Reciprocating Bill
Posts: 4265
Joined: Oct. 2006
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| Quote (Daniel Smith @ April 05 2009,12:11) | There are a number of natural forces that could make a face on Mars.
You act as if only a designer could make a detailed face on Mars while all manner of natural forces could make life. |
Only a designer could create a face that I stipulate only a designer could create - as part of a thought experiment. Actual faces we discover on Mars won't arrive with such a stipulation.
| Quote | | This is why ID has failed (IMO). ID is actually an extension of theology, but it's proponents are pretending it is not. |
Another way ID has been dishonest is by suggesting that ET (a natural agent) may have been the author of life on earth. But we know you aren't doing that, to your credit. The hypothesis that a supernatural agent designed our imaginary Martian face is no more amenable empirical investigation than is the hypothesis that a supernatural designer gave rise to life on earth.
| Quote | | The truth is - it's easier to reconstruct a hypothetical natural pathway to a detailed face on Mars than it is to reconstruct a hypothetical natural pathway to the first living cell. |
By what metric? A face on Mars that is clearly representational absent agents capable of representation would be much more difficult to explain than an actual organism bearing a face. A "face" that was not clearly representational, but rather coincidental, could (and has) arisen by natural means.
| Quote | | The difference is - you can accept a designer on Mars, but you can't accept a designer for life - period. The scientific method was not applied. |
The hypotheses of a natural designer of a face on Mars may give rise to predictions with the potential to guide empirical research into the question.
The hypothesis of a supernatural designer (the only designer in which you have interest) gives rise to no testable hypotheses capable of guiding empirical research. In a scientific context it is not a matter of "accepting" the hypothesis; those who "accept" supernatural causation (including yourself) have been no more successful in mounting, or even describing, empirical investigation into the question than those who do not - because such investigation isn't possible.
That's the difference. (cf: dead horse, yonder.)
| Quote | | Just as I can argue however, that natural forces could cause a detailed face on Mars, so too can it be argued (as you well know) that natural forces could make life. It's an argument that can't be won or lost. It's a case of prior bias and assumption. The scientific method actually has nothing to do with it. |
That's because you stop just where science proper begins. Begin the actual science, and you find, once again, that the hypothesis that a supernatural designer gave rise to life generates no testable entailments subject to empirical test such that the hypothesis is at risk of disconfirmation. Specific hypotheses with bearing on the natural OOL can and do. That is why science may be applied to the latter, and not the former, independent of any biases and expectations that may also be informing or distorting the thinking of the investigators. The scientific method has everything to do with the success or failure of efforts to construct a natural account of OOL, and nothing to do with the success or failure of your theological assertions.
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Myth: Something that never was true, and always will be.
"The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you."
- David Foster Wallace
"Hereās a clue. Snarky banalities are not a substitute for saying something intelligent. Write that down."
- Barry Arrington
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