Interesting. I guess that makes Dawkins a creationist, too.
From TBW:
Now, hitting upon the lucky number that opens the bank’s safe is the equivalent, in our analogy, of hurling scrap metal around at random and happening to assemble a Boeing 747. Of all the millions of unique and, with hindsight equally improbable, positions of the combination lock, only one opens the lock. Similarly, of all the millions of unique and, with hindsight equally improbable, arrangements of a heap of junk, only one (or very few) will fly. The uniqueness of the arrangement that flies, or that opens the safe, is nothing to do with hindsight. It is specified in advance. The lock-manufacturer fixed the combination, and he has told the bank manager. The ability to fly is a property of an airliner that we specify in advance. If we see a plane in the air we can be sure that it was not assembled by randomly throwing scrap metal together, because we know that the odds against a random conglomeration’s being able to fly are too great.
I took his advice and read through a big thick graduate textbook on functional genomics, and I have to say Casey Luskin is not wrong.
My recommendation, if you want to insist on calling ID anti-evolution, is to do the same with ID literature. Tell these highschoolers the Biologos perspective, and then have them read an ID book by Meyer, Behe, Dembski or Wells cover to cover, or even just the college bound pamphlet you posted, and then have them critique the book’s arguments from the Biologos perspective. That should be the most effective to inculcate them against the ID anti-evolution propaganda.
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
65
You said those who use the tornado in a junk yard argument are creationists. Therefore, Hoyle is a creationist. Dawkins also uses the junk yard argument. Ergo, by your premise, Dawkins is also a creationist.
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
67
Riiiiight. That means I am too. Case closed.
I mean really Eric, is that the best you can do? Deliberately misconstruing what I said to mean that anyone identifying its use is using it and therefore is guilty of it.
Dear Christy,
I am afraid that we are caught up in a ridiculous dispute over “design.” Of course the universe is designed. It was rationally created by God. There is no reasonable way of getting around this. Science itself is based on the belief that rational humans (created the the4 Image of God) can understand the structure of the universe because its is rationally structured. As Einstein said, “The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.”
If evolution is designed, the it should be a slam dunk for ID, but it isn’t because they seem not to like the way that God chose to carry out God’s design. God chose to carry out God’s design using a form of natural selection (ecology.) They see nature as opposed to God, so it cannot carry out God’s purposes.
Non-believers have the same view. They say that natural selection cannot be from God, because it is natural. Some, like Dawkins, go as far as saying that Nature is not rational, because it cannot think, so it cannot have purpose and meaning. That is why Dawkins can say that nature can only appear to be designed, why if we see something that walks like a duck, talks like a duck, looks like a duck, etc., .we know that it is a duck.
Dawkins and ID are both in different ways limited by their ideology do they fail to understand how natural selection really works to guide evolution. I am afraid that evolutionists do not have a good theory as to how new order is created through evolution, except that it was. But unless God did it through a rational guided process like random variation and ecological natural selection it would not have taken place.
ID is a specific hypothesis about the world. I do not equate it with creationism even though it is true that many ID proponents are creationists of some kind and they go out of their way to pander to YECs. I equate ID with attempts to throw shade on scientific consensus. I just tell my kids ID thinks God’s design is empirically detectable, and I and most scientists don’t. Then I teach them evolution and why it doesn’t work to take the Bible literally all the time.
I personally find fine-tuning kind of fascinating. Not because it is proof of a Designer, but if you already believe in one, it’s pretty cool to think about.
And I bet, thanks to Christy, they have a jaundiced view of flat-earth now too, and won’t spend the requisite share of time on their material to give that a fair hearing either.
No, not what Dawkins is doing. He is using the junkyard argument in exactly the same way as Hoyle and IDists. The point, which Dawkins argues convincingly, is that the appearance of design in biology cannot merely be attributed to the sharpshoote fallacy, contrary to what you insinuated. Hoyle, Dawkins, and IDists are all in agreement here. Which by your logic includes Dawkins among the creationists.
I don’t believe that is actually true. You can find many mainstream evolutionary proponents, such as Dawkins, who takethe appearance of design seriously, and believe it deserves empirical investigation. I even saw a thread by Matheson over at Peaceful Science, and he is by no means friendly to the ID movement. This is the fundamental ID claim, that design has an empirical signature, and it is very mainstream. What is not mainstream is the Biologos position that there is no empirical component to design. What Biologos is pushing has the same mainstream traction as flat earth.
Ah, yes… just as I’ve discussed before… if God had carved the Ten Commandments onto those tablets, Moses would never have been able to empirically detect God’s handiwork.
I think they would say there is no reason for science to stop looking for a natural explanation and people who insist that if something can’t currently be explained, it is proof of God or a (not part of the natural world) Designer are relying on god of the gaps arguments. I don’t think there is really all this animosity toward the idea of research into apparent design. The main frustration is with Christians using bad arguments to try to discredit established science and foment distrust of scientists. Not trusting scientific expertise is a problem in the church, especially Evangelical churches (BioLogos’ primary audience) as we can all clearly see from the rampant stupidity on display right now in many Christian circles.
Fortunately, none of that happens with the official ID proponents. In fact, Biologos can join forces with ID on all those points. With your powers combined!..
I also think mainstream evolutionists like Dawkins would disagree with Biologos that a dedigner is in principle scientifically undetectable. So there too Biologos is the fringe position and ID is mainstream.