Is intelligent design a plausible theory?

[liquidpele]

You are forgiven. Just don’t let it happen again.

Human creation does not support the implied I.D. proposition that an omnipotent God created the universe. It does support the basic proposition that intelligence preceded creation.

On several posts, this thread, I’ve reiterated the proposition that before I.D. can become a legitimately “scientific” theory it must define the designer. I’m surprised that atheists and Buddhists have failed to align on this point, which is really their most obvious counterargument to I.D.---- “Who or What is the Intelligent Designer? What are His, Hers, or Its properties and motivations?”

All variations of the “alien poo” argument simply defer the relevant questions to another galaxy. Let’s solve the creation problem here. You are smart enough to help, instead of simply whining about ideas of which you disapprove.

You can move down from the “direct evidence” high ground position as soon as you realize, then admit, that all evidence which atheists and religionists alike have to support their theories about how and why we have a universe are inferential. There is no direct evidence for anything whatsoever.

Your eyes detect photons, not a universe. Your ears detect pressure waves. This information is fed into a brain via biochemical cells which move potassium and sodium ions from place to place. No one know how the brain works.

Before you complain overmuch about the absence of direct evidence, please share with me your unique source of that elusive commodity.

Bottom line, LP, aren’t religionists, atheists, and you pretty much spouting off and wasting an otherwise good mind justifying theories which someone else made up?

Some wise man should have said, “It is better to think than to assume.”

I own a dictionary. I have described myself as a theist, with complications, but not as a deist. Your confusion is typical of individuals who are opinionated because having an opinion is so much easier than the alternative: paying attention, maybe even thinking.

If you look up “daydreamer” in a dictionary, you might find that the word does not describe me competently. Then, you might look into your own mind and consider how well commonplace thought forms, such as opinions, have and are serving you.

You have information at your disposal. My self-description does not include “Catholic.” Surely you’ve observed that to the credit of the Catholic Church, this forum is open to a variety of beliefs and opinions.

In that spirit, your presence here might be to either resolve or expand your agnosticism. It is not to go away P.O.'d.

No, you need beer. Coffee is the cause of your bizarre need to communicate with the same symbols in which a first grader would delight, thereby blowing off the responsibilities which every intelligent mind owns, and knows, however it may pretend otherwise.

I disagree on a few things here. I don’t think human creation supports that the universe or life is created by an intelligence. I think that would be like saying us turning on a light bulb means the sun’s light is created by intelligence. I also don’t think defining the designer is necessary (or possible, given that there is no evidence about any of it). For instance, if I found the Fibonacci sequence encoded in our DNA, that would be a pretty good indication of a designer, but we still wouldn’t know anything about the creator except that it understood basic mathematics.

I was not trying to literally call you personally a deist or daydreamer. I was calling anyone that wants to talk about hypothetical Gods as having those qualities.

I posted that at about 8 or 9 AM (I’m GMT-5), so beer was a bit out of the question. But I made up for it today, so no worries!

 

[greylorn]

Post #894

Design postulates a Designer rather than a Creator. It is more intelligible and economical to identify the Designer with the Creator but that is a philosophical rather than a scientific issue.

I want to deal with this two sentence except from your post before other issues you’ve raised. It will keep us busy enough.

To begin with you acknowledge an apparent distinction between Designer and Creator, and make the declaration (which everyone knows is not true) that I.D. is only concerned with the arrangements of material. After all, a Designer does not really create anything; she just determines how things which someone else might create, or which already exist, might be most aesthetically positioned.

You hoist your true colors in the next sentence, in which you attempt a sneaky segue into the declaration that Designer and Creator mean the same.

Exactly how is it “more intelligible” to muddle a previously clear distinction?

Does “economical” mean that by declaring two entirely different words to actually mean the same thing imply that now you do not need to waste valuable words dealing with clear meanings and distinctions?

And what difference does it make if an issue is philosophical or scientific? An issue is an issue. Everyone is free to philosophize, and you claim to some scientific credentials. That means that you and I will have no barriers to conversation, so long as you utilize words honestly and make no further attempts to muddle distinctions.

If you are agreeable to this basic conversational standard, we can proceed to my proposition that I.D. is a useless program unless it identifies and clearly defines the likely and necessary properties of the “designer.”

 

[Charlemagne_II]

*If you are agreeable to this basic conversational standard, we can proceed to my proposition that I.D. is a useless program unless it identifies and clearly defines the likely and necessary properties of the “designer.” *

“[Reason tells me of the] extreme difficulty or rather impossibility of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man with his capability of looking far backwards and far into futurity, as the result of blind chance or necessity. When thus reflecting, I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a Theist.” from The Autobiography of Charles Darwin. :yup:

 

[greylorn]

*If you are agreeable to this basic conversational standard, we can proceed to my proposition that I.D. is a useless program unless it identifies and clearly defines the likely and necessary properties of the “designer.” *

“[Reason tells me of the] extreme difficulty or rather impossibility of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man with his capability of looking far backwards and far into futurity, as the result of blind chance or necessity. When thus reflecting, I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a Theist.” from The Autobiography of Charles Darwin. :yup:

Does this gratuitous quote mean anything other than that you bought a book of famous quotations, some of which you trot out now and then to impress the impressionable?

 

[greylorn]

I disagree on a few things here. I don’t think human creation supports that the universe or life is created by an intelligence. I think that would be like saying us turning on a light bulb means the sun’s light is created by intelligence. I also don’t think defining the designer is necessary (or possible, given that there is no evidence about any of it). For instance, if I found the Fibonacci sequence encoded in our DNA, that would be a pretty good indication of a designer, but we still wouldn’t know anything about the creator except that it understood basic mathematics.

I was not trying to literally call you personally a deist or daydreamer. I was calling anyone that wants to talk about hypothetical Gods as having those qualities.

I posted that at about 8 or 9 AM (I’m GMT-5), so beer was a bit out of the question. But I made up for it today, so no worries!

You let it happen again.

 

[liquidpele]

You let it happen again.

Perhaps you could be more specific?

 

[rossum]

*If you are agreeable to this basic conversational standard, we can proceed to my proposition that I.D. is a useless program unless it identifies and clearly defines the likely and necessary properties of the “designer.” *

“[Reason tells me of the] extreme difficulty or rather impossibility of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man with his capability of looking far backwards and far into futurity, as the result of blind chance or necessity. When thus reflecting, I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a Theist.” from The Autobiography of Charles Darwin. :yup:

Science does not work by quotations. Whatever Darwin’s personal beliefs they are not scientific evidence for anything beyond what Dawrin’s personal beliefs were. Newton was a Unitarian. That does not show that science can only accept a unitarian God and not a trinitarian one.

Science is not like theology - you cannot argue by quoting from authoritative books. The final authority in science is the material world. You need to quote from the material world.

rossum

 

[Charlemagne_II]

rossum

The final authority in science is the material world.

Not really. The final authority in science appears to be you?

 

[Charlemagne_II]

greylorn

*Does this gratuitous quote mean anything other than that you bought a book of famous quotations, some of which you trot out now and then to impress the impressionable? *

I notice that rather than address the quote, you take a cheap shot at the person citing the quote. How very *ad hominem *of you!

It must be intensely irritating to you that Darwin and Einstein both saw intelligence not only within, but also behind the universe. It’s true, they could be wrong, but you have certainly no one of their intelligence in your corner to quote, have you?

Your absurd demand that we introduce you to the Designer so you can shake hands with Him to make sure He is real is patently absurd on the face of it. And that’s a fact, not an ad hominem.

 

[Jean_Anthony]

Please keep the discussion civil or I will have to close the thread. Thank you all.

 

[rossum]

rossum

The final authority in science is the material world.

Not really. The final authority in science appears to be you?

Go to Google scholar (scholar.google.com/). Search on “evolution”. You will get about 2.5 million results from the scientific literature. None of those results are by me. I am very far from being the final authority in science.

It is also clear that you have no substansive response to my point.

rossum

 

[Charlemagne_II]

rossum

The final authority in science is the material world. You need to quote from the material world.

How does one do that?

How does matter speak? If we quote, we can only quote from each other’s thoughts based upon our observations of the material world. The material world cannot speak.

If your assumption is that matter is all that exists, then of course from that point of view we must have to quote the material world. But I hardly think that mathematical equations, for example, are things we can call part of the material world, even though they are ideas fashioned about the material world. This is why mathematics is the element of science that most sides with ID. It does not side at all with abiogenesis by accident, unless you can prove the likelihood that abiogenesis by accident was well within the realm of probability, which you can’t. Since it is outside that probability, the only alternative is that abiogenesis (and indeed evolution itself) has been governed (set up, predetermined) by an intelligence that is not subject to the brute force of matter.

Darwin saw this. So did Einstein. But if you are going so far as to argue that Einstein and Darwin were wrong to repudiate materialism as an option, would you please explain why, even though both of them discounted the Christian God, they could not discount the idea of a deistic Mind governing the universe and everything in it?

After all, there is no evidence that Darwin ever repudiated his own theory of evolution, nor is there any evidence that Einstein repudiated evolution. So why isn’t it a respectable option that great scientists could see both evolution and God at work in the realm of Creation?

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Jean Anthony,

I am rather surprised you did not close this thread down long ago, as it is now little more than an interminable rehash of earlier exchanges.

 

[rossum]

rossum:

The final authority in science is the material world. You need to quote from the material world.

How does one do that?

You observe and measure the material world and publish the results. From those results you devides hypotheses that enable you to make predictions. You test those predictions by experiment, observation or both. Again you publish the results. Sometimes the results confirm your predictions. Sometimes the results require you to modify your hypotheses because they are not giving exactly the right predicted results. Sometimes the results are so far away from the predictions that those hypotheses have to be abandoned.

All science traces back to some observation of the physical world. Newton’s gravity traced back to observaritions by Brahe and Kepler. “Speak to the earth and it will teach you” [Job 12:8].

How does matter speak? If we quote, we can only quote from each other’s thoughts based upon our observations of the material world. The material world cannot speak.

Your voice box and throat are made out of material atoms. Of course matter can speak.

If your assumption is that matter is all that exists, then of course from that point of view we must have to quote the material world.

I do not make that assumption. I am Buddhist, not a philosophical materialist. However, we are discussing authority in science, not in theology. Science is methodologically materialist, which is why in science the material world is the ultimate scientific authority. If reality does not match the theory, then it is the theory which has to change.

It does not side at all with abiogenesis by accident, unless you can prove the likelihood that abiogenesis by accident was well within the realm of probability, which you can’t.

Chemistry is not accidental. Since chemistry is a large part of abiogenesis we can be sure that abiogenesis was not an “accidental” process, but primarily a chemical one.

Darwin saw this. So did Einstein. But if you are going so far as to argue that Einstein and Darwin were wrong to repudiate materialism as an option, would you please explain why, even though both of them discounted the Christian God, they could not discount the idea of a deistic Mind governing the universe and everything in it?

Their opinions on deism were outside science. When they were working within science, they did not repudiate methodological materialism. They may well have repudiated philosophical materialism, but that is a very different animal.

After all, there is no evidence that Darwin ever repudiated his own theory of evolution, nor is there any evidence that Einstein repudiated evolution. So why isn’t it a respectable option that great scientists could see both evolution and God at work in the realm of Creation?

I can cite Ken Miller, Francis Collins and more scientist who accepts both God and evolution. Many scientists believe in God but are methodological materialists in the lab. Evolution can be seen as God designing the universe in such a way that life would self-assemble. Science just looks at the details of that self-assembly. The designer of ID is a much smaller creature, who is reduced to nudging DNA molecules to get the required result.

God designs flat-pack furniture that assembles itself overnight, while He is resting. The ID designer designs flat-pack furniture that needs a visit from the designer every so often overnight to ensure that it assembles itself correctly. Which is the greater designer? ID seems to me to diminish God rather than to magnify Him.

rossum

 

[Charlemagne_II]

rossum

*The designer of ID is a much smaller creature, who is reduced to nudging DNA molecules to get the required result. *

Well that is an arbitrary and capricious statement from a logical point of view. I would maintain it is the same Designer that Darwin and Einstein called God. Why would you think this Designer is something of smaller stature?

And besides, when you say “nudging,” are you now admitting that there is intelligent intent?

 

[JDaniel]

God designs flat-pack furniture that assembles itself overnight, while He is resting. The ID designer designs flat-pack furniture that needs a visit from the designer every so often overnight to ensure that it assembles itself correctly. Which is the greater designer? ID seems to me to diminish God rather than to magnify Him.

It certainly seems that way, when one improperly immerses God in Time.

jd

 

[tonyrey]

I want to deal with this two sentence excerpt from your post before other issues you’ve raised. It will keep us busy enough.

We need to define design so that we’re not at cross-purposes. I understand it to mean “a plan conceived and implemented by an intelligent being”. A designer is therefore an intelligent being who conceives and implements a plan

Design has two aspects: the scientific and the metaphysical:

The scientific concerns the evidence for Design in the world and postulates a Designer because there is no evidence that a plan occurs without a planner, i.e. designer. We can infer from the immense complexity of the universe that the Designer must be immensely intelligent. We can also infer from the immense value of existence that the Designer is immensely good.

The metaphysical seeks to explain reality as a whole and so it takes into account both the Designer and Design. It is more economical to identify the Designer with the Creator but this issue is beyond the scope of science.

All scientific theories are based on metaphysical and epistemological assumptions, notably that the physical universe exists and that it is intelligible. The success of science is evidence that these assumptions are justified. The intelligibility of the universe is further evidence that the universe is designed because there is no a priori reason why it should be intelligible.

I hope this clarifies my position.

 

[rossum]

It certainly seems that way, when one improperly immerses God in Time.

Why “improperly”? If God is omnipresent then He is present within time as well as outside it. If God acts in the world - miracles - then God is acting within time.

If God is not within time then He cannot perform miracles and is not omnipresent. It seems to me that you are the one who is improperly trying to displace God away from time.

rossum

 

[rossum]

rossum:

The designer of ID is a much smaller creature, who is reduced to nudging DNA molecules to get the required result.

Well that is an arbitrary and capricious statement from a logical point of view.

One designer needs to intervene because his initial design was not going along the tracks he had intended, like a pool player who muffs his shot and needs to nudge the cue ball to get it to go in the right direction. That is the designer of ID. A designer who is incapable of designing a mechanism which can give the required outcome withoug needing any further attention.

The Theistic Evolution designer has no need to intervene because His initial design was correct and produces the required result without having to be fixed along the way. That is the sort of pool player who takes her shot and the cue ball goes where she intended, without needing to be nudged at all.

ID has a smaller and less powerful designer than the Abrahamic God. The ID designer is limited because his designs are not correct, and need some adjusting over time. That is what ID is saying when they claim “X cannot evolve”, for some value of X. The God of Theistic Evolution is perfectly capable of devising an evolutionary mechanism to produce X for any value of X.

I would maintain it is the same Designer that Darwin and Einstein called God.

How can you know what either Einstein or Darwin intended? That line of argument is pointless.

Why would you think this Designer is something of smaller stature?

Because his self-assembly method is incapable of true self-assembly and needs external help. Whereas God can make proper self-assembly, with no external help required. Not only did He design the universe, but He designed it so that His objectives would be met by the operation of the laws of that universe. ID is looking on far too small a scale for their designer. That is why I say that the ID designer is smaller than God.

And besides, when you say “nudging,” are you now admitting that there is intelligent intent?

I am comparing the designer of ID with the God of Theistic Evolution. By trying to fit God into the constitutional restrictions on what may be taught in American public schools the ID movement has had to reduce God to something much smaller and less impressive. God the Creator has been shrunk to a tinkering, error-prone designer.

The Creator sets the rules for His universe. He sets the starting conditions. Given those two, how can He not get the result He wants? Analysing the DNA of the bacterial flagellum is to look on far too small a scale.

rossum

 

[greylorn]

Science does not work by quotations. Whatever Darwin’s personal beliefs they are not scientific evidence for anything beyond what Dawrin’s personal beliefs were. Newton was a Unitarian. That does not show that science can only accept a unitarian God and not a trinitarian one.

Science is not like theology - you cannot argue by quoting from authoritative books. The final authority in science is the material world. You need to quote from the material world.

rossum

Well said. Thank you.

The only Bible certain to be the work of any Creator is the physical universe.

Like other bibles it is subject to interpretation by experts, and of late the experts have been showing themselves to be not particularly expert.

It seems better than the religious alternative, that of various bibles written by man and interpreted by man. What is most curious about these bibles in the respect given them.