[MD] Intelligent Design

[Ian]

First cause, creation, is not a scientific question. People who are  
genuinely interested would do well to look at the links I provided in  
the earth centred universe thread.

Scientists themselves are confused, are conflating the appearance of  
design in the universe with metaphysical (or theological) questions  
about creation of the universe.

Scientists, like SOMists in general, seem to prefer to argue with  
religious wingnuts than do science. Sad.

Ian

Sent from my iPhone

On 24 Oct 2010, at 18:05, Steven Peterson <peterson.steve at gmail.com>  
wrote:

> Hi Mark,
>
>
>> [Mark]
>> Intelligent design does not require a God, but even that is  
>> despised by many
>> scientists and teachers. It seems that the only thing that is  
>> appropriate is
>> some nebulous randomness that progresses through chance.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> Best,
> Steve
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