Trouble in the “belief enforcement” science world gets noticed even in the New York Times

_{Denyse O'Leary

August 3, 2010

Darwinism}

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Who would have thought so? Have the Times people actually started connecting with the public again?

Here Virginia Heffernan comments on

The stilted and seething tone of some of the defection posts sent me into the ScienceBlogs archives, where I expected to find original insights into science by writers who stress that they are part of, in the blogger Dave Munger’s words, “the most influential science blogging network in the world.” And while I found interesting stuff here and there, I also discovered that ScienceBlogs has become preoccupied with trivia, name-calling and saber rattling. Maybe that’s why the ScienceBlogs ship started to sink.

Recently a blogger called GrrlScientist, on Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted), expressed her disgust at the “flock of hugely protruding bellies and jiggling posteriors everywhere I go.” Gratuitous contempt like this is typical.

– Unnatural science, The New York Times

The whole article is worth reading. Frankly, anyone interested in the intelligent design controversy or – for example – concerned about tax-based mismanagement of public issues like climate change or conservation – would do well to support Heffernan’s main point.

In my personal view, too many scientists are tax mooches. They do not need to be reasonable, because they are not doing anything that is obviously useful.

Let’s say you hire a mechanic to fix your car. Well, he either does fix it or he doesn’t, right? If you use public transit, either the system works or it doesn’t.

But the guy raising heck about the far past or the far future … ? How much do you really want to pay for that?

Comments

Here is the exact language "I think your position as you frame it is pretty airtight." Vividvividbleau_{August 4, 2010
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"As Vividblue conceded early in the discussion, my argument is air tight" To be accurate what I said is that"as you frame it it seems your argument is air tight" or something to that effect. Vividvividbleau_{August 4, 2010
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Null,
What you’re ignoring, and I have to assume it’s purposefully, is that Meyer makes a number of arguments and observations in his book. You’re making it sound like he has one argument and one argument only, which isn’t the case. You don’t even have to read the book to read that – just look through the ToC.
I'd say Meyer himself might be the best person to decide what the central argument of his own book was. In any event, that is the particular point I've been discussing.
Arguing that, given what we know, the best and a powerful inference we can make is to one of intelligence is utterly distinct from your rendition above.
He bases his inference on a falsehood, namely that we know from our experience that something which is not a complex living thing could still have the mental and physical abilities that human beings have... and then some. We don't know that at all, so Meyer's foundational argument fails.
You’re trying to “gotcha” him on a pretty minor point – a mix of “All the intelligent agents we’re scientifically aware of are complex physical beings” and “If it’s a complex physical being, it is alive, and therefore it can’t be responsible for ‘the first life’”.
Minor point? Gotcha? I'd venture to say more than a few people find it a rather significant aspect of ID that it seems to be talking about a god-like entity it uses the term "intelligent agent" to describe the cause of first life. Now I am not saying this myself, but you are probably aware that some folks even call ID creationism in disguise. So no, I don't find this to be a minor point at all.
The latter can be responded to with a shrug and a “Call it that if you wish. I’m saying that if an abiogenesis event took place, ID is the best explanation.”
Well yeah, people can say that, just like Darwinists can shrug off whatever argument you'd put to them and say "Who cares? All I know is that Darwinian evolution can explain it!" So I don't think that shrugs are very good arguments.
And the former just adds the amendment that if someone has reason to think that there exist immaterial or whatever other type of intelligences, that their metaphysics are in play, not purely science.
If folks want to believe in immaterial intelligent beings of course that's fine, but we should all agree that this is not a piece of knowledge that derives from our uniform and repeated experience. And they should also be aware that Meyer can't possibly be talking about an intelligent life form with an FSCI-rich body (the only kind of intelligent agent we know about) when he talks about the original cause of abiogenesis (and that is just what he is talking about, as the quotes make clear). So Meyer must be talking about the sort of intelligent agent that is outside of our experience, although he says the opposite. So he's wrong.
Really, this is a hair away from A) Insisting that ID is all about Christianity, no matter how many times ID proponents themselves admit and insist ID doesn’t get one to that,
I'm not saying that - I'm saying that Meyer is wrong when he claims his inference is to a known cause.
B) Pointing out that Christ said that God is the God of the living,
Sorry you've lost me here, but I don't think I want to start talking about Christ.
C) Therefore, even an immaterial God is alive, and
I've been very clear that what I mean by "alive" in this context is being a "complex, FSCI-rich physical organism". I wanted to use that phrase (typing it over and over again) in order to avoid just this confusion.
There’s more possibilities than two on the table, by Dembski’s own admission. And when so much of your argument relies on psychoanalysis, maybe it’s time to step back and take stock of what you’re saying.
None of my argument rests on psychoanalysis of course. You bring up a lot of other topics that are not relevant to my argument, and I comment on them, but they are not part of my argument. My argument is very simple: 1) Meyer says ID offers a known cause for the origin of information in the very first life forms to exist. The cause is some sort of intelligent being or beings. 2) Either the intelligent being(s) that Meyer alludes to are complex physical organisms or they are not. 3) If they are complex physical life forms, then logically they could not be responsible for creating the first complex physical life forms. 4) Otherwise they are not a known cause, because there are no intelligent agents in our uniform and repeated experience that are not complex physical life forms. 5) Therefore Meyer is wrong to state that ID offers a cause known to our uniform and repeated experience that could account for the first complex physical life forms. See? No psychological analaysis at all.
I’m not advocating panspermia. I brought that up to show that *even if your criticisms were granted* Meyer’s arguments still lead to important conclusions and open additional possibilities. You don’t even want to touch on that. Fine – I don’t need your blessing for the obvious.
I'm interested in discussing Meyer's theory, which is ID - not panspermia or various other theories.
I’ve already shown that Meyer’s arguments are multiple in the book, that even if your criticisms were taken without argument his own arguments still have force.
He has identified his own central argument, which I take to be a very clear statement about what ID is saying. You can try to raise other points, or declare that his argument isn't important. But you are certainly not having any success defending the argument that both Stephen Meyer and I believe to be central to ID.
All the talk about FCSI and known sources for it remain. All the talk about abiogenesis requiring FCSI remain. All the justifications for ID inferences remain.
Of course that isn't true - Meyer goes to great lengths to justify his inference on the basis that it is the "only known cause" of FSCI. This is precisely the justification that fails.
You’re putting all your chips on the claim that the only intelligence science recognizes is human which you call “complex physical”,
Well, no. "Science" really has a very confused and limited understanding of "intelligence" in the first place, and I certainly wouldn't say that "science recognizes only human intelligence" (obviously other living things are intelligent too, right?). In fact, I haven't said anything at all about what science does and does not recognize - I've left all that up to Stephen Meyer, who insists that scientific reasoning requires inference from our uniform and repeated experience. In our uniform and repeated experience, intelligent agency requires complex physical mechanism.
...and that if “complex physical” intelligence was responsible for abiogenesis, then it doesn’t explain the very first line.
(you meant "life" I believe). Right - one can't very well explain the "very first life form" (Meyer's own words) by appeal to a prior life form.
Your argument against an immaterial or transcendent intelligence amounts to “Well that’s metaphysical”.
No, my argument is that immaterial or transcendent intelligence is outside of our uniform and repeated experience, which is Meyer's own criteria for justifying his inference to ID.
It ain’t much. And I think you know it.
As Vividblue conceded early in the discussion, my argument is air tight. You certainly haven't made a dent in it, and I haven't had to change or add to my argument one iota since we began. It remains simple and unassailable: Meyer is wrong when he says there is a cause known to our experience that can account for first life.aiguy_{August 4, 2010
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Null: In addition, AIG has been slipping in eh quite little inference that C-chemistry, cell based life on earth is equivalent to life, so its origin is the origin of life period. That is how his attempted reductio works. Nope, AIG fails on circular argument supporting strawman distortions, sorry to have to put it so directly. On the related issue of FSCI as a sign of design, what AIG has tried to do is to metaphysically entangle a discussion on inference form easily observed empirical sign to its signified, on massive empirical experience of the causal pattern. But, as has been repeatedly pointed out by ID thinkers since Thaxton et al in 1984 [right at the foundation, in a well known book . . . there is no excuse], that C-Chemistry cell based life on earth has in it signs that point to a designer has no import on the metaphysical essence or locus of the designer: whether within the cosmos or beyond it. So, one could put up as a candidate a species with advanced technology from next galaxy over or neighbouring star system for that matter, without any relevance to the issue that FSCI is an empirically well tested, reliable sign of design. So the debate point being made is inherently distractive and loaded with rhetorical insinuations. Worse, AIG is consistently ignoring and ducking the place where there IS a design inference that points to a serious candidate being an intelligence beyond our observed cosmos: the evidently fine tuned cosmology of the observed cosmos that sets up the basis for intelligent C-chemistry cell based life. (And of course, this also means that evidence pointing to such a designer would reduce the huffing and puffing about immaterial intelligences to due proportion: our material cosmos had a beginning and so credibly had a beginner who is not constrained to matter as we observe it around us. Such a cosmos-designing intelligence, given the nature of the fine tuning, would also be a credible candidate for the ultimate source of life in the cosmos, and even of life on earth. But since a Cosmos-making designer who went on to create life sounds a lot like pushing Lewontin's unwelcome divine foot in the door of materialism-dominated C21 institutional science, we can see some of the motivations for the sort of outright animosity and dismissive rhetoric we commonly see at UD and elsewhere. And given the behaviour of too many theistic evolutionists,that problem does not depend on one personally being a materialist. Allowing so-called methodological naturalism to censor science from being an unfettered and progressive pursuit of the truth about our world based on empirical evidence and reason, will do readily enough. Sorry if that cuts, but we need to think seriously about it.) Given Wilson's notorious advice in that ever so cynical work, The Arte of Rhetorique, that when a cogent argument does not sit well with the agenda being pushed, one should ignore it and walk by as though it does not exist, that is utterly telling. Ever so sadly telling. Let us do better than this! GEM of TKI PS: I see the previous thread was closed and this is somewhat of a continuation. In that context, I simply note that Petrushka seems to be unable to see that if mutagenesis is a way to destroy viri, that is a sign of how even viral genomes exist on islands of function [which is supposedly his primary objection to what I have said, never mind the bait and switch on genetic entropy]. More broadly, he is in the unenviable position of appealing to a paper that actually uses the concept of islands of function, in attempting to dismiss it.kairosfocus_{August 4, 2010
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aiguy, If he was simply arguing against particular theories of abiogenesis, then he would be just one more scientist debating theories. That’s not what he’s doing. No, aiguy - he expressly is doing exactly that. What you're ignoring, and I have to assume it's purposefully, is that Meyer makes a number of arguments and observations in his book. You're making it sound like he has one argument and one argument only, which isn't the case. You don't even have to read the book to read that - just look through the ToC. And you're not even doing much against his central argument. If he was arguing against all theories of abiogenesis that didn’t involve some conscious being, then he would be making the mistake of thinking he understood the whole of reality and could eliminate even future, unknown developments, which would be fallacious. He is doing that, but that’s not all he’s doing. No, he's not doing that. He's giving arguments about what we know at this point in time, and what inferences can be made given what we know. If you want to show me where Meyer says "It's utterly impossible we could every find any new information that would change our inferences!" or words to that effect, do so. I'm willing to bet you won't. Arguing that, given what we know, the best and a powerful inference we can make is to one of intelligence is utterly distinct from your rendition above. I’m saying that Meyer will be defeated if it is shown that the central argument of his book is false. I’ve shown the central argument of his book to be false. No, you haven't. You're trying to "gotcha" him on a pretty minor point - a mix of "All the intelligent agents we're scientifically aware of are complex physical beings" and "If it's a complex physical being, it is alive, and therefore it can't be responsible for 'the first life'". The latter can be responded to with a shrug and a "Call it that if you wish. I'm saying that if an abiogenesis event took place, ID is the best explanation." And the former just adds the amendment that if someone has reason to think that there exist immaterial or whatever other type of intelligences, that their metaphysics are in play, not purely science. Really, this is a hair away from A) Insisting that ID is all about Christianity, no matter how many times ID proponents themselves admit and insist ID doesn't get one to that, B) Pointing out that Christ said that God is the God of the living, C) Therefore, even an immaterial God is alive, and D) Therefore, ID theorist/crypto-Christians can never have anything to say about a scientific origin of life, because God is alive and necessarily exists. Alas, they can still talk about abiogenesis and origins of life on earth after all. Of course they don’t want to talk about it, because if they talk about it, it is revealed that neither possibility serves their purpose! There's more possibilities than two on the table, by Dembski's own admission. And when so much of your argument relies on psychoanalysis, maybe it's time to step back and take stock of what you're saying. I'm not advocating panspermia. I brought that up to show that *even if your criticisms were granted* Meyer's arguments still lead to important conclusions and open additional possibilities. You don't even want to touch on that. Fine - I don't need your blessing for the obvious. You can keep this up all day, but you won’t make any progress salvaging the central argument of Stephen Meyer’s book as he himself describes it. I've already shown that Meyer's arguments are multiple in the book, that even if your criticisms were taken without argument his own arguments still have force. All the talk about FCSI and known sources for it remain. All the talk about abiogenesis requiring FCSI remain. All the justifications for ID inferences remain. You're putting all your chips on the claim that the only intelligence science recognizes is human which you call "complex physical", and that if "complex physical" intelligence was responsible for abiogenesis, then it doesn't explain the very first line. Your argument against an immaterial or transcendent intelligence amounts to "Well that's metaphysical". It ain't much. And I think you know it. It isn’t oversimplified at all – it is perfectly and literally true. And of course negative arguments against particular theories of evolution tell us not one thing about the existence of a “rational deliberative agent” who supposedly created first life. Meyer's focus wasn't evolution - it was about what would be required, given what we know, for an abiogenesis event. That point still stands, and I note you're not disputing it. Positive arguments for FCSI's sources were given as well - again, I note you're not disputing that either.nullasalus_{August 4, 2010
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aiguy:
I’m saying that Meyer will be defeated if it is shown that the central argument of his book is false. I’ve shown the central argument of his book to be false.
You only think that is what you did.Joseph_{August 3, 2010
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above,
You broke the other thread?
Apparently my thoughts were too weighty for one page to bear :-)
Look, I understand you argument very well. My response to it is this: Assuming dualism, and observing both the body and the mind creating FSCI, which of the two do you think is responsible for it?
Assuming dualism, then both, of course!
At best you can insist on both (which is what you’re arguing) but in reality I don’t think neither you nor I think that the FSCI is not a product of the mind.
Of course I would say our thoughts (about FSCI or anything else) are products of the mind - that is entailed by what we mean by "mind". But I would also say that the mind is demonstrably dependent upon the brain.
Having said that, I do recognize the implicit logical inference made in regards made from mind+body (dual) to intelligence (singular). Now, as I said before, such inferences are always made by scientists and philosophers and without which science would be impossible. You position is that if something is not directly observable it cannot be part of science.
No, that is not my position at all, and I've never said anything that implied anything like that. (You don't really understand my argument as well as you think). What I said was that I was adopting S. Meyer's criterion for scientific reasoning about the past - that it must be based upon our uniform and repeated experience. Nobody said anything about "direct observation".
Here is another example, the higgs boson. That has never been observed in our uniform and repeated experience but is still part of the standard model no?
Physics is based on our observations within our uniform and repeated experience. Of course we can't observe subatomic particles; we observe our instruments instead.
You see the problems that will be created for science if we uphold your objection? There are many more examples we can give as well.
This has nothing to do with anything I've said here.
So chance is then a lack of explanation as to how something happened (I specifically use ‘how’ instead of ‘why’ to connote mechanism). So it’s either epistemological ignorance or a human epistemological limitations, correct?
I think this is a difficult subject, actually, and there are different sorts of things we mean by "random".
But given that definition, anything can be inserted in the place of the cause, regardless of whether it’s relevant or not. We can even place Laplace’s demon as the cause of the mutation and it cannot be objected except on philosophical grounds, no? I’m not trying to make an argument here. I just want to see if we’re on the same page.
I'm having trouble seeing your point here. Say a cosmic ray hits a chromosome in a bacterial cell and causes a mutation which confers antibiotic resistance to the cell. Even though the mechanism was understood and deterministic, biologists would still say this was a chance event, in the sense that nothing else connected the generation of that cosmic ray deep in space with this particular bacterium. If you then said that Laplace's Demon caused the tumor instead, I would very much object (on the grounds that it's just a weird thing to say :-))
This is a huge can of worms and I’m not sure if we want to open it. Just to give you a taste let me rephrase: “there is no current way to demonstrate that what we call the physical (given the traditional properties of matter) is actually real. You see where I’m getting at? We can leave it for later but there are several thought experiments you can perform to refute materialism.
Yes of course thought experiments refute every imaginable solution to the mind/body problem, and we can question all of epistemology while we're at it. But let's not, OK? Stephen Meyer is not questioning realism; he is attempting to support his theory within a realist framework where knowledge is in fact possible. He is attempting to show that his theory is scientific according to his criterion for scientific reasoning, which is that the cause his theory infers is known to our uniform and repeated experience. If you don't believe that knowledge is possible, then you already disagree with Meyer. If you are a realist, and do believe that knowledge is possible, then you still must disagree with Meyer because what he claims is not true. There is no cause which is known to our experience that could account for first life.aiguy_{August 3, 2010
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@aiguy You broke the other thread? :P -“ So let us agree, for [etc]repeated experience” Look, I understand you argument very well. My response to it is this: Assuming dualism, and observing both the body and the mind creating FSCI, which of the two do you think is responsible for it? At best you can insist on both (which is what you’re arguing) but in reality I don’t think neither you nor I think that the FSCI is not a product of the mind. Having said that, I do recognize the implicit logical inference made in regards made from mind+body (dual) to intelligence (singular). Now, as I said before, such inferences are always made by scientists and philosophers and without which science would be impossible. You position is that if something is not directly observable it cannot be part of science. Here is another example, the higgs boson. That has never been observed in our uniform and repeated experience but is still part of the standard model no? You see the problems that will be created for science if we uphold your objection? There are many more examples we can give as well. -“ If you’d like me to comment on Darwinian evolution I can do that, but I’d like to deal with one subject at a time.” Actually I would very much like to hear what you have to say as I too think that evolutionary theory is fundamentally incomplete (although I distinguish it from darwinism). We can pick up the discussion once the storm calms a bit! -“ When you say that something happened by chance, you aren’t explaining what caused that thing to happen. Rather, you are saying that the explanation for why it happened isn’t relevant to the effect. So chance is then a lack of explanation as to how something happened (I specifically use ‘how’ instead of ‘why’ to connote mechanism). So it’s either epistemological ignorance or a human epistemological limitations, correct? -“. For example, in biology, if a mutation happens “by chance” it means that whatever event caused the mutation has no knowable relationship to the phenotypic effect that results” But given that definition, anything can be inserted in the place of the cause, regardless of whether it’s relevant or not. We can even place Laplace’s demon as the cause of the mutation and it cannot be objected except on philosophical grounds, no? I’m not trying to make an argument here. I just want to see if we’re on the same page. -“I agree. But the denial of materialism does not follow from our uniform and repeated experience (there is nothing we can observe that will tell us whether or not mind transcends physical cause).” This is a huge can of worms and I’m not sure if we want to open it. Just to give you a taste let me rephrase: “there is no current way to demonstrate that what we call the physical (given the traditional properties of matter) is actually real. You see where I’m getting at? We can leave it for later but there are several thought experiments you can perform to refute materialism.above_{August 3, 2010
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Please forgive me if I am breaking a rule of etiquette here for posting a response I'd prepared for a previous thread here; apparently that thread ran too long and was closed for comments. Here is the response I'd written for above and nullasalus: --- null,
And you’ll concede the argument totally to me if I provide a dozen citations of Meyer explicitly arguing against an unguided, unintelligent abiogenesis event?
If he was simply arguing against particular theories of abiogenesis, then he would be just one more scientist debating theories. That's not what he's doing. If he was arguing against all theories of abiogenesis that didn't involve some conscious being, then he would be making the mistake of thinking he understood the whole of reality and could eliminate even future, unknown developments, which would be fallacious. He is doing that, but that's not all he's doing. He is arguing that there is a cause that is known to our experience which can acount for the creation of first life, and that cause is "intelligence". That is what he says, and he's wrong for the reasons I've given.
I pointed out Meyer could grant your criticisms for the hell of it, and still he’d be accomplishing much of what he wants to. You are the one saying that Meyer would regard successful arguments on the front mentioned as a defeat for him. I’m pointing out that’s ridiculous.
No. Here is what Meyer says:
MEYER: The central argument of my book is that intelligent design—the activity of a conscious and rational deliberative agent—best explains the origin of the information necessary to produce the first living cell. ... Hence, intelligent design provides the best—most causally adequate—explanation for the origin of the information necessary to produce the first life from simpler non-living chemicals. In other words, intelligent design is the only explanation that cites a cause known to have the capacity to produce the key effect in question.
I'm saying that Meyer will be defeated if it is shown that the central argument of his book is false. I've shown the central argument of his book to be false.
And again, Dembski & company don’t argue what the “Designer” is – and by their measure, they do not have to, because the particular identity (This or that particular designer) is irrelevant for their purposes.
Of course they don't want to talk about it, because if they talk about it, it is revealed that neither possibility serves their purpose! It is like a committed Darwinist saying "Darwinism isn't concerned with irreducible complexity, the origin of FSCI, or gaps in the fossil record. That is irrelevant to our theory!" Their theory says that an intelligent agent is responsible for first life, so it is perfectly reasonable to point out that there are only two kinds of intelligent agents - those we know from experience but can't logically be responsible for first life, and those we don't know from experience at all.
“No evidence”? Baloney. I went ahead and provided some – or are you going to say that tests regarding bacterial viability in space aren’t evidence? Or possible empirical results indicating the possibility of simple/bacterial life on comets or on other planets aren’t evidence? Insufficient evidence? Sure. No evidence? That’s fantasy.
No problem, null. If you'd like to say panspermia is a viable theory, go with it! It has nothing to do with Meyer's claims for intelligent agency being a known cause capable of creating first life.
Second, if ET-ancestor theory is true, ID isn’t necessarily wrong. There are ID proponents who rely on panspermia and ET-ancestor theories – it would be partial confirmation of their views. And again with Meyer, it would be partial confirmation of his own views – even if life didn’t originate on earth, it would skunk the abiogenesis views he has in his sights.
What Meyer has in his sights couldn't be more clear - as the direct quote above shows. And (1) ET-ancestor theory in no way presents "rational deliberative agency" as the origin of biological information, and (2) it logically cannot be the cause of the first living cell. You can keep this up all day, but you won't make any progress salvaging the central argument of Stephen Meyer's book as he himself describes it.
aiguy: For him to deny my argument would require him to claim that the first living organism could have been designed by another living organism (a logical impossibility) or that disembodied intelligence is part of our uniform and repeated experience (which isn’t true). null: That’s an oversimplification, like saying that providing powerful reasons to believe that Neo-Darwinism is false/inadequate wouldn’t be an ID success on the grounds that a negative argument itself doesn’t demonstrate or strongly infer a designing agent.
It isn't oversimplified at all - it is perfectly and literally true. And of course negative arguments against particular theories of evolution tell us not one thing about the existence of a "rational deliberative agent" who supposedly created first life. * * * above,
You said: “Under dualism, we have dual natures – one is our material body and one is our immaterial mind.” So I used that as a hypothesis. A typical “for the sake of argument” proposition(i.e. if this then that). There is a difference. So your accusations are undue and irrelevant. All that for what? So that you can divert attention elsewhere and refrain from commenting on the plethora of examples I gave you? What is to become of science without logical inference? Without abstract theorizing? Tell us.
I can see we are talking past each other, which is not my intent. As you said, I've been pretty busy here :-) So let us agree, for the sake of argument, that dualism is true, and see how that affects my argument. If dualism is true, then in order to be an intelligent agent, according to our uniform experience, one needs two things. First, one needs and immaterial mind, and second one needs a complex physical brain in good working order. Now I understand that many people believe the second requirement can somehow be forgone (with the immaterial part somehow surviving when the brain part disintegrates, for example) but I hope you will agree that this is outside of our uniform and repeated experience. So my argument stands whether dualism is true or physicalism is true... or any other ontological assumption is true.
No, you should address it if you disagree then because the criticism applies to both paradigms (ID and darwinism). You can’t berate on ID and then refuse to comment on darwinism, especially since you disagree. Tell us then, when did your uniform and repeated experience observe randomness or a mindless materialistic cause giving rise to FSCI?
If you'd like me to comment on Darwinian evolution I can do that, but I'd like to deal with one subject at a time. In fact I believe evolutionary theory to be fundamentally incomplete, and think there are aspects of complexity and mind that we do not (and perhaps can not) understand. But what I'm arguing here is that ID can not explain first life by appeal to a known cause, as Meyer claims.
aiguy: - but it is confused to believe that evolutionary biologists – or anyone else – considers “chance” to be a cause, rather than a description of the independence of effects” above: What exactly do you mean by that? Independence of effects from what? And how does this fit into a materialistic ontology? Can you elaborate?
I don't adhere to a materialistic ontology, so I'm not going to comment on that. Randomness (or chance) is a difficult concept, and not germain to my argument, but because I mentioned it I'll try one time to explain what I meant. When you say that something happened by chance, you aren't explaining what caused that thing to happen. Rather, you are saying that the explanation for why it happened isn't relevant to the effect. For example, in biology, if a mutation happens "by chance" it means that whatever event caused the mutation has no knowable relationship to the phenotypic effect that results. I won't debate this point any further because it is irrelevant to my argument here.
aiguy: -“ ID only makes sense if you adopt a particular metaphysical stance – one which denies physicalism.” above: More accurately: “ID makes sense if you adopt one of a plethora of metaphysical stances, namely those which deny materialism”
I agree. But the denial of materialism does not follow from our uniform and repeated experience (there is nothing we can observe that will tell us whether or not mind transcends physical cause).
Now let’s go back to what I said days ago in my first response to your objection: “I believe this will be a huge problem specifically for materialists and logical positivists but not so much for others who embrace a different metaphysic/epistemology.”
My argument is a huge problem for people who believe Meyer when he says he can scientifically support the assertion that a conscious being created the first living thing.
One last thing. You keep talking about science proving this and that.
No, I've never talked about any such thing.
What is your operational definition of science?
As I've said several times, I have simply adopted the defintition being used by Stephen Meyer himself: "I argue this because of two things that we know from our uniform and repeated experience, which following Charles Darwin I take to be the basis of all scientific reasoning about the past." (the source of these quotes from Meyer is http://biologos.org/blog/response-to-darrel-falks-review-of-signature-in-the-cell/)aiguy_{August 3, 2010
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Just another piece of evidence that attests to the fact that materialism and scientism have undoubtebly reached the status of a religion... Well cult might be a more fitting word actually.above_{August 3, 2010
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You had me at "tax-based".tragic mishap_{August 3, 2010
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