Intelligent design

At least Psi has some evidence backing it. You can criticize the evidence itself, and there's stuff I seriously like doubt like Bengson's healing methods vs stuff I take seriously like Krippner's dream telepathy work...also Intelligent Design that I think is questionable...but evidence of any kind still goes beyond something like the Multiverse of MWI or machine "learning" hitting some undefined threshold that makes it self-aware

The way you phrased that, I'm not certain whether you think ID is weak or strong. I think the evidence is remarkably strong because the Discovery Institute has separated the science supporting the view that RM+NS is not the explanation of evolution - still less of the origin of life - from the Christian views of the DI as a  whole. I used to have a thread on Skeptiko about all that and Michael Behe's book "Darwin Devolves". Maybe I should start another?

David

The way you phrased that, I'm not certain whether you think ID is weak or strong. I think the evidence is remarkably strong because the Discovery Institute has separated the science supporting the view that RM+NS is not the explanation of evolution - still less of the origin of life - from the Christian views of the DI as a  whole. I used to have a thread on Skeptiko about all that and Michael Behe's book "Darwin Devolves". Maybe I should start another?

David

I just don't think it makes a clear enough claim, so yeah I don't think ID is all that convincing. As I've said before, with Cosmic Fine Tuning the argument is so clear it can be understood by reading an article in the Wall Street Journal.

With ID the argument gets lost in probabilities and arguments that I've yet to find convincing.

This is sort of my same issue with Bengson's healing methods, though I also find parts of his story doubtful and the training program in his book seems like something deliberately impossible to achieve but crafted in such as way as to make you think it's your fault.

That said, a lot of very smart people have been convinced by ID and/or Bengson's work. So I don't necessarily insist I'm right about either.

I just don't think it makes a clear enough claim, so yeah I don't think ID is all that convincing. As I've said before, with Cosmic Fine Tuning the argument is so clear it can be understood by reading an article in the Wall Street Journal.

With ID the argument gets lost in probabilities and arguments that I've yet to find convincing.

This is sort of my same issue with Bengson's healing methods, though I also find parts of his story doubtful and the training program in his book seems like something deliberately impossible to achieve but crafted in such as way as to make you think it's your fault.

That said, a lot of very smart people have been convinced by ID and/or Bengson's work. So I don't necessarily insist I'm right about either.

The author of the AwareOfAware blog is also a believer in intelligent design. He approaches this from a different angle than Michael Behe, who bases his argument on the improbability of evolution producing new species. Evidently, the emergence of DNA is not supported by any viable theory. With a Ph.D. in the domain of biology, the author can certainly present persuasive arguments.

The author of the AwareOfAware blog is also a believer in intelligent design. He approaches this from a different angle than Michael Behe, who bases his argument on the improbability of evolution producing new species. Evidently, the emergence of DNA is not supported by any viable theory. With a Ph.D. in the domain of biology, the author can certainly present persuasive arguments.

The quick take-away argument on this is to realise that Darwin had no idea about what genes were - certainly not that they were strings of DNA bases maybe 500 bases long, and that the coding for a protein had to be almost exact to make it any use at all. That means that evolving new proteins is just about impossible - there is no sense in which a protein adds to the fitness of the organism until the coding is almost complete.

The impossibility of RM+NS is one of my bedrock beliefs.

David

With ID the argument gets lost in probabilities and arguments that I've yet to find convincing.

Well ID and evolution by natural selection are both based on probability theory - you can't get away from that.

The crucial point is that the scientific evidence from the DI is basically focused on disproving Darwin's theory - it is not concerned with what replaces it. Whatever it is, I'd be surprised if it were Yahweh!

One possibility is that we all have a 'home' in non-physical reality where (NDE's suggest) time operates differently from on Earth. It doesn't seem impossible that some or all of us cooperated in creating the physical realm, and we seeded it with life forms from time to time - eventually occupying these lifeforms.

OK, before you say that is too far-fetched, remember that no suggestions in a discussion like this are going to be mundane - particularly when you come to realise that evolution by natural selection is simply a non-starter.

David

Well ID and evolution by natural selection are both based on probability theory - you can't get away from that.

The crucial point is that the scientific evidence from the DI is basically focused on disproving Darwin's theory - it is not concerned with what replaces it. Whatever it is, I'd be surprised if it were Yahweh!

One possibility is that we all have a 'home' in non-physical reality where (NDE's suggest) time operates differently from on Earth. It doesn't seem impossible that some or all of us cooperated in creating the physical realm, and we seeded it with life forms from time to time - eventually occupying these lifeforms.

OK, before you say that is too far-fetched, remember that no suggestions in a discussion like this are going to be mundane - particularly when you come to realise that evolution by natural selection is simply a non-starter.

David

I'm fine with evolution being, at best, an incomplete picture. Psi & Survival evidence, not to mention the irreducibility of Consciousness and the inability of physics to truly capture Causation, already indicate that some aspect of the Mind is not accounted for by RM + NS.

My issue is with the particular arguments made for ID, which seem possible but the rebuttals I've seen - in some cases even from other theists who question ID! - are good rebuttals.

Grossinger actually makes an argument similar to yours, that lifeforms are evolved in such a way as to capture the interest of spirits to incarnate into the material world. I'm fine with such conjecture.

My issue is with the particular arguments made for ID, which seem possible but the rebuttals I've seen - in some cases even from other theists who question ID! - are good rebuttals.

Can you point to these rebuttals please?

David

The quick take-away argument on this is to realise that Darwin had no idea about what genes were - certainly not that they were strings of DNA bases maybe 500 bases long, and that the coding for a protein had to be almost exact to make it any use at all. That means that evolving new proteins is just about impossible - there is no sense in which a protein adds to the fitness of the organism until the coding is almost complete.

The impossibility of RM+NS is one of my bedrock beliefs.

David

That's another way of putting it. To me these arguments are some of the most compelling for the existence of a higher meaning of things.

Can you point to these rebuttals please?
David

“Intelligent Design” theory and mechanism

Feser

From an Aristotelian-Thomistic (A-T) point of view, one of the main problems with “Intelligent Design” theory is that it presupposes the same mechanistic conception of nature that underlies naturalism. (See here, here, and here for some of my earlier remarks on this and other problems with ID.) ID theorists sometimes object to this characterization of their position, as William Dembski does several times in his book The Design Revolution (e.g. at pages 25 and 151).

Well, I guess Dembski would know what ID theory is really committed to, if anyone does. The trouble is that even he doesn’t seem to know, because despite these disavowals of mechanism, the rest of the book is peppered with assertions that presuppose the truth of a mechanistic conception of nature. Or perhaps Dembski simply doesn’t understand what A-T theorists mean by “mechanism.” Either way, there can be no doubt that ID theory, as Dembski conceives of it, is mechanistic through and through in the sense of “mechanism” that A-T rejects.

Intelligent design is not science

Denis Alexander

That intelligent design should be taught as an alternative to evolution is not only very bad science, it's unchristian too

There's more but that seems like a good enough starting point.

That's another way of putting it. To me these arguments are some of the most compelling for the existence of a higher meaning of things.

I think Michael Behe's argument from the inevitable progressive loss of functional genetic information entailed by RM + NS is also convincing, that RM + NS is totally incapable of building new complicated biological structures. All it is capable of doing is to bit by bit tear down these structures in order to make immediate incremental benefits. All the data seems clearly to point to this.