[Taxacom] "intelligent" design

[John Grehan]

It was nice to see David's summary on the complexity of non-evolutionary
(or partial evolutionary) views out there. It's a mirror to the complexity
of evolutionary theory which also has different perspectives (which is why
criticisms of Darwinism that synonymize perceived deficiencies of Darwinism
with evolution miss the mark.). And of course, as David points out, one may
have a theistic view of evolution. And from one or other religious
perspective one may see 'purpose' in evolution, but that is something that
lies outside empirical  observation (even though evolutionists keep on
inserting purpose to explain evolutionary outcomes such as adaptation -
which sometimes makes me wonder if such contributions are generated by
supporters of 'intelligent design'. Otherwise hard to figure the
pervasiveness of teleology in evolutionary studies.

John Grehan

On Tue, Jan 5, 2021 at 6:59 AM David Campbell via Taxacom <
taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> wrote:

> A major problem is that it is far from clear what "intelligent design" is.
> Behe argues for gaps in evolution, but seems to accept quite a lot of it,
> ironically often fairly closely matching the 6th edition of the Origin of
> Species in suggesting that, once cells are created, it can all evolve from
> there.  As the Dover trial showed, some people try using intelligent design
> as another name for creation science.  Some "intelligent design" advocates
> are antievolution but don't care about the age of the earth.  Denton's more
> recent work accepts all of evolution as an example of intelligent design
> but argues that factors besides the cumulative effect of population
> genetics (standard neo-Darwinism) are more important, thus claiming that
> his view of evolution is not "Darwinian", another term that isn't
> consistently defined.  There's also quite a variety of groups tied to the
> ID movement.  The Raelian cult, for example, claims that aliens made humans
> by cloning technology.  The Raelians also market their "free love" position
> through clothing-deficient parades, which should not go over well with the
> typical conservative ID supporter.  Overall, the ID movement
> characteristically presents itself to appeal to the perceived audience at
> hand, rather than being consistent or giving an honest message like "I
> think this and he thinks that, but we can get along and work together."
> Thus, in trying to claim legitimacy for public schools, it's claimed to be
> all science; in marketing to conservative Christians, it's billed as
> Christian apologetics (even if Jonathan Wells claims that Jesus failed and
> Rev. Moon is the true messiah); to young-earth audiences the openness to an
> old earth is played down; when weaknesses in the scientific argument are
> pointed out, the reply is that we shouldn't a priori rule out the
> possibility (which is true enough but does not justify claims made to their
> fans that their views are scientifically proven).
>
> Most religions would affirm that the universe and living things are
> designed by an intelligent agent, but the ID movement makes specific claims
> about how this design was implemented and how you should detect design.  It
> thus falls into the god of the gaps error, also popular among the militant
> atheist crowd which largely uses the same sorts of arguments but promoting
> different predetermined "conclusions".  If, as the Bible asserts, God is at
> work both through miraculous and ordinary events, then having a natural law
> explanation of something tells us nothing one way or the other about God's
> involvement; one must look elsewhere for evidence on that question.
>
> --
> Dr. David Campbell
> Associate Professor, Geology
> Department of Natural Sciences
> Box 7270
> Gardner-Webb University
> Boiling Springs NC 28017
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