From: George Murphy (gmurphy@raex.com)
Date: Mon Oct 13 2003 - 17:43:24 EDT
Brian Harper wrote:
>
> At 03:52 PM 10/10/2003 -0400, George Murphy wrote:
> >Ted Davis wrote:
> >.............................
> > > Ted: How does Phil propose that we do natural science? That's a good
> > > question that I won't try to answer for him--many critics of ID would like
> > > to see it answered. In vague terms, however, I think he would say, "not
> > > entirely naturalistically," in other words to have a science in which "the
> > > design inference" can and will be made, by scientists themselves and within
> > > science itself and not simply in philosophy or theology.
> >
> > & once the "design inference" is made - what? Do we investigate
> > the designer
> >(i.e., God) by the methods - or Phil's methods - of natural science? Or
> >do we just stop
> >at that point? Maybe there are other possibilities but I can't think of
> >them.
>
> Koons offered a possible "then what" in his summary of the NTSE conference
> in 1997:
>
> "3.If theistic science or intelligent design theory is to
> become a progressive research program, it must do more than
> poke holes in the evidence for Darwinism: it must acquire
> auxiliary hypotheses about the intentions and preferences of
> the designer from which we can generate specific, testable
> predictions and informative explanations." -- Koons
>
> Discussions of the intentions and preferences of the designer
> is, of course, the most natural follow up. I'm sort of curious
> though whether ID has moved away from this view over the past
> few years. I mean, as soon as one has the idea that the designer
> might be Yahweh then one starts to get uncomfortable about
> compressing His intentions and preferences into formulas.
>
> [BTW, its been six years now since that report and still all they
> are doing, as far as I can see, is poking holes in the evidence for Darwinism]..........................
Agreed. & I would add that learning "about the intentions and preferences of
the designer" is something that we are given through revelation (or "special revelation"
if one insists). Even if one admits the possibility a natural knowledge of God as a
preparation for the gospel, such a knowledge encompasses only general truths such as the
existence of God and the fact that the universe is God's creation. IT does not tell us
"the intentions and preferences of the designer."
& it seems to me that the kind of thing Koons suggests still comes under my
heading of investigating God by the methods of the natural sciences. But I suppose one
mitigates the presumptuousness of that a but by saying that we're going to investigate
"the designer" rather than God!
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
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