Re: Economic irreducible complexity

billgr@cco.caltech.edu
Tue, 26 Nov 1996 12:45:53 -0800 (PST)

Loren Haarsma:

[...]

> It seems that ID is attempting to show the following: If you
> start with God, the data says, "compatible;" if you start by assuming
> Naturalism, the data says, "incompatible."
>
> And that's as close to "proof" as science can come, anyway.

I didn't get any takers before, but I haven't been able to figure
out how the data is supposed to separate "naturalistic" designers
(a la Paley's watches) from "God" designers (a la ID as I understand
it).

For example, I've read Glen Morton's posts about various prehistoric
artwork. The anthropological case being made depends extremely
strongly on identifying those objects as *designed*. Yet no
anthropologist (that I know of) thinks that God painted the pictures
or carved the Venuses or whatnot. Ergo, the design is 'naturalistic'
in the sense that perfectly natural beings (neanderthals, australopithecus,
or whoever) did the designing.

So if, say, flagellae turn out to be 'designed,' how can this mean
that the data are incompatible with naturalism? Do you understand
naturalism to mean *no* intelligent participation (in which case how
do you explain the scientific use of prehistoric art in anthropology?)
or do you take it to include intelligent design, in which case how
does the data distinguish between 'naturalistic' and 'God-style'
intelligent design?

-Greg