Re: Novel paradigms?

From: Richard Wein (tich@primex.co.uk)
Date: Fri Apr 21 2000 - 21:14:02 EDT

  • Next message: Howard J. Van Till: "Re: Novel paradigms?"

    Mike:

    >Indeed, and just as we may never be able to prove that life was designed,
    >we are just as likely to increase our knowledge of biochemistry by
    >employing a teleological perspective.

    Not true, unless you can say something more specific about the designer
    (see below).

    >After all, I did indeed validly
    >infer the existence of proof-reading during the biochemical process
    >of transcription by using ID logic.

    Ah, I'm glad you brought that up. ;-)

    You didn't infer the existence of proof-reading from the logic of
    *intelligent* design -- you inferred it from the logic of *good* design.
    Natural selection also predicts good design. So the existence of
    proof-reading can just as well be inferred from that.

    Unless you're prepared to say something specific about the intentions or
    means of the intelligent designer, you can't infer anything from ID that you
    can't also infer from natural selection. But you can infer lots of things
    from natural selection that you can't infer from ID (e.g. that the same
    species won't evolve twice). So natural selection is a more useful theory.

    Richard Wein (Tich)
    See my web pages for various games at http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~tich/



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