OCD Darwinists, Chasing Tennis Balls and the Mythical Argument from Ignorance

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When I go to the dog park, my 4 year old lab retriever Kali shows some obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) tendencies. No matter how tired she is, how thirsty she might be, or how out of breath, when I throw the tennis ball she races off after it at top speed. She can’t not chase the ball.
Darwinists can’t not claim that that intelligent design is an argument from ignorance. In fact, not only are they fond of insisting this, they show OCD-like tendencies about it. No matter how much information you provide showing that ID is not an argument from ignorance, like Kali with her tennis ball, they switch into high gear.
Last week on ID The Future, we featured a short video clip of Dr. Jay Richards discussing the Darwinist’s favorite question for ID theorists, so who designed the designer? Inevitably in any lengthy discussion of ID with a Darwinist, they resort to asking that question as if it makes some ultimate point that will settle the issue once and for all. The video of Richards’ answer to this is short and definitive.
Still it raised hackles over at The Panda’s Thumb.


PvM writes:

Indeed, if the designer could be established by empirical evidence, it would immediately eliminate the ‘Intelligent Designer’ as proposed by ID, namely a supernatural designer called ‘God’.

Of course ID does not propose a supernatural designer, it makes no claim at all as to who the designer is. This is just another red herring from the Darwinists. (see “Does ID Postulate a Supernatural Creator?”)
But then PvM goes all OCD and states:

So how does ID infer design? Simply by arguing that a particular system or event cannot be explained by natural processes and thus should be seen as evidence for design.

There it is, the claim that ID is just an argument from ignorance. As I’ve pointed out repeatedly in the past, intelligent design theory is not an argument based on what we don’t know, but rather an argument from what we do know.
Fortunately, over at Uncommon Descent Crandaddy has weighed in with a very insightful post:

Neither Pim nor any other ID critic I have encountered has ever given an adequate explanation of just what evidence for a designer would look like, or if they have, I have yet to see it. The best they seem to be able to do is refer to instances of design produced by humans and say that we understand the “means, motives, opportunity, capability and so on” of such beings the way Pim does. The problems with this approach, however, are severe and intractable, and it continues to baffle me how any intelligent person who devotes much thought to this position could continue to hold it.

Robert Crowther, II

Robert Crowther holds a BA in Journalism with an emphasis in public affairs and 20 years experience as a journalist, publisher, and brand marketing and media relations specialist. From 1994-2000 he was the Director of Public and Media Relations for Discovery Institute overseeing most aspects of communications for each of the Institute's major programs. In addition to handling public and media relations he managed the Institute's first three books to press, Justice Matters by Roberta Katz, Speaking of George Gilder edited by Frank Gregorsky, and The End of Money by Richard Rahn.

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