Friday, July 31, 2009

How do I defend intelligent design as an answer to the fine-tuning problem?

So I'm writing my philosophy term paper on intelligent design as an answer to the fine tuning problem, which is my thesis.


I know I want to include the biological aspects, adaptation, Paley's Natural Theology, and anthropic coincdence. I'm just having trouble finding these ideas in an easy to understand context. Can someone help me understand it a little bit better?

How do I defend intelligent design as an answer to the fine-tuning problem?
I would search for it on these:


http://www.arn.org


http://www.intelligentdesign.org


http://www.discovery.org


http://www.idthefuture.com
Reply:There was a good article on that in Nature last year - but it kinda took the opposite standpoint. But still worth reading. I don't remember the month - but I think it had a bee on the cover.
Reply:The rock breaks down from this process that's called erosion. Stars and galaxies form over millions of years due to the force of gravity. You don't see those giant rocks in space called asteroids "breaking down" in space because they don't have any other force acting on it except for gravity.(and possibly any other asteroid or object that might collide with it) If you take a rock from earth and put it on the moon then that rock will not break down...why is that? because there are no forces on the moon either...besides gravity....and possibly tectonic activity at one time, but not any more. Get a basic understanding of science before you start to make these judgments. Don't "fix" the science to your belief system, fix your belief system to the science.
Reply:I cant answer your question but I will say this. The reason I think intelligent design appeals to people is its simplicity. I also think this is the same reason that scientists dismiss it. I.D. is a concept that is much easier to swallow for people who spend their whole life in fear of death. If you complicate it too much they will disregard I.D. and settle for the simpler bible story. Honestly I think I.D. makes some sense but I cant disregard the evidence of evolution. I guess im somewhere in the middle. Sorry this had nothing to do with your question.
Reply:I am a believer in god, and in intellegent design. I'm not familiar with all those names you mentioned, and I could not write an eloquent paper about how to prove intellegent design. but I have a couple of basic ideas. First consider that when you have an object, that gets left to itself long enough, it will break down into it's most basic and simple form. Example, over time, a rock will turn into dust if left long enough. You cannot have that law acting at the same time as you have gallexies and stars being born all the time.


You cant get order out of nothing. yet, there are complexitys in the universe that are so incredible, we dont yet have a grasp of many of them yet. Everything is set in order.


all things prove that god lives.
Reply:Good luck. ID is, as far as I can understand it, a real mish-mosh of arm-waving that boils down to "Because that's what I prefer to believe". I'm not sure that trying to force it to fit any sort of science framework is going to be terribly productive - these Procrustean efforts usually end up being fairly painful to everyone involved. Still, if anybody can build some sort of case, it would be in philosophy - I've never failed to be impressed by the great Greek thinkers. Stoners to a man, yes, but lovely reasoning to lead you from point A to point Q with nothing technically "real" in between..


No comments:

Post a Comment