Experts and users discuss intelligent design, evolution, religion in society, religion and science: ’Who Designed the Designer?’ is a Red-Herring Objection to ID
Email addresses will be used to email the information on your behalf and will not be collected, shared, sold, or used by Opposing Views for any other purpose. See our privacy policy.
’Who Designed the Designer?’ is a Red-Herring Objection to ID
- From Discovery Institute
By Discovery Institute - A Positive Vision of the Future
Thank You for your Comment
We review all comments before they're posted. For more on our comment policy, please see our FAQ.
Inconsistent
--Casey writes--
ID doesn't try to address theological questions about the identity, nature, or origin of the designer. The question "Who Designed the Designer?" is outside the scope of the scientific theory of ID, and is thus a philosophical or theological question that can only be addressed via philosophy or theology.
---
This is inconsistent because ID argues that information and complexity requires a designer and thus if they invoke a Supernatural entity, they have to explain who or what created this complex form.
Dawkins has done a great job at turning ID's 'argument' against itself.
And again Casey continues to make the same flawed argument
--
In fact, we can detect design without any knowledge of the designer’s identity or origin.
--
We cannot detect design reliably when we lack any positive data to constrain the designer. It's that simple. And yet that is what ID is attempting to do. Just ask any IDer, how does ID explain the bacterial flagella and you will be amazed that they provide nothing. That's because 'design' as defined by ID is at best a position of ignorance.
It's sad to see how ID keeps using 'bait and switch' between design as defined by ID and design as more commonly understood by the layperson.
And finally this fallacious claim
--Casey
This point illustrates the fact that someone drawing larger philosophical implications from ID does not disqualify it from being scientific. In fact, many Darwinists have argued that neo-Darwinism has larger anti-religious philosophical implications, but that does not make neo-Darwinism unscientific.
--
Of course not, because Darwinism is a scientific theory that stands on its own evidence. However, ID fails not only to present a scientific hypothesis, but worse cannot stand on its own legs. The vacuity of ID at a scientific level is explained easily by ID's appeal to the supernatural.
It's the religious motivations which caused ID to be developed, mostly as an outcome the Edwards ruling, to circumvent the law of the land. It's the religious motivation which has caused ID to remain scientifically vacuous.
Needless to say, the quote mining of Casey deserves more scrutiny but I am taking his suggestion and will retire to my lovely bed. If ID has to resort to this kind of quote mining then the state of affairs are even worse than I thought.
- PvM
September 12, 2008 9:26PM
Reply to this Recommend (2)
Side: No
Thank You for your Comment
We review all comments before they're posted. For more on our comment policy, please see our FAQ.
Miller
--Casey
Even the widely-touted theistic evolutionary biologist Kenneth Miller has claimed in five editions of his popular high school biology textbooks that the implication of evolution is that it works “without either plan or purpose” and is “random and undirected.”(15)
--
Casey should be well aware with the history
--
?
A. I’m trying to set the context so I can give a full and complete answer to your question. So the interesting thing is that this is the only edition of any of the books that we have published, and probably eleven different editions, that contains that statement, and the reason for that quite simply is that I work with a co-author whose name is Joseph Levine, and Joe and I work together on many of the chapters in the book, but many of them we write separately and individually, and this was a statement as I was going through Joe’s chapters, and I feel very badly about that. When this was first pointed out to me, the third edition of this book was in print, I immediately went to Joe, I said Joe, I think this is a bad idea, I said I think this is a non-scientific statement, I think it will mislead students. Joe agreed. We immediately took it out of the book, and that’s why I emphasized that it did not appear in subsequent editions. So what you’re looking at, sir, is a mistake.
(Transcript of Testimony of Kenneth Miller, Day 2 of Kitzmiller Trial (Sept. 27, 2005), pgs. 4-8.)
--
In the end the big difference is simple: ID has no scientific foundations, science does, in other words, there exists a valid secular purpose and the fact that some evolutionists are Christians and others are not is of no relevance.
However, ID's history combined with its lack of content has doomed it.
- PvM
September 12, 2008 9:48PM
Reply to this Recommend (2)
Side: No
Thank You for your Comment
We review all comments before they're posted. For more on our comment policy, please see our FAQ.
Miller in context
Pandasthumb also explored these 'accusations'
http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2006/07/kitzmillerrelat.html
Enjoy
--
We can learn a great deal about the nature of life by com- paring body systems among invertebrate groups and by tracing the patterns of change as we move from one phylum to an- other. As we do so, it is important to keep this concept in mind: Evolution is random and undirected. A common misconception is that evolution has proceeded from one group of organ- isms toward a goal of perfection. This is definitely not true. Organisms are not better or worse than one another – they are simply different. And the ways in which organisms carry out their essential life functions are neither more nor less perfect than one another – they are merely different methods of accomplishing the tasks necessary for survival.
--
Context matters as does complete reporting of the facts.
- PvM
September 12, 2008 9:57PM
Reply to this Recommend (2)
Side: No
Thank You for your Comment
We review all comments before they're posted. For more on our comment policy, please see our FAQ.
Mr. Luskin (accidentally) admits ID is religious.
"The question "Who Designed the Designer?" is outside the scope of the scientific theory of ID, and is thus a philosophical or theological question that can only be addressed via philosophy or theology."
So, to be very clear, ID posits that there is an entity which designs things. This entity is part of the 'scientific' explanation of ID. However, the nature and origin of this entity is "philosophical or theological question" outside the scope of science. By placing the very foundation of the explanation of ID, the designer, outside the bound of scientific investigation Mr. Luskin exposes the fact that he believes the designer must be super-natural. Mr. Luskin cant have it both ways, either the designer is part of a scientific explanation, and therefore amenable to scientific investigation, or the designer is scientifically off-limits, and therefore ID is non-scientific.
Repeating myself for clarity.
Alegedly the designer of life could be intelligent aliens, like say Mr. Spock. If the question of my own origin is a scientific question with a scientific answer, then the question of Mr. Spock's origin is a scientific question with a scientific answer. If the question of my designers origin is not scientific and does not have a scientific answer, then my designer cannot be Mr. Spock, and my designer must be a super natural entity.
And a third time.
All natural explanations can be framed within science explanations. An explanation that cannot be framed scientifically, must not be a natural explanation, and this is colloquially referred to as a super natural explanation. Since the origin of the designer cannot be framed scientifically, the origin of the designer must have been a supernatural event, or the designer itself is supernatural. Q.E.D.
Mr. Luskin, I think you owe the world an apology at some point.
- Matthew Ackerman September 20, 2008 8:05PM
Reply to this Recommend (3)
Side: No
Thank You for your Comment
We review all comments before they're posted. For more on our comment policy, please see our FAQ.