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From: jillery <69jpil69@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: The status of ID and a personal reflection
Date: Mon, 24 Feb 2025 07:16:18 -0500
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On Mon, 24 Feb 2025 09:23:12 +1100, MarkE <me22over7@gmail.com> wrote:

>On 24/02/2025 1:24 am, jillery wrote:
>> On Sun, 23 Feb 2025 22:43:05 +1100, MarkE <me22over7@gmail.com> wrote:
>>=20
>>> ID is described as "a pseudoscientific argument" on Wikipedia [1],
>>> there's clearly no love for it here, and as far as I know ID has =
limited
>>> recognition within mainstream science. The general public's awareness
>>> and support of ID I believe is higher but still constrained.
>>=20
>>=20
>> Thank you for making this point clear.
>>=20
>>=20
>>> ID has been accused of being a creationism Trojan Horse, and at times=
 it
>>> seems to have pursued a political agenda, especially with education.
>>>  From to time to time, the Discovery Institute and Evolution News
>>> promote a misplaced right-wing perspective.
>>>
>>> Personally, I have a degree of ambivalence toward ID. For example, I
>>> think the 'information problem' claimed by ID is real, but I'm a bit
>>> surprised that people like William Dembski have not been able to
>>> progress it further after several decades (I've briefly but =
fruitfully
>>> corresponded with him regarding this in the past). More recently, on =
the
>>> topic of junk DNA, I get the impression that Casey Luskin and the =
Long
>>> Story Short episode on this may have oversimplified and/or overstated
>>> arguments against junk DNA (I've made a corrective comment on LSS's
>>> YouTube channel in relation to this).
>>>
>>> ID itself is a broad-ish church, for example with a range of views on
>>> common descent and the extent of evolution (e.g. from micro to =
macro).
>>=20
>>=20
>> You recently stated in paraphrase that you reject the possibility of
>> macro-evolution.  Here would be a good place for you to explain how
>> you think micro-evolution would not inevitably lead to
>> macro-evolution.


Just to be sure we're on the same page, why are you ignoring the above
challenge?  Do you reject even the possibility of macro-evolution?
Wouldn't that be just another negative claim?


>>> So, given all this, why would I speak in support of ID and claim it =
has
>>> gained and sustained traction [2]? My comments here are somewhat
>>> subjective, but with supporting references where applicable. To be
>>> clear, this is intended as a more a personal reflection and not a
>>> rigorous treatise (in contrast to other TO posts where I believe I
>>> attempt to argue consistently and from evidence).
>>>
>>> First, the question of origins - either life on earth or the universe
>>> itself - is all-encompassing, multi-disciplinary, multi-faceted,
>>> complicated, etc. One would expect strengths and weakness with =
opposing
>>> arguments and interpretation of evidence, as fallible humans grapple
>>> with these ultimate questions. So the shortcomings of ID are not in =
and
>>> of themselves unexpected or disqualifying.
>>=20
>>=20
>> The shortcomings of ID aren't a consequence of human fallibility, but
>> of it's fundamental inability to make objective distinctions between
>> biological features and functions which are the result of unguided
>> natural processes and those which are the result of purposeful design.
>>=20
>>=20
>>> At its best, I think that ID correctly and non-deceptively infers a
>>> non-specific intelligent agent from an interpretation of scientific
>>> evidence (while acknowledging many ID proponents are Christians). =
This
>>> aligns with my own position and I suspect a growing number of =
Christians
>>> who sit somewhere between YEC and theistic evolution.
>>>
>>> The traction that ID has I think partly flows from this genuinely
>>> "agnostic" stance when it comes to comes to inferring a designer. =
This
>>> enables it to focus on the science alone.
>>=20
>>=20
>> As long as ID fails to specify the abilities of its designer, it has
>> no basis for claiming any scientific foundation for ID.
>>=20
>>=20
>>> Something that needs to be understood is the inherent asymmetry =
between
>>> the positions of naturalism and supernaturalism in terms of how each
>>> applies science. Naturalism is seeking to prove a positive, i.e. to
>>> identify at least one plausible naturalistic explanation of origins.
>>> Supernaturalism, in this context, is required to prove a negative, =
i.e.
>>> on the basis of science demonstrate that all possible naturalistic
>>> explanations are impossible or extremely doubtful.
>>>
>>> One misunderstanding of this logical asymmetry is demonstrated by the
>>> supposed counter-argument, which says that positing God merely shifts
>>> the question to 'Who made God?', which is declared to have no
>>> explanatory power, and therefore can be discounted. Dawkins is fond =
of
>>> this approach. Sorry Richard, but you can't make God vanish in a puff=
 of
>>> pseudo-logic and disingenuous wishful-thinking.
>>=20
>>=20
>> You conflate two separate lines of reasoning here, between denying
>> God's existence and rejecting ID's logic.  They are not the same.  I
>> acknowledge Dawkins might sound as if he also conflates them, and
>> IDists are more than happy to handwave away his arguments for that
>> reason, just as you do above.
>>=20
>> However, unless IDists specify the abilities of their presumptive
>> designer, they have zero logical basis for assuming what it can
>> do/could have done.  My experience is IDists credit their designer for
>> whatever phenomena they don't understand, which ranges from creating
>> the entire universe to creating living things to mutating DNA, all on
>> a whim.  That is why ID has no explanatory power.  That is why it has
>> no scientific basis.  The existence of ID's designer doesn't inform
>> those issues.
>
>Just to be sure we're on the same page, can you restate my 'asymmetry'=20
>claim, and explain if and why you agree or disagree with it?


Your asymmetry claim is simple; that supernaturalism is required to
prove a negative; ie that unguided natural processes could NOT have
been the cause of X.  You present this as if you think it's unfair
supernaturalism would have to disprove all possible natural causes
before it could be considered a logical explanation.  However, there
are logical problems associated with proving a negative. Also, I
disagree that supernaturalism is "required" to prove a negative; it
could be reworded as a logical positive claim.  My impression is
IDists prefer arguments from incredulity precisely because they can't
be disproved.  Perhaps that's the reason why you misinterpret Dawkins'
scientific arguments as religious ones.

<snip uncommented text>

--=20
To know less than we don't know is the nature of most knowledge