If an explanation doesn’t work it will be dumped when there is something better to replace
it.

If an explanation doesn’t work it gets dumped (or modified until it does work).

If an alternative is waiting, fine.

If not we (humans) work on it- or not. That is the “thing” about being human. Sometimes we get to choose.

I would also say that designed to evolve/ evolved by design is a better explanation than evolved via an accumulation of genetic accidents.

That genetic accident pap you’ve been pushing explains diseases and other malfunctions very well.

But that is the only contribution to understanding living organisms that your position has provided.

I guess something is better than nothing.

hahahaha… what absurdity.

Watching Dawkins cling to his religion, explaining about some 4 legged land creature moving into the ocean is like watching a Harvard graduate explain where wood comes from in a tree. Or, for that matter Al Gore.

But in the 150 years since Darwin published his theory, evolutionary biology has grown into the thriving discipline it is today.

It is such a thriving discipline that we don’t even know if any amout of genetic modification can account for the transformations required.

For example evolutionary biologists can’t even account for the change in primate feet from a grasping foot with an opposable big toe to a running foot with all toes in line.

We have no problem with design inferences. It is done all the time where there is clear evidence of the existence of designers – in other words, us.

So the only way to reach a valid design inference, in your opinion, is to know the designer?

That is backwards.

Ya see the only way to know anything about the designer, in the absence of direct observation or designer input, is by studying the design in question.

If we know the designer then we do not need to reach a design inference as design would be a given.

Your problem is either finding evidence of non-human or extra-terrestrial designers – and not mocking anyone who even makes the suggestion – or finding a reliable method of identifying design regardless of who or what the designer is.

It isn’t a problem.

Ya see we have tried and true design detection techniques.

Then there is reducibility- that is figuring out what it takes to account for what we are observing.

That said can you point to any non-telic research?

IOW what research has been conducted that demonstrates all we observe can be accounted for via blind and undirected processes?

You have it backwards.

Nope you still need POSITIVE evidence for your position.

In the absence of any evidence for designers other than ourselves, the default assumption is that “non-telic” causation accounts for what we see.

1- That is nonsense because,

2- There is evidence for design

And I take it that means you cannot provide a testable hypothesis and can only say “we win because you can’t introduce me to the designer(s)”.

What a schmuck.

That computer you’re using, modern medicine, men on the moon, seeing galaxies 13bn light-years away, they are all derived from “non-telic” research.

So now you have to lie?

Is lying the best you have?

Not one of those relied on “non-telic research”. Not one.

You want us to believe there is some great, even supernatural, designer behind it all?

And you want us to believe sheer dumb luck is behind it all?

BTW ID doesn’t require the supernatural.

And natural processes only exist in nature and therefor cannot account for its origins.

So whare does that leave your position besides contorting reality to suit your needs?

So what do you have Seversky?

Any evidence for your accumulating genetic accidents actually producing useful complex protein machinery and new body plans?

Any positive evidence at all beyond teh refusal to accept the design inference just because you haven’t met the designer(s)?

Anything?

Hume’s case is the one that has stood the test of time, not Paley’s.

That’s actually not true. Hume’s argument was that things that reproduce can become complex, while Paley’s answer was that things that reproduce make them even more complicated than his watch analogy, which, we know today, is absolutely correct. Hume assumed that simple things could be produced and reproduce themselves until they became complicated. We know that in order to reproduce, you are already complex. Besides, Thomas Reid effectively refuted Hume too.

It does not alter the fact that Paley argues by analogy which, while not a fallacy itself, is vulnerable to the fallacies of selective observation and argument from incredulity.

You agree that Paley was aware of Hume, but then go on to assert that he committed the very error against which Hume argued.

It is Darwin who argued by analogy.

ID, meanwhile, is still little more than a fading proposal on the table.

The same author who wrote, “The program of biology is reverse engineering on a grand scale,” also wrote the following:

Every biochemical interaction is exquisitely crafted, and cells contain networks of thousands of such interactions. These networks are the result of evolution…

…evolutionary biology has grown into the thriving discipline it is today.

If you can call the occasional obligatory yet content-less nod towards “evolution” as the cause in a book otherwise fully about design in the cell a “thriving discipline”…

t is a mistake to think that Hume ever refuted Paley. It’s as if you think Paley was not aware of Hume’s argument when he wrote. Do you actually believe that is the case?

I think we both know that Paley was a well-educated and highly-intelligent man who was well aware of Hume’s work.

It does not alter the fact that Paley argues by analogy which, while not a fallacy itself, is vulnerable to the fallacies of selective observation and argument from incredulity.

Those criticisms still stand.

Philosophers today acknowledge that the argument “refuted” by Hume, is not the argument which Paley made.

I just quoted a contemporary who disagrees.

This is why it is necessary to claim that “natural selection” can bring about the appearance of design.

Design was still on the table when Paley wrote, it was still on the table when Darwin wrote, it was still on the table after Darwin, and it’s still on the table today.

Yes, it is.

But in the 150 years since Darwin published his theory, evolutionary biology has grown into the thriving discipline it is today.

ID, meanwhile, is still little more than a fading proposal on the table.

Trying to resurrect Hume’s tired old misguided argument doesn’t help.

Hume’s case is the one that has stood the test of time, not Paley’s.

Neo-Paleyism.

It is a mistake to think that Hume ever refuted Paley. It’s as if you think Paley was not aware of Hume’s argument when he wrote. Do you actually believe that is the case?

Philosophers today acknowledge that the argument “refuted” by Hume, is not the argument which Paley made.

This is why it is necessary to claim that “natural selection” can bring about the appearance of design.

Design was still on the table when Paley wrote, it was still on the table when Darwin wrote, it was still on the table after Darwin, and it’s still on the table today.

There’s a simple, obvious, reason for that.

Trying to resurrect Hume’s tired old misguided argument doesn’t help.

Down that is, to the ground that is.
Like the pond scum they say they come from.

Notice how the Darwinist fail to see the link between this discovery and their own fascist lifestyles.

Give credit where credit is due. The Design Theorist called out the Global Warming Hoax a long time ago. We’ve had 11 years of cooling now, something the models never predicted. So any hockey stick interpretation was proven wrong long ago, with bad data as well as shown by McIntyre.

Al Gore’s fiction and lies was shot down by an English Court and forced to admit at least 9 erroneous claims with a lable that it was a political book, not science.

This is disgusting behavior by the Climate freaks that seek to malign and visciously attack those who question their claims.

Likewise now for years the Darwinist have acted and behaved the same way. With attacks on their peers like Sternberg.

Darwinist at these publications are no longer operating as scientist, much like the Global Warming Homers, they seek nothing but to censor and shut out all existing opponents to their god of unguided processes.

That the atheist now worship Darwin in churches lets us know that it is a religion today more than a science.

No more distractions. What these climatologist did and are doing is vulgar and offensive to any true liberal and freethinker.

What we have today is a bunch of close-minded bigots in Global Warming huxters like Gore, waiting to make his Billions off of Carbon tax scams, and the Darwinist who seek to retain their bankroll in making up cute bedtime stories about the past.

What a waste of minds, time, money and effort. Such political correctness is a killer of science and holds us back from progress.

150 years of dead tree ideas.

How’s that bear in the water doing these days Darwinist? Still swimming around eating bugs? OR did it evolve into a whale yet?

Pffft… science fiction.

As the evidence mounts, the case for design can’t help but be strengthened, just look inside the cell, at how complex it all is, at the organization and inter-working of it’s systems.

Neo-Paleyism.

That was dealt with by the great Scottish philosopher David Hume long before Paley wrote his Natural Theology. British philosopher Simon Blackburn summarizes the arguments nicely here:

The problems with the divine architect, creating a cosmos in a manner analogous to the way humans design artefacts, are manifold and familiar. Our own creative activities are highly dependent on the delicate adjustments of the physical world. Our ideas are ideas of the things we come across in that world. Human designers are dependent on parents, not self-caused or self-explaining. Finally our aims and passions are adapted to the animal and social lives we lead. None of this is supposed true of the divine architect. But suppose we waive those difficulties, we still have it that human designers work in groups, refine the designs of others, sometimes lose interest in their designs, go on to make improved versions, and so on.

Cleanthes’ theology leaves it open that the world, “for aught he knows, is very faulty and imperfect, compared to a superior standard; and was only the first rude essay of some infant deity, who afterwards abandoned it, ashamed of his lame performance: it is the work only of some dependent, inferior deity; and is the object of derision to his superiors: it is the production of old age and dotage in some superannuated deity; and ever since his death, has run on at adventures, from the first impulse and active force which it received from him.”

Philo rightly concludes: “I cannot, for my part, think that so wild and unsettled a theology is, in any respect, preferable to none at all.” Demea agrees: Cleanthes is little better than an atheist.