From: Chris Cogan <ccogan@telepath.com>
>This is a too-brief exposition of material from a larger essay that I have
>not yet typed from my notebook. It is not about ID as such, nor even merely
>supernaturalistic ID as such, but it deals with and is relevant to both.
>
>Problems with Supernaturalism
>
>I think it would be good to eliminate a lot of the confusion and silliness
>from the debate over ID. To promote this goal, I propose that we eliminate
>references to supernatural designers and methodologically assume that
>*only* naturalistic designers (i.e., aliens, etc.) be considered as
>possible intelligent designers. That is, ID proponents should propose
>naturalistic designers with sufficient definition to be meaningfully
>identified if we happen to run into them, and that ID proponents *drop* the
>Rationalistic attempt to define design without respect to the nature of the
>designer, in the lame *hope* that somehow, if design is ever discovered, it
>can be attributed to a supernatural being.
[...]
Chris, I fail to see why IDers should accept this suggestion. They claim
that they have a method of detecting ID without regard to the nature of the
designer, be he natural or supernatural. They are therefore under no
obligation to differentiate between natural and supernatural designers. What
they *are* under an obligation to do (but have failed to do) are the
following:
1. Define what they mean by ID.
2. Establish that their methods can do what they're claimed to do.
3. Cease to claim that mainstream scientists reject ID a priori because they
have a philosophical objection to supernatural explanations. (They may have
such an objection, but, since ID does not necessarily involve the
supernatural, the argument is a non sequitur.)
Richard Wein (Tich)
--------------------------------
"Do the calculation. Take the numbers seriously. See if the underlying
probabilities really are small enough to yield design."
-- W. A. Dembski, who has never presented any calculation to back up his
claim to have detected Intelligent Design in life.
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