Subject: Re: JH: The Design Argument
Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2001 14:22:35 -0700
From: Brian Holtz <holtz@eng.sun.com>
Organization: Sun Microsystems
Newsgroups: alt.atheism.moderated

Rick Gillespie wrote:

> Mr. Humphries said:
>
> >I consider that it is possible to provide
> >a version of the argument from design which makes a good inference
> >too best explanation.

Perhaps then, Jim,  you'd be willing to answer two meta-questions about the
argument from design:

In the past, your god was used to explain the "gaps" caused by the absence of a
naturalistic understanding of physics, astronomy, meteorology, agriculture, and
physiology. Most of these gaps began closing after 1500, but by 1850, there
were still no naturalistic explanations for the origin and diversity of life,
the mechanism of mind, and the origin of the universe itself. In 2000,
compelling naturalistic explanations already existed for the diversity of life
and the mechanism of mind, while outlines of naturalistic explanations were
being formed for the origins of life and the universe itself. If by 2150 there
exist naturalistic explanations in these four areas that are as widely accepted
as (say) heliocentrism, what significant gaps in the universe's design will be
left for your god to explain?  Would you abandon theism if the Argument From
Design lost these last four major pillars?

> Every Argument From
> Design I have seen fail on at least two items:
>     1. No definition of design, or how to recognize it, is given.
>     2. The argument reduces to personal incredulity.

Rick, would you really lump the Teleological Argument (i.e. the Argument From
Design) in with such losers as the Ontological, Cosmological, and
Anthropological Arguments?  After all, there are still 18 to 22 fundamental
dimensionless physical constants that theists like to claim are fine-tuned for
the universe to support life. I would agree that inferring theism from biology
is pretty foolish, but it's not (yet) completely foolish to infer deism from
physics.

(For a list of fundamental dimensionless physical constants, see section 3.1 of
my book Human Knowledge 2000 at http://humanknowledge.net.)