uwot wrote:tmoody wrote:Since you haven't denied the possibility of ID, that leaves you with a theory that is possibly true, for which there couldn't possibly be evidence. As I say, I'll pass on that epistemology.
I wouldn't be so hasty. You asked what aspects of nature could suggest a designer, in my view. The answer remains nothing. Fairy rings are evidence of fairies, if you happen to believe fairies are a possibility. Arthur Conan Doyle famously did and took the photos a school girl made of herself with some cut out pictures of fairies as further evidence. Fairies remain a logical possibility, but whether you believe there is evidence for them depends on your credulity.
I asked two questions. One is whether ID is possibly true. So far, no one has answered in the negative. The second question is: Given that ID could be true, what would count as evidence for it. Your answer is nothing. You haven't offered any argument for that, and I don't yet see any good reason to accept it.
We do, in fact, have various criteria for detecting ID, which is precisely why SETI and archeology are scientific enterprises. Your position appears to be that we cannot apply those same criteria to biological entities. It's still not clear to me why not. You've said that even in the event of a positive SETI signal, the matter wouldn't be settled until we actually met the sender. I don't see why, and you offered no argument for this claim.
It seems clear to me that there are kinds of signals that SETI could discover that would be undisputably of intelligent origin, even if we remained forever ignorant of the sender. Moreover, a positive SETI signal would still count as
evidence of ID even if not enough to settle the matter.
Evidence doesn't have to settle questions; it only has to count for or against proposed answers.
What you have if you judge something to resemble an artefact of undisputed manufacture, is just something that looks like it was designed by an intelligent agent. That's not the same thing as being evidence that it was designed, anymore than fairy rings are evidence of fairy design.
I disagree. If something resembles things of undisputed manufacture, and the resemblance is specific to their causal history, i.e., the fact that they were manufactured, then that is evidence of design. It's not proof, of course, but we're being careful not to confuse evidence and proof. Proof is all-or-nothing; evidence is partial and has degrees.
The Antikythera mechanism resembles things of undisputed manufacture, even though its history and purpose are obscure and disputed. It resembles manufactured things in virtue of its form, which is one that unguided natural forces would not produce. That's evidence that it was designed. The discovery of a monolith on the Moon, as I mentioned earlier in this thread, would equally be evidence of design, due to its resemblance to manufactured things and its lack of resemblance to the typical productions of unguided natural forces.
If fairies or designers are physical, the evidence for either is physical evidence. If they are metaphysical, by definition, there is no physical evidence for them and what you judge them to have done in our world is just your view.
As ArisingUK says: respect for defending your article.
I'm not going to comment on fairies, because I don't know anything about what they're supposed to be. But the other part of your argument appears to commit the fallacy of denying the antecedent. That is, if designers are physical, evidence for them is physical; if they're not physical (I take it that's what you mean by "metaphysical") then evidence for them is not physical. But why should I accept that conclusion, especially since the argument is fallacious?
I see no reason why a non-physical designer can't leave physical evidence, as long as the non-physical designer is capable of causally interacting with physical things. If both physical and non-physical designers can leave the same kind of evidence, though, it follows that such evidence is not sufficient to determine whether the designer was physical or non-physical, which has been one of my points from the beginning. That's why ID can take you only as far as a bare inference to a designer, but no farther (or further).
I see you, and others, arguing something like this:
1. Science only studies physical beings and physical properties.
2. Science is capable of discerning physical evidence of design.
3. Therefore, any inference to a non-physical designer isn't science.
4. ID involves an inference to a non-physical designer.
5. Therefore, ID isn't science.
But I reject premise 4. That is, an inference to a non-physical designer is an
additional inference drawn from a prior inference to a designer of unspecified nature.
As I see it, if there is evidence for design then any further inference must introduce metaphysical principles that go beyond what science can establish. For example, you might reason:
1. Structure X has properties strongly suggestive of design.
2. There are no non-physical designers.
3. There are, or were, no physical designers who could have designed X.
4. Therefore, despite the fact that X has properties strongly suggestive of design, it couldn't have been designed.
5. Therefore, X wasn't designed after all.
But premise 2 isn't a scientific claim; it's a metaphysical claim.