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Author
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Topic: Cosmic Coincidences, Grand Unified Theory, and ID
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Noel Rude
Member
Member # 516
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posted 14. July 2003 13:34
Jacob is right -- "Even if the existence of a designer is proved, the next big question is - is it a Deistic designer or a personal one that takes an interest in the Universe." I agree -- this is a question for science, meaning that it is a serious question. But ID, as it stands, is a more modest enterprise, a narrower endeavor which sets out only to answer the question: "Is this or that the result of design?"
Most philosophers of science have given up on the notion of demarkation -- one cannot mark off some discrete area of investigation and say, this alone is Science. Nor can one precisely define "the scientific method" other than to say that knowledge is advanced by observation, reason, and authority. The latter is included because the individual cannot achieve it all with his own observation and reason.
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Jacob A. Salamon
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Member # 503
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posted 14. July 2003 14:10
Let's clarify the main issue here:
The main thrust of the ID argument essentially boils down to the following:
If we were to land on Mars and come across a working calculator (to modernize Paley's Argument), we would definitely say that the calculator had an intelligent designer. Hume argued against this by saying that the reason we know that the calculator was designed is from reasoning by analogy - we have seen many other machines etc. and we know from direct experience that those were designed. However if we come across a cat (on earth) we have no previous experience as to how cats (or any other living things) come into being.
Darwin came along and strengthened Hume's argument by providing a theory that claims that living things can come into being by themselves via natural selection.
But recent molecular biology has shown that components of living things are indeed machines, and very complex and ingenious ones at that. So contra Hume, the machine analogy IS valid, and machines do not make themselves.
This, in a nutshell, is the ID, irreducible and specified complexity argument.
[ 14. July 2003, 14:24: Message edited by: Jacob A. Salamon ]
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Argon
Member
Member # 276
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posted 14. July 2003 15:05
Noel Rude writes:
quote:
And thus philosophically committed men like Howard Van Till and Edward T. Oakes are among ID's most vociferous critics.
Actually, much of Van Till's criticism of ID can also be seen as a response to the Philip Johnson's theological notion that a Christian creator God that doesn't directly and episodically intervene in biological development isn't much of a God, at least not one described in the New & Old Testaments. Thus the two men are also arguing about the nature of the Christian God (i.e. theology). Van Till, being a Christian, doesn't claim that God couldn't intervene supernaturally in day to day activities, but he does suggest that the evidence for this is scant with regard to the history of life and for times after the Big Bang. On the other hand, Johnson is claiming that God had to have directly intervened, not just in human history but over millenia in part because his personal views of Christianity necessitate it. But neither man is uncomfortable with design or intervention by a guiding intelligence. In fact, both their personal religious beliefs require it.
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ID will not be turned into just another brand of reductionist materialism. Design does not supervene on chance and necessity, nor is it the product of soulless machines. Design is not an evolved phenomenon. Design is where innovation begins. At least this is the intuition and the claim.
That is the claim of some ID supporters, certainly not all. Remember, ID is a big tent thing. There are, in fact, a number of "materialists" in ID (Hoyle, for example. And Behe accepts that biochemistry/physics is a sufficient mechanism for the operations, if not the history, of life, which would include human brains).
The "design" question may be applicable "at all levels" but that does not mean something like the fine tuning of cosmological constants is incompatible with biological evolution.
[ 14. July 2003, 15:06: Message edited by: Argon ]
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Noel Rude
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Member # 516
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posted 14. July 2003 15:43
Succinctly put Jacob. Also agree with Argon in that nobody comes without phisolophical/religious presuppositions, tastes, desires. Utterly apathetic people don't even bother to enter the discussion. But of course this does not mean that we cannot subject our desires to the light of facts and reason -- otherwise why have any discussion at all? We all have our biases but presumably we are also truth seekers.
ID proponents will disagree as to when and where and how much Design they think is out there -- they will not disagree, if I am correct, in that Design is basic and not reducible to chance and necessity. Otherwise ID would be indistinguishable from materialism.
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YoungEarthCreationist
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Member # 845
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posted 19. July 2003 22:49
I believe this to be the main problem with the ID movement.
Since the only thing in the ID platform which comes close to being a commonly-shared presupposition is a negative (naturalism is wrong), no coherent philosophical framework can be provided on which to base the axioms necessary to interpret evidence relevant to the historical sciences (paleontology, historical geology, etc).
Which is one more reason why the movement must continually limit the debate to one of mechanism—and then only in broad, general terms (designed vs undesigned).
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