On Wed, 15 Dec 1999 06:11:45 -0600, John E. Rylander wrote:
JR>This reads more like a political than a HQ scientific or philosophical
>document.
John is entitled to his opinion. As he says, "It's a free country"!
JR>It's a free country -- but don't expect people to take these kinds of
>polemics as science, or as rigorous philosophy.
I've got bad news for John. ID *is* being taken *very* seriously indeed,
both as "science" and "philosophy".
JR>And while "define your way
>to victory" is a common political strategy, it's also notoriously dishonest
>and unfair.
Who is defining their way to victory? It is merely and attempt by a an
IDer to set out a a `taxonomy' of different positions on the ID and
anti-ID spectrum.
JR>I continue to be disappointed in the quality of arguments that go out under
>the ID tag. Even if there is merit to what they're saying, sometimes it
>seems they're doing their best to keep them hidden from those who aren't
>already convinced. There are genuine insights behind some of the ID claims,
>I think -- but it's almost like they just can't figure out ways to express
>them without name calling, simplistic overstatement, and sloppy mistakes.
John has already shown over many years of debating with me on the Reflector
that he is strongly biased against ID. I take with a grain of salt his
claims to be evaluating ID fairly and objectively. That is not to say
that John may not sincerely *think* he is being fair and objective towards ID.
JR>Their critics are often enough in the same boat, of course. But then, their
>critics can afford to be sloppy, wrt persuasive rigor, since they're the
>status quo. If ID wants to succeed, it needs to be smarter than the
>opposition, not just fair to middlin' so far as rigor goes. And wrt this
>document, "fair to middlin'" is being generous.
Fortunately ID does not have to seek John's permission to "succeed"!
And BTW how is John's personal position, namely theistic evolution, (or
is it evolutionary creation?) succeeding these days?
At least ID is *trying* to make scientific arguments!
JR>Just one example: by this set of definitions, pretty much every theistic
>evolutionist would be firmly in the design camp. No problem there. But
>then, why do ID theorists continually attack theistic evolutionists as not
>believing in design, as being "theistic naturalists", etc. etc.
First, as a matter of historical fact, it is the "theistic evolutionists" who
started the attack of ID theorists. Johnson's original 1991 Darwin on Trial
had only a paragraph on TE and it was not very critical. But as Johnson
revealed in DoT's second edition, the TE leaders all attacked his book, and
continue to do so. So ID is essentially a *counter-attack* to TE's original
attack.
Second, the problem is not with *all* "theistic evolutionist". It is with
those TEs who deny that design is *detectable* in the world. Really those
TEs most prominent in the attack on ID are IMHO Deistic Evolutionists in
that they deny, in principle, God's supernatural intervention in the
universe:
"Deistic Evolution. Although the term is rarely heard, deistic evolution is
perhaps the best way to describe one variety of what is generally called
theistic evolution. This is the view that God began the process of evolution,
producing the first matter and implanting within the creation the laws
which its development has followed. Thus, he programmed the process.
Then he withdrew from active involvement with the world, becoming, so to
speak, Creator emeritus. The progress of the created order is free of direct
influence by God. He is the Creator of everything, but only the first living
form was directly created. All the rest of God's creating has been done
indirectly. God is the Creator, the ultimate cause, but evolution is the
means, the proximate cause. Thus, except for its view of the very beginning
of matter, deistic evolution is identical to naturalistic evolution for it denies
that there is any direct activity by a personal God during the ongoing
creative process." (Erickson M.J., "Christian Theology", 1988, pp480-
481).
JR>If they
>want to use the notions below, fine. But then there should be never a peep
>that evolutionary creationists reject design simply because they criticize
>the arguments for what usually passes as ID (what would be called rungs 7
>and 8 here).
The "evolutionary creationists reject design" because they have
a prior committment to evolution. They see Design as a threat to
their intellectual investment in evolution. IMHO it has little or nothing to
do with the intrinsic strength or weakness of ID's arguments.
JR>Okay, one more example: these rungs are not mutually exclusive, -based on
>the way the terms are ordinarily used-: one can be an atheistic naturalist
>(in the ordinary sense of the words) and still be at rung 8, e.g. (Of
>course, one can redefine "atheistic naturalist" -- which is itself redundant
>in the common use of the terms -- to mean "atheist who rejects design", but
>that's a bizarre and misleading coinage.)
No doubt. Broad-brush categories only can be Listed. There are all sorts
of permuations and combinations on the ID/anti-ID spectrum.
JR>I take it YEC would be rung 9 or 10? Interesting that they don't put it
>here. (They may want to leave themselves at the top of the ladder lest they
>make their metaphor work against them.)
The YECs who are aware of it, AFAIK, don't have a problem with it.
JR>Steve, do you know if this set of definitions is being widely adopted in the
>ID movement? Given their prima facie incoherence, I hope not, of course.
>But these defns are a -start- toward rigor.
It is, AFAIK, just one IDers view. Although it may be that most IDers think
it is OK, as far as it goes. The modern ID movement is in its infancy, so
there are a lot of positions and viewpoints under consideration.
Steve
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"When we come to the origin(s) of life, both creationists and evolutionists
are forced into the role of speculators. Laboratory experiments conducted
with presumed primitive earth atmospheric conditions (methane, ammonia,
hydrogen, water) and various energy sources (electrical discharge,
ultraviolet radiation, high energy radiation, and heat) have yielded small
amounts of amino acids (the building blocks of proteins) and nucleic acid
precursors (the building blocks of genetic information and components of
the protein synthesizing machinery of contemporary cells). Certain
conditions have seen the formation of microspheres, which are chemically
complex entities surrounded by a double-layered membrane suggestive of
the gross structure of certain cellular components. Creationists have looked
forward to the day when science may actually create a "living" thing from
simple chemicals. They claim, and rightly so, that even if such a man-made
life form could be created, this would not prove that natural life forms were
developed by a similar chemical evolutionary process. The scientist
understands this and plods on testing theories." (Stansfield W.D., "The
Science of Evolution", [1977], Macmillan: New York NY, 1983, Eighth
Printing, pp10-11)
Stephen E. Jones | sejones@iinet.net.au | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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