RE: Directed evolution: evidence for teleology?

The important question is what is the data that ID wants to explain? I strongly believe that if the data is purely physical, viz., it does not deal with how life, conscious being, came into being, then it is difficulty to see how one can infer intelligence behind the existence of (physical) Nature. However, if one wants to explain all of nature, the physical as well as the nonphysical, and thus include life, consciousness, rationality, then one must infer a Creator. It seems to me that ID answers ontological questions and not merely physical ones.

 
Moorad

________________________________

From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu on behalf of George Murphy
Sent: Sun 10/16/2005 7:35 AM
To: Cornelius Hunter; asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: Directed evolution: evidence for teleology?

----- Original Message -----
From: "Cornelius Hunter" <ghunter2099@sbcglobal.net>
To: "George Murphy" <gmurphy@raex.com>; <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Saturday, October 15, 2005 11:39 PM
Subject: Re: Directed evolution: evidence for teleology?

> George and Pim:
>
> George:
>
>
>>> You seem to be misunderstanding ID (Behe included). Behe does not
>>> require that we "subject God to scientific experiements." At least not
>>> that I am aware of. Perhaps you could provide more details on this.
>>
>> I really wonder if you are paying attention to what I write. I never
>> said that Behe required God to be subjected to scientific experiments
>
> Yes, I did read your post. You wrote that ID, as science, is objectionable
> because if God is an explicit part of the theory then that aspect of the
> theory can't be part of science since we can't
>
>> subject God to scientific experiements.
>
>
>> What I said was that Behe & other IDers think that God is needed to
>> explain certain phenomena,
>
> This probably makes no difference to your complaint, but Behe/ID does not
> say God is "needed," but rather that God designing certain structures is a
> very good inference to make. Minor difference, but perhaps important.
>
>
>> that he & other IDers want ID to be considered science, & that this would
>> require God - as an element of their scientific theory - to be the
>> subject of experiemnt & other tools of scientific analysis. They don't
>> realize this implication of their claims because they don't think
>> carefully about how divine action is to be understood in connection with
>> them.
>
> OK, thanks. I think I understand. I think this is a criticism ID is
> willing to live with (much more to say about that I'm sure...).

OK, we seem to be getting onto the same page. FWIW I don't own a copy of
_Darwin's Black Box_ & the library no longer has the copy of it that I read
when it 1st came out. Maybe they think it's no longer of current interest!
Thus I don't have the exact language that he uses. But anyway, to
summarize, -

If the inference (which you emphasize) of an intelligent designer takes the
form "natural selection & any other evolutionary theory that doesn't appeal
to a designer can't explain certain features so there must be a designer"
then the implication (whether made explicitly or not) is that appeal to a
designer is needed in order to explain those features.

Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
Received on Sun Oct 16 09:34:18 2005