Comments on: Is Intelligent Design A Theory?

By: queuno

queuno — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 21:54:23 +0000

One of my graduate advisers was fond of pointing out, behind closed doors, was that God lives in the fudge factor that many equations have. Not that God is irrelevant — to the contrary. It’s just that no one has any way to account for Him scientifically, so we account for His influence in other ways.

By: nasamomdele

nasamomdele — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 21:50:35 +0000

arj,

The bottom-most turtle is just that, a turtle.

Anticlimactic, I know.

By: a random John

a random John — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 20:03:48 +0000

I still wonder who designed the designer(s). I guess it’s turtles all the way down.

By: DKL

DKL — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 17:51:48 +0000

Mark D, you still haven’t explained why you cannot be more Christlike by not injecting Him into science. Christ doesn’t inject Himself, why do you?

By: Clark

Clark — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 17:08:51 +0000

To be fair to Mark, one need not inject God to justify ID. Pantheism of various sorts works just fine. (OK, you could argue that’s God, but the point being that if teleology is a facet of matter around us then the ID case would still function independent of the main views on God) Of course typically this is just thrown out as a sop to doubters since most ID proponents want to inject the Christian God into science.

By: Devyn S.

Devyn S. — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 16:46:06 +0000

So Mark, what is the point of ID then in your view? How is it really any different from evolution except saying that there was a God involved in the process? I think your view of ID is very different from others I have had “discussions” with.

By: Mark D.

Mark D. — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 16:03:28 +0000

DKL, As I said ID is an attempt to reliably establish teleology from empirical evidence. The originators admit that as a research program it does not attempt (and is incapable of empirically establishing) what type of teleology is involved.

By: Mark D.

Mark D. — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 15:53:10 +0000

Devyn S., ID does not assume that the investigation it undertakes can prove that God exists. The only thing it attempts to establish is that teleology exists. There are numerous atheists who maintain the necessity (and irreducibility) of teleology.

Clark, One step at a time. Completely taking the wind out of ID by computational means requires two things (1) A plausible Monte Carlo simulation of abiogenesis (2) A comparable simulation of the development of the sort of features ID claims are un-evolvable by non-teleological means. Bacterial flagella or something comparable for example. Lots of preliminary work will have to be done before an accurate simulation will be possible, so I suggest *any* simulation of the evolution of manifestly structured or quasi-biological complexity from random inputs and neutral state transition rules would be a rather convincing place to start.

As far as “theory” goes, there are plenty of other scientific theories with some empirical evidence that do not rise to the level of “well established scientific theory”, as if those first two words were redundant. That purported convention is entirely opportunistic.

By: annegb

annegb — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 14:25:11 +0000

The problem with this is all or nothing thinking. The validity of one excludes the validity of the other. Pish posh. God is the ultimate scientist.

By: Devyn S.

Devyn S. — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 13:48:04 +0000

Mark, I think DKL has adequately addressed your questions. The biggest underlying problem with ID is that you can neither prove nor disprove God exists which is the fundamental assumption for the idea. However, with evolution, it neither states that God is involved or it not involved, but relies on scientific data to bolster the idea that species (as we define the construct) do change over time – I think that is irrefutable at this point.