>Chris: Not so. For the same general burden of proof reasons, we may presume
until evidence indicates otherwise, that the intelligent causes, if any, are
naturalistic.
DNAunion: So "you guys" win by default? You don't need a shred of evidence,
you just simply win. "You guys" have no burden of proof to bear? Nice double
standards.
>Chris: Further, since we only have a theoretical means of recognizing
intelligent design by naturalistically-occurring beings (i.e., humans, aliens
(because they would necessarily live under the same *basic* conditional
factors, limitations, and constraints as we do)), we have yet another reason
for presuming that any "design" we claim to see should be regarded by
presumption as design by metaphysically naturalistic beings.
DNAunion: Okay, let me ask this. Are you saying that computers and
airplanes and four-stroke reciprocating internal combustion engines are
NATURAL because they were produced by "natural" intelligences instead of by a
supernatural intelligences?
I agree that the items I listed are not supernatural, and thus could be
somehow (mis)classified as "natural", but you cannot get away from the fact
that they do not arise by purely-natural means: merely by the laws of physics
and chemistry: that intelligence must direct their creation. You don't go
out to a beach and see a computer or an airplane or a television set form
before your eyes by the simple shuffling of atoms and molecules.
If you want to classify intelligent input by ETI's, computer and other
engineers, systems analysts and computer programmers, electricians and
electrical engineers, geneticists, protein engineers, etc. as natural, that
is your business. The general consensus is that such input is better defined
as intelligent, and that the items produced by such intelligences (as listed
above) are NOT natural.
>Chris: If you, or Behe, or Johnson, or Dembski, or anyone else can come up
with a *rational* way of specifying what divine design would necessarily look
like, then go right ahead.
DNAunion: If you, Elsberry, Dawkins, or Orgel, or anyone else can come up
with a valid and detailed explanation for the purely-natural origin of life
here on Earth, go right ahead. In the meantime, "you guys" should not state
as fact that it occurred here on Earth by purely natural means: assumptions
are not the same as facts, no matter how much "naturalists" wish them to be.
By the way, why must "you guys" always turn "our" arguments into GOD
arguments. I notice that the word GOD (and divine etc.) come up far more by
anti-IDists than by IDists. Why? Because "you guys" want so badly to label
ID as a religious idea. What if all of "us guys" continually mislabeled
evolution as an atheistic idea? If in every single reply "we" made - not
just here and not just us, but every IDist and every Creationist on every
board, book, and TV show - began driving in the "fact" that all evolutionists
were atheists (or even Nazis): would you consider that fair? I don't think
so. So why do "you people" keep doing to "us people" what you would not want
us to do to you - that is, make the other person's beliefs out to be
something they are not in order to gain some points.
>Chris: But, until then, and until evidence is found that "works" better with
that concept of divine design than with naturalistic design, divine design is
verbal and conceptual fog.
DNAunion: Great - so when was I talking about divine design? Who are you
addressing? Surely not me. If you are going to respond to MY posts, then
doesn't it make that you respond to MY statements?
By the way, using your logic, I come up with, "But until then, until evidence
is found that works better with the concept of a purely-natural origin of
life here on Earth than with an intelligently-directed model, then
abiogenesis is verbal and conceptual fog."
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