Okay, that was a subject heading that I couldn't resist posting, even though it doesn't quite represent what I'm about here.
Intelligent design theorists look at living things qua engineered, that is, as complex machines. They seek evidence of an engineer in these machines. There are two ways that one could do so. First, one can look for evidence of "pre-engineering." In this case, one looks at how the very constitution of the non-living world both could have been otherwise (and not have been conducive toward the evolution of life forms) but is as it is. Either we won the cosmic lottery or an engineer has been at work at the very beginning. The anthropic principle is such a theory. Secondly, one could look at stages of the development of life from non life or of more complex from simpler forms of life and attempt to show that some tinkering has been going on. This argument would be something like the following: given the earlier state of affairs, there is no way that the later, more complex one could have arisen unless an engineer adjusted things. The two approaches to ID need not conflict with each other, but they can. For one says that the dice was loaded at the beginning; the second says that someone picked up a dice and turned it over so that a beneficial result that was otherwise radically improbable occurred. On the other hand, one can point to some features of the world as evidence of the anthropic principle and others as evidence of tinkering by some transcendent being. Note also that the former is consistent with deism (without necessarily implying it) while the latter is not, for it requires intervention. Need that intervention be miraculous? No. Or rather, an ID theorist might not be able to determine whether or not. Perhaps some supra-human rational being did it as part of his/her lab experiment. Perhaps God sent His angels to do the tinkering through events that could have arisen (however improbably) through quantum indeterminacy. ID can't say. It can, however, undercut the claim that the natural world's origin is explainable entirely in terms of non-engineers.
On the other hand, one might note that living things are not machines....
Intelligent design theorists look at living things qua engineered, that is, as complex machines. They seek evidence of an engineer in these machines. There are two ways that one could do so. First, one can look for evidence of "pre-engineering." In this case, one looks at how the very constitution of the non-living world both could have been otherwise (and not have been conducive toward the evolution of life forms) but is as it is. Either we won the cosmic lottery or an engineer has been at work at the very beginning. The anthropic principle is such a theory. Secondly, one could look at stages of the development of life from non life or of more complex from simpler forms of life and attempt to show that some tinkering has been going on. This argument would be something like the following: given the earlier state of affairs, there is no way that the later, more complex one could have arisen unless an engineer adjusted things. The two approaches to ID need not conflict with each other, but they can. For one says that the dice was loaded at the beginning; the second says that someone picked up a dice and turned it over so that a beneficial result that was otherwise radically improbable occurred. On the other hand, one can point to some features of the world as evidence of the anthropic principle and others as evidence of tinkering by some transcendent being. Note also that the former is consistent with deism (without necessarily implying it) while the latter is not, for it requires intervention. Need that intervention be miraculous? No. Or rather, an ID theorist might not be able to determine whether or not. Perhaps some supra-human rational being did it as part of his/her lab experiment. Perhaps God sent His angels to do the tinkering through events that could have arisen (however improbably) through quantum indeterminacy. ID can't say. It can, however, undercut the claim that the natural world's origin is explainable entirely in terms of non-engineers.
On the other hand, one might note that living things are not machines....
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