Because nature is what we're typically trying to explain; in this particular case, diversity of life on Earth.
This simply assumes that the diversity of life on earth can be satisfactorily explained by appealing to natural phenomena. Apart from
presuming at the outset of your investigation that natural phenomena can be satisfactorily explained by appealing to natural causes which just is metaphysical naturalism, why think that for example, the diversity we observe can be totally accounted for by appealing to natural causes?
It seems to me that when we get to issues like the very origin of life, or the existence of DNA, then we have come to the point where we admit there simply is no naturalistic explanation that would have more explanatory power and scope as well as fit to the data and accord with accepted beliefs as the intelligent design hypothesis.
Think about it for just a moment. The origin and existence of complex biological information systems like DNA, whose chemical structure within every human cell contains the coded instructions for creating the proteins out of which our bodies are built. Each one of the thirty thousand genes embedded in our twenty-three pairs of chromosomes can yield as many as 20,500 different kinds of proteins! Is it likely that this extraordinary biological ‘software’ arose by chance? To quote science writer, George Sim Johnson’s article, ‘Did Darwin Get It Right?’ (Wall Street Journal, 15/10/99):
“Human DNA contains more organized information than the Encyclopaedia Britannica. If the full text of the encyclopaedia were to arrive in computer code from outer space, most people would regard this as proof of the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence. But when seen in nature, it is explained as the workings of random forces.”
And if this astounding fact were not sufficient in itself to indicate the presence of intelligent design in Nature, Australian geneticist, Michael Denton, points out that the biological information needed to build the proteins for all the species of organisms that have ever lived - a number estimated to be approximately one thousand million –
“could be held in a teaspoon and there would still be room left for all the information in every book ever written.”
Illustra Media’s documentary video, Unlocking the Mystery of Life, shows how DNA serves as the information storehouse for a finely choreographed manufacturing process by which the right amino acids are linked together with the right bonds in the right sequence to produce the right kind of proteins that fold in the right way to build biological systems. Detailed study of this “absolutely mind-boggling” procedure helped to convince Dean Kenyon, America’s leading chemical evolutionist, that unguided naturalistic processes could not explain the origin of life, as he had once believed. On the contrary, he argues:
“This new realm of molecular genetics [is] where we see the most compelling evidence of design on the Earth.”
Read more:
Coyne on Faith and Religion
Personally, I think it's time someone stood up and told the emperor he was wearing no clothes.
The incredible lengths that men like Dawkins go to to explain all of this in naturalistic terms is really an embarrassment to the scientific community. Is it any wonder why many in the community, even many atheists, have begun to distance themselves from him and others like him?
Not knowing the origin of life, however, neither invalidates the ToE nor points to supernatural origins.
I never claimed it did.
At best, it's a gap in human knowledge. A gap which is being worked on as we speak.
Once again, your commitment to metaphysical naturalism is evident here. It's as if you're saying, well, science hasn't found out how life originated, but one day it will and it will be explainable in naturalistic terms by appealing to natural phenomena! Just continue to believe and have faith in science!
And why must any worldview attempt to answer the origin of life? What is wrong with just not having an answer?
Why? Because that is what a worldview does. Answering questions such as the origin of life is what meta-narratives, by definition, do.
Your meta-narrative, naturalism, has a genesis account too! It answers the question by saying that life arose by just the right amount and ratio of natural forces acting on just the right amount and ratio of matter in just the right way over just the right amount of time and all of this just so happened to create the irreducibly complex building blocks necessary for life.
I mean really. Let's be reasonable, ok?
Sure, science can't answer philosophical questions about the nature and purpose of our existence. So?
Tell that to men like Hawking and Krauss, men who are seen as pioneers and visionaries in the scientific community, who if they had their way, would consign philosophy to the dust broom closet.
You say so, as if the questions about the nature and purpose of our existence aren't the most important questions we can ask and the ones for which men have been searching for since the beginning of recorded history!
There is nothing to say that science must be able to answer such questions. So I'm not sure why you say that "a hypothesis must account for much more than just diversity we observe".
Science is mainly about the how, not the why.
My point is that science plays a part in our search for truth. It is not the be all end all to knowledge. Science has limitations and to use it in a way in which it becomes something other than what it is, is to abuse it.
My point in saying that a hypothesis must account for much more than the diversity we observe was that one can be a Christian and believe in ToE. The ToE is a part of ones meta-narrative. One can even be a world renowned scientist at that! Have you ever read Francis Collins' works?
First of all, I can appreciate the irony in using a fictional scenario in a fictional movie to argue for intelligent design.
Unfortunately you misunderstood why I appealed to the movie. I appealed to the movie, not to argue for intelligent design, but rather to argue that the scientists in that movie understood that you don't have to have an explanation of an explanation in order to recognize that that explanation is the best explanation for a given set of data.
But even in the case of something like SETI, there is a framework around it based on human knowledge; i.e. what would we expect an alien signal to look like if we were trying to contact another civilization. And in fact this is one of the big challenges with SETI, because if such a signal is not intended to be specifically intercepted and understood (i.e. if it's compressed, encoded, etc), then such a signal may never even be detectable by us.
You're only proving my point. We know that broadcasts containing repeating prime numbers don't just randomly happen. The good old boys over at SETI know that such broadcasts are the result of some intelligent mind, regardless of whether or not they know who this intelligence is, what it is, where it is, how it transmitted the signal, so on and so forth. The fine tuning found in the initial constants and quantities of the big bang, the irreducibly complex coding and language processing systems found in living organisms are far more complex and intricate than a signal broadcast of prime numbers!
You've just made about six leaps beyond the starting point. You can't immediately jump from "we're trying to detect design in nature" to "this particular theological viewpoint that coincidentally happens to be the predominant religious belief in Western society is the correct interpretation of said designer". That's way too much of a leap. It also confirms that theists tend to be working backwards from theological belief to design rather than the other way around.
Naturalists work backwards from their metaphysical beliefs to theorizing the existence of multiverses, or postulating that something can come from nothing, or that the universe could exist before it existed and create itself!!!
Proponents on both sides have an explanatory ultimate and simply defend why that is their explanatory ultimate. Christians for centuries have been defending their beliefs by presenting good arguments, reasons, and evidences for the central truths of Christianity. These apologists didn't just sit back and tell people to take their word for it! Nor did they cast aside logic and reason and venture to claim that things can just pop into being without a cause whatsoever or that things can create themselves. Nor did they set aside the evidence that they had which showed that the universe had a beginning. Nor did they shy away from answering the hardest questions regarding evil and suffering. They dealt with these issues head on and their work and writings speak to us today.
Having examined responses from both sides, there simply is no comparison. On one side, you have mockery, ridicule, rhetoric, fallacious reasoning, the setting aside of the fundamental laws of logic, and the postulation of things for which there is no shred of evidence.
On the other side, you have clear, concise, thoughtful, well evidenced, logical, sound arguments and evidence which appeals to commonly held principles and properly basic beliefs.
I had to make a decision on who to listen to.
Even if we do get to the point where we can, say, detect design in biological organisms, we don't even know if the origin is even supernatural at that point. You've got a heckuva lot more legwork to do before you even get into theology.
For that I would just supplement my arguments with additional arguments and evidence, which I have plenty of.
Huh? If you pick a random published paper in a typical scientific journal, you'll unlikely to find any mentions of creationism or ID. Generally scientists don't feel the need to go out of their way to explicitly 'disprove' creationism or ID.
The same cannot be said for typical material put about by creationist or ID organizations.
No, some just feel the need to ridicule and mock people that aren't methodological naturalists. Those who do this happen to be quite popular and so have a large audience. If the tables were turned, I doubt you would blame those who were subject to such treatment for reacting.
A scientist can lose his job, his reputation, and more just for saying something that doesn't fit neatly within the box naturalists in the academy have constructed. He can be publicly ridiculed and scorned and humiliated just for attempting to disagree with the status quo.
So yes, I would expect people in such positions to react by defending their views and attempting to show those who mock and ridicule where their error lies.
