Re: ID science (subtopic 2)

From: douglas.hayworth@perbio.com
Date: Mon Apr 28 2003 - 11:26:39 EDT

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    I'm sure this illustration has been suggested before, but what would you
    call a the specific abilities of a robot whose structure and movements were
    "designed" by a computer model using evolutionary programming? I think
    Howard would call this Mindfully Designed, since the parameter of
    replication, mutation and selection (optimiality criteria) were mindfully
    incorporated into the evolutionary program by a person so as to ensure a
    successful end result (the researcher instilled the program with a Robust
    Formational Economy and nothing more). We would all call the end product
    (robot) "designed" in the ordinary, broad sense. However, it was not
    really specifically designed or directly fashioned by a person in the sense
    meant by ID theorists.

    Douglas

                                                                                                                          
                        "Howard J. Van
                        Till" To: Dick Fischer <dickfischer@earthlink.net>, asa@calvin.edu
                        <hvantill@charte cc:
                        rmi.net> Subject: Re: ID science (subtopic 2)
                        Sent by:
                        asa-owner@lists.
                        calvin.edu
                                                                                                                          
                                                                                                                          
                        04/28/03 09:22
                        AM
                                                                                                                          
                                                                                                                          

    I've been gone for a while; time to catch up on a few items.

    In place of the term, "Intelligently Designed," I had suggested:

    >> How about MD, Mindfully Designed, or some other term that focuses
    > attention of the idea that the universe exhibits a
    >> character that strongly points to the prior intentional action of Mind?

    Dick Fischer replied:

    > I think that is trouble. The problem is the word "designed." Where does
    it
    > end? If God established natural laws at the beginning, commissioned the
    > impersonal acts of nature to do the work, and set it all in motion at the
    > Big Bang, there is no "design" to it.

    Interesting comment.... In common parlance today, to "design" something is
    to use one's mind to conceptualize or plan something for the accomplishment
    of a purpose. The ID movement, however, seems to have been remarkably
    successful in shifting the meaning of "design" (as an action) to the
    hand-like action of forming, making, or assembling something.

    As I have said on many occasions, the term "intelligent design" -- as it
    has
    been employed in the bulk of the ID movement literature -- has attained a
    very peculiar meaning. In ID-speak, to say that "X was intelligently
    designed' is to say that "X was actualized (assembled, formed, configured,
    constructed, fabricated) in a way that required one or more episodes of
    non-natural, non-miraculous, non-energetic, form-conferring action
    performed
    by some unidentified, unembodied, choice-making agent."

    Given what mischief has been done to the word "designed," I think you may
    be
    correct, Dick, to say that it should be avoided. But making up new words
    like "Creavolution" has its problems as well. I'll keep thinking of some
    alternative.

    Howard Van Till

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