[extropy-chat] Intelligent Design -- take *this*...

[Samantha Atkins]

On Dec 20, 2005, at 12:48 PM, Hughes, James J. wrote:

>> Discovery Institute, I was forced to conclude that
>> their current efforts pushing I.D. are indeed a
>> front for a conservative agenda.
>
> Their Senior Fellow Wesley J. Smith is also one of the chief opponents
> of transhumanism-qua-transhumanism:
>
> http://www.wesleyjsmith.com
>
> Wesley J. Smith on Transhumanism on National Review Online
> http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-smith092002.asp
>
> As to your assessment of the scientific debatability of ID theory I
> agree that the kinds of statistical evidence that IDers point to  
> should
> be considered legitimate scientific evidence in support of a  
> hypothesis
> of intelligent design.

Quite a bit of those arguments are flawed in that they use old  
contentions that have long been dealt with well by scientists.    
Statistically unlikely events occur.  How exactly does this support  
the notion that some Intelligent Designer made it so?

> Evidence of the cosmological unlikelihood of a
> universe that could support life is precisely what Nick writes  
> about in
> regards the "anthropic principle." If there is no multiverse, Occams
> razor suggests we wouldn't be here just by chance.
>

This has always seemed like a silly argument to me.  It reifies some  
absolute "chance" roll of the dice as it were and then expresses  
wonder that one of the possible results actually occurred!   Any  
possible outcomes that did not result in intelligent life would of  
course not result in such wonder as there would be no intelligent  
critters around to wonder.   A possible outcome, universe supporting  
life, occurred.  Why is it even interesting that our current  
cosmological models could produce ziilions of universes that did not  
support intelligent life?  How could this remotely argue that  
Something rigged the Dice?

> On the other hand, as the critics say, lack of support for the
> hypothesis of random evolution doesn't support any specific theory of
> intelligent design.

Sigh.  Evolution is not "random".  This is a common strawman of the  
ID folks.


> If there was a body of evidence of statistical
> unlikelihood of our reality, the Simulation hypothesis seems a lot  
> more
> supportable than an Abrahamic God.
>

Statistical unlikelihood doesn't seem very relevant.

> In any case, as you point out, there is no reason IMHO for
> transhumanists in particular to dismiss the ID debate out of hand.
>

It is not a scientific debate.  It is a religious wedge pretending to  
be science.  That is reason enough for me.

- samantha