Re: Whose Burden of Proof?

Howard wrote:
> I'm still baffled by your reference to "natural quantum indeterminacies as
> the source of intelligent activity."

To be clearer, perhaps I should have said "mechanism for" instead of
"source". The point being that divine action could utilize quantum events
that fall within the expected range of probabilities but serve some
intelligent purpose. Robert Russell and others have suggested that point
mutations could be a place where this occurs. This would be "natural" from
a methodological naturalism point of view.

> I am very familiar with this attempt by Dembski to talk his way out of
being
> seen as an advocate of what I call "the hand-like actin of form-imposing
> intervention." So, does it really make sense to anyone on this list to
> imagine God sending non-energetic zero-frequency photons into some biotic
> system to rearrange its base-pairs or proteins?

What do you mean by "make sense"?

> Unfortunately for ID advocates, it is
> impossible for them to actually compute the probability whose numerical
> value is needed to verify whether or not there exist any biotic systems
that
> possess the ID-contrived quality named "specified complexity." As I have
> repeatedly stated, ID has no conclusive scientific case.

I think you are right. Whether their premise of intelligent design is right
or not, I don't see any hope of them making a compelling *scientific* case.
Beside, as I stated in earlier posts, those who accept the assertion of
continuous active divine intelligent design should not have the burden of
proof. Not even considering scripture, the most reasonable inference we
have comes from our own experience of human designers and that would posit
that God is also continually active in design. Any rejection of that
inference would have to address 1) the theological issue why God would let
chance play such a drastically more prominent role in design than humans do
and 2) the scientifically intractable issue of ultimate causation.

Your point about <God sending a photon>, however, speaks to the
reasonableness issue. This is where I think science and theology can work
together. The metaphysical model that seems to be pervading this issue is a
dualistic one that puts God "out there" and the world "here" so that God
must do something like "send a photon". This model, which I think has its
roots in the early pre-Socratic philosophers, creates a dichotomy between
matter and God. So much so that Plato had to create a demiurge to deal with
the material world. This is not, however, the only metaphysical model that
is amenable to religion in general and Christianity. There seems to be
today a resurgence of more organic metaphysical models( de Chardin,
panentheistic emphases in Christianity, feminist theologies, process
theology, etc) that offer more reasonable options for divine action. I
think ID's use of the term "unembodied agent" is a big mistake. It buys
into all the theological and reasonableness problems of a ontological
dualism. How an organic model might fit better with science is an open
question. However, with sciences rapidly changing view and description of
the most fundamental levels of reality, I think it is too early to reject
carte blanche that there are divine action schemes that are both theology
sound and fit reasonably within a scientific view.

Steve Petermann
Received on Tue Dec 2 11:47:33 2003