The Postulation of a Designer (The nature of a \'Creator\')

by whitecraw, Friday, February 22, 2008, 17:18 (6117 days ago) @ John Clinch

"This website seems to be based on a false premise: that the only rational response to the absence (as yet) of a credible explanation for abiogenesis (or other serious gaps in our current knowledge) is to postulate a designer outside the natural processes who decided for an unknown or unknowable reason to act upon it to kickstart evolution and maybe again at different times once it got going." - I'm not sure this is the case. I take the site as saying that the wisest response to the absence of any satisfactory naturalistic or non-naturalistic account of abiogenesis is to adopt a position of agnosticism towards the question of how life emerged from non-life. - Of course, adopting a position of agnosticism with regard to the matter of how life emerged from non-life does not mean (as it does for sceptics like Clifford) that one ought therefore to withhold one's belief/suspend one's judgement with regard to the matter. Belief and knowledge are different affairs, and agnosticism entails only that we cannot claim for our beliefs the certainty concerning their truth that we can claim for genuine knowledge. An agnostic could, following Russell's ethic, give his or her assent to (i.e. believe) the account of abiogenesis s/he finds the most reasonable in relation to the existing state of his or her own understanding and experience. Alternatively, following the ethic of William James, an agnostic could believe that account of abiogenesis which s/he finds most useful or satisfying in the way of belief. - The thing is that agnosticism in relation to any matter neither rules out nor endorses any of the range of possible beliefs concerning that matter. It rules out only knowledge-claims and claims to the certain truth of one's beliefs.