentiate between objects (i.e., apprehend things).
6) The machine must replicate itself. 7) The machine must be able to form logical propositions.
8) The machine must be able to learn, and to pass this learning on to other similar machines. 9) The machine must be self-healing. I could go on and on. The point is that it is simply impossible to design and build such a machine, given all the resources in the world and the world's greatest scientists. The idea is laughable, given the current state of the natural sciences.
Look at Asimo. As someone with a degree in mechanical engineering, I can tell you that Asimo is a very impressive machine, but an absolute joke, when compared to the human musculo-skeletal system --an absolute joke. Just look at it in a medical encyclopedia, and tell me how scientists could create anything remotely similar.
Now, if the greatest scientists could not create anything remotely as complex as a "human machine," how could blind material forces?
Are blind material forces and chance greater designers than the most intelligent scientists? Chance is a better designer than intelligence? The notion is absurd.
ID theory would have precluded the promotion of now-discredited "scientific" theories, arising from evolutionary theory, such as "the useless appendix," "the leftover (spinal) tail," etc.
There are two phenomena.
I suggest you read Prov 16:33 and then come back and tell me how you came to the opinion that “random” means “not directed by God”.
All things are directed by God.
All things are designed by God.
Some things are not “more” designed by God than others just because they are complex. It is an either or proposition. Either something is designed or “just happened”.
If you truly believe in God and the Bible, then what in this universe are you willing to say “just happened” rather than being part of God's plan?
I don't know if you meant that but what you said was that energy comes from physical means. That would be a violation of the "laws of reality".
Do you know what the First Law of Thermodynamics is?
If you say detecting design is a scientific question, then how could detecting things NOT designed
You mean things that occur by chance or necessity?
bump for later read
It depends on what you mean by "directed by God." Does God directly determine every coin flip? Or does every coin flip ultimately fit into God's providential plan? I believe the latter. I assume that you do to. I think we're attaching different meanings to the same words.
Some things are not “more” designed by God than others just because they are complex.
How can things of greater or lesser complexity be of an equivalent order of design? Is a 747 "more designed" than a cardboard box? Neither one is difficult for God to design, but that is a separate issue, and doesn't contradict the fact that both things are of greater and lesser design.
It is an either or proposition. Either something is designed or “just happened”.
There are countless proximate, natural, causes which govern the motion of a cloud of gas, before the motion of a cloud of gas can be traced all the way back to the Big Bang, and then its ultimate cause --God. There are, in comparison, far fewer proximate causes leading up to the creation of human beings --zero, to be preciese. Ultimately, both human beings and clouds of gas are "designed," but in ordinary language, a cloud of gas is something that "just happens," as opposed to human beings, which we more easily see as designed.
If you truly believe in God and the Bible, then what in this universe are you willing to say “just happened” rather than being part of God's plan?
Everything falls under God's providence. The fact that human beings exhibit a higher order of design than a cloud of gas doesn't contradict the idea of God's providential plan.
“the dice are cast into the lap, but every result is from the Lord”
Every result.
So in your formulation, complex = more designed?
Is a snowflake “more designed” than a drop of water?
Or did it “just happen”?
|
|
|||
Gods |
Thanks cornelis. |
||
|
· Discover · Nat Geographic · Texas AM Anthro News · Yahoo Anthro & Archaeo · Google · · The Archaeology Channel · Excerpt, or Link only? · cgk's list of ping lists · |
|||
As usual with evolutionists, the author creates an “ID straw man”, and then sets out to show why it is wrong. He completely misstates the ID case, and misconstrues what is contended. Maybe he should do a little more reading of the current ID literature.
So is evolution. You cannot reproduce a single instance of positive evolution. It is not going on. Evolutionists are as dependent upon faith as the ID'ers.
ID was never meant to be scientific in the first place. It has always been nothing more than a political tactic to get creationism into the public schools, and this was even admitted candidly by its founders at the Discovery Institute before they realized that their paper trail could be broadcast over the Web.
ID is the “wedge” tactic of a particular sectarian view that is hostile to naturalistic explanations for anything. It has, in this way, far more in common with Islam than traditional Christian thought, as it rejects naturalism completely.
Darwinism provides exactly zero answers when it comes to biogenesis and has its own problems even post-genesis. I see no reason that IDers, Creationists, or anyone else should suffer the mockery of the same fools who tried to feed us the unscientific lie of Anthropomorphic Global Warming.
Shalom.
You obviously have not read very much about ID.
Actually... I have read vast amounts on ID. Sadly, it has contained precious little science... at least from the ID side.
As to Creationism in general, I have personally debated Duane Gish, Walter T. Brown, and the late A.E. Wilder-Smith. So I’m not a novice here my any stretch.
That's bullshit, you can't just write Michael Behe and some of the other ID proponents off. They HAVE accomplished an understanding of things which could not plausibly evolve and the reasons for that.
Further, there is the strong probability that by thus relegating evolution and evoloserism to the garbage heap of pseudoscience history which is their rightful place, ID proponents might in fact thus be acting to prevent another world war of some sort and/or some of the other societal grief which was brought about by the concept that a man should view his neighbor as a meat byproduct of entirely random events, i.e. by Darwinism and the various forms of social evolutionism.
All of that more than justifies the effort which has been spent on ID, and anybody who can't see that is basically blind.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.