From: George Murphy (gmurphy@raex.com)
Date: Fri Nov 29 2002 - 15:00:26 EST
John Burgeson wrote:
>
> George -- you wrote: "I note again, for it seems like the hundredth time,
> that design by ETs does not solve the problem that IDers purport to have
> found. It suffices to ask "Who designed the ETs?" The designer of ID
> arguments is God and any claim on the part of IDers that
> it could be an ET is either inept or dishonest - or both.>>
>
> As you know George, I hold no brief for the ID movement. But for the life of
> me I cannot see that the claim you make above has any bearing on their
> questions. "Who designed the ETs?" simply is not a question for which there
> exists any credible evidence. It is exactly like (I assert) the atheist's
> argument "Who made God?"
>
> I have found it useful in some past discussions (I don't thimk here) to
> consider only OOLOE -- the origin of ife on earth," and remove the question
> which cannot possibly be addressed away form the discussion.
Limiting the question to OOLOE seems to me extremely
artificial. The IDers
claim (to oversimplify somewhat) life could not have arisen through
natural processes.
If the laws of physics are the same throughout the universe then
natural processes
couldn't have brought about life on Mars or a planet in the Hercules
cluster any more
than they could have on earth.
To put it another way: IDers would say that something like
the recent synthesis
of the polio virus doesn't show that life could have arisen by
natural processes
(waiving the question for now whether viruses are alive) because it
requires the
existence of a designer - i.e., human scientists. But exactly the
same argument would
apply to any claim that ETs designed the life that we now find on
earth. Just as in the
1st case they will say, "Sure, but where did the information in the
scientists who
synthesized the virus come from?", we can ask, "Where did the
information in the ETs who
synthesized terrestrial life come from?"
& it's hard to believe that the IDers who say "it might have
been ETs" are
really serious. This would undercut the whole rationale for ID -
i.e., the assault on
"naturalism." I consider such tactics in public debate to be a mere
fig leaf to cover
the fact that when they say "Designer" they mean "God."
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
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