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To: Diamond; general_re
I think I mis-identified at least more than one pic. I'm curious which one you think I missed.

The correct answers are all at post 543. You may have missed #2. The only one I know for certain that you got wrong is #4, at post 149, your answers at 166 and 173--175.

I think you missed the termite mound #6, but it's debatable. I'll leave it to general_re to give you the score.

My take on all of this is that nature (in #4) can fool us into thinking there's intelligent design involved. It's not really remarkable (in #2) that we can immitate nature. Anyway, I see no simple test for finding the trademark of the Intelligent Designer.

683 posted on 04/29/2003 8:38:56 AM PDT by PatrickHenry (Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas.)
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To: PatrickHenry
The only problem with proceeding that way, that I can see, is that in the end, the design inference purports to find design in things that we currently think of as having naturalistic origins, such as the snakeskin in #4. So proponents of the design inference could easily say that you're just assuming that it's naturalistic, whereas the design inference has revealed that it's not.

Which is why, to my mind, it's worthwhile to begin with the things we know are designed by intelligent agency. If the design inference can reliably and repeatedly tell us things that we already know through other means, then we may begin to consider the issue of what it is telling us about things that we currently think might have naturalistic origins. But by that score, the design inference didn't do so well - no better than flipping a coin would have done, as a matter of fact.

685 posted on 04/29/2003 9:02:51 AM PDT by general_re (Honi soit la vache qui rit.)
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To: PatrickHenry
You may have missed #2. The only one I know for certain that you got wrong is #4, at post 149, your answers at 166 and 173--175.

Yes I did miss number 2, because as I had pointed out earlier, intelligent agents can mimic chance or natural laws. By #9, though I had caught on to the general's devious pattern:^) Also, I also mis-identified #4 as your neighbor's patio.

I think you missed the termite mound #6, but it's debatable. I'll leave it to general_re to give you the score.

Yes, I mis-identified #6 as an ant-hill.

My take on all of this is that nature (in #4) can fool us into thinking there's intelligent design involved. It's not really remarkable (in #2) that we can immitate nature. Anyway, I see no simple test for finding the trademark of the Intelligent Designer.

Yes, I also agree with you here; if there is a test for dectecting design, it is certainly not simple.

Cordially,

686 posted on 04/29/2003 10:02:06 AM PDT by Diamond
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