The Human Question

To opponents of ID: If someone successfully demonstrated that one feature of nature (I'll call it D below) must have been intelligently designed, then wouldn't this demonstration be able to withstand any number of counter-examplesof parts of nature that manifest either poor design or natural selection? To proponents of ID: If D is sufficient to demonstrate the existence the intelligent designer, then wouldn't the counterexamples that opponents would doubtlessly mention be relevant to the question of the designer's goodness, power and wisdom? Wouldn't the preference for a natural explanation that goes along with the scientific method require that one who recognized the need for an intelligent designer grant only as much intelligence and power to this designer as would suffice to enable it to produce the observed effects? My comment: at the end of the day the ID argument proceeds as if God were an engineer of biomechanisms, and those who think evolution disproves G...

(Suppose IDers succeeded in proving that life originated and/or developed thanks to indispensable interventions by intelligence) Might we not, after having proven that the origin of present life forms required some sort of intelligent tinkering, have to ask whether it could have been done better? (add paragraph with analogy between belief in supernatural guidance of nature akin to my Catholic understanding of Church as supernaturally influenced but all-too-human)

(under construction) Let's start with an allegory like that Dennet uses in his debate with Plantinga. What if a an expert in forensics were called upon in order to investigate the mysterious death by head injury of a victim by head injury. His goal would be to find the criminal IF there was one. But the first thing he must do is to rule out natural causes, which he can do only by taking seriously the possibility that natural causes were the source of his death. To achieve his goal, therefore, of uncovering any possible evidence of human agency being involved in the death being investigated, our forensic expert must first of all look for possible natural causes. In the example given by Dennet, the head injury and the proximity of small but heavy sphere indicate that the latter smashed the former. Instead of rushing to the conclusion that someone used this in an attack, however, the investigator notes that this sphere was very recently photographed on a bookshelf just above the ...

Scientific inquiry, says Eugenia Scott (and plenty of others), requires a frame of mind, called "methodological naturalism," i.e., looking only for natural causes. Certainly, someone who wants to do science must look for natural rather than super-natural causes. But time has shown that many who are initiated into methodological naturalism slide into the conviction that only natural causes exist. The truth of the latter conviction, however, is neither evident nor demonstrable, and relying upon an uncertain assumption goes against rationality. Nor is it necessary to make such a presupposition in order to engage in good scientific work. I propose an addendum to the description of the frame of mind for one engaged in the natural sciences: yes, look for natural explanations when doing science, but leave open the question of whether or not natural explanations suffice to explain everything. One who accepts the just-mentioned addendum will avoid saying whether a part or the...

... with the multi-verse hypothesis?