Posted on 08/30/2002 4:19:55 PM PDT by jennyp
I don't see why this should be so. Biologists don't agree on everything either.
Since the only thing in their platform which comes close to being a commonly-shared presupposition is a negative (naturalism is wrong), they can provide no coherent philosophical framework on which to base the axioms necessary to interpret evidence relevant to the historical sciences (paleontology, historical geology, etc). So they can never offer a ‘story of the past’, which is one more reason why they must continually limit the debate to one of mechanism—and then only in broad, general terms (designed vs undesigned).
Again, we recognize design in science and life all the time and even use it to discover items in the past. If science is used to: 1) impartially research data (and) 2) research metaphysical materialism; what do we do when the two definitions go separate ways?
Now the rest of this ‘stuff’ is basically calling “foul” to ID for not bringing religion into play. ID is basically playing by the rules and should not be penalized by science or religion. They do not specify any god at all, they just look at facts and say, “We must look beyond the natural/material limits that, for some reason, science has imposed”.
But again, this occurs only with biology. Why does the materialist want ID(ers) to call upon (a) god? What about reason?
Those who reject ID believe there is no ‘reason’ for ‘any’ existence. This prideful proclamation is ironic and, if true, without reason.
Those who believe in a reason for our existence believe in ‘some’ form of intelligent design. The only difference is where, how, and when the reason began and ended.
But I thank you for exposing me to this level of "debate".I may not have made it clear that I work in a drug free workplace,(loud sigh), and as a result, I am not at liberty to join in this highly "advanced" level of phillosophy.
Long before I looked into the eyes of my newborn child, I understood that God exists.I also believe in love, the existance of souls, and many scientifically unproven, but generally accepted truths about humanity as it differs from animal nature.
Ya'll have fun. ;^)
Weiland correctly points out that the IDers have no hypothesis of their own. At least the Creationists have one. It's wrong, but they have one.
Nonsense. One could use that logic to say the very same thing about Evolutionists.
Evolution, for instance, offers no explanation of how the very first species evolved from purely inanimate matter.
But does that really make Evolution "philosophically empty"??
IIRC, they were playing hide & seek with Noah. Oh, those silly unicorns!
Au contraire, a forensic scientist does not search for supernatural intelligent design. Forensic scientists use methodological naturalism just as doggedly as any biologist. Ditto for archeologists & engineers. Ditto for historians, for that matter.
Or to put it another way: Forensic scientists, archeologists, and engineers all reject methodological supernaturalism just as fully as do biologists.
Ugh, now I've got that d*mn song rolling around in my head!
Of course, such changes (for example, speciation as a result of horizontal changes in information, or as a result of a mutational defect with a loss of information) do not in themselves offer evidence against 'big picture' evolution...
Normal selectionist/adaptationist pressures, via Mendelian reshuffling and sorting of that information could presumably see substantial diversity arise within subsets of that information...
Slipping and sliding, the "creationist model" is starting to look like evolution.
Can you give an example of science without materialistic constraints?
No. Evolution is the theory. ID doesn't have an alternative hypothesis. Intelligent design is a name for an unformulated hypothesis.
I never said supernatural intelligent design. They look for and study intelligent design. When we see intelligent design in biology what should we do? We could not be true to science by denying it…
Again, if science is used to: 1) impartially research data (and) 2) research metaphysical materialism; what do we do when the two definitions go separate ways?
Besides, I know you have heard of the anthropic principle.
No it is not. Both you and Weiland are wrong. The purpose of intelligent design and what it shows are the failures of naturalism. The reason why many of the advocates of ID do not formulate an overall hypothesis for the arising of new species is that they are trying to build an ecumenical methodology to refute naturalism in which all theistic believers can join in.
The above however does not mean that there are no intelligent design hypothesis. There certainly are. Here's one example:
If we ignore the Neo-Darwinian agenda, we see that the NREH [Speter's hypothesis] can account for observations of evolution better than can the NDT [Neo-Darwinian Thesis]. It can account for observations that the NDT fails to account for. It can account for the environmentally directed mutations reported in bacteria. It can account for the numerous so-called convergences. If we simpy drop what has been the requirement of the NDT that evolutionary theory justify a natural origin of life, then the difficulties of evolutionary theory fall away, and we can arrive at a better understanding of the life sciences. We can begin to make better sense of the vast amount of biological data that is pouring out from laboratories around the world.
One cannot fault the NREH because it fails to account for the development of life from a single cell. Such a development has not been observed, so there is no imperative for a theory to account for it. The NREH accounts for what has been observed, and it does so better than the NDT. Those are adequate credentials for a theory of evolution.
Had the NDT been successful, together with a theory to account for a natrual origin of a simple cell, we would have had a good natural explanation of life. If so, a supernatural explanation would have been superfluous. The NDT would then have put Jewish trdition and the Torah view of the origin of life on the defensive.
Dr. Lee Spetner, "Not by Chance", page 210-211.
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