http://www.probe.org/origins/r.....versy.html

Sue Bohlin
Probe Ministries Webmistress

I try to search for what I think is true about these topics so I read several websites. In that vein, I came across an Evangelical site this morning which looks friendly to what I am proposing. I have ordered some of their materials and will read them and make a judgment. It is run by Ray Bohlin who has published a book several years ago which I highly recommend called “The Natural Limits to Biological Change.” Bohlin has a biology background and the book has zero religion content.

What led me to the site was the following two very interesting articles on the net

“www.probe.org/radio-program/radio-program/this-weeks-program.html”

“www.redeemingdarwin.com/articles/”

When Evangelicals talk about the Cambrian Explosion in terms of 500 mya then I am a little more confident that the rest of their information will not have an agenda.

I would prefer an Intelligent Design forum which was religion free but as I said the foot solders in the debate are mostly YEC and this prevents this from happening. The articles I mentioned above come from an Evangelical site which is apparently not YEC. But maybe someone else here knows more about that then I do.

Since I have screwed on two threads maybe I can get back in sync.

You said

“How, for example, would you arbitrate the congenial, well-articulated differences between say Dave Scot, who argues on behalf of a “front loading” scheme, and bornagain 77, who, if I understand him correctly, tends more in the directioj of recognizing “later innovations?””

I do not see how anything I advocated is at odds with either one. The evidence for each should be presented in a more organized fashion though. What I am advocating is assessing all the evidence and laying out the likelihood for the various scenarios.

I think multiple universes are not an issue for evolution. I mentioned above on my irrelevant comment what I think of multiple universes. Hey, people can believe whatever they want but I believe you should good reasons for it. If it is faith, fine. But don’t pass off BS as solid thinking.

What I propose could be in sync with deism. Front loading certainly is but does not have to be. Also what I propose will challenge the theistic evolutionists because as I said above on my irrelevant comment is that I do not believe the evidence supports them.

I am not sure how anything I propose challenges faith unless that faith is based on something that is contradictory to the scientific evidence. It certainly has not challenged my faith which is not dependent upon any specific reading of the science. I could go with Darwinian processes if that is where the evidence led. To me faith and science should never be at odds.

Which leads me to my attitude that jumping in bed with those for which ideology drives the science is not productive. You can disagree but how do I try to persuade someone of my position when they point that I have aligned myself with advocates of very bad science. You have no credibility.

I have to apologize because I thought I was on the other thread which I had commented on it an hour earlier. So my comment will not make sense on this thread.

I am only talking about the the mechanisms for the appearance of new species. I do not see how multiple or infinite universes play into that discussion at all.

Mechanism 3 is front loading.

A design principle in nature could be the mechanism behind either 1 or 2. There is no evidence for this but theistic evolutionist who include Darwinian processes in their theology have all sorts of ways an intelligence could drive 1 or 2 including messing with quantum mechanics. Such a process was where I was about 10 years ago but for 1 or 2 to happen there should be some forensic evidence supporting either one. None exists so I have to ask why. Which is essentially what I asked of Jack Krebs.

As an aside, to me the only reason for multiple or infinite universes is that the argument for a naturalistic mechanism for the origin of the universe is so weak that the materialist has to come up with something. They recognize it and so postulate multiple universes to get rid of their dilemma. However, unless I am missing something, it has nothing to do with the origin of species.

You are also mixing what I said on the other thread with my comment above. I don’t see the relationship. I am reacting to Jack Kreb’s comment about positive information and another comment about the possible alternatives. All I am trying to do is clarify the thinking and show how people support their points of view. I certainly can be wrong or forget something and hopefully, a discussion will bring this out.

By the way I could care less about John Derbyshire. He is a gifted writer but an angry person and seems to be driven by what he is opposed to. I used to read a lot of his political comments at NRO but gave up a couple years ago. George Will writes some stuff I agree with but he is certainly not one I believe has to be influenced or really care about. The people I believe have to be influenced are the ones I interact with every day.

Suppose ID advocates really did adopt a “platform” as such. There would be certain consequences to establishing criteria not currently in the ID definition.

How, for example, would you arbitrate the congenial, well-articulated differences between say Dave Scot, who argues on behalf of a “front loading” scheme, and bornagain 77, who, if I understand him correctly, tends more in the directioj of recognizing “later innovations?”

Or what about the respectfully acknowledged differences between someone like William J. Murray, who speculates about infinite multiple universes, and those like myself, who are inclined to characterize such ruminations as madness?
Most of us find ourselves somewhere on an ID continuum, the borders of which are well defined yet very far apart. At one extreme reside the agnostics, who almost seem to flirt with materialism, barely avoiding the trap of monism; on the other side we find passionate theists, who almost qualify as Christian fundamentalists, barely avoiding the trap of Creation Science.

Then, there are those in the middle, who are quite comfortable with faith and reason playing equal and complementary roles. I will grant you that the curve is not bell-shaped— it skews heavily on the side of strong religious faith. Still, this big tent is as much an expression of intellectual diversity as it is exercise in social solidarity.

I don’t think we can afford to arbitrarily establish membership criteria solely for the sake of creating a more respectable public relations image. Even if we did, do you suppose for one minute that John Derbyshire and George Will would stop representing us, or that Wikipedia would stop stacking the deck against us? Not a chance. We simply have to overcome, that’s all.

I see your comment and note as follows:

1] ID should get serious about evolution and take points of view on every issue not just cherry pick what will be convenient for the big tent.

It seems to me that simply addressing the issue that agency is a relevant causal force that leaves empirically detectable traces through the manifestation of functionally specific, frequently fine-tuned, often irreducibly as well as combinatorially complex information, is sufficient to trigger a major scientific revolution, in an age whereby materialists have subverted Science and blinkered it through improperly constricting the radius of reason, by using the stalking horse, “methodological naturalism.”

In so addressing, a whole range of possibilities for reconstructing our empirically anchored understanding of the world ensues.

2] Every aspect of evolution should be assessed as to whether a design mechanism is the best explanation or not and whether other mechanisms are possible or probable

Easy to do in general terms, massively difficult to do and requiring thousands of man-decades of effort in praxis.

In short, we need to recognise that we are dealing with a minority paradigm, in an emergent field that is highly controversial. So, it is unfair to expect the kind of results that have happened across over a century with the said thousands of man-decades of input.

Further, I think you are pre-occupied with “evolution.” Design is independent of evolution: designers can use or not use evolutionary mechanisms as they see fit. But, once we detect that design is the credible best explanation, it transforms our understandsing of the world: the world becomes meaningful, in the richest sense.

And that is revolutionary.

3] there should be a complete denial of any YEC or similar creation science that only exists for religious reasons . . . there should be an overt assessment that there is no good evidence to support a young earth and that nearly all reputable science disproves it.

First, the issue of design detection is logically utterly separate from the age of the cosmos, real or apparent relative to our current methods and assumptions of exploration. (Consider here, Lord Russell’s famous five-minute old universe paradox — a cosmos created in an instant just a few minutes ago can be empirically indistinguishable from the one we think we inhabit. But, design would still be detectable in such a cosmos.)

As for “reputable” science, my observation is that the scientific method [insofar as any one method is identifiable . . . cf. here Feyerabend etc] is inherently and inescapably incapable of demonstration beyond revision or even outright rejection, so today’s “consensus” is of no ultimate weight.

THAT, I think, is something we should underscore.

5] Get as far from religion as possible with the exception of a general comment that the complexity of the universe and life indicates a vast intelligence was involved in its origin of both

You pose an impossible task here, and one that has no prospects of real-world success. To see that, first consider: we deal with underlying worldviews here, and theistic ones are no different from atheistical ones in the fact that they ALL make specific worldview-core foundational commitments of an inescapably religious or quasi-religious character [including by implicit or explicit denial of theistic views] that cannot be demonstrated beyond all dispute or doubt.

Then, look at the Swedish Minister of Education’s declarations at the head of the thread:

Some Christian schools teach biology students that the world and the organisms on it were created by a supreme being. This is often presented as another valid scientific theory alongside evolution – something most scientists reject.

Now, I rather doubt that it is accurate to think that even today, globally speaking “most” qualified scientists reject the view that the cosmos is the creation of a supreme being. And certainly, many of the very greatest scientists from Newton, Kepler, Copernicus and Galileo on down to even the elite circle of Nobel Prize winners of our day are not in the atheistical camp.

But, here we have it: by open-ballot vote [and career-busting those who dare to vote the "wrong" way], we impose the alleged majority view of today’s scientists on education, as though it were unquestionable, unrevisable gospel truth. And, we present the idea that God created as if that necessarily is unscientific (as well as implying that God’s mechanisms could not have included evolutionary ones to one degree or another).

Nowhere do we find the faintest trace of recognition that body-plan level macroevolution and the models of chemical evolution allegedly making the spontaneous origin of life plausible, are empirically profoundly challenged ands seriously doubtful. But, never mind the challenges, full speed ahead on atheistical censorship of education.

That is not the YEC’s fault, nor is it the OEC’s fault, nor is ti the fault of the Design Theory.

It is the fault of a totalitarian, anti-God secularism that seeks to improperly monopolise the public square and which views all opposed ideas, alternative worldviews and their holders alike with utter contempt. In short, it is the logical outcome of Mr Dawkins’ conceit and worse that those who reject his evolutionary materialism are by that fact ignorant and/or insane and/or stupid and/or wicked.

Indeed, it is plain and naked tyranny.

6] I think saying ID is not religiously motivated is hypocrisy

Sorry, we part company decisively here.

First, I am a scientist in my own right, and in my work I am familiar with the implications of statistical thermodynamics for the spontaneous origin of complex, functionally specified information.

I therefore have a credible REASON anchored in well-tested reliable science and general observation of the world, to reject the notion that lucky noise created the cosmos we see, including life’s nanotechnology and body-plan level biodiversity.

Going beyond that, I see excellent reason to recognise that my conscious mind is the first and only direct experience I have. In that light, on observing that evolutionary materialism is profoundly challenged to account for the credibility of tat mind which must even be used to think evo mat thoughts, I find it inescapably self-referentially incoherent.

Next, I observe as a part of that conscious life, that I am morally obligated,and those around me who are humans are similarly bound. Evo Mat leads to the implication that that experience is a delusion. But if our minds are so delusional then they are utterly untrustworthy in any inference whatever. So, again, I find excellent reason to reject evo mat.

None of these REASONS constitutes a religious motivation, and indeed, even were there such a motivation, they stand of their own merits and demand an answer at the bar of comparative difficulties.

I therefore find the ascription of religious motivation to be an improper dismissive ad hominem.

Indeed, given the REASONS laid out in my always linked [cf. my handle] it is at best thoughtlessly disrespectful, offensive and unworthy. At worst, in the hands of too many evo mat advocates, it is a vicious personal attack designed to cloud and poison the atmosphere thus subverting a consideration of the case on the merits.

And, I take such intentional, atmosphere poisoning personal attacks very personally. For good reason.

GEM of TKI

“What then should we do — why?”

Here’s what I believe should be done.

ID should get serious about evolution and take points of view on every issue not just cherry pick what will be convenient for the big tent. This will eliminate any vagueness relative to creation science of the YEC variety or other similar variants.

Every aspect of evolution should be assessed as to whether a design mechanism is the best explanation or not and whether other mechanisms are possible or probable.

It should immediately recognize an old earth of 4 billion plus years and an universe of 10-20 billion years. It should admit the best estimate of the first appearance of life was about 3.5 bya and all the other likely transitions that took place in the subsequent 3 billion years including the rise of eukaryotes, multi-cellular organisms and culminating in the origin of the phyla during the Cambrian Explosion roughly 520 mya. It should recognize all the progression of life since then and their appropriate timing and the likelihood of which mechanism was responsible for each radiation of new species and the probable timing of everything. It should present fairly what is known about the appearance of homo sapiens and the other human like species.

It should seriously address the various theories proposed by evolutionary biologists and make specific comments on the various concepts of common descent.

I could go on but you get the gist of what is required and there should be a complete denial of any YEC or similar creation science that only exists for religious reasons. In fact there should be an overt assessment that there is no good evidence to support a young earth and that nearly all reputable science disproves it.

Get as far from religion as possible with the exception of a general comment that the complexity of the universe and life indicates a vast intelligence was involved in its origin of both. When it does this then maybe its critical assessment of neo Darwinism will have a more ears in the science community.

Do I think it will happen? No. Any army needs foot soldiers and unfortunately all the foot soldiers of ID are religiously motivated and mostly of the YEC variety so that is why ID will probably never be able to shed its religious image. Don’t give me the stated dogma that ID does not say anything about religion because when ever ID is brought to attention of some organized body it is always fundamentalist religious people doing most of the work.

You can read my comments above about why I think saying ID is not religiously motivated is hypocrisy. I read this blog fairly regularly and I know all the official statements about ID and many people here would like to adhere to them. But reality is quite different.