(1) Clearly intelligence was necessary for the cases that the article
discussed.
(2) Actually, for most people, disbelief in God is more speculative, i.e.
more counterintuitively speculative, than belief in God.
(3) I tend to agree on your point of not mixing science and religion, but
this is only because it seems pretty obvious to me that science is pragmatic
as much as alethic, and because it methodologically isn't capable of dealing
with metaphysics very well.
Nonetheless, religion and science are relevant to each other in a
variety of ways, and can usefully or otherwise (YEC/evolution, e.g.) overlap
on the boundaries.
--John
-----Original Message-----
From: evolution-owner@udomo2.calvin.edu
[mailto:evolution-owner@udomo2.calvin.edu]On Behalf Of Pim van Meurs
Sent: Thursday, July 23, 1998 9:02 AM
To: evolution@calvin.edu
Subject: RE: Putting evolution to work on the assembly line
John:
No intelligence was required initially? How would you get -that- out of
this article?>>
I pointed out that just because in this case an intelligence was involved,
that this does not mean that it is required.
John: If instead your point is meant only as speculative natural atheology,
that's conceivable, but seems more like a (counter-intuitive) presumption
than any>>
Nothing more speculative about that than about presuming a god.
John: evidentially-based assertion. (I was fascinated to find that even E.
O. Wilson, Mr. Sociobiology himself, considers himself a deist.)>>
As long as science and religion do not mix, there are few problems.