Mike Gene cites a fascinating article "The Truth Wears Off", at his blog in the thread, The Decline Effect.

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Over at Evolution News and Views, Jay Richards has written an excellent essay, On Mechanism: Response to Some Thomist Critics of ID . Some excerpts:

Several "Thomist" critics of ID have claimed that ID is either committed to, entails, or somehow relates to what they consider an unsavory "mechanistic" philosophy. While a number of ID proponents have explicitly denied this, the details are somewhat complicated.

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Tom Gilson wrote Further on “Why the Debate” (Intelligent Design and Thomism) at his blog Thinking Christian. It is a long entry with many comments and points made. This post will zero in on one particular point. Tom quotes commenter Holopupenko:

How do you think Meyer or Behe or Dembski would respond if you pressed them to re-characterize their efforts to a reductio argument? How far do you really think you’d get? (With acerbic Dembski, I doubt you’d even be given the opportunity to complete your sentence.)

Tom responds:

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Q: We can detect bad design in biology when…

1.) something is not designed the way we would design it.
2.) we discover a flaw in the design.
3.) we can conceive a better design.
4.) the design is contrary to known design principles.
5.) we can't, without independent knowledge of the designer.

Answer and discussion below the fold.

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You are a space alien, minding your business, cruising the galaxy when you encounter an anomolous object. Upon inspecting the object you notice that it contains a gold phonograph disc with symbols etched upon the cover, which is electroplated with pure Uranium 238.

The disc was designed 100,000 years earlier by an Earth astronomer who anticipated this momentous occasion, and sent the disc into space aboard a spacecraft. The astronomer was counting on two things. First, that an advanced spacefaring civilization would find it; and second, that they would have surpassed a developmental milestone which would allow their civilization to determine that the object and the disc were purposefully designed.

What developmental milestone did the astronomer hope that your alien civilization had achieved?

A) Invention of the phonograph.
B) Development of symbolic language.
C) Invention of radiometric dating.
D) Development of critical thinking.
E) Invention of science.

Answer below the fold.

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