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From: beth@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (Beth Christy)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: codes,designs,creation,intelligence
Message-ID: <809@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 12-Jul-85 11:15:54 EDT
Article-I.D.: sphinx.809
Posted: Fri Jul 12 11:15:54 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 13-Jul-85 12:44:23 EDT
Organization: U. Chicago - Computation Center
Lines: 49


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In article <356@imsvax.UUCP> ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden) writes:
>      Indeed,  everywhere  you  look on this planet, you
> see craftsmanship;  it  is in  no wise  "scientific" to
> ignore something  so obvious.

In article <32500041@uiucdcsb> miller@uiucdcsb.Uiuc.ARPA writes:
>    Second, SETI claims they can recognize a designed object, i.e., one which
>requires intelligence (the I in SETI).  Note that this is not due to any
>inherent properties in the object itself.  The designed object will be some
>pattern of electromagnetic frequency in a sea of random electromagnetic fre-
>quencies.  It must be, therefore, be due solely to the nature of the pattern
>itself, i.e., a code carrying some information.  Yet not a week goes by on
>this net that we don't hear evolutionists tell us they can't recognize
>evidence of design and intelligence.  They tell us this, of course, only when
>it's convenient, in other words, when they're talking to creationists.  When
>they're working on SETI, or looking for arrowheads made out of rocks just
>like all the other rocks lying on the ground, or noticing the difference
>between a sandcastle on a beach and the patterns waves make on that same
>beach, then - well, even a child can recognize that which took creative
>thought and that which natural processes can produce.

Hmmm.  Mr. Holden says that everywhere we look, we're going to see crafts-
manship, apparently evidence of intelligent design.  Mr. Miller says that
"SETI claims they can recognize a designed object".  So tell me, gentlemen,
why is it that every electromagnetic wave that SETI's sensors detect don't
have the scientists jumping for joy, believing that they've found evidence
of intelligent life?  Why is it that, when comparing arrowheads and sand
castles to rocks and wave patterns, we *can* determine that the former are
products of intelligence?  Why is it that "even a child can recognize that
which took creative thought and that which natural processes can produce"?
Could it be that 99.9% of the stuff in the universe *doesn't* exhibit
evidence of intelligent design?  Could it be that rocks and wave patterns
on the beach and the "sea of random electromagnetic frequencies" that Mr.
Miller refers to *don't* look like "craftsmanship"?  Yes, it certainly
could.  In fact, as Mr. Miller so aptly (albeit accidentally) demonstrates,
all of the above look like "that which natural processes can produce", and
hence no "supernatural force" is implied at all.


                 [This blank line, however, was an accident]
-- 

--JB       (Beth Christy, U. of Chicago, ..!ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!beth)

                   All we learn from history is that
                     we learn nothing from history.