dangerous liberty

Dan of Migrations asks Are all IDers inane creationists?

He says up front most creationists are intellectually dishonest. That fits arguments I’ve heard made by Young Earth creationists. But I wonder, is an intellectually dishonest creationist one who believes God somehow is the cause of reality as we perceive it or are they of the YEC variety, which requires science be founded first in their interpretation of the biblical creation myth?

I don’t know which case Dan is using the term, but I’ve noticed blurring distinctions between the two cases to confer illegitimacy to the former is a very common tactic (intellectually dishonest as well) among darwinism’s defenders.

He praises Mike Gene because “because he takes the first step and admits the blatantly obvious: that the existence of God is not a scientific issue, but a theological one.”

First, this is technically innacurate. the existence of God is a metaphysical issue, not theological. Theology considers the nature of God and his laws - God’s existence is assumed.

Second, the non-existence of God is also metaphysical. Science doesn’t prove or disprove God. In fact, science is by its very nature limited to describing the mechanics of reality. The ultimate questions cannot be answered by science (to believe otherwise is sitll belief), so we look to philosophy to give meaning to observation. It’s a human thing and based in belief, whether you start with the premise the material/natural is all there is or not.

I have this in mind when he concludes, pointing to this post at Telic Thoughts as proof of ‘where the interests of IDers lay’:

Thus far at least, all of the books mentioned are either explicitly dealing with religious concerns, and/or are very misleading about science

Funny how he can draw such a conclusion from 4 posts (including the blog entry)! All the books mentioned (’thus far’) are either explicitly religious or misleading about science, according to Dan. Has he read all the books listed which he claims are misleading about science or does he just assume it?

My own entry, which immediately preceded Dan’s trackback, had 3 which touched on matters of faith, 4 on economics and/or political theory and 4 children’s books (they are important to me, becuase they are important to my 5 year old!).

The post before mine had half touching religion and the remainder related to computer programming. The other two posts were largely religious/phisosophical.

Now, is Dan deliberately misleading or being lazy? I’d say the former, consiidering the way he used the ‘creationist’ slur throughout.

In the post Conservatives Against Intelligent Design, Indian Cowboy reveals the astounding ignorance of what ID proposes which is sadly so common among those who oppose it, especially those who do so because they consider it a “perversion of science”.

I’ve looked at his prior posts and see nothing indicating depth where this issue is concerned. The rub with ID proponents isn’t and has never been ‘evolution’, but the Darwinian inference those changes and ultimately life itself is a result of undirected mutations and chance. This is not provable by any experimental standard Indian Cowboy would consider good science. I’d challenge him and others to point me to the experiment designed to observe random and undirected mutations over vast time without any intelligence influencing the mutations!

From a blog entry I wrote a few months back:

When critics dismiss ID arguments out of hand as ‘not Science’, they attempt a pass on addressing the arguments that are being put forward for this theory.

If one were to study intelligence and come up with general rules or properties of intelligence, would critics consider that science? If they were then to apply those rules to observable and documented processes or structures in nature (for instance, the ATP synthase motor), is that science?

The fact is, critics do not know if the micro-evolutionary process of adaptation is built in (ie ‘designed’) or if it is part of a larger purposeless process. They start with the premise it must be the latter and circle around to prove their original premise.

NDE proponents do not know that natural processes account for the origin of life. That is simply a matter of their own faith! Got gaps? Natural selection or infinite monkeys on infinite typewriters eventually producing the works of the old Bard is the answer!

I’m wide open to science and believe in the scientific method and the rigor of review and critique. It is critical to a decent understanding of our physical world. But I also know that with humans, the philosophic framework by which we view the world around us informs our conclusions about that world. Naturalists deny this when they deny their faith in science to provide the answers and their faith that observable, quantifiable nature is the means to all ends of understanding.

The bottom line? Critics should practice a little more intellectual honesty with their own faith based narrative and acknowledge the science upon which the nascent ID movement draws the design inference.

Intelligent Design is more a modifyier of Evolutionary Theory (in all its forms), than a replacement. I know of few ID proponents who discount the mountains of science showing the earth and universe to be very old and living things to undergo change over that time.

Is anyone game for polite exchange on the topic? Help resurrect this old post on my forum and join in!

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ScrappleFace: Harvard to Prove Life Began Without ‘Major Grant’.

Tee, hee. Scott Ott is brilliant:

“Harvard University has proven over the years that the more complex something is, the less likely you are to find any intelligence behind it,” said an unnamed university spokesman. “In fact, this ‘origins of life’ project started out as an accidental ink spill on paper, and it just developed from there.”

The irony. Oh, the irony so many smart know it alls of the naturalist bent seem to miss…