I am aware that some IDers say the "designer" might be a "space alien." My question is "who designed the space alien?" This is a religious question as ID is a religious doctrine by their own admission, in the Wedge Document..
In the conversations that I've seen about the design of our anatomy, the balance of ecosystems working together, or the placement and workings of elements on an molicular and atomic level, the proposal about those things being created verses happening naturally are where the conversation goes to. Not so much to who created them, designed them to work that way, or even placed the conditions for the workings of life to exist in the way it does. It's more about if things were created instead of happened on their own.
As you see, Darwin advanced the same argument. However, he clearly understood that it was a religious argument, not a scientific one.
That goes back to the question of why are we talking about this. I think this counts as one of the answers I proposed. This is a religous not a scientific argument. Meaning it has no merrit in scienctific circles, and should not be investigated scientifically. Thanks for the answer. I at least know what angle you're coming from. That said. I disagree. Right now there is limited scientific approach that can be made concerning the conclusions of being designed/created, or if life evoloved, and that's the single factor to concern one's self over. The limited aspect is looking at the explainations we have now, and what conclusions we can make from them. There's a few explainations I've heard on trying to prove that we aren't evolved in a macro evolution kind of way that are very science built in their explainations.
Other than Dawkins, I don't know anyone who actually makes philosophical conclusions based on evolution.
Macro evolution is largely a philosophical concept. Arguments that life began from single cell organisms, or that one species turned into another. (Or for arguments sake that a species ancestor later formed two different species in it's family.). With little proof to go in this, it is a philosophical conclusion. Nothing wrong with how our minds work and how well our reasoning is, but largely the concepts of macro evolution are philosophical. A philosophical argument's basis stems entirely on how much information it has to make conclusions from, and whether that information is placed right in the person's understanding.
ID is generally hostile to scientific observations, particularly recent ones that have made it harder to imagine a "designer" as opposed to a Creator.
Barbarian observes:
I think you'll find most accomplished biologists are pretty knowledgeable about philosophy. Ernst Mayr made that point a long time ago. Even Dawkins, hard as it is for him, admits God might exist. He just doesn't want it to be so. Which is too bad; he's a competent scientist otherwise.
The world not being the center of the universe was hostile to the conclusions and observations of how the planets and stars moved around the earth centuries ago. The understanding later developed in a way that we know it now, but it was hostile to the observations of how to determine a planet's unusual movement, that were in place at the time. Holding a conclusion just so it's not hostile to other conclusions or observations is not good science in my opinion. Rising above the correct conclusion in our methods and our understanding of who things work is better and takes time to achieve. The conclusion that there's a very very little chance that life built itself by just throwing the elements together and making complex organisms from that. That's a very hostile conclusion, but it's building on the evidance of the world around us.
It's why science so easily overcomes creationism. Creationists are tied to a religious doctrine that can't change. Science is always revising theories as new evidence accumulates. Darwin's theory has had several major revisons, for example.
Barbarian observes:
You don't have to do either. There is no dilemma between Christian faith and evolution. And many prominent scientists have pointed this out. You might want to read Finding Darwin's God, by Kenneth Miller (Catholic) or The Language of God, by Francis Collins, (Evangelical). Both men are highly accomplished scientists, and devout Christians.
A standing philosophy doesn't need to change. Even given new evidence, if it is correct, it will still hold true even with the new evidence. The key element of course is if it is true. Science changes because of new evidance. It's tweeked slightly or drastically based on said observations. Religous doctrine, if true doesn't need to change. ID isn't religous doctrine, but it is an attempt to bridge the gap between religous understanding and science. Which is apparently a very bad and hostile thing to do. Yet somehow I like it. Perhaps not so much the theories or the movement of ID but the movement of having bible standards as real standards, even in scientific circles.
No, for two reasons. First, evolutionary theory wouldn't change at all, if instead of an omnipotent Creator, the universe was made by a "space alien" designer. Evolutionary theory is not about the way the universe was formed, or the laws of nature determined.
Evolution as a study is a grab bag of many other scientific disciplines. What binds those disciplines isn't the type of science explored, but the conclusions that flow in the direction of evolution. Biological evolution runs with fossil records, biology, anatomy, astronomy (with theories of where life began in outer space and how it came to earth), physics, study of genes, and I'm sure it will grow. Sociatial and psychological evolution spans on disciplines that study people, written history, language, anatomy, culture, psychology, anthropology, and I'm sure it will grow as well.
And again the space alien isn't what I'm talking about. The who designed the world, or the life in it isn't the concern. It's the hostile enviornment that concludes that there was a creator or designer. That the world and life are too complex to exist otherwise.
There's not much latitude in truth.
Matthew 7:13 Enter ye in at the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat.
The OP was to look at causes for the decline in ID over the past few years. Personally, I think it's very close to blasphemous to say that God must "design."[/QUOTE]
If you conclude that God didn't design us, I'd have to hear your reasons for that before I can count the idea of being made molded and designed by God as a blasphemous idea. The concluding argument made by God near the end of Job speaks to me that God very much had a close relationship with the creation of the world. Like a man in a workshop doesn't leave the supplies and the tools there to do their own thing (even if physics allowed such an occurance to happen) and return with a finished product. No instead the craftsman has an active role in creating and designing his work.
The destination between design and create in my opinion is agruing over semantics. Kind of like arguing over Jesus being the savior or the messiah as if a dinstinction needs to be made. That's the tightrope I was talking about. Hope that makes sense. And I'm sorry for the disagreement.
