| | Daniel,
I wrote:
Point five does not follow from point four. ID does not invoke God. There's no doubt that many proponents of ID think that a deity is responsible for the design they believe exists in nature, but the ID hypothesis does not lead to that conclusion.
You replied:
The ID hypothesis must come to rest on either 1) a deity, or 2) undesigned or accidental evolution at some point, or else faces a logically infinite regress (who designed the designer...?)
Jody Allen Gomez pointed this out in post 63 on the "Intelligent Design: What Does It Accomplish" thread. The Gramarian's response to this appeared to be that he was satisfied with infinitely regressive explanations, which is of course his prerogative.
I disagree. ID postulates nothing more than the existence of intelligence behind the apparent design of certain biological structures. This intelligence may be greater or lesser than human intelligence. All it means is that evolution of allegedly designed structures was directed.
As for the problem of infinite regression, I don't see it. It's not a scientific issue. We don't need to settle the metaphysics of original causes for a valid scientific inquiry into the origin of the Earth (or even the universe, for that matter). So why must metaphysics intrude upon a scientific inquiry into the origin of life on Earth?
Beyond that, what philosophically precludes the possibility that animate existents have always existed just like inanimate ones? Why must dead matter be the only type existent with that quality? The problem with a supposition like this is that you need to come up with an explanation of how life evolved from dead matter? That continues to elude science. However, if life always existed like dead matter, we don't need the Darwinist hypothesis to noodle upon the origins of life on Earth. The simplest explanation then becomes life brought life to Earth.
And don't see how any of that must invoke the existence of a deity.
As I've noted before, Daniel, I am an Objectivist and partial to Darwinism. However, Darwinism remains unproven, and ID has challenged it with some intriguing questions. So, to be strictly objective, I must acknowledge my ignorance and that of science in general on this topic and not make assumptions that my philosophy cannot justify.
Andy
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