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To: antiRepublicrat
Yes you do, or you run into the "who designed the designer" problem. The only way you can stop the chain is to define a god as timeless and infinite, therefore requiring no designer.

No you don't.

For example, if I hypothesize that "a designer caused this bacterium to produce human insulin," I need not worry about where that designer came from in order to make my hypothesis, nor do I need to worry about where that designer came from in order to attempt to prove my hypothesis.

124 posted on 10/06/2005 1:25:08 PM PDT by r9etb
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To: r9etb
For example, if I hypothesize that "a designer caused this bacterium to produce human insulin,"...

Sorry, but you always have to hypothesize a causative agent if you want to be science. In the case of human activities, we can detect them because we know what kinds of things humans do.

If you want to attribute something to an "outside" designer, you need to have independent information about the abilities and motives of the designer.

For example, why does the designer employ random variation and natural selection to make things? What is the designer's motive?

127 posted on 10/06/2005 1:49:15 PM PDT by js1138 (Great is the power of steady misrepresentation.)
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To: r9etb
For example, if I hypothesize that "a designer caused this bacterium to produce human insulin," I need not worry about where that designer came from in order to make my hypothesis, nor do I need to worry about where that designer came from in order to attempt to prove my hypothesis.

You do have to worry about coming up with a falsifiable test that can affirm that it was a designer that caused the bacterium to produce human insulin. I'd really like to see such a test, especially one doesn't define the parameters of the designer. Note that failing to find an alternate cause is not proof of a designer in and of itself.

128 posted on 10/06/2005 1:51:02 PM PDT by Antonello
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To: r9etb
if I hypothesize that "a designer caused this bacterium to produce human insulin,"

But that isn't what "ID" proposes.

"ID" proposes that nothing as complex as life can arise without being designed by some intelligence. It goes without saying that the "intelligence" must be at least as complicated as the life it designed, so the question then becomes "who designed the designer". Since the chain of design must eventually have a beginning, the only possible answer is that the original designer was supernatural. I.E. God.

Your hypothesis is merely that an intelligence can in fact design something. Well, duh. But that's completely different than the claim of "ID", that complexity by definition MUST be designed.

130 posted on 10/06/2005 2:01:50 PM PDT by narby
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To: r9etb; antiRepublicrat
antiRepublicrat: Yes you do, or you run into the "who designed the designer" problem. The only way you can stop the chain is to define a god as timeless and infinite, therefore requiring no designer.

No you don't.
For example, if I hypothesize that "a designer caused this bacterium to produce human insulin," I need not worry about where that designer came from in order to make my hypothesis, nor do I need to worry about where that designer came from in order to attempt to prove my hypothesis.
124r9etb

______________________________________

You should worry about logic..

Would you agree - that to date the only verifiable 'intelligent designers' capable of causing a bacterium to produce human insulin are human?

Sure, you can speculate than another intelligent designer, a God, made the bacterium produce insulin, but as antiRepublicrat pointed out, your hypothesis then runs into the "who designed the designer" question. You cannot verify the existance of that other designer.

Humans are the only designers [with this type of capablity] we can verify . [To date]

147 posted on 10/06/2005 2:54:13 PM PDT by faireturn
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