Freethinker: : one that forms opinions on the basis of reason independently of authority; especially : one who doubts or denies religious dogma
By all means let's be open-minded,
but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.Richard Dawkins, in "Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder,"
I think this is especially true with the intelligent design movement that argues for I.D. by emphasizing the inability of natural selection to generate irreducibly complex systems in a gradual stepwise evolutionary process. Because natural process can't explain irreducible complex biochemical systems, they must be designed.
I view this approach as a God-of-the gaps argument-illigitimately evoking God as the explanation whenever science cannot account for some feature or process in nature.
This form of intelligent design rests on a lack of understanding and so I reject the I.D. of the intelligent design of Michael Behe and others. I do believe, however that a good case can be made for intelligent design of the living cell based on what we know and not on what we don't understand.
A few examples would be:
1. Chicken-and-egg systems 2. Fine-tuning 3. Optimization 4. Biochemical information systems 5. Structure of biochemical information 6. Biochemical codes 7. Genetic code fine-tuning 8. Quality control 9. Molecular convergence 10. Strategic Redundancy 11. Trade-offs and intentional suboptimization
NOT!
ReplyDeleteI think this is especially true with the intelligent design movement that argues for I.D. by emphasizing the inability of natural selection to generate irreducibly complex systems in a gradual stepwise evolutionary process. Because natural process can't explain irreducible complex biochemical systems, they must be designed.
ReplyDeleteI view this approach as a God-of-the gaps argument-illigitimately evoking God as the explanation whenever science cannot account for some feature or process in nature.
This form of intelligent design rests on a lack of understanding and so I reject the I.D. of the intelligent design of Michael Behe and others. I do believe, however that a good case can be made for intelligent design of the living cell based on what we know and not on what we don't understand.
A few examples would be:
1. Chicken-and-egg systems
2. Fine-tuning
3. Optimization
4. Biochemical information systems
5. Structure of biochemical information
6. Biochemical codes
7. Genetic code fine-tuning
8. Quality control
9. Molecular convergence
10. Strategic Redundancy
11. Trade-offs and intentional suboptimization