# Faith/Science Conference (Discovery Institute) near Philly

**URL:** <https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/faith-science-conference-discovery-institute-near-philly/5655>\
**Category:** Side Conversation\
**Created:** [April 4, 2019, 11:53am UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/faith-science-conference-discovery-institute-near-philly/5655 "2019-04-04T11:53:07Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 22

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**Author:** ![dga471](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.peacefulscience.org/dga471/32/5233_2.png) [@dga471](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/u/dga471)\
**Post date:** [April 8, 2019, 6:26am UTC](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/faith-science-conference-discovery-institute-near-philly/5655/22 "2019-04-08T06:26:01Z")

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> [@BJB](#):
>
> There wasn’t much of a positive argument for design or what exactly that means. The speaker shows a picture of a complex molecular machine and shows how the parts work together and then says,“Obviously this was designed.” But how was that design built? Did the designer poof it into existence? Was part of it “poofed” and then part of it evolved? Did the designer pick mutations one at a time in a way that would be indistinguishable from evolution and natural selection? None of these things was addressed directly and I think one was left to infer what God had to do.

This captures my basic issue with ID: from a scientific standpoint, we have no idea what a divine designer could do. There is no agreed-upon, rigorous scientific definition of “meaning” or “intention” or “purpose” or “intelligence” (although to be fair, some people such as @EricMH attempted to do so: see [Do Heat Seeking Missiles Have Teleology? - #4 by EricMH](https://discourse.peacefulscience.org/t/do-heat-seeking-missiles-have-teleology/1552/4)). Neither do we have a model on how exactly the Designer interacts with the evolutionary process. Without any of these things, ID is not really a scientific theory.

On the other hand, we use all of these terms in everyday speech. As some others (such as Josh, if I remember correctly) have pointed out, we make design inferences regularly in everyday life - even divine design inferences (for religious people). It is more of an intuitive inference, similar to how we deduce that other minds besides ours exist. So, maybe it is not surprising that ID may have more appeal with laypeople who do not worry about the scientific specifics.

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