On Mon, 21 Jun 1999 21:07:07 -0500 (CDT), Susan B wrote:
[...]
>SJ>Let there be mo misunderstanding ID does not just claim that "some
>>pattern in the natural world...is an effect of an Intelligent Designer." ID
>>claims that the *whole* "natural world...is an effect of an Intelligent
>>Designer"!
SB>the only way we are currently able to detect design is against a back drop
>of the natural world. Design does not resemble the natural world and
>therefore we can distinguish it. (That's how Paley was able to see the
>design in the watch and distinguish it from an undesigned starfish). If the
>natural world is designed, then we have no way to detect it, since we have
>nothing to compare it to.
This is plain false. Design can be superimposed on a backdrop of design
and still be detected as different. For example, a work of art can be
distinguished against a designed art gallery wall. Da Vinci's "Last Supper"
is actually part of a wall!
Human intelligent design can be recognised against a backdrop of God's
natural design. For example flowers spelling out words of a sign:
"Because mind or intelligent design is a necessary cause of an informative
system, one can detect the past action of an intelligent cause from the
presence of an information-intensive effect, even if the cause itself cannot
be directly observed. Since information requires an intelligent source, the
flowers spelling "Welcome to Victoria" in the gardens of Victoria harbor
lead visitors to infer the activity of intelligent agents even if they did not see
the flowers planted and arranged." (Meyer S.C., "The Message in the
Microcosm: DNA and the Death of Materialism." Access Research
Network, 1998. http://www.arn.org/docs/meyer/sm_message.htm)
Therefore, there is no reason in principle why God's supernatural design
could not be detected against a backdrop of God's natural design.
>SJ>What will happen if "Intelligent Design" can be established scientifically is
>>unclear. No one in the ID movement thinks it will make everybody become
>>Christians. It might even help New Age and pantheistic type religions. In
>>pre-Darwinian England and USA, a lot of intellectuals believed in design
>>but were Deists. But there is no doubt that the re-establishment of design
>>would also help Christianity enormously.
SB>so you intend to use it as a recruiting tool. That's not a huge surprise.
That goes without saying! I see ID as part of Christian apologetics, which
itself is pre-evangelistic.
>SJ>It would also help society. It is pretty clear that materialistic Western
>>society is is deep trouble.
SB>actually materialist western society is doing pretty well. Crime is down.
>Illegitimate births are *way* down. And the economy is excellent. We still
>have to learn to treat each other with more compassion and loving-kindness,
>but that has always been the case.
Hmmm my TV must be wrong. I could have sworn I saw somewhere that school
children were massacring each other in the USA and now all kids have to be
checked by a metal detector before entering school. Of course Australia is
not much better with a loner brought up on a diet of violent videos killing
23 people at Port Arthur in Tasmania. But apart from those `minor' problems
"materialist western society is doing pretty well"! :-(
>SJ>Having been an atheist in my teens and still
>>remembering vividly the sense of hopelessness that brought, I am not
>>surprised that young people who are taught in school that they are just
>>cosmic accidents turn to drugs, violence, murder and suicide.
SB>I have a feeling that has a lot more to do with people's cruelty to each
>other and a callous neglect of teen-aged children that seems to be epidemic
>even in "nice" families, than the lack of an overarching fantasy.
The fact is that this "cruelty to each other and a callous neglect" has
escalated as society becomes less Christian and more materialistic.
SB>Dickens
>and Darwin were roughly contemporary and the world that Dickens portrayed
>was far more cruel than ours and vastly less secular.
Maybe, but I doubt that one fiction writers' portrayal of one city (London) is a
valid comparison.
Steve
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"I well remember how the synthetic theory beguiled me with its unifying power
when I was a graduate student in the mid-1960's. Since then I have been watching
it slowly unravel as a universal description of evolution. The molecular assault
came first, followed quickly by renewed attention to unorthodox theories of
speciation and by challenges at the level of macroevolution itself. I have been
reluctant to admit it-since beguiling is often forever-but if Mayr's characterization
of the synthetic theory is accurate, then that theory, as a general proposition, is
effectively dead, despite its persistence as textbook orthodoxy." (Gould S.J., "Is a
new and general theory of evolution emerging?", Paleobiology, vol. 6(1), January
1980, p120)
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