Re: [asa] STATEMENT ON INTELLIGENT DESIGN BY IOWA STATE

Phil wrote:

> Well, I'm going to stir the pot...
> While I think the IDM is not using a valid approach, I am not convinced by
> this type of argument. Without any doubt some evidence for intelligent
> activity can be self-interpreting so that no a priori knowledge of the designer is
> required. For example, as Pim indicated, if the ID people found a coded,
> verbal message hidden in the DNA, and this message identified the designer, his
> abilities, and his purposes, then that would be sufficient a posteriori
> knowledge to interpret design. That's an extreme, but many other mild examples
> could be cited. The problem isn't that the IDM can never in principle find
> such evidence, but that they haven't.

...That they haven't is largely the point. It reflects the thinking
and intentions of human (or human like life forms) who want people
to know that it (or they) have the patent on this line. ID
does show us that God does not think like us.

Oddly, as a product of these discussions, I start to wonder why we
should search biology as though the message was somehow "hidden"
in there somewhere. This isn't how Dembski says it, but if God really
wanted to leave this kind of human-like stamp on every product, it is
hard to understand what reason there would be to disguise it as some
kind of code that we must ferret out with an enormous bank of
supercomputers. The numerology views would seem more consistent.

Generally, if you really want __to be sure of__ some odd effect in
experimental physics, you need to gather a lot of repeatable data.
If you cannot explain it, you should also want to see it reproduced
in several independent places before you are confident that it is
actually "true". The reason is because you want to
be sure there are no systematic issues, some bug in some hardware
or software, etc. Sometimes they turn out to be true, but generally,
if it is a small effect and it's not consistently reproduced so you can
test it thoroughly, you'd best spend your time pursuing other things.

So if God does not leave an obvious stamp that science can recognize,
it leaves us with little way to discern how to detect such things using
scientific methods.

It does seem that the traditionally orthodox view of salvation by Grace
through faith appears to make the most sense. God gives us a choice,
and we are left to decide.

> It is a mistake to state it as a general principle that you must have a
> priori knowledge of the designer. It sounds sexy when you state it as a general
> principle, but it's still not correct even though it sounds too sexy to not
> be correct. The problem with the fingerprint analogy is that it fails
> because not everything in the world is a mere fingerprint. Analogies can
> illustrate but they don't define.

Scientifically though, it gives us some ground work from which
we can base our interpretation of some data. If ID was trying
to show that ETs made us, then certainly looking for that
"imprimatur" would make a lot of sense. With God, in the
end, who knows?

> IMO, the general principle that is actually the essence of the IDM mistake
> is that, because of the possibility of appealing to infinite universes and
> the WAP, you cannot **scientifically** prove design in anything that is not
> gratuitous to our existence; yet the origin of our existence is precisely where
> they are looking.
>
>

Well,............ by Grace we proceed,
Wayne

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Received on Fri Jun 8 20:59:57 2007