Are there Non-Religious Skeptics of Darwinian Evolution and Proponents of ID

A interesting idea. but what about things such as ERV's? (as covered in my link) and other things that imply a common ancestry

Not sure I see a problem here. In our mundane world, would a designer start over from scratch every time or would she adapt an existing design? That chain of adaptation might track back to something simple she visualised in childhood. If, in the meantime, others had added features - some effective, some less so - then they would also propagate through the version history. In short, why should common ancestry disprove design or am I missing your point completely?

Sci, I'm intrigued to know how you might describe the nature of what it is you think might be missing. Would it, for example, involve some form of intelligence at all or are you somewhat inclined to the view that random processes shaped by natural selection can account for the vast variety and complexity of life?

Well if the RM + NS story doesn't include irreducible consciousness I think it's missing a lot.

Just by believing in Psi + Survival I'm open to alternatives to RM + NS but it isn't clear to me this requires a top down design influence.

I think the big issue with the argument for interventionist design along the evolutionary timeline is it becomes difficult to see how one properly evaluates when and where such interventions occurred.

Is every example of human vulnerability bad design, trade offs, or something else?

Is every good example of seeming design a sign of outright intervention or designer(s) weighting probabilities?

Obviously the evidence, whatever it is, is probably better for the "Proponent Stance" that mind intervenes beyond causal instrument of a body though one has to include the possibility of aliens. Maybe that's Psi even at the microbe level shifting things toward certain evolutionary outcomes, maybe it's something in the "Nagel Zone" as some atheists refer to their belief that are no gods or spirits but impersonal principles shifting chance.

Is there a way to decide things one way or another? I don't know, anymore than as a non-physicist I can tell you how to definitively decide between the varied interpretations of QM. I can, via reason, see there are bad ideas put out by some physicists, like the idea of MWI having undetectable universes or Rovelli's claim that it can be relations all the way down...but whether Goswami's Idealism or Fuch's Observer Participancy is correct I would say that's above my expertise to argue.

Well if the RM + NS story doesn't include irreducible consciousness I think it's missing a lot.

Just by believing in Psi + Survival I'm open to alternatives to RM + NS but it isn't clear to me this requires a top down design influence.

I think the big issue with the argument for interventionist design along the evolutionary timeline is it becomes difficult to see how one properly evaluates when and where such interventions occurred.

Is every example of human vulnerability bad design, trade offs, or something else?

Is every good example of seeming design a sign of outright intervention or designer(s) weighting probabilities?

Obviously the evidence, whatever it is, is probably better for the "Proponent Stance" that mind intervenes beyond causal instrument of a body though one has to include the possibility of aliens. Maybe that's Psi even at the microbe level shifting things toward certain evolutionary outcomes, maybe it's something in the "Nagel Zone" as some atheists refer to their belief that are no gods or spirits but impersonal principles shifting chance.

Is there a way to decide things one way or another? I don't know, anymore than as a non-physicist I can tell you how to definitively decide between the varied interpretations of QM. I can, via reason, see there are bad ideas put out by some physicists, like the idea of MWI having undetectable universes or Rovelli's claim that it can be relations all the way down...but whether Goswami's Idealism or Fuch's Observer Participancy is correct I would say that's above my expertise to argue.

I have no idea how to answer a lot of questions arising out of this debate but sometimes things seem quite simple to me - perhaps because I'm quite simple myself.

What I mean by simple is that something like Occam's Razor would pronounce that if something is coded in a similar way to a modern computer but this coding is to be found in the most primitive and original biological unit, then it was probably designed by some intelligent agent. That, together with the evidence that consciousness is probably fundamental, universal and the source of all intelligence, makes the existence of such an intelligent agent inevitable. Thus, from my simplistic point of view, ID is a natural and obvious conclusion whereas NS+RM requires all manner of theoretical gymnastics to look remotely workable.

It seems to me that Nagel struggles to come up with an alternative to that intelligent agent in case it might turn out to be God and he can't countenance that possibility. Others such as Lewontin and Dawkins were/are so entrenched in their atheism that the spiritual (and, by association, mind/consciousness/intelligence) is excluded a priori.

I have no idea how to answer a lot of questions arising out of this debate but sometimes things seem quite simple to me - perhaps because I'm quite simple myself.

What I mean by simple is that something like Occam's Razor would pronounce that if something is coded in a similar way to a modern computer but this coding is to be found in the most primitive and original biological unit, then it was probably designed by some intelligent agent. That, together with the evidence that consciousness is probably fundamental, universal and the source of all intelligence, makes the existence of such an intelligent agent inevitable. Thus, from my simplistic point of view, ID is a natural and obvious conclusion whereas NS+RM requires all manner of theoretical gymnastics to look remotely workable.

It seems to me that Nagel struggles to come up with an alternative to that intelligent agent in case it might turn out to be God and he can't countenance that possibility. Others such as Lewontin and Dawkins were/are so entrenched in their atheism that the spiritual (and, by association, mind/consciousness/intelligence) is excluded a priori.

I agree that once a person believes in irreducible consciousness + Psi + Survival...isn't it almost expected one finds evidence of design in the evolutionary timeline?

Yet it is because of this that I am cautious. I think there is bad evidence for Psi + Survival just as some Christian Apologists lament bad arguments for God, with a subset of said Christians thinking interventionist ID being a bad argument.

Of course what is bad as evidence for the Omni-God can still serve as proof for lesser immaterial actors, like say some polytheistic pantheons or just spirits of some sort that are not whatever we might think of as "divine"...the division gets murky in matters of worship...

I do agree that there is definitely a sentiment - which for some is a movement - against certain brands of theism, especially Christianity, that biases responses. It is entirely possible that in a world of genuine free inquiry, without said bias, most engineers/biologists/physicists/chemists would all say design is the best explanation for why we have the evolutionary timeline we do. 

Both the aforementioned Phillip Goff (agnostic) and Emerson Green (atheist) accept Cosmic Fine Tuning has to be answered, with both accept[ing] some teleology and some irreducible consciousness. Cosmic Fine Tuning is probably one of the best arguments for design, in that many atheists feel something has to be explained there. It *could* be coincidence, but as atheist Lee Smolin notes:

In my opinion, a probability this tiny is not something we can let go unexplained. Luck will certainly not do here; we need some rational explanation of how something this unlikely turned out to be the case.

(As noted by Goff here, Smolin's odds for life existing is 1 in 10^229.)

Though we've discussed it before here, I mention the Goff article now because it seems like he is talking about theism even if he isn't talking about the Omni-God:

But the cosmopsychist has a way of rendering axiarchism intelligible, by proposing that the mental capacities of the Universe mediate between value facts and cosmological facts. On this view, which we can call ‘agentive cosmopsychism’, the Universe itself fine-tuned the laws in response to considerations of value. When was this done? In the first 10-43 seconds, known as the Planck epoch, our current physical theories, in which the fine-tuned laws are embedded, break down. The cosmopsychist can propose that during this early stage of cosmological history, the Universe itself ‘chose’ the fine-tuned values in order to make possible a universe of value.

Making sense of this requires two modifications to basic cosmopsychism. Firstly, we need to suppose that the Universe acts through a basic capacity to recognise and respond to considerations of value. This is very different from how we normally think about things, but it is consistent with everything we observe...

How are we to think about the laws of physics on this view? I suggest that we think of them as constraints on the agency of the Universe. Unlike the God of theism, this is an agent of limited power, which explains the manifest imperfections of the Universe. The Universe acts to maximise value, but is able to do so only within the constraints of the laws of physics. The beneficence of the Universe does not much reveal itself these days; the agentive cosmopsychist might explain this by holding that the Universe is now more constrained than it was in the unique circumstances of the first split second after the Big Bang, when currently known laws of physics did not apply.

Really this doesn't seem that different from the Simulation Argument, which apparently is more palatable to atheists like Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

Again, I think that the simulation theory is merely kicking the can down the road. The most obvious explanation is to accept a universal consciousness rather than some advanced alien intelligence that itself had to evolve. I prefer the notion of the uncreated (Hindu: Brahman, if I understand the concept correctly). However I have argued here and elsewhere that it makes sense to me that this universal intelligence is itself evolving, hence the imperfections. I also think that perfection is probably unattainable.

By the way, I'm not really against a simulation theory by which I mean that the material world is somehow illusory - in that it is really manifested ideas. Those ideas are in the mind of the universal consciousness which is timeless yet evolving (although I can't really get my head around that, tbh).

Again, I think that the simulation theory is merely kicking the can down the road. The most obvious explanation is to accept a universal consciousness rather than some advanced alien intelligence that itself had to evolve. I prefer the notion of the uncreated (Hindu: Brahman, if I understand the concept correctly). However I have argued here and elsewhere that it makes sense to me that this universal intelligence is itself evolving, hence the imperfections. I also think that perfection is probably unattainable.

By the way, I'm not really against a simulation theory by which I mean that the material world is somehow illusory - in that it is really manifested ideas. Those ideas are in the mind of the universal consciousness which is timeless yet evolving (although I can't really get my head around that, tbh).

Oh I mentioned Simulation Theory specifically because it seems to be part of the path toward accepting Design as a live possibility. I think the distance between Tyson or any other atheist arguing the world is a Simulation is very close to Goff's positing of a kind of limited designer for the cosmos.

I agree there are a variety of issues with Simulation Theory.

(Also, thinking about it, I guess Goff's designer is possibly something more akin to an animal intelligence than a God like Vishnu/Yaweh/Zeus/etc.)

Shermer seems to have matured over the years and is not so polemical (is that the right word?) in his debating style. Here is a later discussion with Stephen Meyer and I've also seen similarly congenial conversations between him and Sheldrake and also Chopra (I believe Chopra and Shermer are actually good friends).

Shermer sorta became an agnostic IIRC. He seems to shift around a bit, but yeah he does seem more open minded as the years go by.

christianforums.com/threads/evolution-goes-retro-viral.8275732/
What you think of this argument?

Did ID proponents ever respond to it? arguments for evolution tend to be very diverse, and "bad design" is not the strongest case for it.

Can you actually quote some of the argument or summarize it?

Also that person is arguing against creationism, not ID, AFAICTell.

A novel perspective on the evolution controversy

Kyle Alander

If Christians are too hold a view that rejects intelligent design theory and hold that evolution doesn't require constant divine intervention and NOT commit themselves to deistic evolution I think Christians will need to change their views not on evolution but on their philosophy of nature

And so it is my view that God creating a universe that has cognition built into it and therefore can evolve intelligently on its own is more likely than God creating a mindless universe that requires constant divine intervention. It really comes down to one's philosophy of nature.

If nature is fundamentally mindless then it is expected that one will not be able to explain consciousness nor will they be able to explain the intelligence within biological systems. However if nature is fundamentally mental and cognitive then one will be able to explain the data of consciousness and intelligent biological systems within a theistic evolutionary framework.

What I mean by simple is that something like Occam's Razor would pronounce that if something is coded in a similar way to a modern computer but this coding is to be found in the most primitive and original biological unit, then it was probably designed by some intelligent agent. That, together with the evidence that consciousness is probably fundamental, universal and the source of all intelligence, makes the existence of such an intelligent agent inevitable. Thus, from my simplistic point of view, ID is a natural and obvious conclusion whereas NS+RM requires all manner of theoretical gymnastics to look remotely workable.

In a way your ideas here seem to echo the question of whether mathematics is discovered or invented. Arguments can be made for both views; this very brief article concludes that it is both - though this isn't a thorough exploration of that topic.
https://www.sciencefocus.com/science/was...iscovered/

For example crystal structures can be described in terms of mathematics, but that doesn't of itself imply a designer - something like a set of identically-sized balls will tend to arrange themselves into patterns based on hexagons and related 3-D shapes without any intervention.