nanosoliton
Posts: 11
Joined: Jan. 2003
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This is my last post for the night. See you all tomorrow.
Wesley:
You appear to be making an "argument from restricted connotation". Your connotations of "intelligent design" and "antievolution" do not count as universally or even widely acceded.
Nelson:
Even if this is true, it is quite irrelevant. If I can function well, and even contribute to, Intelligent Design using these connotations, and even if I am the only one, then I have essentially refuted the idea that intelligent design is necessarily antievolutionist.
Wesley:
I think that it is clear that ID advocates -- and this category is inclusive of many holding a young-earth creationist view -- often urge consideration of "evidence against evolution". The plain import is that these people take an antievolutionist stance.
Nelson:
Again, I think that ID, even if the IDer is a YEC, usually addresses the mechanism of evolution. Even Paul Nelson, a YEC, has stated this. Most YEC clothes are removed when they enter into a particular ID field. No evidence for a young earth, or for the inspiration of the Bible, can be found in any ID literature. If YECs can co-exist with evolutionists like Behe et. al. , then why call ID as a whole antievolutionist? Why not address specifically which antievolutionist within ID is urking you?
Wesley:
Having taken pains to urge ID as a "big tent" idea, ID advocates cannot simply dismiss those of their ranks who hold to a YEC stance, or repudiate their use of ID rhetoric and arguments. Those YEC advocates of ID are just as much part of the movement as those who are OEC or partial accommodationist.
Nelson:
And the evolutionists and atheists within ID are just as much part of ID as the YECs and OECs are. So what?
Wesley:
As for the link to the description of the Rodney LeVake case, Nelson may not recognize why the link is relevant, but others will easily see that LeVake is an ID advocate who espouses the "evidence against evolution" strategy of antievolutionary activism.
Nelson:
The link to Mike Gene's "front-loading" evolution will see that Gene is an ID advocate who espouses ID as a mechanism for evolution and does not flat out reject evolution as YECs do.
Wesley:
I have no idea why ID should be urged by Nelson as a "mechanism" of evolution, when we have a proclamation by no less an authority than William Dembski that ID is not that kind of theory.
Nelson:
William Dembski has stated:
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To be sure, mechanisms can be programmed by an intelligence. But any such intelligent programming of evolutionary mechanisms is not properly part of evolutionary biology.
Intelligent design, by contrast, teaches that biological complexity is not exclusively the result of material mechanisms but also requires intelligence, where the intelligence in question is not reducible to such mechanisms. The central issue, therefore, is not the relatedness of all organisms, or what typically is called common descent. Indeed, intelligent design is perfectly compatible with common descent. Rather, the central issue is how biological complexity emerged and whether intelligence played a pivotal role in its emergence.
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In fact, this is exactly what I have in mind when I say ID is not necessarily anti-evolutionist.
Wesley:
As noted before, ID advocates seem to tell us, "ID is what we say it is, and we don't agree."
Nelson:
I think that ID is quite simply design detection within Biology. All IDers agree with this. I think that even YECs realize, (or at least they should) that philosophical baggage inherent in their, or anyone else's, pressuppositions must be abandoned for the sake of finding the empirical truth of intelligent design, even if this means "re-taking" evolution from BWM advocates.
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Nelson Alonso
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