Do they really believe these things?

Hi Pim, you wrote:
 
The intellectual vacuity of Intelligent Design once again seems to be
exemplified by appeal to ignorance.
 
I agree with you that the ID folks are not going to give up, and their
tactics, methods, and science or lack thereof is appalling. But it's an
issue that will never go away because even though on a micro scale it
can be defeated with sound natural explanations, on a macro scale it
seems to be intuitively obvious. The end result is so ingenious, and we
believe in God who we believe to be the Creator, and if the hairs of our
head are numbered, why wouldn't he get his hands dirty and take a little
action?
 
It may be the ID folks have simply chosen the wrong tactics and
arguments.
 
The bacteria's flagellum (the ID poster-boy) is flawed from the start.
By building his case for irreducible complexity (IC), Behe picked on
something which doesn't fit his argument. Elements of the flagellum are
used by other bacteria for other purposes. And I don't think IC is the
argument anyway.
 
If I was going to argue for ID, I'd pick on elements which are specific
and advantageous to a given species that are not found either at all or
to the same extent in related species and ask for natural explanations.
For example, sweat glands in humans. Specifically, eccrine glands that
cause men to sweat (and women to "glow"). No other primates have them
anywhere near the extent that we do.
 
The average person has 2.6 million sweat glands. The maximum volume of
sweat that a person who is not adapted to a hot climate can produce is
about one liter per hour. if we move to a hot desert, however, the
ability to produce sweat can increase to roughly two to three liters per
hour within about six weeks. Nice feature.
 
Just cite nice-to-have features which aren't necessary for survival.
Most mammals have hairy faces. Excluding men's beards, our faces are
mostly hairless but we have handy eyebrows for keeping the sun out of
our eyes. They grow to a nice length and then stop so we don't have to
keep trimming them. Why? We could live and procreate without them.
 
Also, we are the only mammals that can cut their hair. So we have some
hair that keeps growing and we can cut it whenever and however we wish.
And some hair stops growing so we don't have eyelashes skimming the foam
off our cup of brew. Are these kinds of things simply fortuitous or the
result of forethought?
 
Natural selection would explain why nice-to-have features remain in the
general population, but purely natural explanations as to why they
popped up in the first place are harder to come by.
 
So I would just bring up the features that aren't necessary for survival
yet serve a useful purpose and then ask for a scenario of natural
causation that would bring it into existence. Just kick the ball into
our court and make us chase it around.
 
Dick Fischer
~Dick Fischer~ Genesis Proclaimed Association
Finding Harmony in Bible, Science, and History
 <http://www.genesisproclaimed.org> www.genesisproclaimed.org
 
Received on Thu Mar 23 16:50:30 2006