[_ Old Earth _] On Intelligent Design and Atheism

[Patashu]

If ID is not a religious hypothesis/argument in nature, why are there no atheistic proponents of ID?

 

[Square]

If ID is not a religious hypothesis/argument in nature, why are there no atheistic proponents of ID?

On what grounds is the assumption made that no atheists support ID? It is customary for the person making a claim to support the claim with evidence.

I personally know of one atheist physicist that supports ID, and I have been told (hearsay from claims made by peers) that numerous others exist. Physics is not tied to religion.

Too, there are many atheist preachers/priests whose occupation is religion. "Religious" and "atheism" are not antonyms.

A long list of fallacious arguments can be found at http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skep ... oincidence, several of which apply to the above quote.

 

[jwu]

I personally know of one atheist physicist that supports ID, and I have been told (hearsay from claims made by peers) that numerous others exist. Physics is not tied to religion.

Who does he suggest is the designer?

 

[Barbarian]

Phillip Johnson, who invented ID, says maybe it's space aliens.

Very scientific, those IDers.

 

[BobRyan]

If ID is not a religious hypothesis/argument in nature, why are there no atheistic proponents of ID?

The question "shows" a lack of appreciation for the details of the subject.

First a careful definition for Intelligent Design

Intelligent Design:

"Academic Freedom to follow the data where it leads EVEN if it leads to DESIGN and a position that does not pander to the doctrines and dogma of atheists"

And now "the obvious" why would atheists not sign up for that?

Left as a simple exercise for the reader.

Bob

 

[BobRyan]

Phillip Johnson, who invented ID, says maybe it's space aliens.

Very scientific, those IDers.

Richard Dawkins is VIDEO Taped in the movie EXPELLED claiming (for all the world to see) "maybe it's space aliens" when asked about the first living cell.

very scientific those atheist darwinists.

Sadly for atheist darwinist believers "seeing is believing" for the unbiased objective observer.

 

[jwu]

Dawkins giving the same example doesn't solve its problem of infinite regress though.

 

[BobRyan]

1. It reveals "once again" your one-sided report of the facts.
2. It shows that Darwinism "needs faith" in aliens to "exist".

Bob

 

[Snidey]

1. It reveals "once again" your one-sided report of the facts.
2. It shows that Darwinism "needs faith" in aliens to "exist".

Bob

I don't believe in a god, but you might just have been created for my entertainment BobRyan.

In the case of Dawkins' aliens, they would've had to evolved as well, so it doesn't really serve as an explanation to abiogenesis.

Why do you put so many phrases in quotes? You can't go two sentences without doing it incorrectly, it's grammatically horrifying.

 

[Barbarian]

1. It reveals "once again" your one-sided report of the facts.
2. It shows that Darwinism "needs faith" in aliens to "exist".

Phillip Johnson is a Darwinist? You sure about that?

 

[BobRyan]

Did I say Philip Johnson believed in evolution? NO? I meant to.

Did I say Philip Johnson OBJECTED to the junk-science methods and blind-appeals-to-censorship used by Darwinist devotees? -- I certainly meant to.

Here is ID -- vs ATHEISM --

Intelligent Design:

Academic Freedom to [/u]“follow the data where it leadsâ€Â[/u] EVEN if it leads to a conclusion (such as Intelligent Design) that does not pander to the central doctrines and dogmas of atheists"

Real World Validation of ID as Science Fact.

ID theorists are just scientists that happen to be willing to admit to evidence for Intelligent Design when they find it in Nature. However this method of analysis is not limited to scientists open to “inconvenient facts†and willing to free science from today’s political bindings that demand conformance to the religious distinctives of atheism.

For example there are four fundamental forces in nature – the weak nuclear force, the strong nuclear force, gravity and electromagnetism. Some electromagnetic wave forms show that they have been purposely manipulated – their pattern shows “Intelligent Design†– (hence TV, Cell Phones, Radio) and others do not (background noise, static). We have entire industries (security, National Security Agency etc) based on the obvious and reliable fact that it is possible to evaluate electromagnetic wave forms and determine if they convey coded information – content from intelligent designers.

ID theorists are doing the same thing as they accept the fact that physics and biochemistry are the baseline medium in which Biology is expressed.

The empty claim that nothing in nature can be studied and evaluated to determine if it has an intelligent cause is disproven every day in commercial and private sector analysis of the electromagnetic wave forms alone. Admittedly the study of the instances of design found in Biology is just beginning by comparison but it is based on the same fundamental principles of analysis. While allowing this form of scientific investigation in the domain of Biology is clearly taboo to atheist religionists it is nonetheless consistent with the existing science principle of analysis already in use in many other domains of scientific investigation and discovery.

 

[Barbarian]

Did I say Philip Johnson believed in evolution? NO? I meant to.

I was referring to your statement here:

It shows that Darwinism "needs faith" in aliens to "exist".

Since Phillip Johnson believes that we could have been made by space aliens...

 

[Deep Thought]

The comments Dawkins made in Expelled have been taken out of context. His point was that under the definition of ID, the creators of the universe could have been aliens or even purple, two headed frogs for that matter.

He was simply pointing out how vague the term "intelligent designer" is, because you can apply it to any silly imagining you like, even though it is really a pseudonym for the Christian God.

 

[BobRyan]

The comments Dawkins made in Expelled have been taken out of context.

1. Make the wild claim after you actually SEE what you are talking about - WATCH Dawkins saying what HE says for all the world to see.

refusing to see the document that you are condemning is the hight of blind-censorship in an all-for-dawkins solution - but is not compelling to the objective unbiased reader.

His point was that under the definition of ID, the creators of the universe could have been aliens or even purple, two headed frogs for that matter.

Wrong.

Watch the video -- he was speaking specifically about the first "self-replicating molecule" -- instead of trying to "imagine the interview -- watch it. And he was NOT talking about "the makers of the universe" in that "aliens" quote.

It seems apparent that the defenders of darwinism are actually "afraid of details" -- afraid to even let themselves WATCH the taped interview!!

How sadly misguided.

 

[BobRyan]

Did I say Philip Johnson believed in evolution? NO? I meant to.

I was referring to your statement here:

[quote:34ef8]It shows that Darwinism "needs faith" in aliens to "exist".

[/quote:34ef8]

I see -- so that is may saying "Philip Johnson.... ANYTHING at all" it is just you making stuff up?

Thanks for sharing -

On the other hand my statement stands as accurate -- though I did not say Johnson believes in evolutionism -- he does, just not the atheist-darwinian flavor.

My quote about "Darwinism NEEDs.." can not then be a reference to the non-Darwinist Johnson for "anything" --- get it? yet?

It is actually a reference to Dawkins (Hint: turns out that Dawkins IS a Darwinist)

Bob

 

[Barbarian]

Turns out that William Dembski, another ID/creationist, also thinks that the designer could be a space alien.

It's no nuttier than anything else in ID.

 

[Deep Thought]

Well, let's hear it from the horses mouth

Another example. Toward the end of his interview with me, Stein asked whether I could think of any circumstances whatsoever under which intelligent design might have occurred. It's the kind of challenge I relish, and I set myself the task of imagining the most plausible scenario I could. I wanted to give ID its best shot, however poor that best shot might be. I must have been feeling magnanimous that day, because I was aware that the leading advocates of Intelligent Design are very fond of protesting that they are not talking about God as the designer, but about some unnamed and unspecified intelligence, which might even be an alien from another planet. Indeed, this is the only way they differentiate themselves from fundamentalist creationists, and they do it only when they need to, in order to weasel their way around church/state separation laws. So, bending over backwards to accommodate the IDiots ("oh NOOOOO, of course we aren't talking about God, this is SCIENCE") and bending over backwards to make the best case I could for intelligent design, I constructed a science fiction scenario. Like Michael Ruse (as I surmise) I still hadn't rumbled Stein, and I was charitable enough to think he was an honestly stupid man, sincerely seeking enlightenment from a scientist. I patiently explained to him that life could conceivably have been seeded on Earth by an alien intelligence from another planet (Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel suggested something similar -- semi tongue-in-cheek). The conclusion I was heading towards was that, even in the highly unlikely event that some such 'Directed Panspermia' was responsible for designing life on this planet, the alien beings would THEMSELVES have to have evolved, if not by Darwinian selection, by some equivalent 'crane' (to quote Dan Dennett). My point here was that design can never be an ULTIMATE explanation for organized complexity. Even if life on Earth was seeded by intelligent designers on another planet, and even if the alien life form was itself seeded four billion years earlier, the regress must ultimately be terminated (and we have only some 13 billion years to play with because of the finite age of the universe). Organized complexity cannot just spontaneously happen. That, for goodness sake, is the creationists' whole point, when they bang on about eyes and bacterial flagella! Evolution by natural selection is the only known process whereby organized complexity can ultimately come into being. Organized complexity -- and that includes everything capable of designing anything intelligently -- comes LATE into the universe. It cannot exist at the beginning, as I have explained again and again in my writings.

This 'Ultimate 747' argument, as I called it in The God Delusion, may or may not persuade you. That is not my concern here. My concern here is that my science fiction thought experiment -- however implausible -- was designed to illustrate intelligent design's closest approach to being plausible. I was most emphaticaly NOT saying that I believed the thought experiment. Quite the contrary. I do not believe it (and I don't think Francis Crick believed it either). I was bending over backwards to make the best case I could for a form of intelligent design. And my clear implication was that the best case I could make was a very implausible case indeed. In other words, I was using the thought experiment as a way of demonstrating strong opposition to all theories of intelligent design.

Well, you will have guessed how Mathis/Stein handled this. I won't get the exact words right (we were forbidden to bring in recording devices on pain of a $250,000 fine, chillingly announced by some unnamed Gauleiter before the film began), but Stein said something like this. "What? Richard Dawkins BELIEVES IN INTELLIGENT DESIGN." "Richard Dawkins BELIEVES IN ALIENS FROM OUTER SPACE." I can't remember whether this was the moment in the film where we were regaled with another Lord Privy Seal cut to an old science fiction movie with some kind of android figure – that may have been used in the service of trying to ridicule Francis Crick (again, dutiful titters from the partisan audience).

 

[Ellusion]

First off, why are you guys arguing over who said what? Does it really matter if Dawkins thought we were created by aliens? Or if the inventor of ID things we were made by aliens? That's all besides the point... argue the facts. Not the people who came up with the ideas.

Richard Dawkins is VIDEO Taped in the movie EXPELLED claiming (for all the world to see) "maybe it's space aliens" when asked about the first living cell.

very scientific those atheist darwinists.

1. It reveals "once again" your one-sided report of the facts.
2. It shows that Darwinism "needs faith" in aliens to "exist".

Bob

I don't believe that Dawkins is the world official spokesperson on Darwinism. You're generalizing the entire Darwinist population by using Dawkin's quote as proof.

And in regards to your latest post, it Dawkins explicitly states that

I set myself the task of imagining the most plausible scenario I could. I wanted to give ID its best shot, however poor that best shot might be. ... I patiently explained to him that life could conceivably have been seeded on Earth by an alien intelligence from another planet... The conclusion I was heading towards was that, even in the highly unlikely event that some such 'Directed Panspermia' was responsible for designing life on this planet, the alien beings would THEMSELVES have to have evolved, if not by Darwinian selection, by some equivalent 'crane'

Paraphrasing, he says that if he absolutely had to believe in Intelligent Design, he said there could hypothetically be an alien species that created us. He does not say that he believes this actually happened. In fact, this quote just proves Deep Thought's point

The comments Dawkins made in Expelled have been taken out of context

And finally, I believe your definition of Intelligent Design is carefully massaged to avoid being confined within it's actual definition.

Intelligent Design:

"Academic Freedom to follow the data where it leads EVEN if it leads to DESIGN and a position that does not pander to the doctrines and dogma of atheists"

Main Entry:
intelligent design
Function:
noun
Date:
1847

: the theory that matter, the various forms of life, and the world were created by a designing intelligence

 

[BobRyan]

Well, let's hear it from the horses mouth

Another example. Toward the end of his interview with me, Stein asked whether I could think of any circumstances whatsoever under which intelligent design might have occurred. It's the kind of challenge I relish, and I set myself the task of imagining the most plausible scenario I could. I wanted to give ID its best shot, however poor that best shot might be. I must have been feeling magnanimous that day, because I was aware that the leading advocates of Intelligent Design are very fond of protesting that they are not talking about God as the designer, but about some unnamed and unspecified intelligence, which might even be an alien from another planet. ....

This is good preaching from Dawkins -- the question is what did he actually SAY in answer to the question as we SAW HIM SAY -- hint open your mind let it SEE what happened instead of listening to Dawkins preach an after-the-fact-sermon.

As much as that sermonizing from Dawkins is a good "instead-of-facts" solution for atheist darwinists -- how about those who are interested in what actually happened? You know... the REST of us.

Sooo stripping out a lot of the Dawkins "sermonizing" we get to this

Dawkins -
I patiently explained to him that life could conceivably have been seeded on Earth by an alien intelligence from another planet (Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel suggested something similar -- semi tongue-in-cheek). The conclusion I was heading towards was that, even in the highly unlikely event that some such 'Directed Panspermia' was responsible for designing life on this planet, the alien beings would THEMSELVES have to have evolved, if not by Darwinian selection, by some equivalent 'crane'

indeed this is exactly what you would have SEEN had you allowed yourself to WATCH the interview instead of whining that it was all wrong...

Why are devotees to atheist darwinism so fearful of the facts if those facts are not under the strict control and guidance of darwinism's high priests??

Bob

 

[jmm9683]

Why are devotees to atheist darwinism so fearful of the facts if those facts are not under the strict control and guidance of darwinism's high priests??

Ironic quote of the day.