That sentence looks so utterly silly to any normal human being. One might wonder why it should look any less so if you eliminate the latter two options... Better yet, let's expand them:
The designer could be God, collective consciousness, aliens, a host of avatars, flying turtle droppings from beyond, a dragon cleaved in two, the tooth fairy, little green leprechauns from Uranus, the Dao of Qi, a giant's decaying corpse, the tears of the ether, divinely curdled salt, the demiurge, interdimensional summoning, or a celestial sneeze.
I thought they were flying monkeys...
That sentence looks so utterly silly to any normal human being.
I'm always amazed when the ID-as-trojan-horse-for-creationism folks (which is almost all of them) expect anyone to actually fall for that line.
I also thank you for the link to the Wikipedia description/definition of panspermia. You might also enjoy reading the Panspermia.org website for the latest “trends” and news. They have modified their worldview slightly to a “cosmic ancestry” which accepts some of the self-organizing complexity argument. Nevertheless, IMHO, the arguments raised by panspermia/cosmic ancestry are indistinguishable from the Intelligent Design objections to evolution.
you: That sentence looks so utterly silly to any normal human being. One might wonder why it should look any less so if you eliminate the latter two options... Better yet, let's expand them: The designer could be God, collective consciousness, aliens, a host of avatars, flying turtle droppings from beyond, a dragon cleaved in two, the tooth fairy, little green leprechauns from Uranus, the Dao of Qi, a giant's decaying corpse, the tears of the ether, divinely curdled salt, the demiurge, interdimensional summoning, or a celestial sneeze.
At any rate, the specific beliefs are irrelevant since Intelligent Design does not identify who or what the designer is other than to attribute intelligence ipso facto. I leave it to others to discuss comparative metaphysics as that is a sidebar to the subject I engaged.
For some “all that there is” is that which exists in space/time – a microscope to telescope worldview. For many or most of us, “all that there is” is much more than this. We include mathematical structures, forms, qualia and the ilk in “reality”. Moreover, most of us would say that “all that there is” is God’s will and unknowable in its fullness.
Likewise, to those whose worldview of reality is physical – objective truth can be deduced from within space/time because that is "all that there is" for them. But to those of us with the encompassing view, space/time is merely a hypercube of n dimensions which contains corporeal existents – therefore, "objective truth" can only be revealed from outside space/time, everything within space/time is relative per se. To us, God is Truth.
You and I may well have such an irreconcilable difference in worldview. Here are some additional pointers to such differences:
Some would say that the biochemistry of molecular machinery in biological life is a sufficient explanation for the structure of organisms. I would counter that “form” – or geometry – disputes that concept. Not only does DNA have geometric form but the form of the organism survives, e.g. the individual human persists although every cell in his body is replaced every seven years. Likewise the form of the organism can be a collective – a hundred army ants on a plane will walk in a circle until they die of exhaustion. But make it a half million army ants and the colony becomes an organism which executes raids, keeps a calendar, maintains a geometry of search patterns, etc. I would further assert the issue of "form" will not be addressed until all components are resolved: information (successful communication), autonomy, semiosis, complexity and intelligence.
Some would say that this universe with its breathtakingly useful physical constants and laws is the inevitable result of multi-verse cosmology I would counter that this universe is expanding which points to a finite past regardless of cosmology (inflationary, multi-verse, multi-world, imaginary time, cyclic, ekpyrotic, etc.) – that appeals to prior universes merely move the goal post, i.e. any argument short of an infinite past would not make this universe inevitable. Moreover, all cosmologies require prior geometry and therefore a beginning. There cannot be a beginning without an uncaused cause, i.e. God.
Shall we recognize that we have an irreconcilable difference in worldview and agree to disagree? Or would you like to continue?