Re: Cambrian Explosion/Aphenomenon (no kidding!)

From: George Murphy (gmurphy@raex.com)
Date: Fri Aug 01 2003 - 10:19:10 EDT

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    Howard J. Van Till wrote:
    ...................
    > ID's claim, "does not require a miracle," is as hollow as claims get. If X
    > is a non-natural form-conferring intervention by an unidentified,
    > unembodied, choice-making agent, then what sort of non-miraculous phenomenon
    > could X be?...................

            I don't think that the claim is so much "hollow" as it is part of a shell game.
    In discussions of scientific issues, IDers make this claim which, in that context, has
    some validity: Life on earth could indeed have been seeded by ETs. But in the larger
    context in which ID functions as part of the "wedge" strategy against "naturalism," the
    putative design could not have taken place through natural processes accessible to
    science & is therefore properly described as "miraculous." Directed panspermia would be
    completely useless for the crusade against naturalism (besides the fact that it just
    pushes the problem of the origin of life back a step).

            I would have much more respect for the ID movement if its spokespersons would
    stop exploiting this ambiguity in order to try for both scientific respectability _and_
    the support of Christian anti-evolutionsists.

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



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