What makes me believe that La Shawn is right that the A-list is functioning as a gatekeeper --deliberately or not-- is that there seems to be a discernable gatekeeper effect. An effect has a cause.Most of the time, that's correct. Most effects have causes. But not all. Some things "just happen that way." Systems do self-organize, and can exhibit seemingly intentional behavior that actually derives from unintentional effects of simple initial conditions.
At the risk of a heresey charge, this is a weak area in the argument for Intelligent Design. I really like Stephen Barr's "Modern Physics and Ancient Faith", but he builds a case for the sphere being an elegant, symmetrical object without discussing a very basic fact: Of any three-dimensional shape, the sphere has the smallest surface area for the enclosed volume. That's not a design feature, it's just the way the math works out.
A drop of water, a bubble, a planet, a star - they're all spheres because that shape is mathematically the smallest package.
Now, then. We certainly could have a discussion as to why it should be that the smallest, most efficient shape for a given amount of matter should just happen to have all these kinds of symmetries. That might closely related to a discussion of why i has a value of nearly 1, when its factors are on the order of plus and minus 10^6. (According to Barr, i controls the relationship fo the strong and weak nuclear forces. If i were much different than 1, the universe would either be all hydrogen or all helium - other elements could not exist.)
"Why should things be the way they are instead of some other way" is a question for deep thinkers and insomniac sophomores, but it's a different question than "Why are things the way they are?"
As parents know very well, sometimes the answer to that question is, "Because that's just the way it is."
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Thanks for dropping by!
An old and wise friend once taught me that if you want to be able to argue for a position, you need to be able to effectively argue against it. The same is true in sales - you need to know all the potential objections, so that you can answer them. That's what I'm trying to do here, look for potential holes in the fabric of the ID argument.
David,
I'm not sure if "forced" is a word I'd agree with. Perhaps "consequent outcome?"
For example, flocking behavior is a consequent outcome of having a group of individuals each of which follows a few simple rules.
Yes, in digital flocking simulations it's clear that the rules and initial conditions were designed. But that doesn't mean that they HAD to be designed - as you said, there may be purely physical processes at work that create the appearance of design. Certainly that's the assumption of materialists.
giff - I need to look at Dembski in more depth, but "contingency" seems to be the old argument from incredulity.
The materialist might argue that, yes, of course, DNA Pattern 1 (which is useless) is just as likely as DNA Pattern 2 (which is useful). But, they will say, #2 is more likely to be replicated because it is useful. Therefore, over time (lots and lots of time), the non-useful patterns get supplanted by useful patterns, and passed down. (That, btw, is the logical conflation of Natural Selection and Common Descent that Behe recently argued against.)
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