Intelligent Design is NOT Creation[ism]

ID man I have one question I hope you willingly answer. What is the definition of Intelligence in ID?

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"You cannot reason a person out of a position he did not reason himself into in the first place."

I didn't do the lumping, and my opinion is shared by many. The lumping is already inherent in the nature of ID. It is instead IDists who are delumping, trying to distance ID from the now-discredited Creationism. As I said at the bottom of my message, "The article concludes that is important to promote both ID and Biblical arguments simultaneously."I wonder why you left that out? You're just repeating your original assertions. The problem with your position is that the appearance of design is simply a subjective opinion. You need a foundation of research establishing objective criteria for deisgn. Dembski proposes some objective criteria, but has not connected that criteria to the real world. We've asked you a few times now for some pointers to the work establishing this connection, and if it exists I suggest you respond. I was responding to what I quoted from you, where you said, "ID does not care IF it has metaphysical implications." The point I was trying to make is that ID, despite the denials, cares deeply about its metaphysical implications. To repeat what I said earlier, if life arose and evolved with the help of intelligent assistance, then one must inquire about the origin of that intelligence. By similar logic, that intelligence itself must also have arisen and evolved with intelligent assistance, and so you must inquire again about the origin of this prior intelligence. And then you need to know about the origin of the intelligence before that, and so forth. Obviously this can't be repeated ad infinitum, because the universe has a finite history, and so there must have been a first intelligence.There are two possibilities for the origin of this first intelligence. One possibility, namely that the first intelligence arose naturally, contradicts your original assertion that life cannot arise and evolve without intelligent assistence, so we must eliminate that possibility. And so that leaves only the remaining possibility, which is that under an ID perspective the first life in the universe must have arisen supernaturally. And it is primarily this fact that makes ID just a more intricate form of theistic evolution, and therefore a part of Creationism.--Percy

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sidelined:
I have one question I hope you willingly answer. What is the definition of Intelligence in ID?

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I answered that in another thread. The 'I' in the ID stands for some external agency- IOW nature acting alone didn't do it. It does not measure the intelligence. the above was taken from: Intelligent Design is not Optimal Design

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"...the most habitable place in the solar system yields the best view of solar eclipses just when observers can best appreciate them." from "The Privileged Planet"

ID Man How then do you propose to demonstrate the validity of your position if you cannot measure some aspect of this "external agency"? If you have no measure of the agency then there is no substance to the intelligence and as such cannot be taken seriously.It has no more explanation behind it than if we were to change the name to leprechaun intelligence or fairy intelligence.Perhaps you mean the central intelligence agency.LOL So,being as you have no measure of the intelligence,what do you mean by design and how do you arrive at this conclusion?

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"You cannot reason a person out of a position he did not reason himself into in the first place."

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Percy:
I didn't do the lumping, and my opinion is shared by many.

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There are many more who do not share that opinion. Some of my many are evolutionists. ALL of your many are ardent anti-IDists.

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Percy:
The lumping is already inherent in the nature of ID.

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Another opinion.

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Percy:
It is instead IDists who are delumping, trying to distance ID from the now-discredited Creationism.

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The funny thing is IDists know there is a difference between Creation and ID. Creationists also know the difference. Even evolutionists know the difference. How has Creationism been dis-credited? Do you understand the court ruling? I would have to say that you do not.

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Percy:
As I said at the bottom of my message, "The article concludes that is important to promote both ID and Biblical arguments simultaneously."

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I wonder why you left that out?

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Where does the article conclude that? And even if the article came to that conclusion that itself is evidence that ID is NOT Creation.

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Percy:
You're just repeating your original assertions.

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Those are facts, not assertions. I understand that you wouldn't know the difference.

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Percy:
The problem with your position is that the appearance of design is simply a subjective opinion. You need a foundation of research establishing objective criteria for deisgn. Dembski proposes some objective criteria, but has not connected that criteria to the real world. We've asked you a few times now for some pointers to the work establishing this connection, and if it exists I suggest you respond.

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Been there done that:

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Percy:
The point I was trying to make is that ID, despite the denials, cares deeply about its metaphysical implications.

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Again, what denials? And who are you to say IDists care deeply about the metaphysical implications?

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Percy:
To repeat what I said earlier, if life arose and evolved with the help of intelligent assistance, then one must inquire about the origin of that intelligence.

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That is false. One might inquire but there isn't any "must".Why don't you apply your standards to your faith? Obviously natural processes can't account for nature. So where did nature come from in your scenario?

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Percy:
And it is primarily this fact that makes ID just a more intricate form of theistic evolution, and therefore a part of Creationism.

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Again by your logic Joe Meert and Ken Miller are Creationists. They are both christians, which makes them theistic evolutionists. But theistic evos don't call themselves IDists or Creationists. Again the facts are getting in the way of your case. Actually you don't have a case just an opinion.

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"...the most habitable place in the solar system yields the best view of solar eclipses just when observers can best appreciate them." from "The Privileged Planet"

holmes it appears you are reading impaired. I never promised anything yet you keep saying my promise will go unfulfilled. What is up with that? Not only that you don't have a clue as to what you are talking about :

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ho;mes:
Oh man, what is this, denial? That quote was from RATZSCH, the guy you said we should listen to. He was saying that people (like those on this website) could HONESTLY BELIEVE that ID offers no promise and presents risks.

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Are you now saying we are not supposed to believe what he says?

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Are you daft? I just agreed with what Del said!on the theory of evolution:

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holmes:
It has however been pretty good with fitting all evidence we have accumulated and continue to accumulate.

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What evidence? The fossil record can't say anything about a mechanism so it is no help. What is the evidence that shows a procaryote can evolve into a eucaryote? The evidence shows we have both. How can any of the alleged transformations be objectively tested?

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"...the most habitable place in the solar system yields the best view of solar eclipses just when observers can best appreciate them." from "The Privileged Planet"

By identification of the mechanisms that cause it to happen; natural selection and random mutation.In other words, they can be tested by the same methodology you would use to substantiate "intelligent design."This message has been edited by crashfrog, 09-25-2004 05:24 PM

A reply to message #52 in this thread would be much appreciated.You can address it in this thread or in the thread it came from.

I want to get this straight, you agree with Del that evolutionary theorists are not merely dogmatic, nor are they biased, and they are correct for using methodological naturalism?In addition, you believe these people have a valid reason to say that ID offers no promise and presents real risks to science?This is all very confusing given the content of your earlier posts. I find this quite ironic. What evidence, including the fossil record, does ID deal with at all? What is the model? And if you are going to go so far as evolutioanry theory needing all mechanisms fleshed out, give me a mechanism for ID.But to answer your question, evolutionary theory is a model built from both the fossil record (which shows some kind of change over time for "whatever" reason), and research into ongoing change and mechanisms of change in living organisms. It makes an assumption that the mechanisms we see today are the ones that happened in the past. Nothing in the fossil record betrays this assumption.Although there were and now are mechanisms which we do not understand, that is where research is ongoing. I can't say evo has solved all mechanisms and so give pat answers to everything. If ID can, I'd love to have some.We do see prokaryotes and we see eukaryotes. Are you unaware that we have seen organizational behavior within proks and euks leading to complex communities of these simple organisms?Do you have some reason to believe that symbiosis within such communities would not result in the community becoming an organism?Oh yes, and by the way we already have evidence for this. Maybe you haven't been keeping up with science, but mitochondria (essential to cell function) have their own DNA and it's pretty evident they were a product of symbiosis?Am I to understand that under ID, we would have ruled that as having been "caused" by an unknown intelligent agent? And thus we would have lost the valuable research which discovered this fact?And in any case, I would like to hear what ID says about prokaryotic and eukaryotic life. Once again, are you for common descent or what? Are you a creationist or what?You know these questions are simply going to keep coming.This message has been edited by holmes, 09-25-2004 06:44 PM

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I'm not making up my own views, just reflecting common views within science. It was Sternberg's defense against scientists' characterization of him as a Creationist that led to the discussion that prompted you to begin this thread. If it were really true that evolutionists accept that ID isn't part of Creationism then we wouldn't be having this discussion. I meant discredited as science, of course, and you answered your own question. Elaborating a little, not only has Creationism been rejected by science, here in the US Young Earth Creationism has been judged to be thinly veiled Genesis in legal court proceedings. This is the failure that is causing Young Earth Creationists to embrace ID as their next horse of choice to carry their religious ideas into science classrooms. Actually, Henry Morris contradicts you on both points. The link again is ICR's Henry Morris on ID, and near the end of the article he says: Moving on: You're repeating the same thing you've said already several times before, and each time it was pointed out that a simple description of a biological process is not evidence. What you need is a foundation of research establishing a connection between your criteria for design and the real world. We've asked you to provide references to this research, if it exists. What denials? Uh, specifically, your denial in Message 36: Moving on: Interesting way to phrase this. Do you think discussion board denizens must have some sort of credentials before venturing an opinion?Anyway, as I already explained, it is the ultimate metaphysical implications of ID, namely that the first life was created by a divine being, that Creationists find so attractive and so dear. Ultimately, ID is just a complicated form of theistic evolution. It is self-evidently just reformulated God of the Gaps. Naturally IDists prefer that the obvious implication of the divine not be explored, else its religious motivations will be revealed. In other words, we're not to look at the man behind the curtain. Can you name any field of science which puts on blinders like this? Does cosmology say, "We're not to inquire about what came before the Big Bang?" Does geology say, "We're not to inquire about what came before the earth?" For ID to eventually become science it must give up the obvious connections to conservative Christian religion and open its mandate to exploring any and all implications of its ideas. Not sure what you mean. What does my faith have to do with science? I don't think science has an answer to this question yet. But unlike ID's ultimate creator, it is an active area of inquiry. You've said this before, it was wrong before, and it was rebutted before. You cannot equate being a Christian with being a theistic evolutionist. Joe's a member here. Shall I send him an email and let him address this himself?--Percy

Forbiddenthis is from a fellow posters, I'm interested in such remarks as"A science with out God is a science of falsehood and sabotage and lies"and"Dembski ran into this problem a lot. His speech was long and rambling. Which was particularly painful because it was the last one in a 14 hours series. When ever the talk of who the designer came up, he would gloss over it, then circulate back to the Christian God. He even talked about the literal value of Genesis."

This is a side-issue, but after checking into what Joe Meert actually believes I've uncovered his own words at ChristianForums in the thread Say Hello to an EX-YEC!! describing himself as a theistic evolutionist: I can only conclude that Joe is using a different definition than the one I've been using. Here's a quote from an article about theistic evolution at a website that I once read a long time ago (http://www.theistic-evolution.com/theisticevolution.html), and it describes pretty well how I think of theistic evolution: To me this says that God was a driving force behind evolution. I don't think I'm misinterpreting this article, and this is only one place where you can see this view of theistic evolution expressed. Under this definition, ID is a form of theistic evolution, and Joe Meert and Ken Miller are definitely not theistic evolutionists.I can see that another possibility is that I'm missing a distinction, that believing God guided evolution at the margins of probability is not the same thing as believing God directly installed the DNA for microbiological structures like the bacterial flagellum. But this seems a distinction of degree and not of form. But if it's a distinction that everyone else is making then I'll get on board.--Percy

ID manJust a bump to ask if you might reply to my post #64 and as an aside I find your signature intriguing.Just what is meant by this? Is it implying that solar eclipses have only existed from the viewpoint of earth during the time when we have had the capacity to understand the significance of how they occur?

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"You cannot reason a person out of a position he did not reason himself into in the first place."

Percy writes:

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Joe Meert and Ken Miller are definitely not theistic evolutionists.

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No, by the definition you gave, I would say that Ken Miller is a theistic evolutionist. Ken believes that god lies in the quantum mechanics. That's the "random" part that your definition of theistic evolution says god controls so that the "unlikely becomes certain."That's what Miller is saying happened.Or am I misreading Miller?

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

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sidelined:
How then do you propose to demonstrate the validity of your position if you cannot measure some aspect of this "external agency"?

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Like a typical evolutionist you jump to the incorrect conclusion. We measure the aspect of an external agency with our knowledge of what nature can and cannot do and/ or would or would not do. Couple that with our knowledge of what external agencies can do and that would answer your question.

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sidelined:
So,being as you have no measure of the intelligence,what do you mean by design and how do you arrive at this conclusion?

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I suggest you try reading about ID from IDists. This is a discussion board. IOW you can't be prepared to discuss if you don't know anything about that which is being discussed.

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"...the most habitable place in the solar system yields the best view of solar eclipses just when observers can best appreciate them." from "The Privileged Planet"