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To: CarolinaGuitarman

Hardly laughable..........Paley did not name the designer so your claim may have merit. The point is, there is no naturalistic explanation so it is a legitimate theory \You can say it is laughable, you can say it "proves" nothing. Yet, no scientific theory ever proves anything with finality.As evolutionists claim scientific theories are always vulnerable to further observations. The conclusions of science are always tentative and as evolutionists frequently claim, this is an essential characteristic of science.
Paley's theory does what every scientific theory must do - it denies we will ever see certain observations. That is what makes it testable. It is science and it is biology.
Evolutionists always emphasize the irrelevant.
Yet, evolutionists confidently use the argument from design in archealogy, the old Pildown case, and the SETI project
If you actually read Paley's argument , he does conclude that life had a designer, but he does not say the designer was supernatural. He is noncommittal about it.
Just review some of the posts here about the human mind or intelligence. Creative intelligence, some scientists admit, is not derivable from matter and naturalistic processes, so it contains an element of the supernatural.
Just look at what Eugenie Scott said with her ridiculous redefining of natural.

"To be dealt with scientifically, "intelligence" must also be natural, because all science is natural...SETI is indeed a scientific project; it seeks natural intelligence."

She is saying or defining natural as "whatever science deals with"
The natural world is not defined by science, it is observed by science'


262 posted on 12/12/2005 1:58:28 PM PST by caffe (Hey, dems, you finally have an opportunity to vote!!!)
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To: caffe
"The point is, there is no naturalistic explanation so it is a legitimate theory."

Explanation for what? The origins of the universe? The origins of life? The origins of species? There are naturalistic explanations for all of them.

"Paley's theory does what every scientific theory must do - it denies we will ever see certain observations. That is what makes it testable. It is science and it is biology."

This is preposterous. Are you trying to parody creationists and ID'ers? How can the lack of observations make something scientific? Every theory has to has SOME observational base. ID has none. It's an argument from incredulity; it's a gutless choice.

"Yet, evolutionists confidently use the argument from design in archealogy, the old Pildown case, and the SETI project."

No, they don't. The knowledge that humans can design things is not Paley's argument from design. There is no way to test for an inscrutable, unknowable, unseen, designer.

"If you actually read Paley's argument , he does conclude that life had a designer, but he does not say the designer was supernatural. He is noncommittal about it."

It was perfectly clear that he was talking about the God of the Christian Bible. He had already written a book called, "Evidences of Christianity". And the full title of his 1802 book is "Natural Theology: or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, Collected from the Appearances of Nature". He thought it was supernatural.

I am still waiting for the numerous tests that Paley's idea has passed.
273 posted on 12/12/2005 2:15:51 PM PST by CarolinaGuitarman ("There is a grandeur in this view of life...")
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To: caffe

"Creative intelligence, some scientists admit, is not derivable from matter and naturalistic processes, so it contains an element of the supernatural."

LOL! One of the sillier sentences I've seen in some time... For purposes of intellectual honesty, "admit" should be changed to "claim".

Presuming your story is true, what prevented these unnamed "scientists" from deciding that they just didn't have enough information (and/or a testable theory) to make a pronouncement on whether or not "creative intelligence is derivable from matter and naturalistic processes"? "I don't know" is a perfectly valid scientific statement...and far more believable than "I don't understand that, therefore it 'contains an element of the supernatural'".


275 posted on 12/12/2005 2:17:00 PM PST by PreciousLiberty
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