Re: [asa] ID: Neither Science nor Religion

Though I no longer receive messages directly from Pim van Meurs (a voice of Panda's Thumb), after reading Mike Gene's response to him here at the ASA list, perhaps something needs to be cleared up.
 
Do you see, ASA, the problem of what happens when a person opposes 'natural' to 'supernatural' and to nothing else? It is used as a weapon by some as much as others would use it to teach and enlighten. Pim uses it to ridicule 'intelligent design,' not as a way of uplifting the divine!
 
As it turns out, PvM speaks merely as an 'outsider' - who is he to tell intelligent design advocates who they are and who they are not, what they believe and what they don't? It would be like telling someone they are not a Boston Celtics fan, they are even not a Boston Celtics fan, when really, they do cheer for B.C.! Pim is not an 'insider' to ID, and hasn't show the courage to publicly declare himself (cheering for Darwinian evolution) as Mike Gene has just done in this thread speaking for both TE and ID.
 
As it turns out, the topic of 'intelligent causation,' which is central to the intelligent design movement, is predominantly NOT within the realm of most scholars at ASA to professionally approach. This is because 'intelligent causation' is a theme primarily in and for the human-social sciences. It is NOT a priority for the natural sciences (which incidentally is why I imagine Mike Gene has not yet found 'positive' evidence of design using scientific methodology)! Thus, the IDM is really attempting to show that the paradigm of 'modern science' needs adjustment in this contemporary, post-modern epoch.
 
Please don't misunderstand 'intelligent causation' as exclusive knowledge, which cannot be obtained by study outside of natural-scientific thought. In fact, if one posits a science of common life, then every person has insight into the meaning of intelligent causation, as a mirror image, reflexively. However, saying this is indeed a gauntlet thrown down to those natural scientists and philosophers of (natural) science who would still pretend a 'hard-soft' dichotomy, that natural sciences are somehow, for some reason more-important or higher than human-social thought, which is God-forsaken.
 
Why not allow Mike Gene to present his view of how 'intelligent design' is neither 'science' nor 'religion'? Why not allow the possibility that a bridge between TE and ID or their overlap could be realised? The continual doubters will surely raise their voices, but then of course they are not those who will set the path of the future...
 
Gregory

--- On Tue, 7/1/08, Nucacids <nucacids@wowway.com> wrote:

From: Nucacids <nucacids@wowway.com>
Subject: Re: [asa] ID: Neither Science nor Religion
To: asa@calvin.edu
Received: Tuesday, July 1, 2008, 6:36 AM

Hi PvM,

"Your version of ID however is somewhat at odds with how ID is commonly
applied and we run the risk of conflating the two concepts."

Commonly applied is just that - commonly applied. In other words, more
popular. In other words, easier to run across due to media attention and
socio-political rabble-rousing. But as someone who has extensively used the
internet to interact with numerous ID proponents over the last eight years,
I can inform folks that "commonly applied" also means stereotype. I
have
met many people over the years who consider themselves supportive of ID, yet
who would not conform to the common, pop media stereotypes of ID. After
all, ID itself means different things to different people.

As for me? I'm simply offering people a chance to move beyond the
superficial analysis and uncover an intellectual world that goes a little
deeper than something you would read in a newspaper.

- Mike Gene

----- Original Message -----

> Your version of ID however is somewhat at odds with how ID is commonly
> applied and we run the risk of conflating the two concepts. ID as
> proposed by the mainstream is not about a police investigation, no eye
> witnesses, no physical evidence, no motives means and opportunities.
>
> So perhaps the problem is the confusion caused by ID proponents as to
> what its claims are and how it compares to how science deals with
> intelligent causation, and we conclude how ID is meant not to
> represent the latter but rather provide a way to detect supernatural
> design. Somehow, ID proponents have since been forced to include
> intelligence as super natural or non naturalistic, but that only makes
> their arguments even less relevant.
>
> We do not even see an equivalent of a line up where we allow a closest
> match, a best match. So I am not sure where you are going with this as
> it seems to not represent with much accuracy what ID is all about.
>
> As to ID not being religious, I disagree, ID has chosen a form of
> 'design' which not only has rendered it scientifically without
content
> but also involving the supernatural, by virtue of design being the set
> theoretic complement of regularity and chance, or that which remains
> when natural processes have been eliminated. But what does remain when
> natural processes have been eliminated? Either the supernatural, or
> our ignorance or perhaps an empty set?
>

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Received on Mon Jun 30 23:39:51 2008