Re: [asa] ID/Miracles/Design (Behe vs. Behe)

Dear Dave:

I'm not an idiot. Give me credit for understanding that there are chains of
causality behind the motion of atoms, molecules, genes, etc. I know that
there is no "chance" in that sense, at least not on the macrocosmic level
(whatever may be true on the so-called "quantum" level). But it's still
perfectly proper to say that two shoppers in a grocery store, rounding a
corner with their carts, collide with each other by "chance". And if the
same person regularly collided with you in the same grocery store, at least
once every time you shopped there, you would quite rightly infer that the
collisions were the result not of chance but of "design". And if a year
from now, or even a million years from now, a sculpture accurately depicting
the heads of George Bush and John McCain was found carved in rocky hills
behind your home, you would not attribute that sculpture to the "chance"
effects of weathering. You would know, with practical certainty, that it
was due to design. The question is why you wouldn't infer that complex
integrated organic systems, which are a billion times more complex than any
carving, aren't also due to design.

The only way out of the design inference is to show that random mutations
and other undirected mechanisms can produce integrated complex organic
systems. I asked you if you believed that they could do so, barring the
special intervention of God. You still have not given a straight answer.
Instead, you've told me angrily that I should agree with Martin Luther's
theology, and that ID is "bunk". Is that the sum total of your argument?
If so, then you are indeed making the right decision not to comment further.

Cameron.

----- Original Message -----
From: "D. F. Siemens, Jr." <dfsiemensjr@juno.com>
To: <wybrowc@sympatico.ca>
Cc: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Sunday, April 26, 2009 7:56 PM
Subject: Re: [asa] ID/Miracles/Design (Behe vs. Behe)

> If "chance" means that an event is totally unguided, if there are no
> parameters that produce the situation, then there is nothing in the
> universe that came about by chance. Every event has some determinants.
> What is usually meant is that we do not know what produced the effect or
> what the consequences may be.
>
> Since Murray, Wayne, Dick and Mike (along with others earlier) have
> responded, in ways I can second, to various aspects of your claims, and
> since I feel that I have made no progress in clarifying the matters you
> bring up, this will be my last communication on these topics.
> Dave (ASA)
>

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Received on Sun Apr 26 21:24:12 2009