Comments on: Seeking the Designer

By: Harvey

Harvey — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 20:35:27 +0000

I read all that. I got vertigo from it.

By: Karl Hallowell

Karl Hallowell — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 09:56:39 +0000

Incidentally, this is the approach that is most productive for proponents of the intelligent design theory. Find the designer. Poking holes in evolution isn’t sufficient.

By: Phil Bowermaster

Phil Bowermaster — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 08:48:39 +0000

If either Hoyle’s panspermia hypothesis or Bostrom’s simulation hypothesis turn out to be correct, then you have both design and evolution. And John Smart’s idea of a “designerless” cosmos that increases in intelligence through myriad iterations is predicated on evolution. So I guess my problem with the “whole ID vs. evolution” debate is that it’s really the evolution vs. creationism debate, when it could be something much more interesting.

If the cosmos just plain exists in some absolute and self-explanatory fashion, then nothing would not have been easier. It wouldn’t even have been possible. The trouble with any explanation for existence (including God) is that it demands a context. A self-contextualizing fact is not intellecutally satisfying, as I noted in the update here.

If you say, “Yeah, but God just exists,” well, that seems to be exactly what Hawking is saying about the universe. I want more!

I like the Magorium quote, btw.

By: Stephen Gordon

Stephen Gordon — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 15:39:47 +0000

I was thinking about some of these issues this morning on the way to work.

Ben Stein’s documentary “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” raises the whole ID v. Evolution debate once again.

Frankly, I find that debate a bit tiresome. To my friends on the ID side: no, there is no disagreement among scientists about whether evolution is a reality. Evolution is central to both biology and geology. To suggest otherwise is to engage in dishonesty. And isn’t that a sin?

I would remind Dawkins that there are important questions beyond science. Religion and philosophy are efforts to get those answers.

A couple of years ago I wrote a post entitled “The Miracle.”

The miracle I was talking about is the miracle of existence. It seems to me that we often miss how remarkable existence is. Wouldn’t nothing have been easier?

Wonder and awe is appropriate.

The Mr. Magorium movie has a perfect line:

“Your Life Is An Occasion, Rise To It!”