Hitchens addresses Intelligent Design (Introduction)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Tuesday, October 23, 2012, 19:59 (4391 days ago) @ David Turell


> > 1. We lack a reliable test of intelligence.
> > 2. It is clear, that chance *has* played an integral role in our development. 
> > 
> > The question here is nearly identical: How can you tell the difference between chance and design? What's the defining characteristic? What does chance even look like to begin with? (THAT I can answer, it's mathematical, but I want to hear you and David take cracks at this.)
> 
> Agreed that chance has a role, but intelligence has to have a role in setting up the playing field at first. The issue is whether one can detect teleology to be able to apportion the role of chance and the role of design.-Here's one place where we differ: teleology is necessarily an anthropomorphic idea. It states that because there are final causes in human actions, then there must be final causes in nature.-That's not an easy thing to validate, David. I think it makes your case unnecessarily difficult. -What reason do we have to assert that teleology even applies? Our universe will eventually cool out, become completely flat--and all known existence will be gone.-What is the teleological explanation for that?-And you're avoiding the intelligence question again.

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"