Re: [asa] Reference design

Burgy wrote:

> I see I was not precise enough in my analogy. Let me try again. It is
> 8,000 years ago and you and I have just discovered the decorated nest.
> Neither of us sod-busters have ever seen or even thought of a bird --
> or any other animal -- doing such thing. It is a new phenomena to
> both of us.
>
> But even though new, both of us (I hope) would be interested in
> pursuing the scientific programme of an investigation of causation,
> with the underlying assumption that such decorations don't happen
> "naturally."
>
> Now to the extent one postulates a divinity as causation, that seems
> to be possible, but outside what science can investigate. (See -- I am
> still a methodological atheist). But my understanding of ID is that
> this postulation is not required. A postulation of an advanced (or at
> least very different) agent however, is not ruled out.
>
> Back to my anology. It is the present day, but you and I are members
> of a remote tribe in S.A. Our reaction to the decorated nest is the
> same. Then we stumble onto a dirt road and see a car. We thought we
> were the only humans on the earth. What do we see as a research
> programme in this case?

I'm simply saying that if we discover anything which is so new to us that
there is little resemblance to objects whose designers we know, then we do
not have enough information to conclude anything about a designer. A
research program to discover the source is indeed in order.

> I am still not impressed with the concept of "reference design." But
> you knew that.

I wasn't trying to impress, just to explain.
....
> Good point. But it does not address the question "is such a search
> outside science?"

Science seeks to discover and "explain" the world through correlated events
(I hesitate to use causal relationships). Observation is key to its
operation. If no comparable "reference design" is known, then science can
only say we do not yet know--more work is needed. A divine source as a
designer would need to be reproducibly observed and verified to be a
legitimate purview within science.

Essentially, another way of saying all this is that ID claims that the realm
of human activity (specifically the generation of objects designed through
human intelligence) constitutes an adequate reference design so that the
elements of a living cell, having similar characteristics to such human
activity, can be said to be the result of the design activity of an entity
with "intelligence" analgous to human intelligence. I'm simply suggesting
two things: 1. that any human design activity is not an adequate reference
design since there are also key differences in living cells that render the
comparison inadequate, and 2. there is no reference design from a non-human
intelligence, divine or otherwise, that would render such a suggestion
within the realm of observability, i.e., science.

Randy

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Received on Sun Nov 9 18:04:25 2008