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Jonathan Bartlett: Intelligent design is not what most people think it is

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In mid-2021, Jonathan Bartlett wrote this piece at Mind Matters News. Worth repeating:

Widespread confusion about Intelligent Design leads us to address the question: What exactly is it?

Intelligent Design, at its core, says that agency is a distinct causal category in the world. That is, when I code a computer program, write a book, invent a formula, write a poem, etc., I am doing something that is distinctively beyond the operation of pure physics. There is something distinct about the way that causation works for beings with minds compared to how it works for beings without minds. This might sound like an abstract philosophical concept, but it actually has pretty radical (and practical) results.

The business applications of Intelligent Design were put forth by Peter Thiel in his book Zero to One. There, specifically invoking Intelligent Design theory, he demonstrated what sets apart businesses that move markets — they generate new truths that are not algorithmically deducible. Thiel shows that the mind has unique powers which are not reducible to mechanism, and that by focusing our efforts in the direction that our minds are specially built for allows us to create more economic prosperity… More.

Comments
Awareness is the exclusive sign of ID. If an atheist is aware that is a sign of theism . ;)Sandy
February 8, 2023
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Yes, agency is crucial, and it is reasonable to examine the question of signs of cause by intelligently directed configuration. The needless but oh so convenient confusion is an intentional result of a dirty agit prop and lawfare campaign tracing to known sources. It is an example of . . . detection of design on reliable signs.kairosfocus
February 8, 2023
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My understanding of ID is as follows:
All that ID claims is that living things appear intelligently designed, so that organelles, biochemical cycles, and genetic mechanisms that are poorly understood should be studied as if they were intelligently designed rather than ignored as useless vestiges of undirected evolution. In contrast, Darwinism presumes that any poorly understood biological feature or structure is junk, thus once again proving evolution. This is an ideological, not a scientific position.
I something is "designed," then every feature had, has, or could have a functional purpose under greatly varying environmental conditions. -QQuerius
February 7, 2023
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