I really would like an explanation of how someone doing something through an intelligently designed experiment could rationally claim that their experiment shows that the same thing could happen without the intelligence or without the design. I have no problem with people who don't believe that the universe or life was designed by or through intelligent intention, I have a huge problem with the claim that you can demonstrate that with science.
As usual, if anyone does explain how that can be done and their explanation is logically coherent and honest, I will post it with attribution. But it has to be honest and it has to cohere and not be just an assertion of ideological positions.
Update: Challenged of the Day
Well, I don't see that Sims has presented an explanation of how a scientific experiment can demonstrate that the result it produces could be done without intelligence or design, but I wouldn't be the first person to assert that he could be expected to have ever experienced the first or applied himself very hard to produce the second, any design he has being everything but a demonstration of intelligence. Let me know if the more sciencey tots come up with something.
Update 2: Apparently Thunderboy (Sims' BBF since Gomez was banned, I think people go there to live in a virtual soap opera.) thinks I've got mad cow disease. Which would be rather unlikely as I've been a vegetarian since September, 1969, before the Brits were stupid enough to take Earl Butz's advice about cattle feed, or so I recall reading. Thunderboy, of course, didn't answer the question, either. Which would have been far more impressive.
Update 3: Oh, I don't care much what Sims and the tots say about me, they're all bark, not bright.
There's no perfect way to test if something is designed or not, but of course one can try to think up criteria for evidence of intelligent design, and then test to see if these criteria are met. Using human design as an inspiration (naturally), it's possible to come up with a list of aspects that seem to reflect intelligence and intention, such as economy, efficiency, symmetry, etc. What would you consider to be some possible indicators of intelligence in design?
ReplyDeleteSo far, the evidence from biology doesn't seem to support intelligent design, if "intelligent" is to have any meaning. The only thing that seems to be supported is horribly unintelligent design, or else no design.
Perhaps physics is another story. There's certainly no hard evidence of tampering with the laws as we know them, but the laws are themselves quite elegant. In this case, God would be less of a puppet master and more of a computer programmer, setting up the rules of the universe and then watching it unfold (and, significantly, allowing a certain degree of stochasticity in the program)
I will answer this tomorrow. It's almost my bed time.
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