Is Intelligent Design a plausible theory?
Many people treat the issue of Intelligent Design as a matter of purely religious interest; however, as the following article insightfully demonstrates, ID has purely logical grounds and its opposition oft appears dogmatic in its suppression of ID as a serious topic.
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“Many people treat the issue of Intelligent Design as a matter of purely religious interest; however, as the following article insightfully demonstrates, ID has purely logical grounds and its opposition oft appears dogmatic in its suppression of ID as a serious topic.”
Translation:
Many people treat the issue of MAGIC as a matter of purely religious interest; however, as the following article insightfully demonstrates, MAGIC has purely logical grounds and its opposition oft appears dogmatic in its suppression of MAGIC as a serious topic.
bobxxxx
19 May 08 at 3:49 pm
The article contains this quote:
“Thus, the universe viewed as a sequence of causes and effects points back to a first cause which is itself uncaused…”
Can you see the glaring logical contradiction in this statement? Until ID can be articulated without such glaring logical contradictions, it can’t be taken seriously.
JRM
19 May 08 at 6:17 pm
@Bob: You successfully refuted none of the points in article. Magic and ID are as different as Magic and evolutionism or magic and the Big Bang Theory. The only thing that ID postulates is that the universe wasn’t an accident. Science is progressed by pushing the current paradigm–if the issue is as proposterous as you think, present evidence against it. Taunting resolves very little.
@JRM: That’s only a logical contradiction if the universe (and time) has no beginning–that is, if time has been progressing for an eternity. As per the Big Bang Theory, time has a definite starting point, therefore we know that there cannot be an infinite succession of causes and effects. If it is correct to say “every effect had a cause” (and if the Big Bang Theory is correct) then it would also be perfectly logical to say that there was an initial cause, itself uncaused. No part of the definition of “cause” states that every cause has to have a cause. Nonetheless, I sincerely thank you for refuting logically instead of resorting to ignorant denial without consideration.
As far as glaring contradictions go, the current paradigm seems to indicate that the universe created itself, as discussed in the article. And yet the current paradigm has obviously been considered.
Craig Weber
20 May 08 at 7:58 am
Sigh… Intelligent Design is wrong for many reasons, but let’s take the easiest. Observably, design itself is an evolutionary process of competitive selection of variations. The distinction between directed design and blind evolution is the former’s explicit element of purpose (”agency” in philosophical jargon). ID gives no character to the purpose, nor evidence to support a claim of purpose; it is merely a hollow facade for religion to hide behind.
As to the article: the first premise is an unsubstantiated inference presuming an unbounded time coordinate system; the fourth claim is laughable to anyone who has ever taken LSD, or even those whose braincells survived a serious does of ethanol; and the fifth relies on fuzzy definition of “cause” and “effect”, does not justify the validity of the universe being “viewed as a single huge effect”, and assumes the validity of absolute philosophical extrapolation from finite evidence.
The competitive hypothesis testing used in Science can be derived from the minimal philosophical assumptions of formal Logic, Zermelo-Frankel set theory, and Reality having a finite connection to Evidence; under these assumptions the hypothesis that gives the most concise comprehensive description of the Evidence is most likely to be correctly predictive. (A few edge cases aside; details in the paper “Minimum Description Length Induction, Bayesianism and Kolmogorov Complexity” by Paul M. B. Vitányi and Ming Li.)
Intelligent Design is a hypothesis with religious roots and is inferior to present Evolutionary Theory; it and its advocates deserve the respect of any other unsubstantiated religious claim.
abb3w
29 May 08 at 1:43 pm
I think that it might now be time to clarify the religious posts on this blog. While I have no problem with discussions, thoughts, and arguments on any variety of subjects, please keep in mind this is an opinion/entertainment blog first and foremost.
I brought Weber on with two others in hopes of creating stimulating articles. While his posts have been, for the majority, religious in nature, I don’t mind that.
But please remember that the authors of a post don’t necessarily represent the opinion of all authors or even a stance of the site itself.
Lucas
1 Jun 08 at 6:32 am