Helpful Mutations in the Arguments of Darwinists

...Helpful for IDers, that is.

Joe Carter at the Evangelical Outpost posted an insightful article titled, "10 Ways Darwinists Help Intelligent Design" (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3). Naturally, the Darwinists commenting on the articles worked diligently to demonstrate his point. Here are the 10 ways he lists:

1. By remaining completely ignorant about ID while knocking down strawman versions of the theory.
2. By claiming that ID is stealth creationism.
3. By resorting to "science of the gaps" arguments.
4. By claiming that ID isn't science since it's not published peer-reviewed literature...and then refusing to allow publications of ID papers in peer-reviewed journals.
5. By making claims that natural selection/sexual selection is responsible for all behaviors and biological features.
6. By invoking design in non-design explanations.
7. By claiming that the criticism of ID has nothing to do with a prejudice against theism -- and then having the most vocal critics of ID be anti-religious atheists.
8. By separating origins of life science from evolutionary explanations.
9. By resorting to ad hominems instead of arguments (e.g., claiming that advocates of ID are ignorant, liars, creationists, etc.).
10. By not being able to believe their own theory.

Read the article; Joe clarifies these points there.

I always learned that the strongest arguments are made when the one making it can make the argument for the other side better than his opponent. What really propels intellectual endeavors to excellence is when the debate is approached with such rigor as to benefit the growth of both sides toward an ever deeper understanding of the truth. It's frustrating to one side who has this goal when the other side isn't interested more in obfuscation for the sake of winning the argument rather than discovering the truth. So, while the poor arguments of Darwinists help the IDers in the public arena, the debate culminates at perhaps a lower level than it would and knowledge of the truth yet suffers.

Common Ancestry Begs the Question

I was listening to some lectures Dr. Alvin Plantinga gave at Southern Seminary last year concerning the origins debate. As I listened, it occurred to me that Darwinism has a serious flaw I had never considered before. It has many serious flaws, but this one is so obvious I wonder why I haven't heard this brought up. Surely someone else has noticed it, but in all my reading and debating on the subject, I've never seen or heard it discussed. As such I had three revelations:

First, without Common Ancestry (CA) molecules-to-man evolution is irrelevant.

Second, rather than Molecules-to-Man Evolution (MME) being foundational to CA, CA is foundational to MME. That is to say, one would expect CA to be the conclusion and MME to be one of the premises. Rather, Darwin noticed similar morphologies and concluded that CA was true. Later, genes were discovered and it was supposed that this would support CA. Therefore all the data, when interpreted by Darwinists, must be interpreted as though MME is true a priori. Then the argument is couched such that the conclusion becomes the premise and the premise becomes the conclusion.

Third, CA begs the question that genes are too complex to have happened spontaneously. Let me 'splain:

One of the keystones of Darwinism is CA. But why do they believe in CA rather than the spontaneous generation of early life in multiple places or multiple times? It's because they actually understand that spontaneous life is so improbable that it couldn't possibly have happened but once. They're unwilling to believe in an Intelligent Designer (IDer), so to them it had to happen at least once. Why is it so improbable? Because of it's exceeding complexity. This is the question that's begged. They never ask because they don't want to accept the answer.

If it is so complex that Darwinists must assume CA for all life, and MME as a consequence, then it is far more likely that there is an IDer than it just happened spontaneously. If there is an IDer, then there is no need to assume MME. That's why they're willing to assent to spontaneous life that is impossibly complex without recognizing the implications.

I can't believe no one else has realized this yet. And the problem is they've got a lot of people snowed into thinking that this is good science.