Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 65 (9164 total)
2 online now:
Newest Member: ChatGPT
Post Volume: Total: 916,905 Year: 4,162/9,624 Month: 1,033/974 Week: 360/286 Day: 3/13 Hour: 1/0


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   A few questions for Intelligent Design
Gerhard
Inactive Member


Message 2 of 21 (9386)
05-08-2002 4:26 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Legend
03-18-2002 7:28 PM


I am not the authority on the question but the idea behind Intelligent design as I see it (and as it is described by Phillip E. Johnson) is more of an ideological foundation for a methodology, than it is theory. Its followers come to questions proposed about the observable universe with different philosophical presuppositions than those of an evolutionary theorist. So I think it is firstly the ideological foundation required by any method of research. Any theories coming from the new, and frankly refreshing, approach towards answering questions are obviously open to being proved incorrect. Good science would not hold doggedly to a theory, hypothesis or whatever that answers the questions in a contradictory, irrational manner. The term Intelligent Design is used in the sense that, in contrast to the ideas that surround evolution that say the occurence of everything, ranging from the universe to the paramecium was not mapped out and put in motion by the plan of some sort of intelligent first cause. In evolution, it seems that the cause, which is nature, is the supreme fact, and one need not go beyond nature to answer questions that arise within it. Which implies there is some sort of natural cause, unguided and undirected by some originally intelligent source, behind all sorts of things like me constructing these sentences and you understanding them rationally, rather than viewing what i write as garbled nonsense, and perhaps responding rationally to them. Intelligent Design holds that there is something transcendental, and yes omnipotent, and that its intelligence, its omniscience, is the primary cause. And also, that this Designer will leave evidences of how he thoughtfully constructed and planned the nature he created. Here is where the methodology comes in. Here Intelligent Design seeks for evidence that will prove that some phenomenon or another is an impossibiliy without some kind of omniscient originator, just as the Lord Of The Rings is an impossibiliy without Tolkien's designing it. I should dearly love to see the day when statistical chance should create a masterpiece of any kind. The very fact that it is extremely difficult to concieve an undesigned universe, I think, says alot about whether our universe is designed or not. For it is also difficult, perhaps impossible, for us to percieve infinity or eternity because we are such finite beings. Actually, this also shows that a designed universe cannot look like just anything. Whatever it does happen to look like, even if it is something we ourselves have never seen, a designed universe must in some way portray order, logic, and sense of planning. We do not assume that a tornado designed the wreakage left laying everywhere of houses and whatnot because there is obviously no rhyme nor reason to how it is done. We could probably attempt to map out where different types of debris lay but I doubt the map would be completed successfully. As far as the rest of your questions about being able to perceive what a nondesigned universe is like I have no idea how anyone could comprehend that. That's really like asking a general relativist what life feels like when you can sense all five dimensions. He has no idea. No one does.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Legend, posted 03-18-2002 7:28 PM Legend has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 3 by Peter, posted 05-16-2002 9:21 AM Gerhard has not replied

  
Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024