Replies

I looked over a few of the essays at idthink.net and found them interesting. The problem is that no matter how exhaustively someone documents why they think something is irreducibly complex, I can't get around the basic logical error underpinning the argument. The argument from incredulity is inherently weak, because it's just a god-of-the-gaps repackaged as creator-of-the-gaps. The argument is weak when used in theology, and it is still weak when used in the philosophy of science. Scads of science-speak don't help a logically unsound argument.

At a basic level, the argument is still, "I don't understand how this could have evolved, so therefore there must be a creator guiding development." I'm supposed to be a hard-nosed skeptic concerning natural explanations, but then credulously entertain the possibility that there is some mysterious, unidentified something consciously guiding the molecules so a bacteria can move around? How do I get from not fully understanding the cause of a flagellum to positing a sentient super-being who guides bacteria bits around by some unknown method, through some unknown super-power, and for unknown reasons? Isn't "I don't know" a much more honest answer?

In the absence of conclusive evidence, I find it entirely reasonable to assume that the answer lies somewhere within the natural world, because that is a simpler, more plausible answer than this mysterious super-being that ID proponents are relying on.

If my socks go missing, it makes more sense to say that they are somewhere in my house than to posit a sock-gnome, or, worse, an unidentified sock-vanishing force. That I don't know where the socks are doesn't mean my naturalistic, "they're probably in my house somewhere" argument is invalid. It's an inherently more credible argument than any one invoking a supernatural cause. Someone bemoaning my naturalistic assumptions, concerned about the gaps in my theory, upset that I can't give a conclusive, step-by-step picture of where my socks went and how they got there, is still a silly ninny if they propose "an intelligent sock-vanishing theory." We would know right away that this person is an idiot. Sock-vanishing and flagella-development aren't the same, but the analogy is, I think, relatively sound. In each case the natural assumption is more reasonable, and positing a supernatural guiding super-duper something-or-other is pointless.