guthrie
Posts: 696 Joined: Jan. 2006
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Wow, just when you think its gone quiet, up pops Dembski, with another rehash of teleological thought:
thunder and lightning
Quote | (1) IC (irreducible complexity) presupposes a basic primary purpose/function of a system — what is the basic purpose/function here? (making loud noises, illuminating the earth, generating heat, …); |
So Dr Dembski, what is the basic function of a flagella? Or a human arm? Indeed, upon what basis do you presuppose a primary purpose of a system?
Quote | (2) the question confuses the necessary conditions for a system existing at all with its parts (the sun is no more “part” of lightning and thunder than water is “part” of the bacterial flagellum); |
I dont quite get that- what part of "if there was no life on earth, there would be no flagellae" does he not get? Water is a necessary part of the flagellum, because without the water, the flagellum is useless. (At least in ID world, in the real world it might get used for something else, like microbial sadomasochism.)
Quote | (3) IC needs SC (specified complexity) to nail down design, which means that the parts coming together have to be highly improbable — ignoring the last point, what is the probability of the sun, the earth, the evaporation of water, etc.? Do they not, on materialist principles, follow by necessity from deeper physical-chemical processes and laws? |
But on theistic principles, they come from the designer, right? DEmbski seems terminally confused as to what game he is trying to play.
Quote | (4) Where are the independently given patterns — specifications — that allow the explanatory filter to operate and thus, according to my theory, implicate design? |
I wish you'd tell us, we don't know.
Quote | Lightning serves a very useful purpose or function in the ecology of forests and plains. Certain plants depend on fire to release their seeds, which will not have suitable habitat to germinate unlesss the brush has been cleared off by the fire, as well. Without fire, typically provided by lightning in natural environments, these plants are not able to reproduce.
Gravity serves a very useful purpose too. Without it there wouldn’t be any air for those plants to breathe and they’d die. So what exactly was your point? -ds |
Ahhh, lovely. DS misses the point completely.
The rest of the comments are typical.
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