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Reply #145: Systematically missing the point [View All]

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Stunster Donating Member (984 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Feb-14-05 01:07 PM
Response to Reply #144
145. Systematically missing the point
Edited on Mon Feb-14-05 01:09 PM by Stunster
The denial of evolution is not essential to ID. There are ID proponents who accept that evolution occurred (e.g. Dembski and Behe).

But, as proposed by Darwinian theorists, evolution is like a theory that 'explains' the existence of a watch solely in terms of the observed bodily movements of watchmakers, with no reference to the watchmakers' designing intelligence.

What we literally see when we look at a watchmaker at work is complicated material bodies in various states of mathematically intelligible motion, which result in the production of another material body, namely the watch. One could 'explain' watches that way. One could 'explain' functioning computers this way too. One could dispense with minds altogether, and simply note that complex bodies combined and interacted with other material in accordance with physical laws, resulting in a functioning computer.

But notice that in both cases, the resulting 'explanation' is simply the result of a methodological decision to ignore the role of intelligent minds. The ignoring of that role is not itself a scientific finding. It is simply a consequence of the analytical and explanatory paradigm being employed.

In other words, the cases of intelligent design that we 'know' about are no different in terms of standard physical observation from the cases in biology, except for the precise form and kinds of complexity involved. So, if science is meant to explain and investigate everything, there must be a scientific way of making precise what types of material motions and complexity of structure and function license an inference to intelligent design, and what types do not.
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