On Hume & Intelligent Design
As some of you may know, pierot is currently doing a theology degree, and as such there tend to be theology text books around the house, and I've been periodically reading them. And they are really interesting
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ID arguments tend to fail on a number of reasonably well-known counterarguments. If the arguments you're quoting fail on the same counterarguments, no matter how beautifully they're put, it's hard to argue that they have value as arguments, although as you say, they may have value on other grounds, such as being beautiful examples of rhetoric, or having good points to make beyond their flawed central thesis.
(I don't know whether the arguments you're quoting do fail, of course - although I'd assume that if they didn't, they'd see more modern-day play in ID debates.)
Finally, since you've already introduced the nazis - I agree, to say in 2011 that we shouldn't study Hegel because Hitler liked him is clearly bullshit.
However, were I a Jew living in the late 1930s, I might be less enthusiastic about, say, supporting the excellent rhetoric in "Foundations of the Nineteenth Century".
The extreme anti-science front are a clear danger right now, not 70 years ago, and ID is one of their main battlegrounds in an attempt to discredit rationalism.
Hence, whilst if the arguments work, they work, I'm not inclined to be overly nice to them.
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I think, perhaps, we're coming at this from different perspectives. You are assuming that anyone discussing teleological theory is trying to convert you.
You're not trying to persuade/influence anyone who is either already someone who believes in Intelligent Design or is uncertain/undecided, and you're not debating philosophy or the history of philosophy, and if that is the case, I can see why 'it's all bollocks' would seem like a better response, as it's shutting down communication immediately.
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No, I'm not, nor am I, to rephrase your later points, deliberately shutting myself in an echo chamber.
If you have an argument for intelligent design that does in fact make logical sense and defeat all counter-arguments currently available, that's a different kettle of fish altogether.
However, on the assumption that you haven't stumbled upon that particular Grail, I'm actually trying to understand the value you see in arguments that don't fulfil those criteria.
I've already posited that you, perhaps, find value in their ideas beyond the central argument. Or that the value you see lies in the power or technique of their rhetoric, language, or argumentative style. In addition, I can certainly see that studying them in the context of the intellectual conversation of the time is also interesting.
However, you seem to be emphatically denying that the value you're finding in them is based in any of those things.
So what else are you positing as their value?
As a side note - nowhere so far have I said that "it's all crap" is the only appropriate response. I am, however, arguing that it may not be the wholly inappropriate response under all circumstances you characterise it as.
Finally - yes, of course I pay some attention to modern politics. I'm not quite sure where you're going with the Nazi sarcasm (which is a phrase I've never used before).
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Re - 'it's all crap'. I said that when reading lots of interesting philosophy, from Plato, to Cicero, to the philosophers of the enlightenment, I realized how little I understood about this particular philosophical argument and how it deserved a more thorough and intelligent critique in return.And as a note, I've actually never heard these 'standard arguments' you keep talking about. I've actually never really looked at Intelligent Design before. I've no idea what the standard arguments are. All I've ever heard is 'well, IT is stuff that crazy American Christians say, so it's wrong'.
And it's that that I am realizing is really weak and not actually very satisfying to listen to. And I liked that Hume did give me more than that, and gave me an awesome and interesting and equally intelligent rebuttal of the design theory, which was what this LJ post originally was - a little love note to Hume. I like people who make me think.
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Standard arguments - I'm short on time right now, but I'll try and find a useful primer on them. Hume's argument is one of them - it's one that Richard Dawkins quotes, I'm told.
Can you precis the arguments for ID that you're finding impressive?
Nazism - I changed from Hegel to Chamberlain as an example deliberately. Having looked into it, Hegel's philosophy doesn't inevitably lead toward Nazi policies - but Chamberlain does.
ID, if accepted as an argument, badly undermines all evidence-based policymaking and decision making in general.
Now, if ID is actually right, then science is just going to have to deal with that.
But all current evidence suggests it really, really isn't, but that a lot of powerful crazy people want to push it into being accepted truth anyway.
Of course, that doesn't mean we shouldn't study ID arguments - or Chamberlain on the rise of the Aryan people, for that matter. It doesn't mean we shouldn't give credit where credit is due for great writing, interesting philosophical points, or historical context. (Foundations of the Nineteenth Century was hugely feted at the time of its publication.)
But it does rather mean that a lot of people, including me, who would like to see the US government continue to fund scientific research, will be liable to prefix any such discussion with "yes, but we do all know that these arguments are bollocks, right?"
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http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html#CI
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