RELIGION Re: Enhancing health with time on your side

[Guest guest]

,

> I don't see why a *theory* that life originated and evolved in a

> purposeful, non-random way- ie designed- is deemed any less

> scientific and credible or somehow religious, than a *theory* of

> life as randomly appearing and evolving through chance. They are

> both capable of being tested to an extent through evidence from

> fossils, chemistry, cell biology etc. They each have their own

> limitations as well- though it seems that people are much more

> willing to accept some pretty universally acknowledged big holes in

> Darwinian theory while dismissing ID theories rather abruptly.

Non random does not somehow imply a designer. Why don't ID theorists

publish their ideas in science journals if it IS science? What is

this ID theory exactly anyway? These guys sum up what it is not much

better than I ever could:

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CI/CI001.html

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# The terms used in design theory are not defined. " Design " , in

design theory, has nothing to do with " design " as it is normally

understood. Design is defined in terms of an agent purposely arranging

something, but such a concept appears nowhere in the process of

distinguishing design in the sense of " intelligent design. " Dembski

defined design in terms of what it is not (known regularity and

chance), making intelligent design an argument from incredulity; he

never said what design is.

A solution to a problem must address the parameters of the problem, or

it is just irrelevant hand waving. Any theory about design must

somehow address the agent and purpose, or it is not really about

design. No intelligent design theorist has ever included agent or

purpose in any attempt at a scientific theory of design, and some

explicitly say they cannot be included (Dembski 2002, 313). Thus, even

if intelligent design theory were able to prove design, it would mean

practically nothing; it would certainly say nothing whatsoever about

design in the usual sense.

Irreducible complexity also fails as science because it, too, is an

argument from incredulity that has nothing to do with design.

# Intelligent design is subjective. Even in Dembski's mathematically

intricate formulation, the specification of his specified complexity

can be determined after the fact, making " specification " a subjective

concept. Dembski now talks of " apparent specified complexity " versus

" actual specified complexity, " of which only the latter indicates

design. However, it is impossible to distinguish between the two in

principle (Elsberry n.d.).

# Intelligent design implies results that are contrary to common

sense. Spider webs apparently meet the standards of specified

complexity, which implies that spiders are intelligent. One could

instead claim that the complexity was designed into the spider and its

abilities. But if that claim is made, one might just as well claim

that the spider's designer was not intelligent but was intelligently

designed, or maybe it was the spider's designer's designer that was

intelligent. Thus, either spiders are intelligent, or intelligent

design theory reduces to a weak Deism where all design might have

entered into the universe only once at the beginning, or terms like

" specified complexity " have no useful definition.

# The intelligent design movement is not intended to be about science.

, who spearheaded and led the movement, said in so many

words that it is about religion and philosophy, not science (Belz 1996).

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Truly,

Deanna

" Do you think that, if you were granted omnipotence and omniscience

and millions of years in which to perfect your world, you could

produce nothing better than the Ku Klux Klan or the Fascists? "

-Bertrand