And Steve, science is irrelevant to creation. (I see no value in debating what design / designer means BTW)
Ian On Mon, Oct 25, 2010 at 12:46 PM, Steven Peterson <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi 118, > > >>> Steve: >>> Intelligent design doesn't require a God but it does require a >>> designer. ID allows for the possibility that the designer could be an >>> omniscient and omnipotent being. If so, then it would be impossible to >>> detect design since an omnipotent designer could design something to >>> appear in every way like it was not designed. There would be no way to >>> distinguished designed from not designed if we allow for such >>> omnipotence. So ID with an omnipotent designer can not be science. >>> > > 118: >> Yes, some of that I get. The science comes in when we observe the design >> and try to make attributes to the designer. A hard chore, but how >> architects minds work can sometimes be clued in by what they design. So, >> science cannot point to the ultimate because of its nature, but it can >> broaden understanding to provide meaning. If designer implies intent with >> objective, then we can hypothesize on the intent and try to predict the >> objective. Some like to do that. > > Steve: > But we can't infer design without knowing something about the > designer. As I said, if we suppose that the designer may be an > omnipotent being, then there is no way in principle to distinguish > something designed from something not designed. > > > Steve: >>> William James pointed out the problem with Creationism 100 years ago. >>> No matter what we observe we could hypothesize that it was designed to >>> be exactly that way. No conditions could ever point to more or less >>> evidence of intelligent design by an omnipotent being. In fact, even >>> if our observations were completely different, they would be no more >>> or less consistent with the hypothesis of ID than what we actually >>> observe. ID theory can't tell us how the world _is_ because it would >>> be no less true about any other imagined world that _ isn't_. It is >>> impossible to find evidence for or against the hypothesis of ID and it >>> is entirely irrelevant to science. >>> > > 118: >> Any hypothesis can be disproved, one simply needs to know the premises and >> validate or invalidate those with observation. Anyone of them will do, that >> is why it takes a good hypothesis to become a theory. Sometimes the >> measurements are hard to define, and it is there where the questioning >> should start. Many of Einstein's theories (to use an example) are still >> under intense scrutiny, as they should be. The point is to give us >> something to look for. ID is something to look for. It can have meaning >> and should not be dismissed as an illusion. > > Steve: > A scientific theory tells you where to look and what to look for. ID > can't do that. It makes no predictions, and is therefore entirely > irrelevant to science. It is unfalsifiable and therefore unverifiable. > No evidence could ever confirm it since it is impossible to even > imagine evidence that could ever be inconsistent with it. Unless we > can say what it would be like for ID to be false, it is meaningless to > science to say that it is true. > > ` > Moq_Discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org/md/archives.html > Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
