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To: ThirstyMan
This statement on the surface seems logical. I mean this happens everyday in our lives. We observe complexity and attribute its existence to a designer. For example, nobody looks at a car and supposes it just happened.

Yet somehow when we look at the complexity of a single cell (how many times more complex than a car?) or the order of the universe, we're supposed to say that it just happened into existence by itself?

How much complexity do we have to discover before it becomes an insurmountable conclusion to think that it just happened? Is there such a limit, ever? If not, can science ever realize it has limitations?

Beware the fallacy of comparing inanimate designed objects with life that has the benefit of reproduction with genetically heritable traits. Their possibilities for their current form are so dissimilar as to only draw contrast to the point you are trying to make.

What you seem to propose in your apparent endorsement of ID is for science to willingly succumb to the tide of complexity and end the final chapter of man's struggle to understand the world around him with a scrawled 'Goddidit - the end'.

Science does indeed have limitations, and readily admits to them. One of these is that things beyond natural law, the supernatural, are beyond its realm. Such phenomena cannot be observed, tested, quantified, or otherwise measured. ID, in its quest to be granted scientific standing, must first abolish this limitation or it will never fit the definition of science.

As a philosophy, ID has merit. As a science, it is a fraud.

339 posted on 11/08/2005 8:07:43 PM PST by Antonello
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To: Antonello
I asked:
"How much complexity do we have to discover before it becomes an insurmountable conclusion to think that it just happened? Is there such a limit, ever?"

You responded:
What you seem to propose in your apparent endorsement of ID is for science to willingly succumb to the tide of complexity and end the final chapter of man's struggle to understand the world around him with a scrawled 'Goddidit - the end'.

Thanks for the dialog.
I am trying to isolate the logical pathway that would lead someone to affirm ID as a feasible conclusion. I think extreme complexity beyond any reasonable explanation is a pathway argument for those who believe in ID.
What science people do not like is for the argument to suddenly become framed outside of their ability to supply an answer to the question. When the "Goddidit" explanation is suggested as a final answer to the extreme complexity beyond any reasonable explanation, the quest for further understanding is seemingly squelched.

You wrote:
"Science does indeed have limitations, and readily admits to them. One of these is that things beyond natural law, the supernatural, are beyond its realm. Such phenomena cannot be observed, tested, quantified, or otherwise measured. ID, in its quest to be granted scientific standing, must first abolish this limitation or it will never fit the definition of science. As a philosophy, ID has merit. As a science, it is a fraud."

I'm sorry, I cannot follow exactly what "limitation" you want ID to abolish: "ID...must first abolish this limitation".
Thanks for hanging in there with me.

349 posted on 11/08/2005 10:21:15 PM PST by ThirstyMan (hysteria: the elixir of the Left that trumps all reason)
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