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Del Ratzsch on Design in the (Online) Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

William Dembski
June 14, 2005
Intelligent Design
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Del Ratzsch’s entry on “Teleological Arguments for God’s Existence” is now available online in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/teleological-arguments and includes some remarks about ID. Del is simultaneously a critic and supporter of ID. His book Nature, Design, and Science (SUNY Press, 2001) is worth reading.

Comments
So far in reading the article I came upon one statement that's not necessarily true: "More truly problematic would be the fact that the R-exhibiting things concerning which we knew whether or not they were designed would be almost without exception human artifacts" What about beaver dams, spider webs, bird nests, rabbit burrows, ant mounds, cocoons, and etcetera? All are purposeful rearrangements of matter that would not occur through undirected natural law. None of these constructions are of human origin but their origins are nevertheless well known. It appears to me there's a continuum of intelligent agencies producing artificial, purposeful structures as simple as a burrow to as complex as a space shuttle. There's absolutely no reason to doubt that even more complex structures such as the ribosome/dna protein factory are not part of that same continuum. The common denominator in all cases is a connection to an animated living organism. In my not so humble opinion it's nothing but sheer unadulterated hubris to assume that human intelligence is the epitomy of intelligent agency in nature. DaveScot
June 15, 2005
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[...] own site. Filed under Apologetics, Astrophysics, Intelligent Design, Science, Biology. Bill Dembski has linked to Del Ratzsch’s article on telelogical (desighttp://www.unc [...]John ZuHone’s Apologetics Blog » Del Ratzsch’s Article On Design in the Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
June 14, 2005
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