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To: Bonaparte

Consequently it is mistaken and unfair to confuse intellgent design with scientific creationism. Intelligent design is a strictly scientific theory devoid of religious commitments. Whereas the Creator underlying scientific creationism conforms to a strict, literalist intepretation of the Bible, the designer underlying intelligent design is compatible with a much broader playing field. To be sure, the designer is also compatible with the Creator-God of the world's major monotheistic religions like Judaism, Christianity and Islam. But the designer is also compatible with the watchmaker-God of the deists, the demiurge of Plato's Timaeus and the divine reason (ie., logos spermatikos) of the ancient Stoics. One can even take an agnostic view about the designer, treating specified complexity as a brute unexplainable fact. Unlike scientific creationism, intelligent design does not prejudge such questions as 'Who is the designer?' or 'How does the designer go about designing and building things?'

ID is so agnostic on the question of who or what the Designer is, there's no there there. For example, what does ID have to say about the Multiple Designer Theory (MDT)? How would you detect whether there were multiple Designers vs. a single Designer? And is any ID theorist willing to put forth a hypothesis regarding when or how often the Designer(s) stepped in to tweak things?

IOW, are we ever going to see an ID research program??? And without a research program, what the heck is there to teach high school students?

74 posted on 10/16/2002 5:58:32 PM PDT by jennyp
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To: jennyp
Welcome!

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75 posted on 10/16/2002 5:59:44 PM PDT by f.Christian
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To: jennyp
How would you detect whether there were multiple Designers vs. a single Designer?

After considerable reflection, I believe it's intuitively obvious that the good designer made all the living organisms, the bad designer made all the organisms that there are fossils of. So there are 2 designers.

80 posted on 10/16/2002 6:03:34 PM PDT by <1/1,000,000th%
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To: jennyp
These same principles are applied to the finding of an arrowhead, discovering a fossil, reading a sign on a road… Heck, even man-made chemicals vs. naturally occurring – how do we know these chemicals will never occur in nature?

Imagine science or our lives without ID.

And so what if ID doesn’t specify a designer, do you need to know ‘who’ designed each arrowhead discovered?

85 posted on 10/16/2002 6:14:11 PM PDT by Heartlander
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To: jennyp
"ID is so agnostic on the question of who or what the Designer is, there's no there there. For example, what does ID have to say about the Multiple Designer Theory (MDT)? How would you detect whether there were multiple Designers vs. a single Designer? And is any ID theorist willing to put forth a hypothesis regarding when or how often the Designer(s) stepped in to tweak things?"

Read post 40 again. Intelligent design theory does not seek to identify a specific designer or designers. It only seeks to demonstrate the probability of intelligent design is far greater than that for undirected causes. Also (as made clear in the post 40 citation), ID theory does not seek to demonstrate when or at what intervals (or even by what means) a designer/s designed. Dembski makes it clear that this is outside the purview of ID. So why would you ask? It was right there for you to read.

109 posted on 10/16/2002 6:59:48 PM PDT by Bonaparte
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