The ID Report

Post details: Part Two: What a design argument is - and what it isn't

12/11/07

by Denyse O'Leary 09:02:08 am, Categories: Commentary - OpEd, 422 words

Part Two: What a design argument is - and what it isn't

With admirable clarity of thought, Lennox avoids confusing design in the universe and life forms with either creationism or Scriptural literalism. A design argument asserts that the evidence for design in the universe and life forms should be taken at face value, that is as evidence that the entities are designed. And Lennox does just that.

There are several contrary materialist positions:

1. Design is an illusion. In recent years, that has increasingly come to sound like whistling in the dark.

2. Or perhaps there are uncountable numbers of flopped universes out there and ours just happens to be unusually nice. That idea goes down well in popular culture - just think of the FILMS! It can spawn - but it is presently untestable.

3. Lastly, some argue that the question is not a proper concern of science - in common parlance, "Let's just rule it out of order, and ignore the evidence." That raises the question of what science is, if it is not an effort to learn more about the universe we live in.

But a design argument is not an argument for special creation -. the sudden appearance of multicellular life forms out of nothing. Design does not require such events and does not provide direct evidence for them either. In a designed universe such events are at least a possibility, but other inferences and evidence must establish them. The mere fact of design does not establish them.

There is much confusion on this point in North America. Many on both sides profit from the confusion. The materialist atheist benefits the most because he evades the looming falsification of his central idea - an accidental, purposeless universe - by loudly insisting that design means special creation or a universe created in six days (144 hours). Because he usually has the ear of a sympathetic media corps, he can buy a lot of time for his interpretation.

Meanwhile, the special creationist hopes that the powerful arguments for design can be co-opted as arguments for special creation. Having little incentive to help set the record straight, he doesn't.

And at the same time the Scriptural literalist - usually a young Earth creationist - is primarily interested in finding science evidence that conforms to his favoured interpretation of the words of Scripture. Actually, many people in that camp do not even like design arguments, as such because design arguments are not drawn from the Scriptures and can be advanced and defended in the absence of any scriptures.

Next: Part Three Information is the key to understanding

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Evolution has become a favorite topic of the news media recently, but for some reason, they never seem to get the story straight. The staff at Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture started this Blog to set the record straight and make sure you knew "the rest of the story".
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A blogger from New England offers his intelligent reasoning.
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Telic Thoughts
We are a group of individuals, coming from diverse backgrounds and not speaking for any organization, who have found common ground around teleological concepts, including intelligent design. We think these concepts have real potential to generate insights about our reality that are being drowned out by political advocacy from both sides. We hope this blog will provide a small voice that helps rectify this situation.
The Design Inference - The Writings of William A. Dembski
The Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness Center (IDEA)
www.themonkeytrial.com
Website dedicated to comparing scenes from the "Inherit the Wind" movie with factual information from actual Scopes Trial. View 37 clips from the movie and decide for yourself if this movie is more fact or fiction.

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A Brief View of Time and Those That Live There
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Australian biologist Stephen E. Jones maintains one of the best origins "quote" databases around. He is meticulous about accuracy and working from original sources.
CreationEvolutionDesign
Most guys going through midlife crisis buy a convertible. Austrialian Stephen E. Jones went back to college to get a biology degree and is now a proponent of ID and common ancestry.
Darwinian Fairytales by David Stove
Complete zipped downloadable pdf copy of David Stove's devastating, and yet hard-to-find, critique of neo-Darwinism entitled "Darwinian Fairytales"
ID The Future
Intelligent Design The Future is a multiple contributor weblog whose participants include the nation's leading design scientists and theorists: biochemist Michael Behe, mathematician William Dembski, astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez, philosophers of science Stephen Meyer, and Jay Richards, philosopher of biology Paul Nelson, molecular biologist Jonathan Wells, and science writer Jonathan Witt. Posts will focus primarily on the intellectual issues at stake in the debate over intelligent design, rather than its implications for education or public policy.
John Mark Reynolds Blog
A Philosopher's Journey: Political and cultural reflections of John Mark N. Reynolds. Dr. Reynolds is Director of the Torrey Honors Institute at
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