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Author Topic:   The Design Revolution by William Dembski
paisano
Member (Idle past 6453 days)
Posts: 459
From: USA
Joined: 05-07-2004


Message 19 of 68 (127098)
07-23-2004 6:12 PM
Reply to: Message 15 by Percy
07-23-2004 4:37 PM


Re: Signs of Intelligent Design
Has anyone here read the article by Elsberry and Shalit at:
http://www.talkreason.org/articles/eandsdembski.pdf
It's a pretty technically solid refutation of Dembski's work, IMHO.
I am a Catholic applied physicist. I centainly don't regard Dembski's work as signaling a major paradigm shift in science. More, it signals some subtle but critical mathematical errors on the part of Dembski, coupled with the same old creationist technique of starting with a conclusion and then seeking filtered "evidence".
But it's more technically sophisicated than the standard YEC fare...just enough to seem plausible to the educated non-specialist who can't see the errors.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 15 by Percy, posted 07-23-2004 4:37 PM Percy has not replied

  
paisano
Member (Idle past 6453 days)
Posts: 459
From: USA
Joined: 05-07-2004


Message 31 of 68 (127199)
07-23-2004 10:59 PM
Reply to: Message 27 by Percy
07-23-2004 9:10 PM


Re: Dembski Raises a Good Point
So the evangelical is correct that my view of faith and science leaves no room for his God. I guess I have no answer to this quandry.
An answer to the quandary for yourself, or for the evangelical?
I understand the pickle that the evangelical is in. But it's a consequence of their theological presuppositions. Frankly, I'm not all that sympathetic if preserving those presuppositions requires intellectual dishonesty, whether intentional or inadvertent.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 27 by Percy, posted 07-23-2004 9:10 PM Percy has replied

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paisano
Member (Idle past 6453 days)
Posts: 459
From: USA
Joined: 05-07-2004


Message 39 of 68 (127390)
07-24-2004 10:14 PM
Reply to: Message 38 by Percy
07-24-2004 5:59 PM


Theism (whether Christian, Jewish or Muslim) holds that God by wisdom created the world. The origin of the world and its subsequent ordering thus result from the designing activity of an intelligent agent - God. Naturalism, on the other hand, allows no place for intelligent agency except at the end of a blind, purposeless material process. Within naturalism, any intelligence is an evolved intelligence. Moreover, the evolutionary process by which any such intelligence developed is itself blind and purposeless. As a consequence, naturalism makes intelligence not a basic creative force within nature but an evolutionary byproduct.
Aside from your objections, I think Dembski really is presenting a false dilemma here. In theistic evolution, the idea of underlying purpose is there, albeit perhaps materially inscrutable.
To deny that nature is stochastic is to ignore voluminous evidence. But stochastic does not imply purposeless. That's a metaphysical assumption.
Dembski's writings seem to have a consistent theme of trying to shoehorn science into a fairly rigid theology. He seems utterly uncomfortable with mystery, ironically resembling the strong atheists in that regard.

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