withallyourmind.net

In recent correspondence, a friend suggested that Intelligent Design is guilty of committing the fallacy of begging the question when it assumes that an intelligence not limited by matter and energy would create design patterns detetectable by humans. My paraphrase of his argument is that ID assumes the universe is designed in order to prove it is the work of a designer. One need not assume design to conclude that something appears to have been designed. If I walk into a room scattered with children’s blocks containing letters on their faces, I might conclude that they were by chance spilled or thrown to the floor. However, if I noticed that several were arranged in such a way as to spell, “I LOVE YOU”, I would rightly conclude that some intelligence was responsible for this occurence. The fact that I, as a rational being, can detect intelligence does not force me to conclude intelligence. Rather, I am able to make some judgments concerning whether something is designed or not. In fact, it is Darwinism which begs the question. A Darwinist concludes beforehand that there can be no outside intelligence and that all we observe is the result of natural processes. He then looks at the evidence, and regardless of what he observes, states, “Yes, this is a result of natural processes. He cannot help but conclude as much. No matter how improbable, those blocks randomly fell into the pattern, “I LOVE YOU”.

Begging the QuestionThe fallacy of reasoning committed when one assumes the truth of what one is attempting to prove in an argument.

I came across this link on Andrew Bailey’s Blog, and thought it might be of interest to some people. It’s a (free) set of video lectures from a Caltech class on the study of consciousness and its neural correlates. It is no doubt taught from a materialist standpoint, but I’m sure there is much to be learned, especially for those interested in philosophy of mind. The lectures are here.

I am continually amazed by the misrepresentations of Intelligent Design (ID) by its opponents. The fact is that ID doesn’t identify the source of design, refusing to go beyond what the scientific evidence tells us. To discover the identity of the designer, one must go beyond science.

It is certainly not a movement of fundamentalists who require a literal six days of creation and an extremely young earth. Hoyle, an agnostic theoretical physicist, states in The Intelligent Universe, “The origin of the universe, like the solution of the Rubik cube, requires an intelligence.”

Statements like these are based on a posteriori induction, by examining the evidence and drawing rational conclusions. ID does not attempt to impose upon science specific religious “beliefs”. In the words of molecular biologist, Michael Denton, “The conclusion may have religious implications, but it does not depend on religious presuppositions”.

Opponents, instead of responding to arguments, paint ID as some devious scheme by uneducated Bible-thumpers to cram the Bible down everyone’s throats. Not true. When presented by the evidence, advocates of ID recognize that Darwinism and scientific naturalism cannot adequately explain what it claims to explain…the way the world is.

Rather than blindly adhering to a scientific philosophy (naturalism) that excludes certain conclusions (that there is an intelligence behind the universe), they allow the evidence to lead them to the best conclusion. ID does not wish to see the Bible taught in science class. It only wishes to make sure that the evidence for Darwinism and natural selection is critically evaluated.

We are in the process of redesigning this website. I figured that we don’t have time to type out long and indepth articles, but that if we blog, we will be able to update the site more often and express our thoughts about things as they come to us. We will still post indepth analyses of issues by others in the articles section and hopefully still post some of our own as time allows.