Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

All design is intelligent. It's scientific at least to some extent bec. you use certain principles. And religious? You bet: I can get into a real trance when I start imagining what I'll do with this color and that shape...

Oh, oops, I goofed, didn't I; kinda off-topic. Ahem, well, far as I'm concerned, the universe reeks of intelligence and is fraught with evidence of a VERY scientific Mind.

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welcome aboard there Ben. Youre personal evidence that suggests design is ?

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farmerman wrote:

welcome aboard there Ben. Youre personal evidence that suggests design is ?

Thankee kindly, Sir. Smile

My personal evidence? Well, like I said: the work I do in my own life I see magnified a million times in the universe around me.

And you, as a farmer, you're inundated by Order and Design everytime you go out in your fields.

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"Order" does not exist in nature, it is a construct of the human intellect overlaid on that which we perceive, in order that we may make sense of it. Nature is supremely indifferent to our conceits about "order."

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Setanta wrote:

"Order" does not exist in nature, it is a construct of the human intellect overlaid on that which we perceive, in order that we may make sense of it.

Hmmmnn, I'll have to chew on that for a while....(But I did enjoy that bit of [unwitting?] word play in there!) But in the meantime, tell me, Sir, how do we **KNOW** beyond a shadow of a doubt that that is true?

Setanta wrote:

Nature is supremely indifferent to our conceits about "order."

Now that there statement tickles me: nature having feelings/reactions like indifference? Nature's not a person (although it sometimes strikes me as having a personality of sorts <g>)

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xprmntr2 wrote:

Hmmmnn, I'll have to chew on that for a while....(But I did enjoy that bit of [unwitting?] word play in there!) But in the meantime, tell me, Sir, how do we **KNOW** beyond a shadow of a doubt that that is true?

How very charming of you to assume a lack of wit on my part. I used the phrase "in order to" ironically, to point up the human obsession with seeing patterns and imposing them on reality as reality, when they are in fact simply idiosyncratic descriptions of what we perceive, or believe we perceive. As for how "we" know anything, you'll need to drop the first person plural, as i have no idea that you know or do not know anything, i have only your posts for evidence. The evidence i see there is that you claim an order exists which you have not demonstrated. I do not consider it incumbent upon me to demonstrate that what you claim without substantiation to exist does not in fact exist.

Quote:

Now that there statement tickles me: nature having feelings/reactions like indifference? Nature's not a person (although it sometimes strikes me as having a personality of sorts <g>)

If simple figures of speech amuse you, and you consider them meat for forensic dissection, i foresee a dull and low road ahead.

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Whew, you are an ANNNNNGRY man, Setanta. What are you thrashing out against the world for? You sound like you're feeling terribly threatened by something, and I can't for the life of me figure out what you're threatened by. You thunder like Zeus, but I'm wondering if you're not just A2K's version of the Wizard (as in OZ).

BTW, I told EB that you and him oughtta get your memoirs published. They'd rival Rick Bragg's.

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xprm, That's what we call an ad hominem - that has no place in debate. Set is not "angry" as you would label his response. He hasn't trashed anything; it's all in your head.

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xprmntr2 wrote:

Whew, you are an ANNNNNGRY man, Setanta. What are you thrashing out against the world for? You sound like you're feeling terribly threatened by something, and I can't for the life of me figure out what you're threatened by. You thunder like Zeus, but I'm wondering if you're not just A2K's version of the Wizard (as in OZ).

This is usually referred to as projection, however, i think the term inappropriate, because i no more know you to be angry than you know me to be angry. If in fact you seriously believe i'm angry, then i'd suggest that you are far too sensitive for the rough-and-tumble of debate here. I don't know you at all, i've merely objected to your unsubstantiated claim that there is an order in nature--and i assure you that this is not a subject over which i would lose my temper. I'm not threatened by anything online--we deal here in dancing electrons, and i've never felt the slightest twinge from an electron being hurled at me. I have not thundered, that is a bit of self-serving hyperbole on your part.

You wrote:

And you, as a farmer, you're inundated by Order and Design everytime you go out in your fields.

In the context of your previous statement about intelligence and design, this suggests that the order and design you've capitalized are not those imposed by FM, but order and design which exist independently of the agronomic management. Therefore, i challenged your unsubstantiated claim for an independent existence of order and design.

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cicerone imposter wrote:

xprm, That's what we call an ad hominem - that has no place in debate. Set is not "angry" as you would label his response. He hasn't trashed anything; it's all in your head.

"All in my head." (Like the order that's patent in the universe?) Neat tactic, C.I.! I suppose his thick sarcasm isn't a case of ad hominem, huh? He uses it an awful lot on this forum. THAT's why I think he's simply the Wizard: this is his place to be the Fat Cat, because he isn't anything in real life. He got henpecked all his youth, so now he flexes his muscles and bullies anybody he takes a fancy to. There are folks here who truckle to him, many flinch under his abuse, and others just simply slink away with their tails between their legs. But I believe in calling a spade a spade.

The fact that he never answered my question shows you he doesn't have a leg to stand on.

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I answered your question, by pointing out that you had made an extraordinary claim--the burden of proof is on you, not on me. Your two-bit pop psychoanalysis does not abrogate your responsibility to substantiate any claims you make.

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Setanta wrote:

If in fact you seriously believe i'm angry, then i'd suggest that you are far too sensitive for the rough-and-tumble of debate here.

No you don't, Setanta. You know EXACTLY what I'm referring to: it's your tone, not your disagreement with me. Expecting respect is not being "too sensitive."

And now, I will try one more time: how do we KNOW that it is only an order we overlay? (Or, if you're going to get stuck on quiddities like the "we," how does one know it?)

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Naw, you just fail to respond to his challenge, and turn to ad hominems instead. It won't work on a2k. Trust me. If you think that's abuse, you haven't been on a2k long enough to know.

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Setanta wrote:

"Order" does not exist in nature, it is a construct of the human intellect overlaid on that which we perceive, in order that we may make sense of it. Nature is supremely indifferent to our conceits about "order."

While human descriptions of nature do indeed involve the overlay of human constructs on the perceived universe, it is simply false to assert there is no intrinsic order in the universe.

Repeatable experiments involving everything from elementary particles to observations of distant galaxies all reveal this remarkable natural order. That the laws of physics can be reduced to four basic forces (in our familiar temperature range), and that phenomena as wide ranging as the kinematics of particles and moving bodies, the flow of continuous fluid media, and the interplay of electric and magnetic fields can be compactly described by relatively simple mathematical expressions all testify to the order that pervades the visible universe.

While nature may be indifferent to our thoughts, it is not at all devoid of natural order, Setanta's bombast notwithstanding.

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Goerge's typical bombast notwithstanding, the most recent of discoveries in physics point toward chaos, not order.

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What xprm said was, "All design is intelligent." His context of "order" follows that premise. Doesn't fly.

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georgeob1 wrote:

While human descriptions of nature do indeed involve the overlay of human constructs.....order that pervades the visible universe.

While nature may be indifferent to our thoughts, it is not at all devoid of natural order, Setanta's bombast notwithstanding.

Ahhh, George, that was balm to my soul. You see, I am not as widely-read as Setanta, nor as articulate as you, but what you've written there corresponds to what I have understood as I look around me and as I do my own work.

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cicerone imposter wrote:

It won't work on a2k. Trust me. If you think that's abuse, you haven't been on a2k long enough to know.

On the contrary, C.I., before I signed up here, I trawled the waters of A2K long and hard, and ad hominem THRIVES here; it's as thick as typhus in Auschwitz. I don't trust you, I trust my own eyes and the evidence that's here.

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Well George I do like your phrase "natural order" it has a pleasant ring to it while at the same time saying absolutely nothing. If we use the common meaning of "natural" we get natural=what the universe is and when we toss in "order" we get to add another dimension that suits whatever purpose we have to arrange what is into whatever we want it to look like. This was a very popular idea with the catholic church some centuries ago especially the "clock work" paradigm which depicted god as a great clock maker with ever so nice and neat astromical clock works in the heavens. But, alas, neither quantum mechanics nor relativity theory upholds that quaint but tidy package. Seems the universe just is what it is in it's natural sort of way. Imposing "order' on nature is even less productive than herding cats.

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cicerone imposter wrote:

What xprm said was, "All design is intelligent." His context of "order" follows that premise. Doesn't fly.

Give me a good, solid example of design that isn't due to intelligence (and please, don't trot in such things as inkblots, etc.).

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Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

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