RE: A short quiz on Intelligent Design for both advocates and opponents of ID

I’ll bite: http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/a-short-quiz-on-intelligent-design-for-both-advocates-and-opponents-of-id/

1. On a scale of 0 (diehard disbeliever) to 10 (firm believer), how would you rate your level of belief in Intelligent Design? (Minimal Definition of Intelligent Design: The idea that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, and not by an undirected process.)

Update: When I say “certain features”, I mean, “certain generic features of the universe-as-a-whole (e.g. constants of Nature) and of living things in general (e.g. the specified complexity of DNA”. When I say “an undirected process” I mean a process lacking long-range foresight.

0

2. What do you regard as the best argument for Intelligent Design?

First off. Get over yourself atheists. I’ve read a lot of people saying things like “non – haha”. ID is a stance. It has a set of arguments. Many people find those arguments persuasive. By necessity, some of those arguments will be more logically sound than the others. Pick the best one. Jesus..

I’d say the fine tuning argument is the best argument that ID proponents have on their side. I made a video once where I said that complexity made it hard to believe in evolution. I guess, that being more foolish made be think that a while ago but I don’t think that anymore.

3. What do you regard as the best argument against Intelligent Design?

The argument from history & human nature. When we don’t understand things, we ascribe it to magic. The problem is, that we’re always wrong. We were wrong about Ra. We were wrong about the scarab beetle. We are wrong about lightning coming from God, disease as divine punishment. When we don’t know something we don’t know it. To say that to not know where something came from is to know where it came from. That is a logical contradiction.

4. I’d like you to think about the arguments for Intelligent Design. Obviously they’re not perfect. Exactly where do you think these arguments need the most work, to make them more effective?

ID proponents must do more than simply trying to bamboozle everyone with complexity. Evolution necessarily explains complexity otherwise it’d be useless so that is simply not enough. Also, enough with the design analogies. Yes, a computer is designed but we could not be.

5. Now I’d like you to think about the arguments against Intelligent Design. Obviously they could be improved. Exactly where do you think these arguments need the most work, to make them more effective?

By putting more emphasis on the problems I highlighted above. However, those are flaws I find in ID. Other people obviously think differently.

6. (a) If you’re an ID advocate or supporter, what do you think is the least bad of the various alternatives that have been proposed to Intelligent Design, as explanations for the specified complexity found in living things and in the laws of the cosmos? (e.g. The multiverse [restricted or unrestricted?]; Platonism; the laws of the cosmos hold necessarily, and they necessarily favor life; pure chance; time is an illusion, so CSI doesn’t increase over time.)

NA

(b) If you’re an ID opponent or skeptic, can you name some explanations for life and the cosmos that you would regard as even more irrational than Intelligent Design? (e.g. Everything popped into existence out of absolutely nothing; the future created the past; every logically possible world exists out there somewhere; I am the only being in the cosmos and the external world is an illusion requiring no explanation; only minds are real, so the physical universe is an illusion requiring no explanation.)

Something like solipsism maybe; or variants of it. I don’t really concern myself with such things. I’m only interested in reality.

Posted under: Skepticism, Science, Religion
Posted on: Friday, August 19, 2011 5:30 PM
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Comments

  1. Posted by: Adi on 8/21/2011 12:50 AM
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    Well I think solipsism is more interesting than intelligent design.... a little bit at least.

    Our conscious mind is connected to the outside world by only 5 senses and each of them have been shown to be not 100% reliable. They show us things that aren't there (tinitus for ex.) or not show us things that are there. Therefore, the supposition that nothing beyond our consciousness is certain, carries at least some weight and that is the foundation for solipsism as far as I've encountered it.

    At least that thought is intriguing while intelligent design is just an infantile fairytale.
  2. Posted by: Son of Nova on 8/23/2011 1:12 AM
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    Intelligent design supporters only truly support ID because it is inescapably tied to the idea that they will live forever. If intelligent design is correct, their egos are eternal. If not, they rot into the nothingness, part on the ongoing process of natural selection.

    It's infantile. Not only because this is what humanity believed in its infancy, and still clings like a child to its mothers leg, but because it is such a self-centric, narcissistic concept.

    However, it is still an attempt at explaining reality. It also had merit in that it challenges the theories of evolution, and strengthens them.

    Of course, making things up is quite obviously the most ineffective way of being consistent with reality. Especially when the fabricated concept is completely un-testable. Thus, if un-testable, is completely irrelevant to reality. It might as well not exist, even if it does exist, because it essentially does not exist to any effect. So what need is there for it to exist at all?
    That is the weakest point of Intelligent Design, I think. It also says a lot that this is the only realm that ID has left to manoeuvre.

    There is only one way to fathom wtf is going on. And scientific query has proven itself beyond all doubt, to provide a method to consistently inform of things.

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