From: Michael Roberts (michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk)
Date: Sun Apr 27 2003 - 13:09:03 EDT
I would have replied earlier but have been away and looked at Newton's
birthplace and drove past Erasmus Darwin's house.
I took note of both Mills and Iain but cannot see any logical flaw in my
argument as I simply commented on Behe's argument so clearly put on
haemoglobin not being designed and clotting being designed. I thus reject
Iain's argument.
> 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). Roberts then indicates
that
> this statement is equivalent to saying that "it was not designed." I
submit
> that the second tier of Behe's position is that area where the evidence is
> simply not sufficient to say clearly whether a process or a structure was
> designed or whether it was not designed. Both Behe and I, as trained
> biochemists, acknowledge the role of chance (i.e., in mutations, etc.). We
> simply argue that chance is not sufficient to explain many of the complex
> processes or structures of living organisms.
> ----------------
>
> In other words, Behe is being accused by Roberts of the following
well-known
> logical fallacy:
>
> Premise: All crows are black
> Conclusion: Therefore all not-crows are not-black.
>
> Equivalently:
>
> Premise: All irreducibly complex objects are designed.
> Conclusion: All not-irreducibly complex objects are not-designed.
>
> It seems obvious to me that Behe never implied this conclusion & that
> therefore Roberts' argument contributes nothing of interest to the debate,
> because it attacks a straw man.
The straw man is red-blooded as Behe argues for the non-design of
heamoglobin and the design of clotting. p207 " I would say that hemoglobin
shows the same design as the man in the moon." So where now is my logical
fallacy?
>
> If one wants to criticize Behe then one should attack the premise, not the
> false conclusion. By all means contest the idea that irreducible
complexity
> necessitates design, or state that there is no such thing as irreducible
> complexity (what Dawkins calls "the argument from personal incredulity").
> But to attack a conclusion that wasn't made by Behe seems pointless to me.
But it was a conclusion made by Behe.
There is a similar argument in Dembski with his gates or "Explanatory
Filter" p134 Intelligent Design IVP. Again we end up with a two- or even
three-tier Creation of dsigned and undesigned.
There is also the implication that much of the time God let Creation get on
with it and every so often intervened with some Intelligent Design. This
appeal drifts close to god of the Gaps and has been expressed as Punctuated
Naturalism by Van Till.
To conclude I dont think Intelligent Design has given anything more than
Rhetoric and gives no principles which can be applied in scientific research
. (Though I would also say that Dawkins' computer simulations are also only
rhetoric and no explanation.)
The other main weaknesses of ID are the parody of Naturalism in all its
forms and its refusal to come clean on the vast age of the earth. I see the
future of ID as either slipping into YEC or moiving over to some kind of
fine tuning or an appraoch similar to Van Till. It is basically incoherent.
For myself my starting point is God the Creator however He created and thus
I eschew a split-level creation.
Michael Roberts
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