But adjustable, via a complex set of muscles, which is a pretty neat trick, and one which a single fixed lens in a tube can’t duplicate.
I think another reason I am an ID proponent is because of the stances the ‘critics’ of ID take against it. They often go against my sense of justice and fair play. Take for example two recent posts here at PS by @swamidass.
In one he seems to be claim that two threads here at PS consist of an ID argument and that the argument in each is an apologetic for God.
I think this is helping me better understand where Joshua is coming from if he thinks ID is making arguments that are supposed to demonstrate the existence of God. If he’s not making that claim I hope he will explain himself and why he offered these two threads as examples.
When people claim that an argument, which in my mind has nothing to do with God, is actually engaging in apologetics, and bad apologetics at that, I think it actually ends up, in my case at least, working against the arguer and pushing me towards greater support for ID.
In another thread Joshua made another claim that I also deem to be mistaken:
Where has Behe ever stated that IC1 systems “cannot evolve by natural mechanisms.” There was a rather lengthy conversation here on just this very issue that seems to have escaped Joshua’s attention.
I think it would help if people would stop trying to turn ID arguments against the Darwinian mechanism into arguments against evolution as a whole and against natural processes as a whole. It just serves to harden my stance on the side of ID rather than weaken it. If it matters. 
To Joshua’s credit he want back and edited his previous comment.
Ahem…
This is not a single fixed lens, but two lenses, that are not fixed. What is your point @Timothy_Horton?
4 Likes
You seem to have retreated from design to function. I’m not seeing the connection.
For example, you clearly function as a shill for books by DI Fellows, but that may not be your designed purpose in posting here.
It seems that your apology for being condescending was not sincere, since you continue to write extremely condescendingly.
I would request that you treat me as an individual, because you seem to be lumping me in with people with whom I may disagree. Can you manage that?
Then it cherry picks and I’m not interested.
A paragraph would suffice. Omitting that is cherry-picking.
That wasn’t my question, which was about the mechanism of information transfer from the retina to the brain. Do you really not see that, or are you just pretending not to?
You seem to be obsessed with PhDs. Why?
Does Denton’s book discuss the fact that the retina doesn’t send an image to the brain, as a camera would?
I’m trying to determine if it is worth my time. I’m asking questions that you are not answering.
But does the book cover those two points I asked you about? You’ve evaded both questions.
Based on your responses to my questions, I am skeptical of your claim. Are you sure he just doesn’t want to see the appearance of design, so much so that he ignores basic mechanisms that don’t appear to be designed?
What has “Eddie” found when he looks more deeply?
1 Like
Why is it “retreating from design to function” to point out that the lenses in both telescopes and eyes perform a similar function? Isn’t that simply a fact?
Why is it condescending to mention the existence of diagrams of eyes and telescopes – when the person I’m talking to denies any similarity between the two? What is wrong with asking them to look at a picture to make the point?
A fair request. I will make that effort. Will you please advise some anti-ID folks you encounter to make the same effort not to lump Behe in with the creationists?
That doesn’t follow. And not having read the book, you can’t possibly know whether it cherry picks. You are trying to infer that it cherry-picks from a secondhand account of what’s in it. On my side of the campus, we would call such inferences “bad scholarship.”
Absurd. A 135-page book aimed at making a broad general point (and not just about the eye, but about the physics of light, the electromagnetic spectrum, the composition of the atmosphere regarding the admission of EMR, and many other things) is not a 1,000-page textbook on the biochemistry of the optical system. It necessarily has to omit thousands of important scientific considerations that one would expect to see in a specialized technical work. Why pick on just one such consideration?
You can’t know whether the book unjustly excludes relevant facts without reading it to see whether or not any excluded material damages the argument of the book.
He discusses as much as needs to of that in order to establish his point. If you are in doubt about that, you can read it, instead of speculating about it. It won’t cost you any money – your university library can order the book upon a faculty member’s request, and you can then read it for free.
Because so many Ph.D.s in science are involved in these debates, and throw their weight around about it.
Denton’s argument is not based on proving that the eye is exactly like a camera. Nor was mine.
The book is about 130 pages of easy, general prose, with generous spacing between the lines. Someone with scientific training should be able to read it pretty quickly. In the time you have invested in reading my posts and the posts of people I’m talking to here, plus the time you have spend composing replies to me and reading my replies, you could have read a good chunk of it by now.
Are you aware of the fact that Denton is not a Christian, and, as far as anyone can tell from his statements, currently adheres to no religious tradition? What would be his motive for wanting to see the appearance of design?
1 Like