An Islamic Perspective on ID
| July 18, 2005 | Posted by William Dembski under Intelligent Design |
Ahmed K. Sultan Salem’s “The Non-Science of Intelligent Design” is probably the most ambivalent article about ID that I’ve ever read. Here’s a sample:
Two arguments can be made[ regarding the scientific status of ID]. The first is that ID is an impediment to science as it moves from the deficiency of the current hypotheses to a statement that we will never succeed in explaining the phenomenon scientifically. This can be countered by another argument that ID, by showing the inadequateness of current explanations, may help awaken the scientists from their intellectual slumber, something that often takes place given the inertia of the scientific culture (and other cultures). ID can be a motivator for scientists to think outside the box and try to propose alternative hypotheses. It is extremely unlikely that all the scientists will take an ID result and stop hunting for naturalistic explanations. The point is that ID may harm science, but ignoring it may also harm science. After all, everything has its share of merits and demerits.
7 Responses to An Islamic Perspective on ID
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But for certain something may or may not happen if scientists do or don’t embrace ID and that might be bad, or good, or then again, maybe not.
On second thought …strike that.
This reminds me of a time a friend of mine was attacking the ID movement. At first he said how ID would hold back science. By the end of our conversation he was saying how ID is making scientists work “that much harder†for scientific explanations for the gaps in the current evolutionary synthesis.
Not only are these two points inherently contradictory, but also this sentiment a priori assumes ID is not a legitimate scientific enterprise.
Is there a logical fallacy for that one?
The appeal to undetermined consequences?
There’s nothing like sticking your neck out and taking a stand. Are we sure this wasn’t “An Episcopal Perspective on ID”?
I am of the mindset that too much of the discussion is focusing on “intelligent causation” and its philosophical consequences (the nature of the designer, the intent of the designer, etc.) as opposed to a “design inference” (which has been primarily your work Bill).
The more ID advocates ram home the point that “design inferences” are quite common in other widely respected legitimate sciences (such as paleontology) the more comfortable people will become with “Intelligent Design”.
“I am of the mindset that too much of the discussion is focusing on “intelligent causation†and its philosophical consequences (the nature of the designer, the intent of the designer, etc.) as opposed to a “design inference.—
That’s certainly true, it seems to be human nature to be concerned with reading a message rather than simply detecting that it is a message. I suppose one could look at your writing and set about trying to detect whether it is an artifact of intelligence or not by tracing it back through the network onto your computer and back to your neural nets. It’s just that no one needs to do such things because we generally assume it all. Yet if we were aliens and came across an artifact of human intelligence whose “thoughts were not our thoughts” and only fragments of a computer were found and the like then it would be necessary to get some distance and try to detect exactly what is what. It would probably be difficult, especially if our own technology were far inferior. We probably wouldn’t understand much of the design until our own technology caught up enough to understand the basic principles the more advanced technology was using.
E.g.
(Evolution: A Theory in Crisis By Michael Denton :333)
Getting some distance from basic assumptions and the dialectic it sets up is a scientific necessity that even those stuck in the womb of Mother Nature and deep down in Plato’s cave seem to realize in the case of ID sometime. ID is a useful tool for drawing them out some, even if they do seem intent on crawling back into Naturalism. My how the babes do cry if anything threatens to draw them out from Mother Nature though, listen, some are crying about something or other even now. They’ll probably find some tittle of Mother Nature that they feel is out of place and then begin to suck on it while missing the main point about any evidence favorable to the transphysical. Those fellows often seem to consider tittles most titillating.
So they suck.