Re: [asa] Confusion about Science and ID

Hi PvM,

“Well said, the claim that science is incapable of determining if life
was designed.”

Yes, if we think through the logic of Monod, science cannot determine
whether or not life was designed. Thus, it is ironic that so many treat it
as the authority on this issue.

“As even Dawkins admitted, there are forms of design
which are more open to scientific inquiry than others,”

I don’t think Dawkins has given this any real thought. Has he explained how
science would detect design? If not, his opinion is vacuous. If so, let's
have it.

“so if the argument is that science cannot address the issue of design, then
design is by definition outside scientific inquiry and thus
supernatural.”

Faulty logic. You would have to establish the absurd notion that everything
outside scientific inquiry is supernatural to make that argument. .

-Mike

----- Original Message -----
From: "PvM" <pvm.pandas@gmail.com>
To: "David Campbell" <pleuronaia@gmail.com>
Cc: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2008 7:58 PM
Subject: Re: [asa] Confusion about Science and ID

> Well said, the claim that science is incapable of determining if life
> was designed. As even Dawkins admitted, there are forms of design
> which are more open to scientific inquiry than others, so if the
> argument is that science cannot address the issue of design, then
> design is by definition outside scientific inquiry and thus
> supernatural.
> I also agree with David that ID's chosen approach to detecting design
> is one which remains unreliable by its inability to compete with 'we
> don't know'.
>
> As to ID serving a role as to 'question Darwinism', such a role does
> not require an ID assumption, in fact science itself seems quite
> capable of raising 'questions' regarding the efficacy of Darwinism and
> in fact has already done so by showing how natural processes of drift
> have played an important role in evolution and in fact, I argue that
> such processes as neutrality are essential components to the success
> of evolution and evolutionary theory.
>
> One can of course always argue that even though science has found
> sufficient explanations, that design is never ruled out as a
> possibility. That of course remains to be true, however if design does
> not propose ways of being tested by proposing positive hypotheses, it
> will remain without much real content.
>
> For instance, look at the bacterial flagellum as an example. ID has
> claimed that the structure is 'irreducibly complex' and thus Darwinian
> processes are unable to explain it. This precludes however two likely
> possibilities: 1) not all steps need to have been Darwinian in nature
> (selective) 2) not all steps need to involve a maintenance of a single
> function. In fact, theoretical work by such people as Gavrilets have
> shown how fitness landscapes tend to become quite flat when going
> beyond the single function gene interactions and incorporate the
> multidimensional nature of such landscapes.
>
>
>
> On Tue, Aug 12, 2008 at 3:06 PM, David Campbell <pleuronaia@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>> So we are left with a cultral illusion – the misguided notion, shared by
>>> the
>>> ID movement and most ID critics, that science is capable of determining
>>> whether or not life was designed. Science can provide information and
>>> ideas
>>> for addressing that issue, but science cannot answer it.
>>
>> I would propose two possible ways for science to detect whether life
>> was designed:
>> 1) Have a set of examples of known designed and known undesigned life.
>> Look for differences between the sets. See which provides a closer
>> match to life on Earth.
>>
>> 2) Have a known set of principles as to how a designer would or would
>> not implement things. Compare life to these standards. This requires
>> a certain amount of knowledge about the designer.
>>
>> I believe that the ID movement is generally trying to do 2 but without
>> having established how a designer would do things nor how to translate
>> that into appropriate criteria for a test.
>>
>> --
>> Dr. David Campbell
>> 425 Scientific Collections
>> University of Alabama
>> "I think of my happy condition, surrounded by acres of clams"
>>
>>
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>>
>
>
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>
>
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Received on Tue Aug 12 21:19:36 2008