Replies

"You are defining EVERYTHING CONCEIVABLE as being intelligent design, a priori. This is absurd." (me)

"No more absurd than assuming the opposite, a priori. In fact, it is more reasonable." (you)

I don't assume that intelligent design is false; I know it is untestable, because it IS. I can make no scientific claims to it's truth or falseness. Science is an a posteriori method, not an a priori one. And when you define everything conceivable as being intelligent design, then there is NO WAY to test that. It cannot be a scientific theory, no matter how much you twist and stretch every word used to describe your claim. You were much less incoherent when you used to argue for YEC.

"Hence natural selection, mutations, and the like, are all manifestations of organized matter behaving according to predictable laws. I would expect this in an intelligently designed universe."

No, you ASSUME it because that is what you WISH to be. Organized matter following predictable laws and processes is perfectly consistent with a universe that *just is*. It is also perfectly consistent with a universe that was created by 1, or 2, or 1,000 designers. They could have been good, evil, indifferent. They could also not exist. All of this is consistent with the universe we see.

"They directly observed the movements of the planets and the stars, and they directly observed the behavior of people at the same time. They noticed recurring patterns of behavior at certain times of year and recorded that, too, over more than a thousand years of direct observation on the part of thousands of people."

Nonsense. They made it all up. That is why they almost never made accurate detailed predictions. They only ones that were predicted consistently were the very vague ones. Just like the astrologers of today.

"I would not be surprised if the foundations of astrology involved as much or more direct observation than Charles Darwin and all who have followed in his footsteps."

Well, since you don't believe in the utility of having to test ideas, I am sure you do believe that.

Science is an a posteriori method, not an a priori one.

Science partakes of both inductive and deductive reasoning. The theory of intelligent design works well in both directions, and it covers every conceivable situation in the known universe. If you think you can engage science without any a priori method then you may indeed be a candidate for belief in the spaghetti monster.

Nonsense. They made it all up. That is why they almost never made accurate detailed predictions. They only ones that were predicted consistently were the very vague ones. Just like the astrologers of today.

Do yourself a favor and look up a brief history on the science of astrology. You might be surprised at the amount of direct observation that was made and recorded, both on the part of stars and planets and human behavior. Of course there were elements spun out of whole cloth from time to time. Fact is, they were able to make some decent predictions, not unlike the predictions we can make to this day r.e. PMS.