In a message dated 10/5/2000 6:07:53 PM Pacific Daylight Time, DNAunion
writes:
> >FMAJ: Perhaps but the Intelligent Design filters cannot exclude natural
> selection
> as an intelligent designer so perhaps intelligence as used by you is
> different from the intelligence as used by the ID movement?
>
>
> DNAunion: I will not address Welsberry's claim that Demski's filter allows
> RM & NS to act as an intelligent designer: I think Demski himself should
> address the merit of that. But I will comment on another point you brought
> up.
>
Why will you not comment on this? Why should it be left to Dembski to
determine the merit of the argument?
> First, I think the ID movement is not a single unified movement, just as
> evolution is not a single unified movement (what I mean by that is that
> even though all evolutionists agree that evolution occurs, they disagree
> about the rate, the importance of different mechanisms, the proper
> ancestors of different extant animals, etc.).
>
Do all ID'ers admit that natural selection can be an intelligent designer?
> I think many in the ID movement would accept what I refer to as
> intelligence, even though I do not define the term. For instance, I
> consider a computer program that can not only play chess legally (that is
> pretty simple), but can play chess WELL to be have "some form of
> intelligence". A rock cannot play chess well, no matter what you do to it;
> a shoe cannot play chess well no matter how you press it, throw it, twirl
> it, or what have you; a hurricane cannot play chess well (or even legally);
> a cat, a dog, or even a dolphin or chimpanzee cannot play chess well,
> again, no matter how much you attempt to teach them. But a "hunk of
> silicon" can play better than the greatest chess player that ever lived
> (beating world champion Gary Kasparov - the highest rated chess player
> ever, even higher than the legendary Bobby Fischer).
>
So we now have gradations of "intelligence" from non-intelligent to computer
programs "some intelligence". The issue with the use of the term intelligence
is exactly that it is so poorly defined. Does ID include natural selection as
an intelligent designer as follows from the thesis? Or do they reject it. If
it is the former then what new does ID have to offer? If it is the latter
then based on what evidence is NS rejeced as the designer when ID's claims do
not say anything about the designer?
> I have a more-complete post on this that I could post here if anyone is
> interested.
>
> However, other IDists reject such a notion stating that such systems are
> NOT intelligent.
Based on what premises and logic I wonder?
>
> In addition, I disagree with Dawkins that things like spider webs are not
> designed or intelligently produced in any manner whatsoever. In "Climbing
> Mount Improbable", Dawkins takes up about 4 or 5 pages explaining all the
> details and intricacies that go into a spider's efforts to construct a web
> - and the logic that is needed (before step X can be done, the spider must
> - and does - first do step W or else....). To me, if some intricate,
> detailed, and exacting process must be carried out to produce something,
> then it is not generated purely-natural: it is either designed or
> intelligently created or both. The laws of physics and chemistry alone do
> not produce a spider web: the input of the spider is also needed.
>
Exactly why algorithms cannot be excluded as sources of "intelligence then".
> But again, I am sure that some or many IDists would reject my views on this
> also, or at least modify them.
>
> One of my points is that ID is not a single unified movement as some
> suggest (and also, relatedly, ID is not a single unified "religious fundy"
> and/or "Creationist" movement, no more than evolution is a single unified
> atheistic movement).
But one thing the do seem to have in common, they infer "design" but face the
problem that they have to find a way to eliminate some of the designers.
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