Ami wrote:
>It has been a question of faith on both sides. And both sides have their
>dogma which cannot be
>contradicted by any new discovery or insight.
Susan replied:
>actually ID has faith on its side and evolutionary biology has evidence on
>its side. Evolution could easily be disproven--it hasn't yet been in over
>100 years, but it *could* be or could have been.
Actually, I think it is far more complicated than this. First of all, ID is
not
the opposite of evolutionary biology. Both can co-exist easily. In his
latest
book (Nature's Destiny), Denton shows one way this can happen and I know
of no serious objections that have been raised against these arguments.
Another
way is to posit ID in place of abiogenesis, and then envision evolution as
the process that flows from this design event.
Secondly, I don't think it's really an issue of faith vs. evidence. Remember
that evidence exists only in the context of belief. Remove belief and
evidence
is only raw data. Thus, the raw data are interpreted *as* evidence in the
light
of belief meaning all evidence entails some element of faith. Now, in
science,
the basic ground rule is that all data are to be interpreted in light of
naturalism.
This results in the practical exlcusion of any interpretation in the light of
intelligent design. Thus, the evidence uncovered by science is not evidence
for a non-intelligent cause over an intelligent cause, it is only evidence to
support ways a non-intelligent cause could have produced something. In
science, a non-intelligent cause for a biotic phenomenon is never tested
against an intelligent cause for such phenomena. None of this means there
is anything wrong with science. We just have to remember that science is
not the tool to determine if something evolved or was designed by an
intelligent
agent, as science *begins* with the former proposition.
Mike
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