http://www.detectingdesign.com/detectingdesign.html
There are many phenomenon where mindless natural processes can only go so far and no farther. When it comes to the manipulation of certain materials or media, like granite rocks or radio waves, these limitations are known to a very predictable degree of confidence - which is quite useful when it comes to detecting design. When these known limitations of Nature are surpassed to a more and more significant degree, the hypothesis of intelligent design gains more and more predictive value and therefore viability.
Why then when some new phenomena is encountered, especially if it is a fairly simple phenomenon well inside the known range of human-level creativity and production, is the most logical default explanation some as yet unknown non-deliberate process of nature? How does one know that is the most reasonable conclusion without any real evidence that any non-deliberate force of nature can get remotely close to doing the job? How does one know that a non-deliberate process is a more likely explanation than a deliberate process? - especially if one knows how the phenomenon in question could be created deliberately even with human-level intelligence?
Why not just follow where the evidence leads instead of making a priori philosophical limitations to the paths which a scientist may or may not follow? - even if the various potential paths may have very significant philosophical or even "religious" implications - God forbid. Why not just let science be science? The force of gravity must be fine-tuned to allow the universe to expand at precisely the right rate. The fact that the force of gravity just happens to be the right number with stunning accuracy is surely one of the great mysteries of cosmology...
The equations of physics have in them incredible simplicity, elegance and beauty. That in itself is sufficient to prove to me that there must be a God who is responsible for these laws and responsible for the universe.2
Davies, Paul C.W. [Physicist and Professor of Natural Philosophy, University of Adelaide at the time of writing], 1) "The Christian perspective of a scientist," Review of "The way the world is," by John Polkinghorne, New Scientist, Vol. 98, No. 1354, pp.638-639, 2 June 1983, p.638 (Link, Link) aand 2) Davies in his1984 book Superforce.
"It is, for example, impossible for evolution to account for the fact than one single cell can carry more data than all the volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica put together."
"It now seems to me that the findings of more than fifty years of DNA research have provided materials for a new and enormously powerful argument to design."
Anthony Flew Professor of Philosophy, former atheist, author, and debater
theory of ID: (1) design detection: recognition of the complex arrangement of parts for function, and (2) biomimetics: motivation to understand the design and imitate it.
There are many phenomenon where mindless natural processes can only go so far and no farther. When it comes to the manipulation of certain materials or media, like granite rocks or radio waves, these limitations are known to a very predictable degree of confidence - which is quite useful when it comes to detecting design. When these known limitations of Nature are surpassed to a more and more significant degree, the hypothesis of intelligent design gains more and more predictive value and therefore viability.
Why then when some new phenomena is encountered, especially if it is a fairly simple phenomenon well inside the known range of human-level creativity and production, is the most logical default explanation some as yet unknown non-deliberate process of nature? How does one know that is the most reasonable conclusion without any real evidence that any non-deliberate force of nature can get remotely close to doing the job? How does one know that a non-deliberate process is a more likely explanation than a deliberate process? - especially if one knows how the phenomenon in question could be created deliberately even with human-level intelligence?
Why not just follow where the evidence leads instead of making a priori philosophical limitations to the paths which a scientist may or may not follow? - even if the various potential paths may have very significant philosophical or even "religious" implications - God forbid. Why not just let science be science?
The equations of physics have in them incredible simplicity, elegance and beauty. That in itself is sufficient to prove to me that there must be a God who is responsible for these laws and responsible for the universe.2
Davies, Paul C.W. [Physicist and Professor of Natural Philosophy, University of Adelaide at the time of writing], 1) "The Christian perspective of a scientist," Review of "The way the world is," by John Polkinghorne, New Scientist, Vol. 98, No. 1354, pp.638-639, 2 June 1983, p.638 (Link, Link) aand 2) Davies in his1984 book Superforce.
"It is, for example, impossible for evolution to account for the fact than one single cell can carry more data than all the volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica put together."
"It now seems to me that the findings of more than fifty years of DNA research have provided materials for a new and enormously powerful argument to design."
Anthony Flew Professor of Philosophy, former atheist, author, and debater
theory of ID: (1) design detection: recognition of the complex arrangement of parts for function, and (2) biomimetics: motivation to understand the design and imitate it.
