From: richard@biblewheel.com
Date: Thu Jul 31 2003 - 14:14:34 EDT
Re post: http://www.calvin.edu/archive/asa/200307/0650.html
I had written:
> >Also, my point was that if we do live in an ID universe, which you
> >admit to be possible, then it would seem that ID science would be
> >*necessary* to correctly understand our universe. Is this correct?
To which Glen replied:
>
> I don't think there is anything such as ID science. It is play science,
like
> what I did as an 8 year old when I would ask my play mate to pass me the
> kurgian chemical and I would mix it (in my game) to dungarium to form the
> great explosive dinopoop. All in all it was great fun. There was nothing
we
> couldn't make up and do in my 'laboratory'.
Glen, please forgive me for commenting on this, but I *must* ask if this is
an appropriate way to characterize the beliefs and scholastic activities of
those with whom you disagree. Jim Armstrong chastised me for nothing more
than my statement that "I believe it explains a lot of the problems we are
finding in your work."
(cf. http://www.calvin.edu/archive/asa/200307/0538.html)
Jim ended his chastisement with the suggestion:
"Perhaps there's just a slightly more respectful way to engage and learn
from one another. "
I wonder, what he would have to say about a pre-pubescent scatalogical
characterization of an opponents work?
The problem is that our discussion will soon degenerate into what flows from
the viscus if we allow such visceral expressions to our frustrations.
Again, please forgive me for commenting. I am not trying to embarrass you.
Your comment was simply inappropriate and needed to be addressed, imho.
You then wrote:
> ID never defines what it means to be ID'd.
This may be true. It doesn't impact my point. Dembsky is not the end-all
be-all of ID. In fact, its possible that his program will fail, but that the
movement will succeed. My question to you was not if the current ID theory
was adequate or correct. My question was simply this:
Since it is possible that we could live in an ID Universe, would not some
form of ID Science be *necessary* to understand the universe we live in?
As far as I know, no one has attempted to address this question.
You then said:
>Dembski's assertion that
> probabilities less than 10^-150 means it is designed is absolutely silly.
> The probability that the molecules in my room are arranged exactly as they
> are right now, is much less than 10^-150, yet we wouldn't claim that God
> designed the ordering of the molecules in my room, would we???
I don't know if the ID folks are guilty of this kind of abuse of statistical
reasoning, but it does seem very common amongst their critics. It is hard to
believe that anyone would make the error you suggest. I think Dembski tries
to address this by appealing to the idea of "specified design" but I don't
know a lot about that yet.
<snip>
I had written:
> >
> >But I do agree, as stated in previous posts, that the ID agenda is
> >generally uninteresting to me personally because I don't have an
> >interest (calling) to prove theism, which we all recognize as the
> >best that ID could do (with regards to questions of religion.) But
> >what if there are aspects of creation that are Intelligently
> >Designed? Shouldn't we design science to deal with this possibility?
To which Glen replied:
> Tell me exactly what you think would constitute a measure of intelligent
> design? What are the units intelligent design is measured in? How many
> bubnogs constitute intelligent design?
The first candidate seems to be Bits, the Units of Information Theory. And
again, I must request that you reign in your disrepectful language.
<snip>
Glen wrote:
> >
> >>Logically, there are two very major flaws in ID. First, ID
> >assumes that God
> >>would create anthropomorphically--that is, in an identical way as we
> >>conceive creation should be carried out. There is absolutely no to
prove
> >>this.
> >
To which I replied:
> >I'm not aware of this. Could you cite some sources for me?
And Glen said:
>
> It isn't a source, it is sheer logic. They beleive that God creates as a
> magician does, by pulling magical bunnies out of a top hat--e.g. ex
nihilo.
> That is the way they conceive God creates, thus they don't conceive that
God
> creates via evolution. QED
I don't think assertions about people's beliefs forms a valid logical
argument. I asked for citations and you simply "sheer logic". These seem
like logical fallacies to me.
> >
> >>If God created via evolution, then the current ID agenda is taking us
> >>in the direction of falsehood.
> >> That option is ruled out a priori.
> >
> >Yes, and if ID is true, then metaphysical materialism is taking us
> >in the direction of falsehood. I don't see any test for truth
> >here. It cuts both ways.
>
> That is my point. At this point we exit the realm of science and enter the
> realm of faith. We can't prove design. We can gather evidence of some
> things that happened through forensic sciences like geology, astronomy
etc.
> But we can't prove if it was or wasn't designed. Everyone is in the realm
of
> faith there.
Not at all - I have seen no arguments against our ability to prove design.
Did I miss them, or did you fail to present them?
> >
> >It seems you are saying that evolution is ruled out a priori by
> >ID. I'm not aware of that either. Please give me some citations.
>
> Henry Schaeffer, "The first thing to notice is that naturalistic evolution
> and intelligent design both make definite assertions of fact. To see
this,
> let us get personal. Here you are. You had parents. they in turn had
> parents. They too had parents. And so on. If we run the video camera back
> in time, generation upon generation, what do we see? Do we see a
continuous
> chain of natural causes that go from apes to small furry mammals to
reptiles
> to slugs to slime molds to blue gren algae and finally all the way back
to
> a prebiotic soup, with no event in the chain ever signaling the activity
of
> an intelligent cause? Or, as we trace back the genealogy, do we find
events
> that clearly signal the activity of an intelligent cause?" 'Foreword,' in
> William A. Dembski Editor, Mere Creation (Downer's Grove: Intervarsity
> Press, 1998), p. 25
>
Thanks for the citation. Very helpful!
>
> >Also, this seems false ... I general understand "a priori" to mean
> >"prior to or without examination or evidence" - this doesn't seem
> >to be the case with ID. They could be wrong, but they do seem to
> >be examining the evidence and using it as the basis of their
> >argument. If not, wouldn't they have already been defeated?
>
> Schaeffer seems to be saying that if the evidence shows evolution, ID is
> out. That is a priori in exactly your sense of the word.
>
Yes, with respect to the ID of evolution. But thats not the only ID in
question, e.g. Fine Tuning.
> >
> >>The ID
> >>folk often cite things like recognizing design in stone tools, or a
watch.
> >>The reason design inference works in that case is that we have
> >ruled out any
> >>possibility that natural forces create in this way. But that
> >isn't the case
> >>with evolution. We can't a priori rule it out, except that is
> >what they do.
> >
To which I replied:
> >I don't really follow the last line. To assert there are
> >irreducibly complex structures that could not arise from natural
> >processes may look like what you assert, but I have trouble
> >asserting it is necessarily false since it seems like it certainly
> >*could* be true.
>
Glen responded:
> There are no irreducibly complex structures. Ever wonder how they get the
> light on top of the church steeple? The roof angle is such that no human
or
> gecko can climb up there. The light is at the peak of a tiny little pole.
> Obviously this is irreducibly complex. God himself places the light bulb
up
> there. right? Isn't that the correct conclusion? Of course not. Scaffolds
> are set up, a guy climbs up the scaffold, changes the light and then the
> scaffold is taken away, which makes everyone think the structure is
> irreducibly complex.
I understand your point, but the problem is that it posits ten trillion
hypotheticals as a solution to the irreducibly complex structures we find.
I think I'd prefer epicycles, thank you very much! :-)
Also, your denial of the existence of irreducibly complex structures is
inconsistent with your example of how they came to be. You need to separate
your argument into two pieces:
1) Do IC structures exist?
2) How did they come to exist.
You assumed the truth of #1 when you explained #2. I don't know of anyone
who denies #1. The whole argument seems to be about #2.
> >
> >>With stone tools, we rule out natural 'design' on the basis of
> >probability.
> >>It is hihgly unlikely that stones jostling eachother together would
create
> >>the angles seen on the stone tools. And since we logically rule out God
> >>creating stone tools, that leaves only mankind as the designer.
> >We rule out
> >>nature based upon observed probabilites. With evolution we have
> >no observed
> >>probabilities--only assumed probabilities.
> >
> >Humm .. sounds strangly like "evolution" is not an observed phenomenon.
>
>
> You misunderstood me. And I wrote poorly. With evolution, the critics
have
> only assumed probabilities with which to critique evolution.
>
>
> >
> >Also, even with any "assumed probabilities" it seems we lack the
> >ability to explain the mechanism of evolution. Is it not true that
> >the fossil record is "columnar" - meaning that we seem to have
> >lots of evidence for the lack of transition between species?
>
> No, that is not true at all. You want to see a very smooth transition? see
> http://home.entouch.net/dmd/micro.htm there are pictures towards the
bottom.
>
> http://home.entouch.net/dmd/transit.htm
>
I looked at the "smooth transistion" in these micro-creatures. But what I
really wanted to know was if the major forms were separated into columns.
Isn't this a fact that led to such theories punctuated equilibrium?
In other words, I thought that the lack of transitional forms was a big
problem within the evolutionary community, and that there were theories
proposed to explain it. Am I wrong?
>
> >Please excuse the lack of clarity here - we have reached the limit
> >of my knowledge. But I have frequently heard this, and am
> >requesting your help. Is it true?
>
> It is true only for those who don't study the fossil record. Those who
do,
> know that the gaps are really small. The crazy thing is that every time a
> fossil is found to fill in a gap, another gap is created. Think about it.
And Zeno says I can't walk across the room because I have to go half way
with each step. Also, each fossil creates *two* new gaps, one before and
one after, but they are each less than half as big as the first, so the
sequence would converge.
Finally, I would like to suggest that current ID theory may not be a good
representation of what I am suggesting when I say that ID Science may be
required for a complete and accurate understanding of the Universe we live
in.
The ID Science I am suggesting is that which enables the Mind to recognize
and understand Reality, even if Reality contradicts all forms of
materialism.
In service of Jesus Christ the Lord,
Richard Amiel McGough
Discover the sevenfold symmetric perfection of the Holy Bible at
http://www.BibleWheel.com
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