Re: IDer's ad hominems against evolutionist disassociated from (CSI, GAs,

From: DNAunion@aol.com
Date: Sun Oct 22 2000 - 16:27:13 EDT

  • Next message: DNAunion@aol.com: "Re: IDer's ad hominems against evolutionist disassociated from (CSI, GAs,"

    DNAunion: PART 2.

    [...]

    >>>Susan: Some Christians have no trouble weaving the details of the world
    into their religion. Their god is merely larger than the world and science.
    Other religionists are very threatened by those who examine the world in
    detail and are afraid that something will be discovered (or has been
    discovered) that will prove their religion to be untrue. I think you, and
    nearly all creationists (and I believe that IDists are merely a subset of
    creationists) are in the latter category.

    [... see other post form PART 1]

    Michael Behe, one of the leading Intelligent Design proponents, makes it
    clear that he is not a Creationist.

    "Many people think that questioning Darwinian evolution must be equivalent to
    espousing creationism. As commonly understood, creationism involves belief
    in an earth formed only about ten thousand years ago, an interpretation of
    the Bible that is still very popular. For the record, I have no reason to
    doubt that the universe is the billions of years old that physicists say it
    is. Further, I find the idea of common descent (that all organisms share a
    common ancestor) fairly
    convincing, and have no particular reason to doubt it. ... Although
    Darwin's mechanism - natural selection working on variation - might explain
    many things, however, I do not believe it explains molecular life." (Michael
    J. Behe, Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution, Free
    Press, p 5)

    Here are couple of quotes that support "my" definition of a Creationist.

    "Because creationists believe that God created the universe, the Earth, and
    life in 6 days 10,000 years ago, any science that contradicts that view -
    including the big bang theory, the geologic timescale, and the validity of
    radioactive decay as a measure of great age - is vulnerable, says Marshall
    Berman of Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico. "We have to realize
    that this is an assault on all science, " he says."" (Bernice Wuethrich,
    Scientists Strike Back Against Creationism, Science, Oct 22, 1999, p 659)

    "In formulating its position on scientific creationism in Edwards v.
    Aguillard, the Supreme Court cited the District Court in McLean v. Arkansas
    Board of Education. According to the court, scientific creationism is not
    just similar to the Genesis account of creation but is in fact identical to
    it and parallel to no other creation story. Because scientific creationism
    corresponds point for point with the creation and flood narratives in
    Genesis, the Supreme Court found scientific
    creationism to be a religious doctrine and not a scientific theory."
    (Intelligent Design, William A. Dembski, InterVarsity Press, 1999, p248)

    "Designer" is not equal to "Creator"
    Because both Intelligent Design and Creationism involve some kind of a
    "designer", then the two are often incorrectly claimed to be equivalent: that
    is, the "Designer is the same as the Creator" fallacy is presented.

     In fact, in one of my e-mail discussions, an anti-IDist put forth the
    following simple argument in an attempt to equate ID with Creationism.
     
    >>[Opponent]: A designer is a creator. Designer = Creator!

    My logical response, which exposed the flaw in his line of reasoning, was as
    follows:

    >>>DNAunion: You are playing word games, so I will too. Chemical evolution
    created life - that is your claim. Chemical evolution = creator! You are a
    Creationist too!!!

    Every scenario for the origin of life MUST have some form of a "Creator" - a
    mechanism by which inanimate matter was transformed into living matter.
    Therefore, using my "opponent's" warped logic, every person who holds that
    life arose from non-life is technically a Creationist of some kind. Chemical
    evolution's mechanism is purely natural, while the Creationists' mechanism is
    purely divine. Intelligent Design states neither - it states that nature
    itself is insufficient to accomplish the transformation, but that with the
    aid of an intelligent agent (which does not have to be the Christian God, or
    any God for that matter), the informational and probabilistic hurdles could
    have been overcome.

    The Creator in Creationism is not necessarily the Designer in Intelligent
    Design: in one the "designer" MUST be a particular, divine being - in the
    other, it could be an advanced extraterrestrial civilization. Thus, this
    argument fails to establish an equality.

    "Inferences to design do not require that we have a candidate for the role of
    designer. … The conclusion that something was designed can be made quite
    independently of knowledge of the designer. … The inference to design can
    be held with all the firmness that is possible in this world, without knowing
    anything about the designer." (Michael J. Behe, Darwin's Black Box: The
    Biochemical Challenge to Evolution, Free Press, p 196-197)

    Michael Behe states repeatedly in his book that the identity (as well as
    other attributes) of the designer is not relevant to an intelligent design
    inference - unlike Creationism, in which the identity of the designer/creator
    is the absolute foundation upon which the "theory" is based. Try to get a
    Creationist to accept a designer of life other than God - for instance, an
    advanced alien civilization - won't happen! But an intelligent design
    proponent would accept this scientific explanation (if evidence supported it)
    because the identity and attributes of the designer are not central to the
    design inference. Such a scientific alien explanation may contradict an
    IDist's religious (theological) beliefs, but not his or her scientific (ID)
    beliefs.

    Is Behe religious? Yes, he is Catholic. But he does not state that the
    designer is the God in which he believes. Catholics, Baptists, Jews, Hindus,
    Moslems, etc. and even atheists, could all hold to the same intelligent
    design ideology - it is not tied to a single religion or to any religion at
    all (of course, each individual could attempt to assign an identity to the
    designer based upon the individual's own personal religious beliefs, but at
    that moment, science and intelligent design have been left behind and
    theology has taken over).

    This distinction in designers is "unpacked" by another prominent Intelligent
    Design proponent, William Dembski.

    "… it is mistaken and unfair to confuse intelligent design with scientific
    creationism. Intelligent design is a scientific theory devoid of religious
    commitments. Whereas the Creator underlying scientific creationism conforms
    to a strict, literal interpretation of the Bible, the designer underlying
    intelligent design is compatible with a much broader playing field. To be
    sure, the designer is compatible with the Creator-God of the world's major
    monotheistic religions like Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. But the
    designer is also compatible with the watchmaker-God of the deists, the
    demiurge of Plato's Timaeus and the divine reason (i.e., logos spermatikos)
    of the ancient Stoics. One can even take an agnostic view about the
    designer, treating specified complexity as a brute unexplainable fact.
    Unlike scientific creationism, intelligent design does not prejudge such
    questions as Who is the designer? Or How does the designer go about designing
    and building things?" (William A. Dembski, Intelligent Design: The Bridge
    Between Science &
    Theology, InterVarsity Press, 1999, p252)

    Is Dembski religious? Yes. Does Dembski write about religion in the above
    book? Yes, but he does not mix religion with science (one should keep in
    mind that he keeps theology and science separate, as the title of the book
    suggests). His scientific evidences for intelligent design are based
    primarily on information theory, probability, and logic. Dembski then leaves
    the realm of science by assigning attributes to the designer based upon his
    own personal theological and philosophical views.

    In fact, if it is allowable to pigeonhole a scientist as a Creationist if he
    or she believes in a personal God who answers prayers, then about 40% of
    prominent scientists in the United States and 10% of those in the NAS
    (National Academy of Sciences) are Creationists, based on a 1997 poll. Since
    most of us would reject such high percentages of Creationism in mainstream
    science, it appears the problem lies with the original assumption of
    Scientist + Belief in God = Creationist. And therefore, it is a double
    standard to accept their work and reject Dembski's solely because he mentions
    God in a non-scientific manner. If one wishes to attack Dembski's science,
    then that is what they should attack.



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