RE: prima facie design hypothesis

From: Nelson Alonso (nalonso@megatribe.com)
Date: Fri Sep 15 2000 - 11:55:27 EDT

  • Next message: FMAJ1019@aol.com: "Re: We heard you"

    In a message dated 9/14/2000 9:27:00 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
    SZYGMUNT@EXODUS.VALPO.EDU writes:

    << SZ: I'd like to explore the example you gave of the large, smooth,
    metal object with doors and portholes landing gently on earth.
    I appreciate your giving an example of a case where you think it
    would be appropriate, as a starting point, to make a design hypothesis.

    SZ: What I'd like to know is how this differs in any significant ways
    from what we see of the microscopic world of the cell from the standpoint
    of late 20th century molecular biology. I'm not saying there are
    no differences, just asking you to explain why you think a prima
    facie design hypothesis should *not* be made about complex biological
    systems (take your favorite molecular machine system if you want to
    be specific) while it *should* be made for the smooth sphere.
    >>

    IC is based on the presumption that such systems require design rather than
    on
    showing that such systems could not arise naturally. Does this mean that
    there are not instances in which we can infer design quite reliably? Sure
    but
    ICness does not seem to be one of them. After all if we know that IC systems
    can arise naturally and can arise through design then we need to be able to
    distinguish between them.
    IC does not provide us with such tools.

    Nelson:
    The only problem is IC systems cannot arise naturally.



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Sep 15 2000 - 11:52:02 EDT