Miller's "lecture" is one man's opinion... You continue to confuse me with right wing dogmatic Christians...
ID posits that life was designed by an intelligent agent- which, as I have pointed out- must be supernatural to avoid the infinite succession of creators issue. Further, nearly all ID proponents admit that only a supernatural designer passes muster, and most, when pressed by their acolytes, admit that it is the Christian God (sometimes the Muslim Allah), while publicly professing that the identity of the designer is not the focus of their attention. What do we call a supernatural intelligence? Deity seems to fit. ID = Creationism. If you want a laugh, check out this interesting article on 'cdesign proponentsist'. This wasn't religious creationists co-opting ID- this is the founding book on the subject of ID- a creationist text that had the word 'creationist' globally replaced with 'design proponent'- apparently manually 'cause they managed to screw that up quite amusingly.
It's actually kind of pathetic that creationists have tried to re-brand their belief as ID. I liked them better when they just stood up and said that they believe the earth is 6000 years old and that everything was created by ______( fill in the God of your choice). Or, as in the case of zEvader, that the origin of life on earth is 'magistrates were materialized out of pure potentiality' (a statement which, in a rare burst of common sense, he later retracted). I like the United Church's recruitment drive way better - Jesus bobbleheads are admittedly pretty cool. Of course the two grooms on a wedding cake idea will get the radicals around here hopping about and spouting. http://web.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20061107.wxunitedchurch07/BNStory/National/
Your assertion is patently false. All scientists have an agenda- its usually the advancement of human knowledge through research, publication and instruction. They care very much if people dont accept the science. I for one have no agenda against theists. As I have said, you are welcome to believe in anything you want so long as it doesn't affect others. Trying to co-opt the public's trust in science to push your own agenda, well, that definitely affects others.
But you haven't avoided it at all. ID can hypothesize that life here was seeded by life elsewhere all it wants. It then must first prove that, then explain where that original life came from- the original problem- or it hasn't explained the origin of life, period. The only way out is to admit- as most of the ID founders have already- that the origination is supernatural. Further, the design inference is fundamentally flawed- we have no means to identify designed life other than appeals to metaphor. Mt Rushmore, or any other human designed artifact is a bad analogy to life. If we found a Mt Rushmore like statue on Mars, we compare that to our knowledge and experience of recognizing human design. The logical conclusion is not then 'ETI built this statue!' but 'Some wise ass beat us to Mars and is putting us on.' Exhausting all evidence of a human artist, we might finally conclude that it was an ETI who observed our own Mt Rushmore and decided to try his/her hand at it. We then have to prove that, and we have said nothing about where that intelligent life form originated from. The whole ID 'design inference' is a logical fallacy. We have no empirical knowledge of non-human-designer designed biological organisms. We cannot infer that complexity of life implies design or a designer. Not all complex things are designed! ID is not only not a full fledge scientific theory- it cannot ever become one because it fundamentally appeals to the supernatural as a cause all explanation.
DRtomaso wrote: Pure nonsense. That's like saying that if scientists discovered a Mt. Rushmore-like structure on Mars and had no idea who was behind it's origin that they would invoke a supernatural agent in order to avoid the infinite succession of creators issue. No way. On viewing this structure they would immediately infer it was sculpted by natural agents and I doubt the issue of "infinite regress" would even come up. Similarly with respect to all examples in which we infer the activity of an intelligent agent. All those explanations fail to explain the origin of the agent itself, and are therefore unjustified. So we can never infer design in any case. Therefore, if you are reading this, you have no justification for inferring that someone has written this post. It's best just to stop the regress of explanation at the computer screen itself.
The evidence is prima facie. ID would not exist except for the SCOTUS ruling that Creation science being taught in public schools was unconstitutional. ID arises as a legal trick to attempt to circumvent this ruling. You seem to be the one co-opting the definition of ID by ignoring the historical facts of its development. As I have constantly argued, neither your altered definition of ID or the original, Meyer-Dembski-Wells ID can escape its ultimate appeal to the supernatural, nor its reliance on metaphor to human design. It is scientifically vacuous on its face. I've not insulted you or anyone else on this forum. Please try to elevate the discussion here- attacking the messenger is not conducive to civil discourse.
I have seen hundreds of forum posts in my short life. All were written by humans. When I see your post, I look to my knowledge and experience with forum posts and conclude it was written by a human. I have never seen a life form designed by an alien. When next I see a life form, I cannot compare it to my sample space of alien-designed life and conclude that this one is indeed designed. The metaphor breaks.
DRTomaso wrote: That is false. Most of those behind the ID movement were disillusioned Darwinists not creationists. Besides, the concept of ID goes back at least as far as the ancient Greek philosophers. To say it began 20 years ago is ridiculous.
If science has any agenda at all, it is an agnostic agenda 100%. 100% agnosticism requires 100% open mindedness, with no fear of, nor bias against alternative possibilities. That is not what I see from the so called Darwinists, nor the Christians who are pushing their concept of ID into schools... I fully disagree that a real scientists actually cares if anyone else accepts science, any more than a real artist cares if anyone likes his/her art...Ars gratia artis, and science for the sake of the science...Real science and real art are not about personal ego gratification or edification of anyone else. The scientist practices science, because that is who he is, he has no choice, any more than an artist has any real choice but to create. The drive of a pure scientist or a pure artist is fully intrinsic, not extrinsic. I have said this before, and will repeat it, scientists have nothing to fear from religion, and religion has nothing to fear from science... What we see in the schools systems today is a dogmatic teaching of a philosophy of the origin of life, not simply process of biology that give the children absolute freedom to reach their own conclusions. Conclusions are indeed suggested, and the influence is pervasive in our culture, as the theory and speculation of evolution is presented incorrectly as some fact of existence. It is small minded scientists and small minded religious people that have fear of seeing alternative ideas presented to children in public school systems...the small minded scientist fear ID faith, the small minded religious folks fear evolutionary faith...they are control freaks who have no faith in children to reach their own conclusions. It is a far cry from presenting fact of biological processes, to any claim to know the origin of man from those same biological processes...