Intelligent Design Essay - Stephen Meyer

[Furrowed Brow]

In the thread Why r Evolutionary Educators/scientist supressing dissent Bart007 raises the case of Richard Sternberg. A one time editor of Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington.

A little googling will show there is some controversy surrounding Sternberg and his treatment by the Smithsonian institution. The controversy surrounds Sternberg’s publishing an essay by Stephen Meyer - Intelligent Design: The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories.

I do not want this thread to turn on the details of the treatment of Sternberg. I want to discuss Meyer’s article. Here is the link Fortunately the essay is not excessively long.

Questions:

1/ Can Meyer’s essay be classed as science? If yes, then give reasons why it is science? If no, then give reasons why not?
2/ If you answer yes to 1. Then is the essay good science? Again give reasons why.

[ivansayer]

Hi All,
And more. Let us suppose we agree with Meyer on the problem. I certainly agree there is one, but whether I accept his statement of it is quite another matter.
I ran through the article searching the word 'causal'. Now the one thing the hypothesis of an 'intelligent designer' does *not* do is give a causal account of the existence of anything. You can get architects to draw all the plans you want - but still never actually construct a house. What causes houses to exist is builders, electricians, concrete men, carpenters, brickies labourers &c. &c. Mere design causes nothing. The 'causal' bit is implementation.
This probably explains why, towards the end, Meyer mentions 'rational agents', rather than 'designers'.
For my money this is a new version of the long-standing and unresolved controversy concerning the relation between causal reasoning and teleological reasoning in biological science. Given its long history, the guy who expects a two-word resolution of this problem is either a genius or the opposite. Take your pick.
Ivan

[Furrowed Brow]

For my money this is a new version of the long-standing and unresolved controversy concerning the relation between causal reasoning and teleological reasoning in biological science.

Sorry there is no controversy. In the same way there is no evolutionary-creationist controversy. Teleology does not belong in biology. End of. Teleology belongs in theology classrooms.

So the short two word answer is: No Teleology.

[ivansayer]

For my money this is a new version of the long-standing and unresolved controversy concerning the relation between causal reasoning and teleological reasoning in biological science.

Sorry there is no controversy. In the same way there is no evolutionary-creationist controversy. Teleology does not belong in biology. End of. Teleology belongs in theology classrooms.

So the short two word answer is: No Teleology.

Hi FB
Perhaps there is no controversy in your mind, but there have been such controversies in the past - vitalists v mechanists. If there is no such thing as teleology in biological science, (and if that's true, fine by me!), does this not mean there is no such thing as 'organismal form', and, ultimately that there is no such thing as an organism ?
Ivan

[ivansayer]

Hi All,
Boredom seems to reign on this thread. But I'm still interested. As it seems to me there is a real question here, but it ends up being so complicated