Diane Rehm NPR discussion of "Intelligent Design"

[jayctravis]

Kudos for her sharply calling the pro-ID guest on some bullshit.

From what this guy said on the program, ID isn't so much a counter for evolution...it's a counter for the Big Bang Theory. He claims it's not a "religion" issue and Diane tossed back at him how "intelligent design" implies an "intelligent designER"

None of it is demonstrably provable, and ID along with any sort of idea of a "big bang" is more philosophy and theoretical existentialism. If there is a "god" or aliens or a magic turtle who caused the big bang, the resulting evolution has a lot more concrete proof than does any work of literature which suddenly randomly changes to plural during Genesis "let us make man in our own image" ("Us"? "Our"? WTF?)

[baldguy]

1. People who try to "prove" their faith with false evidence are faithless.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=faith

[DesEtoiles]

2. This is not about faith. It's about control - the rape of the mind.

[wli]

3. ID isn't even that useful; it's an argument for existence of a deity

It effectively supports no more than Deism (noninterventionist monotheism, no sacred text/etc. involved). They're still left with the deity using any method (including orchestrating a big bang) it wishes to create the universe, and no support for Biblical claims, only the existence of a deity.

[DesEtoiles]

4. and those who espouse it must confirm validity of evolution

[wli]

5. no, it's independent of that and almost all science

[goodhue]

6. Is there really necessarily a designer?

Complexity, Emergence and Self-Organization


Neo-darwinism faces a challenge from within the domain of science, and the philosophy thereof. A discussion of Intelligent Design should give way to a much more fascinating and not necessarily religious analysis of life using concepts of Complexity, Emergence and Self-Organization. Survival of the fittest is much too reductionist.


What Is Complexity & So What?
http://www.prototista.org/E-Zine/WhatisComplexity.htm


Emergence
http://www.prototista.org/E-Zine/Emergence.htm

A central concept in the sciences of complexity is emergence.

Emergence hearkens back to the old adage that a whole is more than the sum of its parts. That is, complex systems demonstrate properties, often called "emergent properties" that: 1) are not demonstrated by the parts, and 2) cannot be predicted apriori even with full understanding of the parts.

That is, reductionism is insufficient to understand a system's properties.

* * *


http://www.prototista.org/E-Zine/OriginsofOrder/Introduction.htm

In complexity, life is one example (even if a complex one) of a more general principle: the emergence of new properties after self-organization of matter to more complex states far from thermodynamic equilibrium.

Once more, to be clear (since this is such a radical idea if viewed from the context of modern science), under certain circumstances that are very common in nature - to be examined in this essay - matter will spontaneously self-organize into more complex states demonstrating emergent properties, one of which is life.

Furthermore, cognition (including perception of internal and external changes) and consciousness (a special type of cognition, involving knowing that we know) are emergent properties of living systems.

The radical nature of self-organization, and its potential social, ecological and philosophical implications, cannot be overstated. As <Fritjof> Capra points out, "…self-organization has emerged as perhaps the central concept in the systems view of life …(83; italics his)"

* * *


For biologists: links from Campbell to Capra

http://www.prototista.org/E-Zine/OriginsofOrder/LinksfromCampbelltoCapra.htm