Why be picky? I'm marking down "all of the above"!
Why write a lengthy essay when this says it all?
This is as far as I got before "switching channels": "The problem with Intelligent Design is that it is dumb....."
Once upon a time, humans could not explain thunder, lightning and other natural phenomenons, and so humans invented 'gods' to explain them.
Science has explained so many of these phenomenons, and now people look at cultures that still use 'gods' to explain them as 'inferior' or 'primitive'.
Yet, now those 'superior' cultures invoke the same principle when they cannot explain the formation of eyes or mitochondria. Only, instead of 'gods', the word is 'intelligent design'.
How fascinating.
This is a dumb argument, if I may borrow the author's words. He repeatedly uses the word "dumb" because he lacks an argument.
He never comes to grips with any of the scientific or statistical arguments that people like Michael Behe have presented. Instead, his entire case is, basically, that religion must be banished from science because . . . because it must!
Natural theology is right out, because of that word "theology." And "philosophy" is right out, too.
Well, I have news for him. The common name for science in the early modern period, when science and technology really took off, was "natural philosophy." Philosophy means love of wisdom and involves searching for truth. Natural philosophy involves searching for the secrets of nature.
Not for nothing does Civilization III require the discovery of Theology before you get any Education or Science. In the development of the western world and western science, theology played a key role, because it taught (contrary to the beliefs of most prior religions) that the world is a rational place, that people have free will, and that God welcomes discovery.
ID is the biological equivalent of the fine tuned universe argument for the existence of God found in philosophy.
This is the single biggest problem I have with ID proponents: They close off questions about their theory.
Teilhard was one of those present at the discovery of the famous Piltown fraud. Oddly enough, even when it was being touted as a great discovery, Teilhard never mentioned it in his own writings. One wonders...
>>what it is on to has no connection and does no meaningful work in biology (or physics).
Really? No connection? Science tries to answer the "why" and "how" questions about things... Why and how things happen is not disconnected or unmeaningful -- no more than the theory of evolution is...
Why and how is very fundamental biological question, why and how there is life. The theory of evolution is just one explanation of the how and why. "Intelligent Design" is just one more explanation..
>>However, and more significantly, ID is dumb philosophy.
I agree that there are many philisophical overtones in what is known as "Intelligent design" and that a great phrase has been coopted by evangelical fundamentalists in anachronistic attempts to explain the orgin of all life. This is a most unfortunate event, since the phrase is very meaningful appliciable to biology.
Well, I don't have a clue as to what either of these big words means, so I must be one of those dumb people he is talking about. It must be nice to be smart enough to understand how life began and how the universe came into being. I guess I'll just go back to reading my comic books now.
I wouldn't say ID is necessarily theology.
What if the designers were visitors from space?
Anyway, calling something "dumb" isn't really a valid argument against it.
Does anyone here remember James Lovelock and the Gaia Hypothesis?
I mention it because the writings of Teilhard de Chardin were cited therein as a natural philosophy bolstering the Gaia concept.
To have him appear in the discussion of ID is a tie that binds the notion of Gaia with ID, for which I see a very strong link.
The question is, which position is more plausible? Another question is, who gets to decide which philosophical positions are presented as dogma in gov't schools? The most important question regarding the teaching of evolutionary theory is, who has the last word regarding schooling, the gov't or parents?
I would suggest that the author dispense with language that makes him sound like a typical Dim trying to argue a point and maybe do a little scientific research on ID. How? How about taking the Bible apart, passage by passage and trying to prove what it says is either right or wrong. Use its words as a theory and see how it holds up. Enough rights, with insufficient wrongs gives credence to what it says. Isn't that how the Evolutionists and other scientists do it? Start with a theory and take it apart as far as possible to test it?
Intelligent Design does not have any evidence or merits to support its claim, instead all it stands for is its emotional rhetoric against evolution.
Let me simplify this article for you all.
He's doing the usual liberal ploy of calling something he disagrees with dumb.
He then uses lots of big words to explain rather simple concepts for a while.
After that he redefines ID into something narrower and rather absurd.
He then demonstrates why this absurd thing that he calls ID is dumb.
It's called a strawman argument.
Intelligent design is a theory that the world was created by intelligent design.
It is not in conflict with natural science.
Intelligent design's real weakness is that it simply cannot be disproven.
It's weakness is that it's a possible anser to almost anything. Why is the sky blue? Because it was designed that way? Maybe. It's blue because of the way the atmosphere bends light, but the universe could have been designed so that the atmosphere bends light.
ID is an theroy that provides an answer that if true, cannot be confirmed, and doesn't provide a complete understanding.
However, if you want to talk about the origin of the universe, it's hard to find an answer other than ID because in our understanding of nature, things come from somewhere. So where did the universe come from? The answer is we don't know. Some will suggest that the answer is that it was created.
We cannot prove that it was created. Therefore belief that it is created is a matter of faith.
Faith is not stupid. However not understanding that you are accepting something based of faith could be considered stupid.
Everyone has faith in something. However, some people are quick to call other people's faith stupid, but are unable to grasp that they themselves assume much based on faith.
Finally someone shows up on a Crevo thread who actually understands philosophy and argues cogently and correctly that ID is just metaphysics trying to pass itself off as science.
Oh, and 'dumb' metaphysics at that.