From: John Burgeson (hoss_radbourne@hotmail.com)
Date: Fri Nov 29 2002 - 19:15:23 EST
George: Let me pick up on just part of your post. You wrote: "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.""
Perhaps so, but are you not ascribing (base) motives to them when they say
otherwise?
What I want to do is remove the debate entirely away from discussions of the
IDers themselves, what motivates them -- and just talk about the ideas.
To limit the discussion only to OOLOE is to simply confine it to that part
of the material world we know most about.
An archaelogist finds a non-living item "X" and declares that it appears to
have been created by an intelligence, and generally that claim is taken
seriously for many items "X1, X2, ... " Sometimes, however, item X15 (for
instance) is subsequently judged to have been created through inanimate
natural causation. And reasonable scientists then debate that.
A biologist finds a living item "Y" and declares that it appears to have
been created by an intelligence. Generally that claim is NOT taken seriously
for items "Y1, Y2, ..." even by IDers. But sometimes an IDer will take it
seriously for item Y15 (for instance).
So the division point seems to be between non-living items (or items that
appear to be non-living) and living items, presumably on the basis that to
create a living item of any sort is something beyond the ken of modern
science and therefore ruled out a priori.
I don't like a priori rules ( as you know) and so I cannot be comfortable
with the division, at least as I have stated it.
Burgy
www.burgy.50megs.com
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