Re: Directed evolution: evidence for teleology?

----- Original Message -----
From: "Cornelius Hunter" <ghunter2099@sbcglobal.net>
To: "George Murphy" <gmurphy@raex.com>; <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Sunday, October 16, 2005 6:39 PM
Subject: Re: Directed evolution: evidence for teleology?

> George:
>
>> 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.
>
> Couple of points probably worth making:
>
> 1. The ID claim is that the evidence points to a designer, not necessarily
> to God. This is (I think it is safe to say) a consensus within ID.

But again we need to concentrate on the distinctive claim of ID, that the
designer hypothesis needs to be included in our scientific theory. & a
natural designer (i.e., some agent within the world) just doesn't solve the
problems that ID says need to be solved. Unless you're going to postulate
some intelligent agent which doesn't embody irreducible complexity & CSI
then you've just pushed the problem back a step. Who designed that
designer? So just cut to the chase and say "God" to begin with.

& a natural designer doesn't solve the problem that motivates most of ID
activity in another way, because the whole project is part of an attack on
"naturalism." Clearly a natural designer is of no use for that purpose.

But of course the claim that the designer could be natural does serve one
very useful purpose: It enables IDers to play the "Nobody here but us
scientists and philosophers" game when trying to get their ideas into public
school science curricula.

Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/

 
Received on Mon Oct 17 12:30:38 2005