[asa] Fwd: Denyse reviews Collins

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Pim van Meurs <pimvanmeurs@yahoo.com>
> Date: November 26, 2006 3:09:53 PM PST
> To: asa@calvin.edu
> Subject: Denyse reviews Collins
>
>
>
> Denyse writes:
>
> Collins spends a fair bit of his book attacking intelligent design
> theory (especially pp. 181-95). It's quite clear that he does not
> understand what the ID guys are saying, as Discovery fellow
> Jonathan Witt notes in Touchstone:
>
> <quote> Design theorists in biology do offer an extensive
> critique of Darwinian theory, but they also offer positive evidence
> for intelligent design. They argue from our growing knowledge of
> the natural world, including the cellular realm with which Collins
> deals, and from our knowledge of the only kind of cause ever shown
> to produce information or irreducibly complex machines (both found
> at the cellular level): intelligent agents.
> </quote>
> ----------------
>
> I understand that Denyse is not a scientist (by her own admission)
> and that she thus has to rely on others to make these claims, yet
> Witt, who is also not a scientist repeats the claims made by
> various ID proponents as well. Now, not being a scientist need not
> be a problem, however in this case the arguments that ID provide
> positive evidence of design is misleading and erroneous, as I
> intend to show.
>
> Only by conflating the concepts of complexity and information can
> ID argue its case. So let's look at it in more detail:
>
> "our knowledge of the only kind of cause ever shown to produce
> information"
>
> And yet there is credible evidence that natural processes
> (algorithms) can exactly do this. In fact, Dembski as much accepts
> this when he divides CSI into actual and apparent, without giving
> any tools how to differentiate between the two. In fact, the
> Algorithm Room challenge by Wesley Elsberry has remained
> unaddressed for years now.
>
> Note also that when ID talks about information, or complexity it
> talks about something which cannot be explained by regularity and/
> or chance. In most cases, it is unexplained by chance and thus
> information is not generated by designers but by the fact that
> chance cannot explain it. The moment we find a natural explanation,
> and this includes natural designers, the complexity drops to zero
> as we have found a plausible explanation. The conclusion is thus
> that ID is about what ID critics have correctly identified as
> rarefied design (Wilkins and Elsberry).
>
> or irreducible complexity
>
> Even ID proponents like Mike Gene have shown this to be a
> fallacious argument. In fact we know of plausible processes which
> can in fact generate irreducible complexity.
>
> So do ID proponents provide independent explanations about the
> existence of information and/or complexity in life? Not really, in
> fact Dembski argued
>
> <quote>As for your example, I’m not going to take the bait. You’re
> asking me to play a game: “Provide as much detail in terms of
> possible causal mechanisms for your ID position as I do for my
> Darwinian position.” ID is not a mechanistic theory, and it’s not
> ID’s task to match your pathetic level of detail in telling
> mechanistic stories. If ID is correct and an intelligence is
> responsible and indispensable for certain structures, then it makes
> no sense to try to ape your method of connecting the dots. True,
> there may be dots to be connected. But there may also be
> fundamental discontinuities, and with IC systems that is what ID is
> discovering.”
> </quote>
>
> it's time that ID proponents stop repeating these fallacious
> claims. Or perhaps "teach the controversy" does not necessarily
> extend to ID's own claims ? As Christians it is important that we
> remember Augustine's comments
>
> <quote>Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the
> earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the
> motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative
> positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the
> cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals,
> shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he hold to as
> being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful
> and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably
> giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these
> topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an
> embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a
> Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an
> ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the
> household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions,
> and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the
> writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned
> men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they
> themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions
> about our books, how are they going to believe those books in
> matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of
> eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their
> pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves
> have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and
> incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and
> sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their
> mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are
> not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend
> their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will
> try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from
> memory many passages which they think support their position,
> although they understand neither what they say nor the things about
> which they make assertion. </quote>

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Received on Tue Nov 28 00:20:36 2006