Revelation 4:11Intelligent Design
See my profile for info
Posted on 09/08/2005 1:33:48 PM PDT by snarks_when_bored
Five critiques of Intelligent Design
John Brockman's Edge.org site has published the following five critiques of Intelligent Design (the bracketed comments following each link are mine):
Marcelo Gleiser, "Who Designed the Designer?" [a brief op-ed piece]
Jerry Coyne, "The Case Against Intelligent Design: The Faith That Dare Not Speak Its Name" [a detailed critique of ID and its history, together with a summary defense of Darwinism]
Richard Dawkins & Jerry Coyne, "One Side Can Be Wrong" [why 'teaching both sides' is not reasonable when there's really only one side]
Scott Atran, "Unintelligent Design" [intentional causes were banished from science with good reason]
Daniel C. Dennett, "Show Me the Science" [ID is a hoax]
As Marcelo Gleiser suggests in his op-ed piece, the minds of ID extremists will be changed neither by evidence nor by argument, but IDists (as he calls them) aren't the target audience for critiques such as his. Rather, the target audience is the millions of ordinary citizens who may not know enough about empirical science (and evolution science in particular) to understand that IDists are peddling, not science, but rather something tarted up to look like it.
Let us not be deceived.
Ping
Heeeere we go again...
Oh, geesh.
You guys haven't resolved this by now?
Revelation 4:11Intelligent Design
See my profile for info
I do happen to believe we're not random bits of matter that accidentally came together.
But I am willing to listen to the other side. :)
No group, no matter how large or small, may use the organs of government, of which the public schools are the most conspicuous and influential, to foist its religious beliefs...
He makes the best case I've ever heard, in the fewest words, why the public school system should be abolished.
I'm a creationist. However, I've never claimed it's science. I do feel, though, that evolutionists have not proven their theory beyond a reasonable doubt. That is my basis for rejecting evolution.
Hmm, let's see. Science can only 'prove' the repeatable and controllable, otherwise you are dealing in theory. So science cannot be the standard upon which we base truth or ultimate knowledge.
What does that leave?
Faith in the words of a God who chose to reveal Himself to and through, his creation.
Prove me wrong!
Does this subject belong in a science class though? I am not that familiar with the topic but I heard it is based in Creationism. If that is true, then it belongs in religious type classes.
I'm a creationist. However, I've never claimed it's science. I do feel, though, that evolutionists have not proven their theory beyond a reasonable doubt. That is my basis for rejecting evolution.
If 'not being proved beyond a reasonable doubt' is to be one's criterion for rejecting a scientific theory, one would have to reject all of empirical science, don't you think?
Both sides call in their tag teams!
Why?!
Why not?
As I said in Post #1, "for the record". The existence of these essays needed to be noted in the FR database.
I have a minor point to add, regarding the specious arguments based on "irreducible complexity"
Well-designed purpose-built mechanisms display strong tendencies towards irreducible SIMPLICITY, in which the ideal is the smallest number of parts is used to acheive the design objective, with a frequent but not absolute corollary that those parts are poorly-suited (to useless) in any other configuaration for any other purpose.
Rube Goldbergian mechanisms display irreducible complexity, in which far more components are used to acheive the design objective than are actually required (compared to the simplest possible configuration), with the frequent but not absolute corollary that those components are well-suited (to ideal) for other purposes and configurations.
Biology seems more "rube-goldbergian" than intelligently engineered.
Posts 14 and 15 are typical of what these threads usually come down to. :-)
Why or Why not? :p
Materialist scientists expect physical answers to all questions. That's their business. Cause and effect. Everything has a beginning and everything has an end. It's Space-Time and everything can be explained, eventually. I think that's fundamentally why Intelligent Design (God) is not an acceptable answer to these good folk. It's exactly like saying "And then magic happened!" And that's not science.
But God is fundamentally different from the Material world. He is outside Space-Time. He had no beginning. He has no cause. He has no end. To ask the question "Who designed the Designer?" is to fundamentally (willfully?) mis-understand what you're up against.
Physical explanations can be found for almost everything in God's universe. Almost. Some things just require (yes: require) more than a physical answer. Science will eventually gain a better understanding of the scope of their work. For now, many scientists think they can (eventually) explain Everything. But they can't.
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