Turns out Random is Better (Evolution)

by dhw, Monday, February 22, 2010, 14:14 (5198 days ago) @ xeno6696

MATT: Dembski asserts that a goal IS in mind, and most ID advocates also claim a teleology [...].-For the discussion going on between you and me, I really think you should forget about Dembski, along with the other ID teleologists. I was only challenging statements you made about design: i.e. the obligation to distinguish between a random transmission and an intelligent one, and to prove that the underlying system has a distinct goal. Since you're prepared to accept my rephrasing of your original statement, you and I can put that issue to bed.-MATT: An often repeated argument that you use a form of, is that if it takes a 'Nobel-winning' intellect to deduce the mechanisms of life, then it must have taken a similar intellect to have manufactured the mechanism.-The analogy you offer is water (and lightning in your discussion with David). You might as well compare the call of the cuckoo to Beethoven's 9th. We're talking here of a mechanism which at one and the same time is animate, reproduces itself, is potentially capable of adaptation and innovation, and has led from inanimate matter to us. That's my amateur way of putting it. David has given you a more scientific response. The origin of life, heredity and evolution in our experience is unique, still unfathomed, maybe even unfathomable, and there is no analogy to its mechanisms. However, in your discussions with me, you need to keep in mind that I can only deal in negatives: for reasons you already know, my agnosticism consists in not believing in the chance creation of life, and not believing in a designer. "Must have..." is therefore too conclusive for me. "We can't discount..." is closer to my way of thinking.-MATT: Science is based on a very high degree upon materialism. [...] If you're going to prove a case via science, you have to accept some of the materialist assumptions or you can't really trust science.-Agreed, if you're talking about technology, medicine, architecture, and the material universe as we know it. I don't think theists would disagree either. But not all cases can necessarily be proven by science, and until they are, materialist assumptions can lead to prejudgement. In relation to the origin of life, David says "there will never be the proof you want", and acknowledges the leap of faith necessary from disbelief in chance to belief in a designer. By the same token, I would argue that until materialists provide proof, they too must take a leap of faith from disbelief in a designer to belief in the creative power of chance. But I have never yet met an atheist who acknowledges this. -MATT: My complaint is really (surprise) of a practical nature. [...] From a researcher's perspective it [ID] has been a dead end. 
As I said earlier, I don't see why an ID-er shouldn't emulate the great religious scientists of the past in investigating origins and processes in order to illuminate the way God may have put things together. You don't have to be an atheist to study nature. But if scientists of any persuasion manipulate their findings to fit their theories, then they're not true scientists, and they deserve to come to a sticky end as well as a dead one.