[asa] Re: [asa] Re: [asa] Rejoinder 8A from Timaeus - to Randy Isaac

Burgy,
  All analogies I've heard relate to situations where humans are the design
agent. We have no analogies of cases where non-humans (and/or non-animals)
are the design agent and we have no basis to extrapolate our analogies to
such a supposition.
  As for your statement that "ID cannot "detect design" if the ways to doing
so are ruled out." I think you are getting to the heart of the question. If
ruling out "gaps" means that we've ruled out the way in which ID detects
design, then how is it that ID is not a "god of the gaps" argument for
having detected design? If ID is indeed not a "god of the gaps" argument,
then how does it detect design in living cells in the scenario without gaps?

 Fourth and over,
 Randy

----- Original Message -----
From: "John Burgeson (ASA member)" <hossradbourne@gmail.com>
To: "Randy Isaac" <randyisaac@comcast.net>
Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2008 12:00 PM
Subject: Re: [asa] Re: [asa] Rejoinder 8A from Timaeus - to Randy Isaac

> Randy wote: "how, in the ID model that you advocate does ID detect
> design in the absence of gaps, namely in the case that the
> probabilities of the variations, that for example lead to the
> "irreducibly complex" biomolecules, are found to be within a
> reasonable range of probabilities."
>
> I've been struggling with this sort of question myself. This has been
> a great discussion; I've read almost all of it and saved everything.
>
> Analogies work best for me. Here is one (not new): Suppose you and I,
> out climbing a Colorado mountain, find an oddly shaped rock. By "oddly
> shaped," it does not have usual rock-like irregularities. Surely we
> would both conjecture that it might have formed :naturally," that is,
> without human intervention, but it might also have been formed by
> human intervention. Both possibilities exist (along with a host of
> other much less likely scenarios, of course; for this scene, I'll
> discount these).
>
> What I see ID doing is claiming that "intelligent agent intervention"
> in some biological processes should not be, a priori, ruled out, but
> given due consideration.
>
> What I see the "anti-ID" person doing is claiming that "intelligent
> agent intervention" is too small a probability to even consider.
>
> My problem is (back to the rock example), if human intervention is
> considered as a viable possibility, that leads you and I to search for
> more such rocks -- a new research programme. If we rule it out,
> however, we toss the rock aside and continue on our way.
>
> If the rock formed "naturally," we will waste our time on a new
> search. If the rock formed with human intervention, we might miss the
> discovery of a lifetime.
>
> In the end, Randy, does it not come down to a person's own estimates
> of a successful search? ID cannot "detect design" if the ways to doing
> so are ruled out.
>
> To the extent I agree with ID, I hope that someday they do find that
> "smoking gun." My gut tells me, however, they will not be doing this
> in my lifetime.
>
> Burgy
>
> --
> Burgy
>
> www.burgy.50megs.com
>

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Received on Tue Nov 4 12:18:58 2008