[asa] ID-Pure&Applied:(was : Collins' book is reviewed by the Arizona Origins

David O's comments suggest to me that it would be useful to distiguish
between Pure Intelligent Design theory and Applied Intelligent Design.
PureID is akin to Pure Mathematics and is on par with philosophy. PureID
is Dembski's design inference stuff. It involves probability arguments in
a pure form. It says nothing about the identity of the designer nor the
mode of dsign. David can correctly say that PureID makes no distinction
between cosmology and biology.
On the other hand AppliedID refers to attempts by Behe and others to apply
PureID to the real world. They need to do this in order to claim that
their ID is science. In my view they fail on two counts. Firs, they do not
know and cannot know the a priori probabilities that are needed. Second,
they are unable to say any thing about how and when the design is
implemented.
Since biology obviously post-dates cosmology,and since some features of
biology obviously postdate other features of biology, it is a reasonable
inference for Collins to make that *"ID portrays the Almighty as a clumsy
Creator, having to intervene at regular intervals to fix the inadequacies
of His own initial plan for generating the complexities of life"* .
Collins is talking about AppliedID. ID applied to biology is indeed
different form ID applied to cosmology. In my view, Collins is talking
very good sense.
Don N

> I have no sympathy for the views of the Arizona YEC folks that kicked
> off
> this thread. However, I recently finished Collins' book, and I have
> to say
> I found it mostly disappointing. The story of his conversion to faith
> certainly is inspiring, and it's refreshing to hear how this eminent
> scientist's faith has reinforced his commitment to science. However, I
> found the book jarringly disjointed in many respects.
>
> As the biggest example, Collins spends the first third of the book
> arguing
> that the fine tuning of the universe, along with the human moral sense,
> strongly support a theistic perspective. In the second third of the
> book,
> however, he argues that any teleological or design arguments in
> biology (i.e,
> the arguments we label "ID"), are worthless "god of the gaps" arguments.
>
> Well, which is it? It seems to me that Collins' critics are right
> here --
> the "god of the gaps" objection applies with just as much force to
> cosmological (fine tuning) and sociological (the moral sense)
> arguments as
> it does to biological ones. He never explains why there's any material
> difference between cosmological and biological teleogy / design
> arguments.
>
> Collins also, IMHO, misrepresents ID theory. Now, Collins may or may
> not be
> right about the ultimate merits of ID theory, and I'm not intending
> to open
> that can of worms. But statements like this -- *"ID portrays the
> Almighty
> as a clumsy Creator, having to intervene at regular intervals to fix the
> inadequacies of His own initial plan for generating the complexities of
> life"* -- are bunk. Nothing I've read in the ID literature suggests any
> such value judgments about the capabilities or purposes of the
> designer. Even if we assume ID is really a religious theory about the
> "Almighty," from a Christian theistic perspective, we'd say that if
> God did
> "intervene" in natural history, that intervention was perfectly good and
> wise, fully in accordance with God's character, even if we don't know
> the
> ultimate reasons for that "intervention."
>
> <SNIP>

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Received on Sat Oct 7 21:19:20 2006