Dick Fischer <dickfischer@earthlink.net> wrote:The problem lies in the word "design" which in addition to its Websters' Unabridged definition has taken on a life of its own, thanks to the ID movement. And so, those of us who believe profoundly in our Creator must find words to describe what we believe and how we think He interacts with nature without invoking the "d" word which has been preempted.
Is that really a solution? How many words are we going to give up because some group has preempted them for their own use (thereby damaging the ability of all of us to communicate using the King's English)
Also, the design advocates use examples favorable to their point of view. The flagellum is a nicely functioning piece of bacterial hardware, and thus is cited as an example of God's handiwork, while the poor panda wasn't gifted with a functioning conventional thumb, and was left to fashion a wrist bone to enable him to strip bamboo leaves so he could eat. Evolve or die.
For as many examples you can cite of what appears to be God actively at work designing novel adaptive features for organisms, there are at least as many examples of bad design and genetic blunders. Maybe the Intelligent Designer was so busy working out the problems for one special creature he didn't have time to devote attention to another creature. And once a mistake occurs, apparently the "designer" is powerless to change it.
I think a part of the solution to this problem is to emphasize that God works through intermediaries: natural law, environmental conditions, men, maybe angels,... Natural law basically just enforces some constraints, allowing much variability in the outcomes, depending on environmental conditions. Men make mistakes and proceed by trial and error. Probably angels do as well, if you want to admit them to the collection of intermediaries God employs.
The point is this: the whole ID premise is based upon citing successful examples while ignoring the screw ups and what the implications may be. ID is not a comprehensive theory that explains what we observe in nature. It is simply a Pollyanna explanation for what it would be like if we lived in a perfect world.
Agreed.
Bill Hamilton
William E. Hamilton, Jr., Ph.D.
586.986.1474 (work) 248.652.4148 (home) 248.303.8651 (mobile)
"...If God is for us, who is against us?" Rom 8:31
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Received on Mon May 23 12:37:48 2005
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