From: FMAJ1019@aol.com <FMAJ1019@aol.com>
>What is design?
>
>Behe
>
>It might be interesting to try to establish what Behe means by design or
>intelligent design.
Up till now I haven't given much thought to this question. I thought it was
pretty obvious that the ID lobby was using the term ID to refer to the
action of a conscious being.
But I realize now that this is a significant issue that ID proponents really
need to address (but don't). Consciousness cannot be the criterion, because
a non-conscious computer is capable of design. And, if the criterion is not
consciousness, what is it? Intelligence? But, as Bertvan has just pointed
out, even a single-celled organism can have intelligence. And non-living
systems like computers can have intelligence. The Earth or the Universe as a
whole could be considered an intelligent system, capable of creating complex
objects. So what good would it do the IDers to demonstrate the existence of
intelligence in the origin of life anyway?
Stephen Jones even claims that ID does not necessarily entail a designer.
But, if it doesn't entail a designer, what's the point of it? What *does* it
entail?
> "Design is simply the purposeful arrangement of parts."
>
> pp 193 Darwin's Black Box
>
>But this means that we have to detect purpose. Can natural forces lead to a
>purposeful arrangement of parts? Of course. If design is merely defined as
>above then natural forces can lead to design. So how does one eliminate
>natural forces as the designer?
Quite. What does "purposeful" mean? Can a non-conscious entity, such as a
computer, act with purpose? It can *have* a purpose, fixed by its creator,
but that's not the same as acting with a purpose of it own. If a
non-conscious entity can't act with purpose, Behe must be talking about a
conscious intelligence, and he's back with the problem I mentioned above
(how can he differentiate between the action of conscious and non-conscious
designers?). If it's claimed that a non-conscious entity *can* act with
purpose, then how do we know that the Earth or Universe (or natural
selection) is not such an entity?
Of course, this is a relatively subtle argument. When arguing against IDers,
it's probably better to concentrate on showing up their more basic logical
errors. If they can't see those, then they're certainly not going to be able
to see more subtle points like this one.
Richard Wein (Tich)
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