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From: "C. Thompson" <rockwall...@hotmail.com>
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Defining a Scientific Theory of Intelligent Design
Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2003 00:00:44 +0000 (UTC)
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Sean Pitman wrote:
> "Daniel T." <postmas...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
> news:<postmaster-E57770.14495130102003@news06.west.earthlink.net>...
>> seanpitnos...@naturalselection.0catch.com (Sean Pitman) wrote:
>
>>> The question now is, do living things exhibit qualities of structure
>>> or function that go beyond what all known mindless processes are
>>> capable of?  If they do, then an intelligent cause is the only
>>> reasonable option to consider.  However, if a mindless process can
>>> be found that explains what we see in living things with a fair
>>> degree of predictive value, an intelligent cause cannot be
>>> adequately proposed in a scientifically significant manner.
>>
>> Argument from ignorance. Because we don't know how a mindless process
>> can do it, it must have been a mindful process.
>>
>> Surely you must know all the times in the past when man looked as
>> some process and thought the above only to later find a mindless
>> process that explains things. How does rain fall from the sky? The
>> water can't float up because of gravity, so an intelligent being
>> must be carrying the water up to the heavens...
>
> Then I suppose that SETI scientists are just wasting their time?  If
> they find evidence of intelligent life outside of our planet, how will
> they know that some unknown mindless process is not responsible?  It
> all boils down to the weight of evidence that you have available and
> understand right now.  Mindless processes just don't do certain things
> that can be produced with the help of intelligent minds.
>
> If you were to go to the planet Zorg and find a space ship there or
> some strange writing on perfectly symmetrical rectangular granite
> tablets, would you even stop to think that maybe these phenomena were
> the result of some unknown mindless process?  If not, why not?  No
> doubt you would automatically assume design in such a situation, as
> anyone would, because you know that mindless processes simply do not
> create such objects or functional space ships.  You know the limits of
> mindless processes as well as the potential of mindful processes.  And
> you must know something of both processes before you can adequately
> detect the intelligence behind a given phenomenon.

If I traveled across space and found a spaceship not of human design, I
would assume it was a tool made by someone else.  If I find a flint axe, I
assume it was made by someone else.  Spaceships and stone axes are in one
category.

If I travel to the planet Zorg and find an organism there, however, and it
has something analogous to chromosomes, and that organism (which I will call
a Zyxoid) has chromosome analogs that are similar to those I find in the
Mrblok, then I will probably think the Zyxoid is related somehow to the
Mrblok.  There will probably be other compelling evidence, like homologous
structures or identical vestiges of obsolete structures.

Where in all that is any sort of evidence that there was interference by a
supernatural being?  Or even yet another natural being?

Chris