Re: All forms of science designed for discussion

glenn morton (mortongr@flash.net)
Tue, 30 Nov 1999 21:19:47 +0000

At 06:53 AM 12/1/99 +0800, Stephen E. Jones wrote:
[snip]
>Yes. The ID movement has *nothing* to do with Christianity. ID is a
>*scientific* theory. As I have said, there are members of the ID movement
>who are not Christians, and there are even some who are not followers of
>any religious.

Can you name one who isn't religious?

[snip]

>GM>So, once again, the ID movement doesn't care about what God/alien created
>>life. Is that correct?
>
>Yes and no. The claim that aliens created life on Earth could not be ruled
>out under ID, but it would clearly not be the ultimate explanation, because
>it would not explain the origin of the aliens.
[snip]

>GM>I hear this argument from the YEC side also. They don't need money, they
>>need ideas. All it takes is a good thinker to propose a scenario.
>>Apparently they either lack one of those, or they lack a desire to get
>>involved in suggesting scenarios.
>
>No. The first thing is to establish the scientific legitimacy of ID at the
>philosophical level. This may take quite some time, but it is happening.
>
>Then when public funding is made available, then ID can start scientific
>research in earnest, which would be publishable in normal mainstream
>scientific journals like NATURE and SCIENCE.

What is preventing them from doing some serious thinking now about the
scenario? Do you know of one who even says that he wants to propose a
scenario?

>
>>SJ>But also, Glenn assumes that ID must come up with something *different*
>>>regarding "the past history of the earth". This is not necessarily so.
There
>>>will be a lot of things that ID and Naturalism don't differ much on. The
age
>>>of the Earth is one of them.
>
>GM>And evolution I presume is also one of them?
>
>ID would not necessarily differ with Naturalism on the actual facts of
>"evolution", ie. change over time, common ancestry, etc.

But in point of fact, every single ID person I know of opposes evolution. I
don't think you really understand what they are about at all.

>[snip]

Penrose writes:
>>
>>in order for the universe to start out in a big bang with WEYL=0
>>so that the second law could be in existence, the odds of this
>>happening are quite small when phase space is considered.
>>"This now tells us how precise the creator's aim must have been:
>>namely to an accuracy of
>> 10^123.
>> one part in 10
>>This is an extraordinary figure. One could not possibly even
>>write the number down in full, in the ordinary denary notation;
>>it would be '1' followed by 10^123 successive '0's!.
>>p 344 Roger Penrose The Emperor's New Mind (New York: Penguin
>>books 1991)
>>
>>Sounds to me like this world class scientist is talking about design and a
>>creator!
>
>This is a good point. But Penrose is a Platonist, so he may not agree that
>there really was a Designer.

Man, you don't know anything about philosophy. For a person who thinks of
himself as a follower of ID which is now busy getting philosophical
justification, this is surprising. Plato did beleive in a creator. He
called him the demiurge. The Demiurge created the universe and then left it
alone. It was quite deistic. But it is a creator. Knowing of a past
criticism you aimed at me I know that you don't like deism. But a platonic
demiurge who created the world and then left it alone is quite possible
among the ID possibilities.

>
>Individual scientists are considering design, but it is not yet a legitimate
>scientific explanation which would be written up in mainstream scientific
>journals or taught in public schools and universities.

In this you are wrong.

>[snip]
>GM>So we must wait several generations before we know if they have anything?
>>This is what I have suspected all along. No amount of laggerdliness is to
>>be counted as evidence against ID. They can for a hundred years claim to be
>>the right answer without so much as showing a single explanation for
>>anything. Wow, I wish my bosses were so forgiving.
>
>Glenn, like a lot of scientists lacks historical sense. He seems to think
that
>current scientific theories and attitudes just popped into existence fully
>formed in one generation. I have already pointed out that Darwinism took
>about 80 years to become established.

Darwinism was fully accepted by the biologic and geologic scientific
community by 1870s.

>
>ID must indeed make its case or be consigned to the trash can of history.
>But the speed at which ID progresses is a matter for the ID movement to
>decide, not its critics. ID will not be rushed into premature claims. ID is
>making good progress and that if sufficient for now.

Why is it that movements like ID, YEC etc never seem to explain anything.

>
[snip]
[snip]
>GM>Maybe the aliens are the ancient Roman Gods. They are eternal and thus
>>require no explanation!
>
>ID is not really concerned about the identity of the Designer. If some IDer
>wants to think that He was Zeus or that He was the Christian God, that is
>not an issue for ID.

Wow, ID can't tell the difference between Zeus, the Demiurge, Jehovah,
Allah, the Rev. Moon, or any of the other thousands of deities. Sounds like
it is a really specific and sharply defined movment.

[snip]
>OK. ID does "tell us what actually happened in the past" in the sense that
it
>claims that it happened by the plan and execution of an Intelligent
>Designer, and such execution left scientifically detectable footprints.
>
>This may produce different scientific explanations. For example, ID will be
>able to produce viable scenarios for the origin of life and irreducibly
>complex molecular machines that non-ID science cannot.

WHat scenarios? YOu said that they didn't have to present any for a
generation or two.
[snip]
>[snip]
>But ID has not particular interest in *how long* the past history of the
>Earth was.

ONce again you are fixated on the age of the earth and I didn't raise that
issue. Presenting a scenario of the past history means telling us how the
species arose, telling us when they arose, in what order, telling us what
happened to the earth's surface, telling us how the information was put
into the genome and what boundaries there are for evolution if any. IDers
do none of the above.
glenn

Foundation, Fall and Flood
Adam, Apes and Anthropology
http://www.flash.net/~mortongr/dmd.htm

Lots of information on creation/evolution