1. Q: Am I assuming that searching for an unintelligent cause is right, etc. A: right or wrong, science only searches for natural causes and my description of how science proceeds is very standard in the field and not mine. I wish I could take credit for it.
I could be verbose, but one thing: Some Darwinists (Crick I believe) have advocated the belief that life was seeded onto earth by aliens. (Panspora I believe). I guess I should have said it the first time, but ID isn't concerned about the character of the designer, its interested in whether there is evidence of design. So since ID could care less whether aliens or God did it, there is no reason to go supernatural with ID, and so it can even fit into a materialist conception of science.
Q: isn't it possible that the reason Michael Behe wrote The Edge of Evolution because he was curious, etc? A: Can't speak for Behe and others, but if they are not curious in a manner that includes conventional scientific investigation, they don't belong in science class, which is the real issue here.
No it is not the real issue (it's a strawman), ID advocates don't want ID taught in the classroom, they want evolution taught properly, with the pros as well as cons (minus false information, an example being what Icons of Evolution is all about) , and they want religion used to promote Darwinism out. Case in point:
http://www.idthefuture.com/2008/02/pros ... s_god.html
How is it that people like Behe aren't engaged in conventional scientific investigation? And why are you appealing to tradition to attack ID?
Q: Why do you neglect the fact that many ID proponents are Darwinists, such as MIchael Behe? A: That's a funny thing about Behe. Sometimes he speaks like he believes evolutionary science and sometimes he doesn't. My initial post questioned specifically his stand on IC and I would like very much your opinion as to how that attitude can be considered appropriate in science. I'm not talking about appropriate in general, just in science.
Is the idea that matter cannot be created nor destroyed also unscientific? There goes the laws of thermodynamics. What about the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle? Is that giving up as well? It says you cannot know accurately both the position and momentum of an atomic particle. It's also interesting, but your standard definition of science also gives a universal negative--that science cannot reach non-naturalist causes. No miracles in science. I'm quite fine with this personally, as science is concerned with investigating the regular patterns in nature, and things like miracles are quite the opposite of that (and thus cannot be predicted), and God is the presupposition of science, so anyone who wants to attack Christianity with science can go ahead, I'll just have fun watching their epistemology self-destruct.
Q: May I blast Darwinists for not being curious to determine if maybe life wasn't brought about by random mutation and natural selection? A: Scientists are open to other evidence than just N/S. Recently epigenetic variation has been getting a lot of attention. Workers in this field are following the evidence.
But of course this all goes on within the framework that we evolved.
Q: I would love to see some explanation as to how you came up with that. (ID proponents aren't interested in how things work). A: My extrapolation from the concept of IR. I assert that the very words, "irreducible complexity," indicate the investigations are over. Writings by the DI confirm my opinion. There are no investigations to find out how or where God has intervened.
Before Behe christened the bacterial flagellum irreducibly complex, he first explains how it works. Maybe the difference is over what you mean why saying ID proponents aren't interested in finding out how things work. If by that you mean they aren't interested in how the machinery of the cell works, that's not extrapolated from the concept of IR, that's made up out of thin air. The reason Behe labels something IR is because he does know how it works, and he thinks he's given sufficient reasons as to why an evolutionary pathway will not have functioning intermediates. If you're saying that it means they aren't interested in finding out how it might have evolved, then that point isn't as controversial, if at all. But, if the point of The Edge of Evolution is to show how much Darwinism can do...don't you think it'd be smart to see how much Darwinism can do before saying it can't do something? (I haven't read the book, just reviews, but it's on my bookshelf and my to-do list (I have read Darwin's Black Box though)). This once again gets us back to the same problem I think we started with--is finding an evolutionary pathway the right place to look for answers in the first place?
Q: And what multiple trails of evidence? A: Volumes worth, and the learning curve is long. Evidence from Paleontology, Geology, molecular biology, genetics and DNA sequencing, etc. Any texts on these subjects (and others) are full of valid evidence. As in any area of science, there are any number of items the authorities fight about, but they agree on the broad outline of evolution. The DI material concentrates on these arguments so I recommend a real textbook.
This is of course after contradictory evidence is weeded out, like the Cambrian and Avalon explosions. (as an aside)
My question: Why is there no huge argument about the specifics of the Big Bang? Your answer: It would probably be because an outworking of inflation theory doesn't lead to eugenics. A: I agree that happened. It wouldn't be the first time Man has misused his resources, nor will it be the last. I'm more interested in what is true and what is not. BTW, how is inflation theory not based on naturalism?
When I said inflation theory is not based on naturalism, I meant that 1) the idea that life evolved is an old naturalist idea. Darwin was beaten to the punch by almost 2000 years by Democritus, a Greek atomist. There is at least a few more people who thought of that, but none come to mind. Darwin himself was a naturalist.
http://www.uncommondescent.com/darwinis ... mr-darwin/
You can also read the rather long (and narrow, width-wise) post explaining that Darwinism didn't become an atheist because of his theory, but his theory came about because of his atheism.
and 2) inflation theory is not a necessary outcome of naturalism. In fact, it was actually believed that the universe was eternal, and it was Christians and Muslims who came up with the kalum argument which argued for a beginning, and therefore a creator (no comment on the argument, I wouldn't use it in its popular form). There are even some people who want the universe to still be eternal, so then we have the oscillating universe idea (Big Bang, expansion, contraction, rinse, lather, repeat).