PoAC rant: ID baloney
Nov. 18th, 2006 03:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
velvetpageFirst, the article: http://www.christianpost.com/article/20061117/23510.htm
A few choice quotes: "First, Christians need to realize that part of basic human rationality detects action of intelligence. . . . To explain the first step, the apologist listed emails, Stonehenge, and monuments in Washington as examples that are “clearly the products of intelligence” that would be “irrational” to explain otherwise."
The idea that "anything this complex OBVIOUSLY has an intelligence behind it" is really, really poor logic. It's basically a cosmic conspiracy theory, on the same level as, "My son got autism right after he got his MMR, therefore the vaccine caused his autism!" or even "The number of traffic tie-ups between me and the mall is a clear indication that God doesn't want me doing my Christmas shopping this afternoon." It confuses coincidence with causality, leading to a monumental error. To say that human intelligence is hard-wired to find items that were created by an intelligence is true, as far as it goes. What it doesn't say is that humans often manage to find conspiracy where there is only coincidence. Just because we see intelligence in everything doesn't mean we're right - it means we want there to be intelligence in everything. (Note: I'm not saying God didn't create - I'm saying this particular argument for creation is as full of holes as my cheese grater, and about as useful for holding water.)
On to my next critique. First, the quote: "The questions that result from these discoveries are where did all these genetic information come from and why are they specific to one bacteria if according to Darwin’s theory of common descent they have to derive from a common ancestor?"
I think he's missed a few things here - specifically, a century and a half of scientific thought since Darwin. Does science still postulate that all life on Earth came from a single bit of life millenia ago? My suggestion for this: why is it impossible for life to develop twice or more times, independently of each other? The answer: it's not impossible, just highly improbable. But given the vast amounts of time involved, the improbable becomes much more possible. Other possibility: maybe you just haven't found the links that tie this bit of DNA in with the more common varieties that science has already linked to each other. Just because you don't have the link doesn't mean it doesn't, and never did, exist. It just means you haven't found it yet.
Okay, I'm done.
A few choice quotes: "First, Christians need to realize that part of basic human rationality detects action of intelligence. . . . To explain the first step, the apologist listed emails, Stonehenge, and monuments in Washington as examples that are “clearly the products of intelligence” that would be “irrational” to explain otherwise."
The idea that "anything this complex OBVIOUSLY has an intelligence behind it" is really, really poor logic. It's basically a cosmic conspiracy theory, on the same level as, "My son got autism right after he got his MMR, therefore the vaccine caused his autism!" or even "The number of traffic tie-ups between me and the mall is a clear indication that God doesn't want me doing my Christmas shopping this afternoon." It confuses coincidence with causality, leading to a monumental error. To say that human intelligence is hard-wired to find items that were created by an intelligence is true, as far as it goes. What it doesn't say is that humans often manage to find conspiracy where there is only coincidence. Just because we see intelligence in everything doesn't mean we're right - it means we want there to be intelligence in everything. (Note: I'm not saying God didn't create - I'm saying this particular argument for creation is as full of holes as my cheese grater, and about as useful for holding water.)
On to my next critique. First, the quote: "The questions that result from these discoveries are where did all these genetic information come from and why are they specific to one bacteria if according to Darwin’s theory of common descent they have to derive from a common ancestor?"
I think he's missed a few things here - specifically, a century and a half of scientific thought since Darwin. Does science still postulate that all life on Earth came from a single bit of life millenia ago? My suggestion for this: why is it impossible for life to develop twice or more times, independently of each other? The answer: it's not impossible, just highly improbable. But given the vast amounts of time involved, the improbable becomes much more possible. Other possibility: maybe you just haven't found the links that tie this bit of DNA in with the more common varieties that science has already linked to each other. Just because you don't have the link doesn't mean it doesn't, and never did, exist. It just means you haven't found it yet.
Okay, I'm done.
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Date: 2006-11-19 03:27 am (UTC)