From: Howard J. Van Till (hvantill@chartermi.net)
Date: Fri Sep 26 2003 - 09:55:02 EDT
>From: "Steve Petermann" <steve@spetermann.org>
> True the citric process could have evolved from the two other units.
> However, that in and of itself does not rule out a designer. It would be
> unreasonable to say a designer couldn't use any and all raw materials
> available to create something new.
Note that the operative ID meaning of the word "designer" here is "an
unidentified, unembodied, choice-making agent who uses non-natural
form-imposing action to assemble some biotic structure/system that could not
have been assembled, at least for the first time, by the joint action of all
known and unknown natural causes."
> Seems to me, in much of the debate too much weight has been put on the
> technical meanings of terms "irreducible complexity" and "specified
> complexity". Both these terms are really symbols for the question of
> probability.
Yes, probabilities that ID advocates cannot actually calculate.
> They both point to the real question, can unintelligent forces
> account for the complexity we see.
...where the operative ID meaning of the term "unintelligent forces" is "the
joint effect of all known and unknown natural causes when they are not
superceded or overpowered by the non-natural, form-imposing action of a
designer."
> Seems to me the jury is still out.
> Granted the Darwinians have the edge because of past validation in simple
> organisms, until it can do the hard science and describe a plausible
> evolutionary path to some complex systems, it can't make a firm assertion at
> completeness.
If "firm assertion" means "absolutely airtight case," then OK. By the same
token, however, ID is even less entitled to "make a firm assertion of
completeness."
Howard Van Till
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