Don Colton wrote:

His [Berlinski's] major thesis is that natural selection without intelligent input is just pure dumb luck.

Bill Biesele later wrote:

Given something that we don't understand, each of us is capable of coming up with an intelligent argument explaining what we see.. So given a situation we don't understand, how do we pick among the many intelligent possible solutions?

Intelligent design theory has the hallmarks of classic reasoning by ad ignorantiam - that the absence of evidence is proof of a proposition. Reasoning by ad ignorantiam is illustrated by the classic quote from the great Sherlock Holmes . . . 'r - I mean Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: "How often have I said to you [Watson] that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?" From _The Sign of (the) Four_. Ad ignorantiam improperly extends "while A->B is true" into "not(A)->B". But "not(A)->B" proves nothing. Sherlock and Sir Doyle, no disrespect intended. An intelligent designer can be proven by giving affirmative direct evidence for her/his/its existence - and not by pointing to weak links in evidence supporting the theory of natural selection. A universal theory of evolution has many weak points, including our inability to explain, even with non-linear dynamics, how RNA arose from the inanimate materials. What is sufficient affirmative, direct proof of the intelligent design theory? It depends on the reader. For me, it's "give me her phone number - let's do lunch." I would like to invite her to lunch at Lamb's. If she/he/it can show me how she/he/it evolved my alaskan salmon into lamb shank, I'm in. In the meantime, I'm happy to stick with the weak fossil evidence and recent evidence for the real-time selection of beak characteristics in Galapagos birds as sufficient support evolutionary theory. It's currently the best scientific theory that fits the known, albeit sketchy, supporting facts. We all have doubts and insecurities about an large and uncertain world. Looking through my telescope at night sky accentuates just how big, grand but unfriendly a place the universe can be. (I sure hope that recurring AGN at the center of the Milky Way doesn't decide to go off soon, with the business end of the jet pointing our way.) Infering an intelligent designer provides some emotional comfort in an uncertain universe. But for me, skeptical wonder at the fact that there are dark molecular clouds, visible in my telescope, that are light years across and that contain amino acids is emotionally satisfying enough. If I am wrong and there is an intelligent designer, the small end of a light bucket is one of the best ways to celebrate her/his/its creation that I know of. - Canopus56 __________________________________ Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday! Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/