Re: "Design up to Scratch?" (The Wit and Wisdom of Michael Roberts)

From: George Murphy (gmurphy@raex.com)
Date: Sat Apr 26 2003 - 13:01:25 EDT

  • Next message: Alexanian, Moorad: "RE: "Design up to Scratch?" (The Wit and Wisdom of Michael Roberts)"

    Iain Strachan wrote:
    >
    > Dick Fisher wrote:
    >
    > http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1999/PSCF12-99Roberts.html
    >
    > I read this article, and came to the conclusion that the argument was
    > specious & was about to write a post explaining why I thought so, but then
    > followed up the link to the response by ASA fellow Gordon Mills at
    >
    > http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2001/PSCF3-01Mills.html#Behe%20and%20Intelligen
    > t%20Design20Theory
    >
    > It seems Mills spotted the same obvious logical flaw in Roberts's argument
    > that I did & put it much better than I can:
    >
    > ----------------
    > Roberts (p. 248) quotes a statement in Behe's book as follows: "If a
    > biological structure can be explained in terms of those natural laws then we
    > cannot conclude that it was designed" (p. 203).

            This statement is already questionable, even without carrying the argument
    farther. It's true that we can't "conclude" that such a structure is designed in the
    sense of logical implication - but then we can't "conclude" in that sense that a
    structure is designed if it _can't_ be explained in terms of known natural laws. OTOH,
    we can certainly say, from the standpont of faith (which is where we ought to begin
    theological arguments, /fides quarens intellectum/) that some structures are designed
    even if we have perfectly good explanations for them in terms of natural processes.
            IDers have been reticent about answering the question "is the carbon-12 nucleus
    intelligently designed"?" The reason is pretty clear: They don't want to say "No"
    because that would suggest that the rather remarkable "coincidences" which make the
    triple alpha process possible are indeed just coincidences which God wasn't especially
    concerned to make happen. But if they say "Yes" then they have an example of an
    intelligently designed structure which can be explained in terms of known physical laws
    of nuclear & EM interactions. This then suggests that other such structures which seem
    to be intelligently designed can be explained in terms of secondary causes without the
    explicit invocation of a designer.
            (Of course C-12 isn't a "biological structure" but it's an essential precursor
    to such structures.)

                                                    Shalom,
                                                    George
                        

    George L. Murphy
    gmurphy@raex.com
    http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/

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