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.
tick-tock?
I do believe we are not mere products of random chance, your wordy critique notwithstanding.
Nice to end this on a note of apparent agreement.
2. The relations of large aggregations of matter and energy DOES PRODUCE patterned cyclic behavior.
Hmmmm, this seems like it could be used as part of an origin of life theory.
Allow me to make it more fun for you, more fun than conversing with a nakedly incredulous person anyway;
I will pay your entry fee, and won't even ask for a refund if you win. Just send a copy of your winning entry please.
8-}
PS snarks_when_bored can help if you want
You keep saying "Good for you" and not disagreeing with my statements.
I guess you didn't read the part that came after 'Good for you'. You're taking it out of context.
You've learned the MSM playbook well.
Exactly!
¿Cómo?
What are you eating?
I lack the technical expertise and knowledgebase required to compete.
That said: I would not be at all surprised if various inherent cyclical periods had some organizing influence on however life came about from non-living material on this or any other world. However, the mere existence of such cycles (diurnal, lunar, seasonal, etc...) and their effects on energy levels and distribution in the early Earth system suffices to invalidate the claim that that early system was "random"
You're starting to sound like a broken record. Evolution does not make this claim. Did you bring youself up to speed by reading the educational material on evolution posted on this thread by PatrickHenry as I suggested?
I thought not.
What are you eating?
I'm doing better than VadeRetro. Last we heard from him it was: Nytol!TM
Not only is He omniscient, so is this guy.
Absolutely correct.
Let's take a huge collection of ordinary household light bulbs and turn them on and measure the time it takes each one to burn out. I can predict with great accuracy what the distribution of light bulb failures will look like.
OI!
I know that statement is correct - that's why *I* made it ;)
I know. My post was intended for someone else on this thread whom I cannot recall. So I hoped they would read whilst lurking.
ah.
Here's the big question -- can everything be predicted? If not, then knowing the limits of predictability would be essential to knowing when science was actually doing something or just chasing its tail. In order to do this, it must acknowledge the existence of the non-material.
In addition, intelligent agents, while not predictable (although, neither is quantum mechanics), does have general characteristics that can be measured and observed. Namely bringing order and pattern to otherwise chaotic systems.
"How many Scientific theories are dependent upon an unobservable and unmeasurable force acting upon matter with an unknown mechanism?"
Quantum theory.
What?
Again this claim of Omniscience. All Bow!
*Why* can't the TOE say something about origin of life??
Because it isn't purview of the theory. It concerns what happened after life began, not how it began.
Think out-of-the box for a change!!
OK, if life cannot come out of a dead Universe, then what conclusion do you draw?
The universal probability bound is not the invention of Dembski. In fact, he sets it much higher than most. And, it does not make X impossible, just improbable no matter what. The whole "but it's _possible_" defence is precisely what scientists are complaining to creationists about, and saying that science has error bars and all that, and then in the end to say "well, it may be more improbable than any event imaginable but you can't say it's impossible" is an abandonment of the entire establishment that was used to get away from the creationists in the first place.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.