Clayton Cramer on ID

Clayton Cramer on ID:

Look, being persecuted and retaliated against isn't proof that Intelligent Design is correct, but the evolutionary establishment's foaming at the mouth suggests that ID has hit a nerve that "Creation science" never did. That's because Intelligent Design has a few proponents who are legitimate scientists, working in the fields of biochemistry and microbiology--and some of its criticisms are very powerful.

"... some of its criticisms are very powerful". That's all I've been saying. You fundamentally can't answer the question of origins scientifically. It's an historical question. However, the range of scientific disciplines can be queried for what they have to say about the subject. Evolution's proponents look for what they'd consider evidence of some species having their origin in the mutations of other species, while ID's proponents look for what they'd consider evidence for an intelligence having to be behind what we see in biology and other areas of science.

It's obviously going to be a judgement call of what you'd accept as evidence one way or the other, and that judgement will be determined by your prior philosophical commitments. If you have a prior commitment to a naturalistic explanation of our origins, you'll buy into evolution. If you don't, you might be willing to accept a supernatural explanation of our origins. But the important point to understand is that the ID scientists and the evolutionary scientists are on the exact same plane as far as evidence is concerned.

For instance, if the fossil record clearly showed very gradual changes in species over time from the simplest organisms to, say, humans, that'd be pretty compelling evidence that there was such an evolution. But, that's not what we find in the fossil record. On the other hand, if Behe is correct that certain structures we find in biology truly are irreducibly complex, that's pretty compelling evidence that they had to have been designed.

Permalink | 1 Comment | Tags: Evolution | id 7575

14:33 (utc-5)
edited: 14:57 (utc-5)

 

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I used to have a feature on my site that let you choose to be e-mailed when someone comments on a post if you give your e-mail address. In the notification e-mail you'd get a copy of the comment that was left, an 'unsubscribe' link, and so on. In fact, all the code for this is for the most part still in my weblog application code.

The main reason it's not enabled now is because I don't want people getting my comment spam (and flames) in their e-mail, but the only way around this is for me to approve comments before subscription e-mails go out.

Should I re-enable subscriptions despite the fact that people might occasionally get spam or flames? I suppose I can have a disclaimer that will tell people to beware. What do you think?

Update: Ned just implemented this feature.

Permalink | Comments? | Tags: This website | id 7573

01:55 (utc-5)
edited: 2005-11-14 04:10 (utc-5)