Jerry, OK. Thanks. I guess I jumped the gun.StephenB
January 10, 2010
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StephenB,
They were posted twice. Sometimes my posts happened immediately. Sometimes it took an hour or two.jerry
January 10, 2010
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That should read, earlier when you wondered why ID does not demonstrate more curiosity about the designer’s [identity],,,StephenB
January 10, 2010
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Stephen Barr wrote a long post to me in his final response [979 words], announced his retirement from the thread, and didn't give me an opportunity to respond. Either the thread has been closed without announcement or I have been banned. That's too bad, because I had summed up his errors in exactly 261 words.
Here are my comments, which were not posted. I find nothing in them that violate any reasonable standard of civility.
"Dr. Dr. Barr, I appreciate the time you have spent in dialogue with me, and I sincerely hope that my attempts to clarify your position have not complicated the correspondence. I can understand your frustration about not being properly understood since ID is also misunderstood on a grand scale. Since you have signed off of the thread, I will be brief since I don’t want to take undue advantage of your absence.
Earlier, when you wondered why ID does not demonstrate more curiosity about the designer’s existence, it seemed evident to me that you had not fully taken into account ID’s limited methodologies or their purpose. I still believe that to be the case.
On the matter of design in nature, I accept your account that you think design can be apprehended. What I did not understand, and still do not understand, is how you can accept the reality of design and also be sympathetic to the Darwinian paradigm, which holds that design is an illusion, or any TE paradigm, which characterizes God’s handiwork as having been planned behind the scenes, so to speak, such that there is no physical evidence of it.
Finally, I don’t understand how you can accept design as real, when confirming your fidelity to Scripture, and then characterizing it as a “miracle,” as a means of discrediting intelligent design.
I sincerely hope that I have not been unfair, but since this is a blog, I assume that my questions are in order. They were, after all, questions, not affirmations, and they persist.
Thanks for your time,
StephenB"StephenB
January 10, 2010
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VJ:
All I know is that I’ve posted a couple of rebuttals of ID critics during the past 12 hours, but neither has appeared yet.
Shocking.Voice Coil
January 9, 2010
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Hi Denyse,
You write:
I do not know what is going on over at First Things. Why is protecting Darwinism – at the very point when it is widely discredited* – so important to them?
I don't know what's going on over there either. All I know is that I've posted a couple of rebuttals of ID critics during the past 12 hours, but neither has appeared yet.vjtorley
January 9, 2010
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Barr's review of Dawkins' book is interesting in that he [Barr] doesn't find Dawkins' rebuttal of ID to be competent, so he [Barr] feels compelled to provide his own!
I find this hilarious.
"I'm going to review your book, but I find it deficient when arguing against ID, because this is what you should have argued but didn't."
lol.Mung
January 8, 2010
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It's funny nobody mentions the views of Fred Hoyle, who proposed a naturally arising intelligent designer. Barr knows who Hoyle was.
Hoyle discussed his views on ID most fully in his book Cosmic Life-Force, (1988,1990), with co-worker Chandra Wickramasinghe. Chapter 10 is entitled "The concept of a Creator."
The authors wrote: "a cosmic intelligence that emerged naturally in the Universe may have designed and worked out all the logical consequences of our own living system." (p.138) And much, much more.
Hoyle's intelligent designer would have emerged by natural laws, presumably unknown ones, and not have itself been designed.
The authors also discussed Alfred Russel Wallace at some length. It's pretty interesting stuff.Jim Sherwood
January 8, 2010
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Barry,
The thing that continues to amaze me is that, with all we know from modern science, a design inference from biological systems screams from every corner with such volume that one must cover his ears in layers of soundproofing not to hear it.
Or, cover his eyes so as not to see the blinding light.
"Nothing to see here..."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSjK2OqrgicGilDodgen
January 7, 2010
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Well, first, let's talk about "takes seriously"?
1. People always take a stubbed toe seriously.
The real question is why something gets our attention, not whether it does.
I think about stubbed toes because I have feet.
2. Okay, re design in nature: Design does not prove the existence of God - it makes the existence of God a very good explanation, but not the only possible one.
That is why some Eastern religions accept design (in terms of karma) but not God. I am not arguing for their position, merely acknowledging it with respect.
3. The designer is "natural"? Do we know what nature is? What it is not?
4. I do not know what is going on over at First Things. Why is protecting Darwinism - at the very point when it is widely discredited* - so important to them?
*I don't mean among Darwinbots but among people who think - who realize that Darwinism could not possibly be true, for the same reason as Joe Lotto who sells lottery tickets cannot have legitimately won 777 times in the last five years while selling groceries from his corner store.O'Leary
January 7, 2010
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I am quite aware that the ID theorists “are constantly bending over backwards” to disavow that they are making are claims about who or what the Intelligent Designer is. They do indeed argue that “the designer could in fact be ‘natural’ himself.” But I don’t take this seriously.
So why should anyone take anything he writes about ID seriously?Mung