(no subject)

Hello list
It's time for my yearly post :) My apologies if this has been discussed. I loosely follow the intelligent design debate and, being a church-going Christian and a geologist the subject comes up occasionally among friends. I generally say that I believe in a designer but that the question of design is beyond the realm of science. It seems to me that the claims of I.D. fall into two broad categories (yes, I'm a lumper not a splitter). First is irreducible complexity. The modern arguments of Behe seem to be a rehash of the objections to piecemeal evolution of the eye and other complex organs. And I lump into this category commonly stated summaries of I.D. that many biologic structures and systems are too complex to have developed gradually through natural selection. It seems to me that these are God-of-the-gaps type arguments and/or arguments from ignorance. The second type of argument is to pose the question: Is design detectable? Dembski argues that yes, indeed design is empir!
 ically detectable and therefore is within the realm of science. I find this type of argument more difficult refute than the first type. There is much discussion and debate that addresses the first type of argument, but I have not found much that addresses the second. My question is this: How do those of you who are opposed to the I.D. movement address assertions that design is empirically detectable and therefore within the realm of science?

Brent
Received on Tue Dec 20 14:23:07 2005