From: George Murphy (gmurphy@raex.com)
Date: Mon Dec 16 2002 - 14:51:34 EST
John Burgeson wrote:
>
> George wrote: "What I did in that earlier post was to explain why it is
> >important to deal with >the real ID movement and not merely its scientific
> >claims or >problems. ...>"
>
> Which I observed was not at all a response to my question.
>
> "> Let me add that I have not talked about the "motives" of
> >IDers in the sense of>trying to get their heads guessing why they say what
> >they do. It is>rather a question>of looking at what they actually write
> >and say."
>
> I wish I could think of some way to ask you the question so that you would
> address it and not talk about other things. I have tried three times. I have
> asked "what about Y" and you have replied "Z is much more interesting to
> discuss."
There have been plenty of discussions of the claims of ID
_qua_ science. I am
willing to grant that they have pointed out some things that current
theories have not
explained - the development of information and complex structures in
some biological
systems.
That is all they have done as far as science is concerned.
They have proposed
no positive explanations of those phenomena in terms of natural
processes. Their basic
ID hypothesis results in no testable predictions of "novel facts."
(To those who
disagree with this statement I would say mere "Name one.")
To go more deeply into that would require us to talk about
things you don't want
to talk about - the IDers understanding of how science works and the
theological
pre-suppositions of their arguments.
1st - & this gets us back to the subject line of this whole
thread - the ID
argument accomplishes nothing if the Intelligent Designer is not God.
The introduction
of any natural designer (e.g., with directed panspermia) immediately
raises the same
questions about that designer that were originally asked about
terrestrial life.
2d - it's clear from numerous statements of ID proponents
that they understand
the Intelligent Designer in fact to be God.
Now you want to rule out all these references to God because
you want to talk
only about the science and not the theology of ID. But that simply
won't work. If ID
is to be science then one has to be able to ask about ways of testing
its claims. &
investigating God by scientific means is something quite different
from investigating
some proposed natural process as an explanation for some phenomenon.
The nature of the
Designer is crucial to any scientific evaluation of the ID claim.
Matters would be different if the IDers proposed natural
processes by which
design is supposed to be accomplished. Then their procedure would be
in line with the
idea that God acts in the world through natural processes. But they
make no such
proposals. (& again, if anyone disagrees, "Name one." & in fact
this defect of ID is
just another face of its inability to predict novel facts.)
Having said that, I find your unwillingness to consider the
ID movement as it
actually exists very strange. In discussing abortion or
homosexuality, e.g., you refuse
to deal with these issues as theological or ethical abstractions, but
want to bring the
experience of women who have had abortions, homosexuals &c into the
discussion. But in
talking about ID you take exactly the opposite approach. You want to
discuss it as an
abstract scientific theory & refuse to consider what the ID movement
made up of real
people, carrying out real actions to influence state boards of
education, churches,
legislators &c, is. That seems very odd.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
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