> ....
> In March 1999 Howard posted to the ASA
> Reflector his questions about defintions od design and saying that ID
> was based on an "artisan metaphor".
>
> Then after *two months* of intensive debate, Howard comes on to the Calvin
> Reflector and asks the same questions and again says that ID was based on
> an "artisan metaphor"!
>
> If this is "trying...to move the conceptual conversation forward" I would
> hate to see Howard trying to slow something down!
Maybe he doesn't think the responses he got were sound.
> When I posted Howard's questions on the ID list I am on, the response
> was things like:
>
> "Howard just keeps on doing this, no matter what you tell him"
> and "It's a
> bottomless pit."
>
> In short, the perception from the ID side is that Howard just wants the ID
> debate to go around endlessly in circles getting nowhere.
I suspect it's just that he doesn't think he's gotten good answers yet.
We've all been in that situation, right?
> JR>E.g., with a broad notion of "design" nearly -every- Christian
> believes in
> >Intelligent Design.
>
> Since theistic evolution Asa Gray said denial of design is "tantamount to
> atheism", I would have thought that *every* Christian *must*
> believe in some
> form of Intelligent Design!
I would agree (depending on what degree of unorthodoxy one allows with one
still being Christian), using the terms in their ordinary, broad meaning.
But certainly not in any of many narrower senses of the terms. I mean, on a
broad meaning of the terms, Howard and every other EC/TE I know of believes
in intelligent design.
> JR>Given that ID isn't meant to include everything from
> >evolutionary creationism/theistic evolution on the one hand to YEC on the
> >other, the definition must be narrowed to capture what is proposed by ID
> >theorists.
>
> I disagree. ID does not exclude TE/ECs or YECs. The other list I am on has
> IDers who range from TEs to YEcs and everything in between.
> Indeed, it even
> includes people who are not even theists. The only thing that ID
> would exclude
> are people who are hostile to the advancement of ID.
> ....
I guess I don't know what ID means anymore then. All the pro-ID stuff that
I am familiar with is explicitly at odds with EC/TE, usually relying on the
standard (and I think usually overstated) criticisms of evolutionary theory
(fossil gaps, assumes atheism, no mechanism for macroevolution, etc.), more
recently relying on Behe's thesis that irreducible complexity necessitates
un-evolvability (a thesis that seems to me mistaken).
Now, if I understand you, you're saying that ID is compatible with basically
any Christian theory of creation -- every one I listed, anyway.
I have no problem with this, but then I don't know what all the fuss is
about. I -suspect- you're taking ID in too broad a sense, though, given the
other stuff I've read earlier. My own suspicion is that something like what
Howard says is right: "ID" as it's usually used (by Christians anyway)
implies (and, as you've pointed out, is strongly motivated by) "episodic
creationism." (I'm not referring to his comments about an artisan metaphor,
the concept having outlived its usefulness, etc. -- those are not in my mind
connoted, let alone denoted, by "episodic creationism.") This would explain
why published IDers consider it very important to reject methodological
naturalism, focus on irreducible complexity as an objection to evolutionary
theory, etc.
(Given that you're more up on this than I, let me ask you: are there any
thought leaders in the ID community who explicitly reject Behe's thesis
which is [if I understand it] that irreducible complexity necessitates
unevolvability? I'm curious; I hope the answer is yes.)
John
P. S. Thanks for listing Hodge's defn. But doesn't his notion include in
part 3 what would ordinarily be meant by fabrication or manufacturing? That
is, wouldn't accomplishment of either the 1st, or 1st and 2d, or even (more
strangely) the 2d alone, -without- the 3d part would constitute intelligent
design in the ordinary sense of the term? Why not use a dictionary defn:
Design: "Make or work out a plan for; devise;";"Conceive or fashion in the
mind; invent"; "Intend or have as a purpose". (These are from my online
dictionary. None of the verb defns included the concept of manufacturing
the designed object.)