niiicholas
Posts: 319
Joined: May 2002
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A great set of Paul Nelson quotes re-posted by GP:
Since my joining this forum, I have had on occasion asked several IDists to define what it means for something to be designed. I believe the closest came when Paul Nelson wrote me:
quote:
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For design (as a real cause, and scientific explanation) to have any empirical content, it must have a contrast class -- namely, natural causes. Now, if one requires the logically impossible, i.e., that we exhaust the universe of possible natural causes, one cannot infer design.
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Even in the critical thread about Dembski's CSI concept, I asked once again what it means to be not designed. And there, Nelson Alonso[+] tells me:
quote:
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Indeed, there are many false negatives in Biology that provide fruitful research prospects for the design inference (i.e. sub-optimal design). A true negative can also be given, as for example, the hemoglobin case, where the specification is quite small and natural selection can indeed select functional intermediates.
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As far as I can see, there is only one common theme running in these two quotations: design is not natural, not evolved. So y'see, RBH isn't the only person with a narrow view of design here when he's in good company with the likes of the Nelsons, nor should he be faulted for picking up on the design notion du jour on an IDist site. Or to bring the point home, if we carry Micah's logic all the way to the other end of the spectrum, everything is designed -- for that is the broadest notion of design possible. And why not? The real shame of it is that design as a concept (as evinced by Nelson) is defined by its antithesis (supposedly natural evolution).
http://www.iscid.org/ubb....01;p=12
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