Let’s try this again.
In a recent post here at TSZ Elizabeth Liddle made the following statement:
What undermines the “case for design” chiefly, is that there isn’t a case for a designer.
Odd, I thought. Surely she knows better. All that time spent over at UD and never a case for a designer? Is this claim believable? I thought not.
This was later followed by yet another comment from Elizabeth:
I haven’t really taken to the “atheist” label, much although I don’t reject it – but it [the atheist label] implies that my non-belief in god or gods is something categorically different from my non-belief in unicorns or toothfairies, or in the proverbial orbiting teapot.
But it is categorically different. No one believes orbiting teapots design anything and an orbiting teapot would be an instance of design not an instance of a designer.
Given the trajectory of the original at thread I think it’s reasonable to believe that Elizabeth’s claim that there is no case for a designer should be understood as a claim that there is no case for the existence of God. I won’t even call this a transition, because I can’t detect a transition from “designer” to “god” that consists of any distinction.
Elizabeth Liddle:
Can you give me some arguments for the existence for a god of some sort?
Elizabeth Liddle:
…compared to the time when I acted as though it were true that an omipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent God existed, I am no longer faced with the problem as to why bad things happen, nor how a person could possibly think, feel or act or experience after their brain had ceased to function. So I now have a more parsimonious model, which means that not only do I not have to fill my head with unnecessary non-useful beliefs, I no longer have to solve the problems that those earlier assumptions presented.
It’s not that there’s no case for a designer [God], but that now Elizabeth doesn’t have to think about what the existence of a designer [God] entails. It’s not that she did not have a model based upon her beliefs, but that now her model is “more parsimonious.”
And now for the kicker…
Elizabeth Liddle:
I know there are such arguments. I find none of them persuasive.
Directly contradicting her earlier statement.
Why would a case for the existence of God not qualify as a case for a designer?
What is the difference between these two claims: 1) there is no case for a designer, and 2) there is no case for the existence of God?
When Elizabeth asserted there was no case for a designer, did she simply mean to assert that she found no case for the existence of a designer that compelled belief?
Nope. I have enough trouble with typos without attaching semiotic significance to the capitalisation of perfectly normal words.
Not good enough, Lizzie (see my updated previous post after edits). The capitalised/uncapitalised meanings of ‘designer’ and ‘Designer’ is at the heart of Mung’s OP. If you don’t see that, just flip-flopping ‘randomly’ between them (unknown why even to yourself!) won’t improve your argument.
Are you avoiding personal resPonSiBiLITy for when you capitalise & when you don’t? Are you claiming a preference to communicate irrationally by refusing clarify what you mean when you write words?! Do you simply not respect the English language (part of which means capitalising the word ‘English’) due to some ideological atheism?
Several other contributors here at TSZ have seen the importance of the distinction and now use it when they write. Why haven’t you?
p.s. the proper term for you to use here would be ‘semantic’, not ‘semiotic’ – you seem to be semantically lazy wrt design(er)/Design(er). Why?
I wrote what I meant to write, Gregory.
So you just don’t give a shit then?
No, I meant what I wrote. I did not mean to use the word “designer” to mean “God” or some supernatural agent. I meant it to mean: an agent who designs.
If people want to infer that something was designed, and thus created by a designer, and they also want to postulate that that designer is God, then they can make the argument.
It’s not my argument. My argument is simply that if you want to infer a designer as the cause of an apparent design, then you need to make some hypotheses about how, how, where and with what, otherwise you can’t subject your inference to any kind of test.
It’s ironic that you’re playing right into the IDists game, Lizzie. Maybe you don’t want the dance to end? You, just like the IDM’s leaders, intentionally seem to *want* to equivocate. That’s how I read what you’ve said.
Do you not wonder why Mung simply cannot/will not elevate to answer my clear, simple, straightforward question about ‘design/Design’ and ‘designer/Designer’? IDism would die quickly if IDM leaders ever faced it in public (though they can talk about it freely off the record).
Sure, you’re an atheist, Elizabeth, and they’re not. So for you, a ‘Designer’ or ‘Creator’ (who designed & created you too) is just hypothetical anyway. Still, to not distinguish between ‘designer’ and ‘Designer’ because you’re simply lazy is just bullshit parading as ‘nuanced’ and ‘carefree’. You lose credibility & coherency if you can’t explain yourself & the reasons why you intentionally capitalise sometimes and not at others.
You wrote:
So why then did you capitalise ‘Designer’ in that situation earlier today on another thread?
Voila! That’s precisely why the distinction is so important. The lowercase ‘designer’ can signify any non-deity that ‘designs’, e.g. human, even animal. The huge field of ‘design theory’ (which almost entirely rejects IDism) is represented by this denotation. That is the proper domain when speaking of an ‘agent’ in the social sciences and humanities.
But a Creator or supernatural Agent indeed should properly be capitalised. It shows respect to your dialogue partners if you don’t simply belittle their divinity by refusing to capitalise. It’s what they/we believe, after all (even Quakers)!
Do you not choose to show such respect? Maybe not and if not, then that’s on you.
Your flip-flopping on ‘designer/Designer’ without giving an explanation makes you look fickle. Please give a clear explanation if you don’t want to continue to play a relativistic fool on your own blog.
It isn’t laziness at all Gregory. I don’t use your capitalisation scheme to differentiate between two meanings, because I am giving the word one meaning: one who designs.
That’s what I mean when I use the word.
Probably because I was referring specifically to the view that the inferred designer is God.
Quakers don’t capitalise.
Which one/One who ‘designs’? Which designer/Designer? Whose designer/Designer? IDists cannot by fiat answer, but you can try.
You’re equivocating just like your opponents. Why?
It isn’t particularly ‘my’ capitalisation program; far from it. It’s proper in English language to capitalise a deity; a proper name.
http://www.salon.com/2015/01/01/i_get_it_%E2%80%93_you%E2%80%99re_an_atheist_you_should_still_capitalize_%E2%80%9Cgod%E2%80%9D/
OoL couldn’t have been ‘designed’ by a lowercase ‘designer’, but only by an uppercase ‘Designer.’ Don’t you agree?
There’s a better way, Elizabeth. Just be clear with your own meanings. And show proper respect. Otherwise you’re lowering yourself into IDist muck by equivocating. Frankly, it looks ugly on you!
Elizabeth,
Goodness, how far into absurdity will you fly, Elizabeth, to try to prove a point that is in fact so simple to concede?! A bit over-reaching in that self-absorption of yours? Thinking one-self a ‘god(ess)’?
Why not simply make a new rule of punctuation for yourself and have the discipline to follow it? Or else, just continue with your little IDist game, safely equivocating at your whim; clear and consistent communication be damned.
Elizabeth,
Why not stop being so academic and try being a person who believes something themself for a change then? John 18:34
Those sure look like your own words, not someone else’s view.
Oh, give over, Gregory.
Read for meaning.
@Gregory
I happen to be on your side in pretty much every sense in this debate, but take a look at UD. Lizzie is being KF’d there. This should explain some things. She deserves mercy.
No, you give over, Lizzie. Stop being lazy or duplicitous. I am asking for clarity of meaning. You are still equivocating without giving a clear reason for it & expecting others to pay for your communicative sins. This is simply wrong (and your religious Quaker acquaintances, like mine, who DO capitalise the divine name, would surely agree).
p.s. Erik, sorry, I didn’t see your post before sending this. Why does what’s happening at UD impact Elizabeth’s apparently intentional equivocation here? Don’t you think she should just ‘bite the bullet’ and clarify, especially since I have suggested that capitalisation or lack thereof goes right to the heart of the OP (though Mung chronically avoids it)? I have little respect for KF and haven’t been paying attention there. (Or did you mean Kung Fu’d? 😉
In the real world, “designer” and “Designer” mean exactly the same thing. The use of “D” is a matter of respect, but has no significance for meaning.
Ah, ok, I just took a glance at the UD cess pit. Imo, Elizabeth shouldn’t bother much there (though it fits with TSZ’s mission to provoke & react). What can KF hurt? Almost nobody pays him any serious attention.
What I don’t understand is why people at TSZ don’t jump on board in finding out more of this stcordova desertion. Was he really banned or just lost posting priviledges? He admits IDism, and still remains a backwater YECist. These guys simply can’t face simple, clear, straightforward questions about the ideologies that they hold.
Goodness, TSZ is much more ‘democratic’ and ‘fair’ than UD. That’s obvious. Does saying that help?
But the majority atheist viewpoint here is also lacking a verticality, inspiration that most people in the world still acknowledge and feel in their lives, science (or money) aside.
It costs Elizabeth nothing and helps her cause against IDism more than she probably realises to distinguish properly between uppercase ‘Intelligent Design’ and lowercase ‘intelligent design,’ between ‘Design’ and ‘design’. I’d like to hear any coherent counter-arguments to making this important clarification if there are any. I’ve heard a few (largely empty or evasive) arguments from theists, but not from atheists, whereas several people here seem to already have adopted the relatively new distinction (Gingerich 2006) between ‘Design’ and ‘design’, now supported also and quite significantly by William Lane Craig, (still) fellow of the DI.
Neil Rickert,
One’s a proper name and the other isn’t. Hint – it’s just code for: Creator. Could it be that because you don’t believe in divinity, that is your excuse for suggesting capitalisation has “no significance for meaning”? A reflexive man would simply agree and let it go at that.
I have clarified my meaning. And your accusation that I am being lazy or duplicitous is against TSZ game-rules.
Elizabeth,
Then I retract those ‘accusations’. It doesn’t change the facts that you have not clarified your double-talk and have failed to explain why in one place you capitalise ‘Designer’ & in the other place you use ‘designer’. Show me please where you have ‘clarified your meaning’ about that if you really believe you have done so. The door is still open for you to clarify should you sincerely wish to do so.
Nor have you demonstrated if you have even the faintest clue why that distinction, if admitted, is so damaging to the IDM and its IDism (a prospect you seemed to me to be interested in!). Likewise, you seem to ignore the blatant evasion that both Mung & stcordova have demonstrated repeatedly at TSZ to the simple, clear and straightforward question I have asked them about their double-talk. Like you, Elizabeth, they ‘simply don’t have an answer’ and would be damned to give one if forced.
Well, I am not forcing you. Decide as you like. Equivocate if you choose to do so. That’s up to you. I’m only saying that people will notice it and that the difference is meaningful.
And you could have done better, Elizabeth, by simply admitting the difference. Even other atheists have been willing to do that here already.
Will you also now call George Fox, founder of the Quakers, a liar for capitalising, contrary to your ‘claim’ that “Quakers don’t capitalise”, the divine name of his Creator?
Gregory,
As far as I’ve seen, following this topic for way too many years, there is no such thing as “intelligent design theory”, regardless of capitalization.
That aside, I understand that you are trying to make a distinction between the characteristics ascribed to different classes of designers. I do not believe that using capitalization to distinguish those classes is useful. It’s too subtle for readers and most commenters here do not use your idiosyncratic style.
My suggestion, which is worth every penny you’re paying for it, is to use clearly different terms for different concepts. My eyes glaze over when I read one of your comments that focuses on ‘D’ vs ‘d’.
On the one hand, you are surely correct. I distinguish between ‘different classes of designers’. I.e. divine (or spiritual) and human.
Otoh, most commenters here, like yourself, are atheists, don’t you agree Patrick? Thus, Mung & stcordova have no problems with their approach when it comes to atheists because IDism intentionally and unequivocally discriminates against atheists (b/c atheists don’t believe in a Designer). But when it comes to theists, then sorry, might I suggest you are wrong?
Theists usually understand quite clearly when to capitalise and when not to, unless they’re restricted by Discovery Institute (or other strange fare) regulations that ‘intelligent design’ theory simply *cannot* be capitalised for political reasons. Thus, for a theist, it makes complete sense to speak of a Creator who ‘designs’ and ‘makes’ the creation, including people. For theists, it would be blasphemous not to capitalise the divine name of their Creator, while for IDists, they take a ‘minimalist’ approach steeped in double-talk, while at church or in the ‘lab.’
Delightful idea! I have written a book, with another one soon coming, that does just that. ‘Manufacture’ enters the ring, beyond mere ‘design’ as a category than can be studied, including the manufacturers and ‘designers’ of the manufacture. Yet again, this is a strong dart against IDism, which refuses to study the ‘intelligent designer(s)’, while my approach instead is not so limited. Thus, Patrick, in so far as we both reject IDism, surely you can agree with me?
I normally do not capitalise designer, just as ID proponents do not. However, occasionally, if I want to make a point about a specific postulate of a specifically divine designer, I may do.
Although I doubt I’m consistent. I have the probably irritating written tic of Capitalising words when italics would probably be more appropriate to indicate a reference to some specific usage or cliche. As in: He Who Must Not Be Named, or The Boy Who Cried Wolf.
Gregory,
That seems to be the case. It doesn’t mean I’m incapable of discussing theistic concepts. No different than talking about Harry Potter with my kids, really.
If your only goal is to point out the hypocrisy and intellectual dishonesty of some ID proponents, I have no objection. It appears that you’re trying to get other people, like Elizabeth, to use your capitalization scheme. I think that’s a very poor way to distinguish between the two concepts you are trying to separate.
Yeah, the very first paragraph I wrote in this thread is/was confusing, sorry. Your restatement here is basically correct IF you take out the THEREFORE, replace with AND.
Yeah, the sophistimacated theologians have arguments for god which do not proceed “from observables”. I’m aware of but have no interest in those fairy farts,and won’t discuss them here. They’re totally pointless in the context of a thread about god and “design” — which must by definition touch on things which we think actually exist and might have been designed. We aren’t imagining “design” as some unincorporated concept floating in non-space.
Such as the two I did present, where god is a “creator” or a “starter” but not a “designer”, not having any intent or plan to control the outcome of what it started, not having any design in its mind beforehand nor any desire to improve upon the first results with a more “advanced design”. What do you gain by adding the title “Designer” in those cases?
If it doesn’t have any intent or plan or care for the results, how can you possibly call what it does “design”? I can start an avalanche with one move of my ski. Does that mean I “designed” the avalanche? Of course not!
Well, I’m not “most people” and I don’t know your “most people” but I disagree with your association. That’s not what “most people” at UD mean when they claim there is a big-D Designer (although simultaneously they do believe the Designer is their christian god,who they also believe is the Fine Tuner). They are speaking specifically of the Designer of Life — secularists correctly understand their political motivation to sneak religious concepts of a “designer” into US public education — but they are right, conceptually, that it is possible to separate the two case.
You may not think it very christian to envision a god which merely sets the stage by creating a universe which will eventually allow life — and then refuses to meddle in the outcome — but I assure you it is quite possible to believe in such a god.
There are probably more physicists who believe in god the Fine Tuner than there are biologists who believe in god the Designer. There are probably a handful which believe in both.
Unless you DEFINE “fine tuner” as exactly synonymous with “designer”, the two are quite reasonably separate concepts. What do you gain by mushing the two together?
I dunno, Mung, what would be the point of experiencing a god which didn’t want to meddle in your personal life, which didn’t want to touch you, which didn’t want to have puppets it could play with?
Geez, Mung, I just don’t know.
Maybe it’s because I’m an evil atheist that I can’t see any human benefits from being “touched” by god. I’ll trade that dubious pleasure for not being its plaything.
I’ll happily take the god which set the stage and then left us to put on our own play.
I’m happy to use the big-D Designer to point out the hypocrisy of DI-ilk who want to get away with pushing religion under another name into US public schools. I think (as apparently Gregory does) that capital “D” is — for them — exactly the same as capital “G” god.
I admit that names do have significance.
But I’m totally unwilling to get beat up by Gregory if I (accidentally or out of laziness) either fail to capitalize, or capitalize where it doesn’t work best for my meaning. That’s crap. I won’t beat up anyone else about it, either. I can’t imagine what Gregory is getting out of beating this particular horse.
He’s certainly not going to win anyone else over to his mad distinction between “designer” and big-D “Designer”, between “intelligent design” and “Intelligent Design”. How does he think that anyone can spare the attention to learn and adhere to his rules? Why would we?
Hell, we can’t even get people to consistently adhere to the approved uses of “its” and “it’s” — a distinction with a clear semantic meaning. It’s a new world, now! Time to stop being so overly-fussy, prim and proper about language.
I haven’t read the entire debate on whether or not to capitalize design or designer (I will gladly accept being called lazy), but I think that capitalizing it as a debating tactic is simply a cheap trick. I admit that I never capitalize god, except when autocorrect rears its ugly head, but I do it simply to make it clear that I am an atheist.
IDists often call us Darwinists even though it is not an accurate term. And some of us respond by calling them Creationists. The fact that Creationist more accurately describes their position than Darwinist defines ours, is beside the point. Why should we resort to their childish behaviour? They don’t have any compelling evidence to support their cause so they resort to silly word games.
And speaking of He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, that is a great back and forth that Elizabeth is having with Kairosfocus. I especially liked when KF questioned Elizabeth’s motives for specifically picking his OP to comment on, implying that it is part of the ongoing efforts to victimize him through cyber stalking. I guess he didn’t notice that he used Elizabeth’s name in the title of his OP.
[edit] I just noticed that KF closed comments on his Elizabeth Liddle OP.
Practice among theists is varied on this point, as on so many others. I would only capitalize “creator” if treating it as a divine title, which I rarely do, and I’m fairly confident I’ve never capitalized “designer”. I would of course capitalize divine names of whatever religion because that’s standard English usage. Failure to do so would strike me as odd but not blasphemous.
Acartia,
It’s not just a word game, they really are creationists as was proven in Dover.
Politically in the U.S. it’s important to emphasize that the ID movement is just another attempt by the creationists to get their religion taught in public schools. It’s not a scientific controversy, it’s a political and legal ploy. They cannot be allowed to get away with it.
I realize this. But we can demonstrate that ID is a religious movement rather than a scientific one without resorting to silly word games. As it stands, all they have is well, gosh golly, that looks like it’s designed. That is as far as they can go until they postulate the nature of the designer and the mechanisms that he used. And they know that they can’t make that step because then they have to play the God card.
I think Gregory has a point. I’ve wasted many discussions with IDers by not realising the equivocation game was being played. I want to take back the verb “to design” for its standard use and I always now make the distinction using scare quotes and capitals thus: “Intelligent Design”.
Look at this and marvel at the equivocation:
Timaeus today at Uncommon Descent.
If there were a God, would anything that stupid be written?
Glen Davidson
What a dirtwad he is.
Yeah, yeah, KF, use this as yet another example of how Elizabeth Liddle should be ashamed to run TSZ because of the “fever swamp” for which she runs a “disreputable front”; add it to whatever filth you usually spew about her which I can’t be bothered to look up and quote exactly.
Look, KF, if you actually behaved like the decent christian you (apparently) think you are, we would never have reason to comment on your bad conduct.
Gandhi said, “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
And, KF, I’m told your Christ also had something to say on the subject. Something about motes and beams — or as Elizabeth put it at UD — look in the mirror, KF, before you give vent to your snit about “disreputable fronts”.
UD is the single most disreputable site I have ever come into contact with.
I always capitalize divine names, because, duh, names — like you say, capitalizing names is standard English (except for those darn pesky ‘nyms we adopt for internet identity).
I don’t capitalize the “god” of the christians, because that’s not its name. The christians were/are pulling a fast one on the rest of the planet by stealing the category-term “god” and pretending their god is THE god NAMED “God”. Ha ha. Dumbos.
IF they are content to call it by its real name, I’m happy to capitalize Jehovah (or JHWH, which we do sometimes see from christians). IF not, they can suck air whenever they see me “insult” their god by refusing to capitalize its generic term. They can think whatever they want as to whether I’m lazy, stupid, or mean. (Or all of those, plus some, which is probably true.)
I do sympathize with Gregory’s mad insistence on the fact that words mean specific things and that capitalization is one of the signals we use to each other to signify a specific meaning.
Problem is, no one can enforce agreement as to the significance. Not of grammar, not of spelling, nor of capitals. No point in having a fit about it.
Nice to see you again, Steve.
Good, we are agreed.
Do you also acknowledge that the ‘Designer’ in ‘Intelligent Design Theory’ cannot be a human being? And that this ‘Designer’ must be extra- or super-natural?
Fair enough. I wouldn’t have done it either, before the IDM came into existence. But there is a good reason for doing so, if you think it through. And now that reason among Christians is even stronger with the recent endorsement of the distinction by William Lane Craig.
The ‘technical sense’ is the insistence that IDT is ‘strictly scientific,’ that it is *not* about philosophy or theology/worldview. Period.
All Christians, all Abrahamic theists for that matter, believe the world was (and still is) created by an intelligent Creator. This is not in question. Not even IDists question or doubt this.
So why does the new distinction simply make sense, why is it needed? What problem does it solve?
Do you believe that making a distinction between what ‘every Christian’ believes and what IDism promotes is important, Steve? If not, why not? If you do, then if you don’t like Gingerich, Barr, Davis & now Craig’s uppercase/lowercase distinction, which distinction do you offer as an alternative preference?
If you have no other preference than uppercase Intelligent Design and lowercase intelligent design, then might I suggest you concede at least that an alternative way of speaking is necessary; otherwise IDists have carte blanche to label all Christians as ‘ID’ believers, when in fact that is simply not the case? If you reject this, then you allow no category for theists, like yourself, who reject IDT. So, surely you see now the difficult situation that IDism has faced theists with who reject it.
Now, given that you are not a social scientist, Steve, it might perhaps seem preferable for you to offer nothing on this topic or to wave your hands and claim it is all just ‘word play’. But word play has its place too and neologisms are not unknown even to physical scientists. For a social scientist, indeed, for one of the few social scientists who have closely studied the IDM for more than a decade, the current situation in which IDists equivocate (i.e. double-talk) is simply not acceptable to me. There needs to be an alternative classification for theists who reject IDism, but who obviously still believe in the Creator. And I can tell you frankly, the DI is scared to pieces of this because of what it would mean if it caught on in the USA news: the eventual end of the IDM.
As Craig says,
Not really knowing you, Steve, I would have thought this approach might appeal to you, as it does to me. It may not be the particular solution you were looking for, or one that is relevant in your fields of study. But that does not mean that it cannot be helpful in other fields, in other ways of looking at IDT and the IDM particularly in the sociology of IDism.
Yes, exactly. If they drop the ‘strictly scientific’ façade and publically acknowledge that ID belongs properly first & foremost in science, philosophy and theology/worldview discourse then they cannot avoid playing that card (which they already play anyway, ‘secretly,’ when they drum up mainly right wing political support among their local evangelical protestant churches, and at their Summer Program for university students).
The capitalisation move by Gingerich and others shows most clearly that the only Designer implied by the IDM is indeed a divine/supernatural one (as Johnson originally called it – they’ve quieted his voice for this reason as leader of the IDM in recent years, not just because of Johnson’s stroke). Since about 2006, the DI has made it a secret institutional policy to *never* capitalise ‘Intelligent Design’ because they know that if/once they do, if/once they show what they really believe in respect of their Creator, the game is up. Their ‘strictly scientific’ theory will be exposed for what it actually is (which might not be a bad exposure, at least it will be the truth), and the house of cards the DI has built on it will come crashing down.
Yeah, it’s probably true. And disrespectful. And simply improper English language usage.
Nobody is going to enforce you, but it might show character & class on your part to change your mind, heart & typing fingers. Just maybe it might appear more friendly & respectful of others who don’t believe what you don’t believe.
I’ve got all the class and character I will ever need or want to have. I appear every bit as friendly and respectful as I want to be. I don’t have to be nice to the religious nor the idiots, because, remember, I’m an evil atheist. I don’t care what they think of me. They should be on their knees thanking god that I don’t barbecue their babies. (Just joking about the babies, you stiff stick.) Don’t you dare insult me again by lecturing me that I shouldn’t joke about something so awful.
You seem to think that you are entitled to give me advice about how I should be nicer, while phrasing it in the meanest most contemptuous way that you think you can get away with. You behave hatefully and you feel entitled to scold me because I’m “disrespectful” ?? Bullshit.
Take a good long look in a mirror, Gregory.
No hate towards you, self-proclaimed ‘evil atheist’. Use English language improperly, why not? But admittedly, I do hate evil.
Don’t act patronizing, you stiff stick. It’s not a good look for men.
Gregory,
Now I’m in a quandary. I capitalise God, Creation (and Design when it tends towards meaning the same thing, see also Plan, Word). It’s somewhat ironical when I do so, but it’s also convention. But I certainly don’t do it out of respect for believers. I have no strictures about eating lasagne or seafood, drawing pictures and captioning them ‘Mohammed’, or saying “peace-be-upon-him” every time I say “Allah”. If they have particular conventions, I am under no obligation to follow them, and I don’t see it as disrespectful if I don’t.
Ironical, that’s the word. Yes, I think that’s when I capitalise – when I’m referring to some specific usage, ironically.
I’ll try to stop.
I think that there’s a good point to Gregory’s distinction between “design” and “Design” — if I understand it correctly.
As I see it, it’s his way of marking the distinction between “intelligent design” as a strictly empirical theory and “intelligent design” as something situated at the intersection (or union?) of science, philosophy, and theology/worldview. (I believe that’s how he puts it but I might be misremembering how he phrases it.)
That seems like a worthwhile distinction to make, though. It captures the difference between
(1) a philosophical/theological position according to which one reasons from a faith in a transcendent Being (however characterized) to “seeing God in all things” and thus seeing all things (not just organisms!) as designed, from
(2) a philosophical/scientific position according to which one has a fully adequate grasp of what it means to impute “design” to a special class of empirically characterizable phenomena — namely, all and only organisms, and with nothing other than empirical evidence as the necessary and sufficient basis for distinguishing what entities belong in the class of designed things (organisms and artifacts) from the class of non-design things (e.g. galaxies and tornadoes). Hence someone who denies that organisms are designed — or put otherwise, denies that organisms and artifacts together form a natural kind — can be accused of having failed to “follow the evidence” but rather has a dogmatic commitment to Epicurean metaphysics (“materialism”).
In these terms, I think that Gregory is quite right that position at Uncommon Descent, and the intelligent design movement in the US generally, hinges on conflating (1) and (2). That’s how they can be pretend to be presenting a purely scientific theory, on the one hand — comparing intelligent design with archeology or SETI — and at the same time be addressing all these worldview, cultural war issues of immense concern to religious conservatives.
In short, I don’t see any problem with adopting Gregory’s distinction between “design” and “Design.” And in that case, let me say that my criticisms are with (2), not with (1). That is, my complaint with intelligent design is with the cogency of “the design inference” itself — whether we have sufficiently strong empirically grounded reasons for thinking that organisms and artifacts form a natural kind. I have no problems with someone who sees God in all things — stardust and starlings, quasars and quarks, seasons and reasons — because of his or her existential orientation towards transcendence.
KN: as long as people who want to make the distinction between “design” and “Design” say how they are making it, it doesn’t matter how they designate the difference.
And Gregory seemst to be bringing in another issue, which is that we should capitalise certain words out of “respect”.
Frankly, I think both are absurd requests.
What is important, however, is to avoid equivocation. That is why I use the plain old lower case designer when I mean “one who designs”, including some putative deity. If I specifically mean to refer to a putative deity, I usually say “an omniscient, omnipotent god” who would, of course, be a member of the set “designer”.
I would only use “Designer” as a kind of ironic shorthand.
And I’m too damn old to change.
LOL.
I see hotshoe_ as one of the nicest and most respectful posters at TSZ. I certainly cannot say that about the poster to whom this is replying.
Now you people are very much like UD to each other. If moderators become like that too, what will be left?
I’d say that the OP privileges given to certain IDists have enabled them to poison the atmosphere here. Since the mods here are overly kind, you rest of the people have to pull yourselves together – on your own.
I too use “Designer” as a snarky way of pointing out the hypocrisy of claiming ID is not religion based. I do this not to impugn anyone’s motives, but to point out that the ID designer must be omnipotent and omniscient in order to design biology. This follows from the most coherent ID arguments, those that posit a designer capable of creating the laws of nature.
If this is the best ID argument, it is not in conflict with biology and there is no point in discussing evolution.
An alternative position is that the invisible Designer poofs changes into existence in a way that cannot be detected by science. I see no reason why this position should not be ridiculed.
Sometimes a lack of respect is earned.
Everyone has to. There really is no difference between the amount of animosity expressed in each direction. My hunch is that it is borne of real fear as to what the “other side” might do, politically, if it prevailed (and anger that they are perceived as already doing).
That is the reason the rules of this site are as they are – to try to get past the fear and anger, even if we still frightened and angry. Act as though you were neither.
I do not require that we respect each other, or each other’s beliefs, at TSZ. I simple require that we make the working assumption that the other posters are posting in good faith (not lying, for instance, or being deliberately obscure, or misleading). And that people address the post not the poster (discussion of personal qualities is OT).
And not ‘joking’ about barbequing babies like evil assholes, while being called ‘nice’ and ‘respectful’ by nominated moderators?