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Author Topic:   Foundations of ID
Jerry Don Bauer
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Message 1 of 2 (203134)
04-27-2005 7:09 PM


I hope by now that those of you not familiar with ID have grasped that it is not creationism but a science concept based on the philosophy of teleology [4] that goes back at least 300 years before Christ to a group of philosophers that had no concept of a personal god at all:
Socrates [1a], Plato, Diogenes, and Aristotle were just a few of the philosophers to argue for teleology when contemplating the origins of life. The opposite pole of the spectrum, the materialists, were represented by such great minds as Democritus, Leucippus of Elea, and Epicurus of Samos.
Socrates once presented the human eye as evidence of the wisdom of intelligent design:
"Is not that providence, Aristodemus, in a most eminent manner conspicuous, which because the eye of man is delicate in its contexture, hath therefore prepared eyelids like doors, whereby to screen it, which extend themselves whenever it is needful, and again close when sleep approaches?And cans't thou still doubt Aristodemus, whether a disposition of parts like this should be the work of chance, or of wisdom and contrivance?"
Although theologically, ID is often traced back to Paley's watch on the heath, what is little known is that much later, others would later tie intelligent design directly into science.
One example of this is the work of English physician William Harvey, considered by many to have laid the foundation for modern medicine. Harvey was the first to demonstrate the function of the heart and the circulation of the blood.[2]
According to Barrow and Tipler [3], Harvey deduced the mammalian circulatory system using the epistemology of teleology: "The way in which this respect for Aristotle was realized in Harvey's works seems to have been in the search for discernible purpose in the workings of living organisms- indeed, the expectation of purposeful activity . . . he tried to conceive of how a purposeful designer would have constructed a system of motion."
Harvey commented to Robert Boyle how he conceived the layout of the circulatory system. He reasoned the shape and positioning of the valves in the system and invited himself to imagine that so Provident a cause as Nature had not so placed many values without Design; and no Design seem'd more possible than that, since the Blood could not well, because of the interposing valves, be sent, by the veins to the limbs; it should be sent through the Arteries and return through the veins.
Today, modern ID is a totally science based discipline that has no ghosts, gods, fairies, leprechauns or metaphysics in it anywhere.
1) ID is defined as: a methodology that employs science and mathematics to detect purposeful design in systems and artifacts.
2) Other branches of science also use tenets of design to detect design in an artifact or a system such as paleontology, archeology, cryptography and forensics. Of course, when those same tenets are used in ID, it is termed to be not science anymore by our detractors.
3) The reason that ID does not require a designer in the form of a deity is that quantum mechanics now provides evidence of an observer to provide the wave-collapse function to make matter solid in the universe. Many of us look to this as the designer. One may call this observer Christ, Allah or Yahweh, agnostics may not know what to call it, and atheists can call it quantum mechanics. ID is one-size-fits-all.
4) We provide a model for initial design based on quantum mechanics just as do molecular design engineers. Darwinism provides no models at all for abiogenesis.
5) ID is not a theory. There is no "theory of ID." There is no such thing as ID biology or ID chemistry. We study science just as does everyone else.
6) ID does not seek to replace evolution, but seeks to pull secular humanistic religion out of science and base science back on the tenets of science. Among that religious doctrine is a philosophy based on no science at all called Darwinism. Darwinism is not evolution as the latter is science based rather than religion based.
7) There is tons of positive evidence to support ID ranging from the fossil record to probability mathematics to science based comparison studies using semiotics to complex symbiotic systems found in nature to redundant systems found in genomes.
Sounds like a start.
[1a] This line of reasoning first condensed and compiled by Mike Gene. Please see reference 1 and read the Web Site listed under that reference.
[1] http://www.theism.net/article/2
Site managed by Mike Gene. KEY WORDS: gene, socrates, paley, barrow, darwin, teleology, materialism.
[1b] Paley, W. (1802). Natural Theology, Chapter One.
[2]Keynes, G. (1928). A bibliography of the writings of William Harvey, M.D., discoverer of the circulation of the blood. Cambridge Eng., University press.
[3] The Anthropic Cosmological Principle (Oxford Paperbacks), John D. Barrow, Frank J. Tipler. Chapter 1,
[4] Greek term for the end--teleology is a philosophy that muses completion, purpose, or a goal-driven process of any thing or activity. Aristotle argued that teleology is the final cause accounting for the existence and nature of a thing. Teleological: an explanation, theory, hypotheses or argument that emphasizes purpose.
Recommended reading: F. M. J. Waanders, History of Telos and Teleo in Ancient Greek (Benjamins, 1984)

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Message 2 of 2 (203147)
04-27-2005 8:15 PM


Thread copied to the Foundations of ID thread in the Intelligent Design forum, this copy of the thread has been closed.

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