Again, I am not at all disagreeing with you. However, there is a very important point that should not be lost in the debate. Often naturalists (who I have no basic quarrel with) equate Darwinism as the whole of naturalistic explanations. This is a debate of science if science is about finding the reality of nature, including the acceptance of uncertainty. If what you said is a reasonable approach: “Science, by its nature, approaches problems presupposing that we can, if we look hard enough, find a naturalistic explanation.” This does not necessarily mean Darwinism. What some of the negative arguments from ID have demonstrated is Darwinism’s implausibility. However, there is an ideological need for Darwinists to have Darwinism to be true. (As I said previously, the “non-reductive” perspective proposed in ID is intriguing as a potential scientific enterprise, which allows the scientific system to be possibly open, using Paul’s terminology.) Again, history will tell which method the IDers adopted that is correct and which method is not. I feel it is difficult to judge now from the society’s standpoint.
yy | 09.20.06 - 11:31 am | #

yy,

Negative arguments against Darwinism do not come from ID. People making them (the loudest, at the present) may be IDers, but there is nothing intrinsically "ID" about saying evolution cannot explain this or that. The same argument could be made by an IDer or someone who has never heard of Behe or Dembski. Indeed, such arguments predate the modern ID movement. If that is all ID has accomplished, then it has accomplished nothing.
heddle | 09.20.06 - 12:00 pm | #

David,

Do you have a blog post that describes (in a fair amount of detail) your cosmologic fine-tuning apologetic?
Intellectual_Ape | 09.20.06 - 12:02 pm | #

yy,
"What some of the negative arguments from ID have demonstrated is Darwinism’s implausibility. However, there is an ideological need for Darwinists to have Darwinism to be true."

The negative arguments have done no such thing. As Mr. Heddle pointed out, the argument are older than the modern ID movement. In truth, ID only uses old, recycled Creationist arguments. And, those have been long ago refuted, it's just people like you who refuse to admit it.

Oh, but you cling to the second sentence as if that is the reason why the arguments are dismissed. It's because the Darwinists are clinging to an ideology? Let me guess, what you really mean to say here is that Darwinists are all materialists, therefore they are clinging to an atheistic ideology and not listening to the Truth of ID. What you don't take into consideration is that there are many theistic evolutionists of all stripes, because science doesn't deal in religious questions.
GCT | 09.20.06 - 2:02 pm | #

David,

I do not want to comment on the sociological and political practices in this debate. To be fair, there are problems in both camps, and not only one side.

On whether ID is science, I feel it is a technicality. Your following comments are clearly not Darwinism:

“Do science, motivated, if you will, from an ID perspective. There are many believing scientists who are motivated, to varying degrees, by what science reveals about creation.
…
Christians who do science should take the same approach—at least until such time that they devise a way to test for a discontinuity.
…
there is nothing wrong with ID”
yy | 09.20.06 - 2:59 pm | #

Hi, Dave,

Firstly, I'm honoured to be listed as your "friend"!

I suspect that a lot of the political side has grown out of the science, rather than being the original motivation - though obviously I'm detached from what is going on in the US. For example, I assume Behe wrote "Darwin's Black Box" before he became associated with DI - and was the reason he ended up there because his dissent from darwinism led to his isolation in the context he was in? Similarly, as soon as Gonzalez nailed his non-PN colours to the mast, people were out to get him. I suspect that for the people at the heart of the debate, the politics is as much self-defence as anything else.

There are certainly people who are trying to piggy-back on ID politically - and to give credit to DI, they didn't seek the Dover vs Kitzmiller trial.

The problem is, it seems to me, that as things stand, any papers that don't toe the PN line simply won't be published - unless you go to creationist journals and groups, which require a commitment to other things that scientists may well not be happy with. You give the example of the person who influenced you - but I wonder if he was able to allow his presuppositions to be apparent in his writing, or whether in professional terms he had to keep his light under a bushel? This question - "Is philosophical naturalism an adequate framework for all of science?" - has to be made visible. Forget politics. This is a reasonable scientific debate, and it is a crucial theological debate.
Paul | Homepage | 09.20.06 - 4:58 pm | #

Intellectual_Ape,

No single post--but you can download the short version of the cosmological ID talk I give now and then.

Recently gave this Cosmological ID talk at a local Rotary club. (2.3 MB download.)
heddle | Homepage | 09.20.06 - 5:28 pm | #

Thanks!
Intellectual_Ape | 09.20.06 - 10:34 pm | #

waist of time
Anonymous | 08.31.07 - 1:55 pm | #