In a message dated 10/3/2000 11:03:48 PM Pacific Daylight Time, DNAunion
writes:
> >>FMAJ: Why not? If natural selection is an intelligent designer for
> instance, why are there limits to evolution.
>
> DNAunion: That sounds like an oxymoron to me. If you have any kind of
> intelligence and design involved in the selection process, then it is not
> NATURAL selection, be definition. What am I missing?
>
One of the fundamental problems of ID:
"Wesley Elsberry:
"The apparent, but unstated, logic behind the move from design to
agency can be given as follows:
1. There exists an attribute in common of some subset of objects
known to be designed by an intelligent agent.
2. This attribute is never found in objects known not to be designed
by an intelligent agent.
3. The attribute encapsulates the property of directed contingency
or choice.
4.For all objects, if this attribute is found in an object, then we
may conclude that the object was designed by an intelligent agent.
"This is an inductive argument. Notice that by the second step, one
must eliminate from consideration precisely those biological
phenomena which Dembski wishes to categorize. In order to conclude
intelligent agency for biological examples, the possibility that
intelligent agency is not operative is excluded a priori. One large
problem is that directed contingency or choice is not solely an
attribute of events due to the intervention of an intelligent agent.
The "actualization-exclusion-specification" triad mentioned above also
fits natural selection rather precisely. One might thus conclude that
Dembski's argument establishes that natural selection can be recognized
as an intelligent agent. "
http://inia.cls.org/~welsberr/zgists/wre/papers/dembski7.html
"
> >>FMAJ: But even more relevant why are we confusing evolution with the
> ability to create life from non-life? Is that not a strawman?
>
>
> DNAunion: No, it is not. How do you propose that life arose (according to
> naturalistic position)?
>
You now accept that there are other explanations than evolutionary
explanations for abiogenesis.
> DNA: Did it pop up fully formed instantaneously - nothing one second and
> then poof! a cell (or self-replicator)? Or did it evolve - that is, did it
> arise by the gradual complexification of organic molecules leading from,
> say PNA or p-RNA into the RNA World, from which eventually a
> self-replicator arose, that then improved in its fidelity and/or rate of
> reproduction to outproduce its competitors so that it dominated the niche
> and... leading to the appearance of catalytic proteins, the most useful
> being retained the the unuseful being eliminated .... followed by the
> appearance of DNA (the selective advantage being that it is a more stable
> storage form for genetic information than is RNA), all of which became
> encapsulated (at some point) in a liposome (selective advantage is to
> concentrate biologically relevant molecules), with metabolism entering the
> picture at some point ... leading to the first full blown cell.
All are potential pathways that have little to do with the theory of
evolution.
>
> In fact, if you want, I can provide about a dozen quotes from origin of
> life researchers that explicitly state the link between evolution - and
> even Darwinian evolution - in abiogenesis.
I am sure that some believe this but that does not mean that evolution is
related to creating life from non life. Evolution is that which acts on life.
Did it play a role during abiogenesis? Perhaps but perhaps not as you have
already aluded to. There are plenty of origins of life hypotheses, why focus
on one?
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