Re: More fusillades in the ID wars

I think that one thing that may argue for minimal intrusion into the
unaided (but designed) workings of the natural world is the matter of
consequence. You might recall the familiar trickle-down concept of a
butterfly wing flap ultimately having an influence on the weather
pattern of South America. My concern (though I cannot make a clear
argument at present) is that if there were to be much in the way of
tweaking the otherwise natural workings, the result could be a departure
from some of the relative predictability and comforting reliability of
most of natures operations, the things we depend upon when we formulate
laws of nature and so on. My sense is that a certain
reliability/repeatability is a part of the miracle of discoverability
that seems to be build into nature to complement our remarkable desire
to explore and discover. Were that reliability/repeatability to depart
much from what we experience (as a result of intervention), both the
discoverability and satisfaction of discovery would be muted.
Admittedly this line of thought may be weak if God's intrusions are
constrained to the non-miraculous in the sense of only influencing
probabilities, not overruling the timing or nature of the workings of
the natural world as created. JimA

Dick Fischer wrote:

> [snip]
>
> Further, if you permit divine intervention in life processes then you
> open the door for divine intervention in physical processes and
> chemical processes as well. Now try to do science in that
> environment. I think the notion of divine intervention opens the door
> to an Alice in Wonderland world where reality is blended with the
> metaphysical. You can't predict the circumstances under which the
> laws of physics and chemistry prevail or when they may be set aside at
> the whims of the Creator because He needs a speciation event to take
> place or He needs a better organ for some group of critters. What are
> the rules?
> <http://www.genesisproclaimed.org/>

[snip]
Received on Thu Feb 3 23:55:48 2005