You can tell me I don't know what ID is all you like, but that will not change the fact that I understand it quite well. Not only that, it cannot reverse the fact that I presented a real challenge to ID with my original post.
If in fact this poses no problem for ID theory, then by all means address the taxiflora instead of lobbing ad hominem attacks on me.
We have had several threads devoted to the tenets and nature of ID theory itself and you have declined to particpate in them or dropped out when you were proven wrong. That and the fact that you pop up here and did not address the topic of how ID theorists handle x mediterranean from its "epistemological" perspective leaves me less than interested in responding, but sometimes I can't tell when to leave good enough alone.
warren writes:
You obviously don't understand what ID is all about. ID is not truly theory, nor hypothesis. ID is a distinct epistemology. ID, like methodological naturalism, is a framework for theories and hypotheses, an epistemological underpinning for theories and hypotheses.
I have discussed this pretty much in depth in the threads you appear to enjoy avoiding. You apparently do not understand what ID is about if you believe that it is purely an epistemological replacement.
There are two levels of ID. One level is certainly to address (ie criticize) the methodological naturalism which underlies science as a whole (evolution just one of many scientific theories).
The other is to replace evolutionary theory (the theory that speciation was the result of evolutionary processes) with the theory that different species were the result of intelligent design.
If I am incorrect, please explain how the mousetrap-flagellum analogy relates to epistemology and not explanations of speciation. On that subject, please explain the entirety of Behe's "Darwin's Blackbox" as well as the entirety of Wells' "Icons of Evolution." Neither are focused on philosophical targets. The question is of explanatory power of evolutionary theory, and proposes that design is the logical replacement.
It is true that some ID theorists, perhaps many, have focused on the first level of attack. Most notably Dembski and Johnson. That does not remove the FACT that evolutionary theory is the target of replacement.
If not then we'd be talking about "Hume's black box" and the "Icons of methodological naturalism".
warren writes:
ID removes the assumption of non-teleology from the epistemology of origins research and the evolutionary sciences, putting them on epistemological par with archaeology and SETI.
This simply shows you have no understanding of either archeology or SETI. Both are firmly rooted in methodological naturalism.
If they were based in teleological epistemology then SETI would not be trying to discern possible intelligently created radio signals from natural ones, by matching similarities to human communications. What it would be doing is trying to figure out who created all of those radio waves and what each one meant.
Likewise archeology would not be asking was this item manmade or not, and if so for what purpose, it would be asking for all items: who made this and why.
Actually trying to use two sciences, grounded in methodological naturalism, which attempt to determine whether something was designed, as an argument for shifting the grounding of science to a teleological based epistemology is absurd.
Find some science which is firmly based in epistemic teleology that has been successful as a tool for understanding the world around us, and maybe ID arguments along that line would make more sense.
Unfortunately for ID theorists it's not like such telic sciences have never existed. They were once prominent... and they all crapped out. Dembski's horrific attempts to revive them from the dead make me wonder how necromancy squares with his Xtian beliefs.
Your first quote from Gordon exhibited a hallmark of ID discussion: building strawmen.
Methodological naturalism in no way states that things may not, or do not, have teleological natures. The only thing that methodological naturalism precludes is stating that they have such natures or assuming that they do, before there is any evidence along those lines. Making such presumptions will more often (in fact "always has" is a better description) thrown scientific investigations off course.
Thus one can easily grant that "teleology might be an objective part of nature", but one cannot use teleology as an explanatory force for phenomoena, until it has some explanatory force for that phenomena. Otherwise one is jumping the gun.
Like we could start every chemical investigation with the assumption that ionic bonding somehow plays a part. We could even grant that ionic bonding is the principle force behind all chemical reactions. But we'd end up ill served by such an assumption.
Likewise while teleology may exist in nature, it is pretty clearly not necessary in all natural events, so starting with that assumption in every case (even with biology) would seem equally ill-served.
The second quote shows the other hallmark of ID: lying to make it appear ID isn't doing or saying what it quite evidently is doing and saying. This is heightened by the ever present mantra "we're not saying evolution is wrong, just that evolutionists are such deceitful ideologues you can't believe what they say."
warren writes:
"Design theory is at best a supplementary consideration introduced along- side (or perhaps into, by way of modification) neo-Darwinian biology and self-organizational complexity theory. It does not mandate the replacement of these highly fruitful research paradigms..."
Explain very carefully what this statement means. How does the presupposition that life was designed, or may have been designed, fit alongside basic research into biological structures, and more importantly the nature of speciation?
Then square it with the anti-neo-darwinist rhetoric through most ID literature.
You know I could pull up many ID quotes regarding how it has nothing to do with Xtianity. Nevermind that the title of one of Dembski's book is bridging science and religion (specifically Xtianity). Nevermind that the discovery institute talks about how replacing evolution with teleology will have some sort of moral consequences which they can tell you about as Xtians. Nevermind that they punk on any evolutionist who declares themselves as an atheist (as proof that evolution leads to atheism... ID can't?).
Just because someone says something doesn't make it true. You just have to look at how it logically fits together. ID is not a part or partner of neo-Darwinism, otherwise it would simply be neo-Darwinism.
warren writes:
You seem to equate ID with the proposition that every species is specially created from scratch by the intervention of a designing intelligence.
This just goes to show you don't know what I think ID is about. I am not going to repeat all of my posts in other threads which you have ditched. Go to the myriad of ID threads that I have either started or responded to you--- and you disappeared--- to piece together what I think of ID.
What really galls me is I even started a thread to explore real evidence of design in biological organisms. In that thread I stated there could be objective evidence along the lines of what archeo or SETI uses to make such a determination.
While ID theory makes the epistemic and methodological mistake of presuming design, there are certainly reasons to believe criteria of some kind could be developed to detect "design" and perhaps reasons we will need to develop such criteria as genetic engineering becomes more prevalent.
Where were YOU to stick up for me, or to develop credible ID methodology along these lines?
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holmes
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