[CS-FSLUG] Intelligent design...

[Timothy Butler]

>
> Fourth, he makes a sly move is his argument:
> Evolution by Natural Selection vs. ID.
> This is incorrect. Evolution is not Natural Selection.
> The biblical model needs natural selection as well.
> We can observe natural selection happening today.
> So he's saying that to deny Evolution is to deny
> bold-faced, obvious facts. He's wrong.

     Not to be nit-picky, but natural selection *is* a form of  
evolution. But there are different kinds of natural selection  
evolution: macro vs. micro. Microevolution is the kind we can observe  
taking place, macro leads to new species and has not been observed  
(so far as I know).

     The thing with pure Intelligent Design is that it approves of  
both micro and macro. What it rejects is abiogenesis (to break down  
the Greek: beginning from non-life) and certain bits of macro  
evolution. ID argues a divine spark to begin things, but does not  
necessarily reject the rest of the Darwinian idea: from the  
primordial soup all the way to humans. The big idea is (1) life from  
non-life is scientifically impossible and (2) it would seem necessary  
that certain DNA be pre-existent so that when an animal evolved to a  
certain point, multiple dependent characteristics could be "enabled"  
at once.

     As far as I know, pure ID will still reject the idea of a young  
earth, etc.

     Essentially, ID in this form draws its two objections from the  
teleological argument for the existence of God (or, given what reason  
can produce in such cases, "a god," but not necessarily God).

     Teleological argument: Both abiogenesis and irreducible  
complexity depend on variations of this argument, specifically the  
Paley's Watchmaker argument, that the world seems designed and  
actually requires design to achieve the way it works. As Thomas  
Aquinas writes in Summa Theologica, "Therefore some intelligent being  
exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this  
being we call God."

     In the end, to reference another one of my favorite  
philosophers, David Hume, neither argument is able to actually  
provide a rational conclusion of God (as in YHWH). The cosmological  
argument is probably the most solid of the two (IMO). The  
teleological argument primary to ID can just as easily lead to a  
belief, as Hume's Philo explains, in a committee of gods or even demons.

     All this I note, in an expanded form of what I mentioned on my  
blog about this a few weeks ago, to note (1) Spaghetti Monsterism is  
compatible with ID in its pure form, (2) I think pure ID is something  
very different than what most Christians are comfortable with (since  
pure ID does not take a preference for a particular religion).

     -Tim

---
Timothy R. Butler | "Now  that  I am a  Christian  I  do have moods
Editor, OfB.biz   | in which the whole thing looks very improbable:
tbutler at ofb.biz   | but when I was an  atheist I had moods in which
timothybutler.us  | Christianity looked terribly probable."
                                                       -- C.S. Lewis